New Mars Forums

Hi HT,

Yes, your post made a *lot* of sense... I take your point about how the people "left behind" After The Goldrush will be the ones who *really* change Mars, I think that is exactly what will happen, and I have a lot of respect in advance for the people who go there to raise families and settle Mars rather than exploit it. The danger is that our hardy martian Ingalls family will be just abandoned by the Powers That Be once interstellar travel becomes possible, because they'll almost be an embarrassment, a reminder of a time when Mankind was younger and dumber and less advanced than the race which is reaching boldly for the stars and their blue and white worlds. The terraformers won't finish the job because they'll have identified worlds "out there" which are in need of only "fine-tuning terraformation" to allow people to live on them, and the terraformation of Mars will stall, then maybe even fail, and we'll be left with a pseudo-Earth where people have to struggle just to get by. And as you say, the atmosphere will have to be "topped-up" frequently to prevent it all leaking away, otherwise gradually Mars would revert to how it used to be in the first place, and it will all have been for nothing.

Gee, I must be going soft in my old age, I'm agreeing with far too many pro-terraformers here... better take myself off into the desert and go find a boulder to hug ;-)

Stu

Hi, Red Menace here again... ;-)

There have been some very interesting and passionate postings in this forum recently, a real joy to see and read all of them. Healthy, respectful debate like this is priceless - and good practice for when the first settlers eventually set-off for Mars too. :-)

And as much as I'd like to, I can't challenge the long technical pro-terraforming posts because I'm not a scientist, I don't have a scientific background like some of the members of this community obviously have. I'm an amateur, just an enthusiastic but unqualified layman. My background is in public education, popular- and entry-level child and adult "Science Outreach" programs, and writing books for kids too. So, to my frustration, I'll admit, I can't go through the longer posts and challenge - or even comment on - their contents, point by point. I don't know much about the gases or chemical processes mentioned, or about the hardware. All I have are gut feelings, personal opinions and beliefs, and my own experiences and senses, you know?

But I'm a firm believer in gut feelings and personal experiences. And I trust my gut feelings. And the other day, whilst showing a visiting friend around my rather beautiful part of the world (the Lake District, in England, for the record) I had an experience, little more than a "moment" really, which told me a lot more than piles of science reference books or acres of equation-covered blackboards ever could. Thought I might share it with you, if only to inspire a more - I hesitate to use the word but there's no alternative - spiritual element to the discussion.

We, my friend and I, were walking through a lakeside wood and, both being Mars enthusiasts, were discussing terraforming. Well, it seemed appropriate under the circumstances, surrounded as we were by so much life on a brutally-cold, brittle-blue-sky winter's day. At one point we stopped by a gate, just to enjoy the view, and that was when it hit me, quite hard to be truthful, that - and I'm NOT slagging-off or insulting anyone of a Blue-persuasion here when I say this, please believe me, and don't have a go at me, okay?! - pro-terraformers are kidding themselves if they think that we can just cook-up a Green Mars with a Delia Smith (oops, Brit-specific reference, sorry; American members please insert name of your favourite TV chef there! ;-) ) recipe of the right chemicals, reactions, processes and hardware, and stir and then bake it long enough, even if "long enough" is thousands or even tens of thousands of years. Because there's more to making Mars "like Earth" than just dipping it in glue and rolling it around in dirt and leaves.

As I see it, there are two types of terraformers, two terraforming Schools Of Thought if you like. Some terraformers want to terraform Mars because they see it as a scientific necessity: we must settle and T-form Mars because it offers Mankind a cosmic "lifeboat", a second home in space, and if people are going to live there they won't want to walk around on the surface hindered with air masks. Fair point. Other terraformers are more idealistic about it, they think we have an almost blood-written duty to the Universe itself to take life to Mars and bring it back to life. Viriditas, etc. Also a fair point. They may be right, who am I to say? By now everyone here knows *my* views on why I think we should leave Mars alone for as long as we can, not just for the often-derided rock-hugging, bacteria-loving reasons, or the conservation-of-landscape reasons, but because of respect for What Already Is rather than a craving for What Might Be.

But standing there, in that wood, I really did think that there's a very basic, fundamental misconception here about terraforming, or more specifically what constitutes a "terraformed Mars".

