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i disagree. If our descendents have such capabilities that a small group could afford to terraform a planet - if their technology is incomprehensible to us - then their motives and actions are likewise going to be incomprehensible. Why terraform Mars when you can let a few self replicating machines out in the Trojan asteroids and build everyone an artificial planet?
additionally, I never said that a "small group" could terraform Mars. however, the civilization that does one day terraform Mars will be descended from the first forerunners who landed on that planet in the middle of the 21st century creating a beach head for larger scale human expansion to another planet. Mars will likely have millions of inhabitants by the time it has enough atmospheric pressure to walk around in shirt sleeves, and unless we invest significant technology (tech which hasn't been conceived or invented yet) to create a biosphere on the planet it will take likely tens of thousands of years for biodiversity to flourish in any way comparable to the Earth.
that is hardly the work of a small group using super robots. that is the progression of a civilization over a centuries-long time scale (in all likelihood)
i disagree. If our descendents have such capabilities that a small group could afford to terraform a planet - if their technology is incomprehensible to us - then their motives and actions are likewise going to be incomprehensible. Why terraform Mars when you can let a few self replicating machines out in the Trojan asteroids and build everyone an artificial planet?
Terraformer I think you are perverting my argument. There are many practical and appreciable applications to terraforming Mars. However, the means of doing it are, as of yet, largely beyond the realm of feasibility (huge solar mirrors, asteroid capture and bombardment, etc). My primary point was that discussing terraforming in terms of <em>costs</em> wasn't useful because the cost factor for 2011 is in no way representative of the cost factor when industrial terraforming ever begins at scale (perhaps 2111). We can easily discuss the costs of colonizing Mars. We can discuss the costs of missions. We can discuss the costs of putting enough biodiversity on Mars that it can act as an Earth Ark, so to speak. What we cannot do is discuss the cost of a technology that is completely alien to us.
Sure, we may just build planets from the asteroid belt one day (though those planets wouldn't resemble our planets at all, given the limitations of material) but in the days that follow we may slip the silvery bonds of physical existence and transfer our collective consciousness into a pan-dimensional astral plane. We may create our own little universe one day with some sort of black hole - white hole machine. just because people in the future will one day accomplish greatness does not mean we should not strive to accomplish lesser greatness on our own terms. I was simply saying that a discussion of costs is irrelevant to the discussion of the project itself. terraforming will be done by people living in a society, and employing a technology, that is likely beyond our comprehension. colonization, on the other hand, may be done by our grandchildren if we are lucky. I'm 24 years old, in my ideal view of the next 50-60 years I can perhaps retire to Mars. We can talk about how much of the 2012 defense budget could be relegated to Mars colonization.... we cannot talk about how much building an orbital mirror with unobtanium fabric will divert funding from necessary public works projects.
I don't like the argument against terraforming from an issue of costs.... the costs of losing the human race, and losing our entire biosphere potentially, is literally beyond calculation. If the earth gets hit by a rock that sterilizes the surface, or even knocks out 10% or 5% of the biosphere, we will be wishing we had spent $100 trillion terraforming Mars.
Additionally, there is no actual "cost" to terraforming Mars. It will require capital investment, but that capital investment will net a return - creating a habitable planet. Let's say we spend $10 billion annually creating a permanent colony on Mars. After 25 years we've dropped $250 billion (tiny by comparison to the defense budget) sure, but we've also created a permanent self-sustaining colony on another planet.
If, in 25 years, we have hundreds of people living on Mars and an embryonic seed bank of just a fraction of the Earth's biodiversity that colony will eventually terraform Mars from the inside and do it on its own terms at its own pace. For an initial investment of X, you unlock a virtually infinite resource-base. How can we even worry about costs? The initial costs are completely outweighed by the gains.
Finally, terraforming will be a 22nd century problem dealt with using technologies that would be to us almost incomprehensible from magic. It doesn't matter what the cost of creating a space elevator to harvest and grind up asteroids in orbit over Mars is in 2012 dollars... it will be dealt with by people using technology that makes you look like a chimpanzee.
Terraforming Mars will be done by people living 100-200 years into the future, who are descended from the initial colonizers. If you want to talk about the cost problem of colonization that is fine. But talking about the cost of terraforming is simply not useful. You can talk about the applications of terraforming. You can talk about methods and hypothetical scenarios... but costs are meaningless.
I don't like this idea that we don't know what exactly is on Mars. We know just about everything that we can know without stepping foot on the surface. Any other major discoveries are going to be done by men and women with shovels, microscopes, etc. We know where the water is. We know where it has flowed in the most recent months, years, etc. We know where atmospheric methane exists, and we know it exists in the air above ground deposits of water, and so we can say with a surprisingly huge degree of certainty that there is life on Mars at this moment - producing the methane; remember Mars is Earth's geological cousin, and nearly all of our methane comes from lifeforms.
we know enough about Mars right now that those of us in the Mars Now community are getting fed up with the delays from international space agencies. Someone once asked me "yeah, but where are you going to find smart people willing to go and die on Mars?"... I raised my hand immediately. There are thousands of scientists who could both pass the physical training necessary to be Mars explorers who would also readily join a program even if it was a 15 year committment to the planet. Even if it was an open-ended committment
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