People seem to think that with the right checklist of ingredients, processes, hardware and an adequate timescale, Mars can be "greened" and "made like Earth". Sorry, it's just not true. It won't be "like Earth" at all, because it has taken Earth *billions* of years to look like this. We can thicken Mars' atmosphere all we want, warm the planet with greenhouse gases, melt permafrost and icecap reserves with mirrors or nukes or whatever, plough cometary ice into the air and all the rest, but it won't give us an Earth #2, because Earth is ancient, its landscapes have been sculpted and carved on *geological*, not human, timescales.

Terraforming will green Mars, yes. It will give us fields of spiky grass, hardy shrubs and flowers, and maybe even forests of tall, toothpick trees. The sky will be blue - maybe more white than blue if papers I've read are correct - and water will run in lazy, reduced-g streams across the plains, but anyone expecting to go to a terraformed Mars and step out onto the floor of Yosemite Valley when they get out of their shuttle is going to be severely disappointed, even if terraforming is quick and effecient. Because even if all the scientific papers are right, if all the chemistry checks out, if all my fellow and just-as-enthusiastic and -passionate fellow Forum members here are right about the technology and timescales required to "bring Mars to life" it will be millennia before Mars "looks like Earth", or feels or smells or tastes like Earth. We can't recreate Nature. And we can't hit its Fast Forward button either.

You see, I stood in that wood, on the shore of Derwentwater, and looked around me, and I saw it all so clearly: how long it had taken to look that way, to reach that state. It *looked old*, it *felt* old, *smelled* old. It was **natural**: the trees were tall, and old, with weather-worn and lichen-stained trunks, and branches literally sculpted and arranged by hundreds of years' exposure to gusting winds; the stream running through it bent this way and that, navigating its way around boulders and rocks, under overgrown ledges and banks; the boulders and rocks themselves were old and worn, covered and stained with Old Master-like mats and veils of lichen and moss. The very ground beneath my feet was springy and wet with water from rain, dew and melted frost from the previous evening. It had all taken time to get that way, so much time.

And I thought "We can't make Mars like this." Not *shouldn't*. *Can't*. We're not good enough. And we probably never will be.

I honestly think a lot - not all, don't bark at me that way! - of people who support T-forming think it is going to allow us to turn Mars into a second Earth, make it just like our Homeworld, a carbon(based) copy of our own little corner of the Universe. Well, it won't. It will make Mars habitable, yes, and will green it, yes, but it will only resemble Earth on a very basic level - blue sky, green plants, running water, air you can breathe etc. Even our best T-forming efforts won't allow us to prematurely age Mars to the point where walking on it will feel like walking on Earth; that can, and will, only happen naturally, at the planet's own pace.

So let's be honest here shall we? When we talk about terraforming Mars, we're not really talking about making it as beautiful and as amazing as Earth, we're talking about making it habitable, *survivable*, turning waste ground into a garden. We don't have a Star Trek "Genesis" device to sweep a wave of viriditas around Mars like a green tsunami, leaving behind a lush and emerald-green paradise. As beautiful as it would surely be in its own right, a terraformed Mars would be, for a long, long time, literally millennia,  a pale imitation of the original. The trees and plants, sky and clouds, rivers and lakes would look familiar but not the same as the ones on Earth. There'll be no "springy ground" to squelch over; have any of us any idea how long it takes Nature to make *soil*? You can't just make soil! It's not just dirt. Soil is like an organic sedimentary deposit, the settled remains of a rain of organic material laid down over tens of thouands of years, shot-through with microbes... we can't just "make" it, you know?

It's often said that terraforming will take a long time. Too true. It will take much, much longer than any of the timescales mentioned here, because *truly* terraforming Mars - as opposed to making it "just good enough", which is what most terraformers really mean - will take an Age.

Take a look at Kees' amazing renderings of an ancient Mars, which could just as easily be of a terraformed Mars, and you can see my point. From orbit yes, a T-formed Mars might well look like Earth: patches of green forest, silvery rivers and streams wriggling across the landscape towards lakes and oceans. Fluffy blue clouds drifting lazily here and there. But land your shuttle and you and Toto would realise you definitely *weren't* in Kansas anymore. The lower gravity, thinner air and different geology on Mars will influence the development of any life we take there.

Terraformers want to bring Mars to life - bring it "back to life" some insist - and in so doing gift future generations a world where they can live, raise families, continue Mankind's work and pursuse his eventual cosmic destiny. But they should be aware that they will never be able to gift those future generations the huge, golden crop fields of Oklahoma or the grass-oceans of Montana; they'll not be able to recreate the subtle elegant beauty of an English countryside or the sheer, jaw-dropping gorgeousness of a Yosemite panorama. There may well be martian equivalents, but it won't be the same. And if that's what the aim of terraforming is, to make Mars "like Earth" than it's not going to happen. Not by our hands anyway. If it happens it'll be in millions of years. We may kick-start the process, sure, but let's not kid ourselves - or anyone we talk to, in articles, at conferences or symposia or whatever - that we are big or clever enough to make the changes required to make Mars into a new Garden of Eden. The best we can hope, and aim, for is "survivable"... and then see what happens.

It all comes down to what we want, and why we're doing it. If we just want people to be able to live on Mars so that Mankind won't be erased if a natural or man-made disaster destroys Earth, then we can make the changes to Mars necessary for that to be possible. But if we want to be able to walk and run and live and love on a Mars that's as beautiful as Earth, as natural and as sublime a home as our own world has been for millennia, then no, that's not going to happen. We can't do that. We're not good enough. We may never be good enough. And if we ever are, we almost certainly won't be *patient* enough to see it through; like the cosmic adolescents we are we'll sigh and yawn theatrically and then go and find somewhere cooler to hang-out - like another star system, with planets which have been green and blue as long as Earth has, and therefore feel more "natural" to us than the Mall food court Mars we've created back near Sol.

I respect the views, and work, of the scientists and scientifically-sound Posters to this Forum. I believe their reasons for wanting to T-form Mars are, for the most part, genuine and sincere. But I really do think that there's more than a little self-delusion going on - and a lot of over-optimism about our own capabilities, present or future.

Go stand in a wood yourself and you'll see what I mean. :-)

Stu

I agree with Bill that it is *very* unlikely that any life found on Mars today is destined to flourish unaided in the future; any bacteria found will be the stubborn, against-all-the-odds survivors of a warmer, wetter Mars of long ago.

I'm not suggesting for a second that we should, having found them, leave primitive martian lifeforms in peace and abandon colonisation plans for Mars, that would be foolish; Mars is Mankind's insurance policy against extinction, and settling it is vital if we are to avoid being wiped off the face of the Universe by either a man-made or natural disaster. But I *am* suggesting that the discovery of primitive martian lifeforms will impact seriously and dramatically on our colonisation plans, because suddenly we won't be settling a dead lump of red rock, we'll be settling an already living world. Very low level life, admittedly, but life just the same. And with that discovery will come both a) incredible possibilities for the expansion of our knowledge and understanding of the Universe and our place in it, and b) a serious responsibility to ensure that the lifeforms are not, after clining on to existence for all these tens of millions of years, if not longer, wiped-out by us in a bull-in-a-china-shop stampede to settle Mars.

So I agree with Bill's closing statement about our intervention being "morally and ethically mandated". If there is life on Mars, we should go there, find it, study it and then protect and preserve it. That doesn't have to mean declaring Mars off-limits forever, just seeing it in a different light and treating it with more respect. And not taking it for granted  that we have a right to terraform the place, just because it's technically possible and would make the place look prettier.

Any life which exists on Mars today is never going to suddenly explode across the planet and transform it by itself, I'm not suggesting that we "wait and see what happens" if we leave Mars alone. It isn't going to flourish by itself. The only way that mars can be brought to life - brought *back* to life you might say - is with our intervention, and maybe that is our destiny, spreading life through the Universe. But "spreading life" doesn't mean trampling over any more primitive life that exists in any given place already.

We find bugs on Mars, we hit the 'Pause' button and slow things down until we can fully understand the implications and importance of the discovery, that's all I'm saying.

Stu

Alexander said:

<< Once we have categorized, studied, and know how to reproduce every general type of microbe on the surface then we have nothing more to learn and can begin ecopoesis. >>

I'm sorry, and I don't mean to sound like some bacteria-hugging evangelist here, but I really don't think that's the point at all. Even after we've learned a great deal about any martian microbes - and I say "great deal" because I personally think we'd be incredibly  arrogant, as a species, to ever decide we'd learnt all there was to know about any lifeform, never mind an extraterrestrial one - we would have no right to just wipe them off the blackboard of the Universe and just suit ourselves. It would be wrong! That's not our call, not our decision to make. They were on Mars first, it's their planet, you know? I know they'd not be intelligent, or sentient, and might only be visible through microscopes, but again, that's SO not the point. The point is that they would be alive, and unique to Mars, in all likelyhood as unique to the Universe as we are. We would have no right to exterminate them, just so we could walk around in the open air on a planet that would be much more beautiful if we left it as it is anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that the discovery of primitive native martian life must mean abandoning the colonisation of Mars completely. Not at all; if I thought that way, I wouldn't be a member of this community which is dedicated to the exploration and eventual settlement of Mars. But such a discovery would absolutely mean we would have to reassess our long-term plans, and re-think our methods and technology to take account of the existence of native life on the planet. If Mars is dead fine, build away. But if it isn't then that is a whole different kettle of cyanobacteria, and we would have an obligation, a duty to both preserve the life that was clinging on to existence there before we came along. We would have a duty to protect it.

Yes, even from ourselves.

<< Yes it will take some time to do this, mabye as much as a century in the case that they live in remote underground regions. Yet if they live in those regions, we may be able to begin ecopoesis  immediately, because any effects may be so long in waiting that we'll have ample time to study the microbes before their habitat is gone. >>

That sounds horribly like the pronouncement of a death sentence to me. And it's not our place to issue  that, it really isn't. And who's to say there's not some form of Universal Karma going on Out There? If we disregard the rights of martian microbes to exist because they're so much simpler than us, who's to say that a ruddy big fleet of alien ships won't arrive and being exterminating us, because we're just as far beneath them?

Okay, joking there? kind of? but it's a valid point just the same.

If we find life on Mars it's almost certainly going to be older than us. We will have a huge amount to learn from it. We'll never STOP learning from it. And even when we'd mapped every one of its strands of DNA, every single primitive, ancient gene, we would have an obligation to ensure its continued survival. After all, it would have survived everything the Universe had thrown at it for billions of years. Would we have the right to just stamp on it? I don't think so.

            << You save wildlife for two reasons. Beauty and usefulness. >>

Well, they might be your reasons, and others too, but how about a third reason for saving wildlife: BECAUSE IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO! ?  I was honestly quite stunned when I read that! I know what you mean, but come on, whales aren't "beautiful", and yet we want to save them. Manatees are ugly critters too, yet we struggle to save them when a passing speedboat chops them up. Wildlife isn't a decoration, or a resource. It's LIFE! And okay, the Universe, for all we know, might be teeming with life, there may be millions of planets coverted with bacteria? but even if there are, martian microbes would have a right to exist.

On the other hand, maybe the Universe is an immense dark, cold desert, and life, even primitive life, is scattered in tiny warm and light oases tens of thousands of light years apart. If that's the case, then martian microbes are just as special and incredible as we are, and - being stronger and more advanced than them - we would have an obligation to shield them as best we could.

If people truly believe that the only reasons for saving wildlife are "beauty" and "usefulness" then let's get to it, let's stop wasting time - and resources! Let's kill every creature on the planet that isn't either beautiful or useful. But hang on? who decides what is "beautiful" and what is "useful"? Those are two very subjective judgement calls there. Sloths are commonly thought of as ugly and useless - does that mean we should wipe them all out? Octopuses? octopi..? Shudder factor 10, and about as "useful" as a chocolate jet engine, but deserving of extermination for that?

<< microbes are not beautiful. Nobody will ever see them except for a few specialists. Usefulness could abound, but once it is used up, we can go ahead with making Mars more hospitable to humans. >>

Well, perhaps microbes aren't beautiful to *you*, but believe me, to the first biologist who goes to Mars and sees them through the eyepiece of her microscope they'll be the most beautiful thing he or she has ever seen! :-) And you're wrong, EVERYONE will see them, their electron-microscope potrtaits will be on every newspaper, TV news and science website in the world on that amazing day. Remember the "fossil" found inside ALH84001? That's now a "cultural image", a huge percentage of the world's population has seen it. The first ever pic of a LIVE (or even dead) martian microbe will have a thousand times more exposure. And whole movements will spring up around it. Some nutters, admittedly, but others more reasoned and considerate, making the same points I'm making.

And this whole "exhausted usefulness" thing? I just don't get it, sorry. Even after we've learned all we can about them, native martian microbes will still be "useful" because they'll give us a new and very serious responsibility: stewardship and guardianship.

If we have the capability to exterminate them, then that's exactly the reason why we shouldn't. 

It would be a sign we'd grown up. 

I guess it all comes down to how selfish and arrogant we are.

Once, just once, I'd like to see us do The Right Thing, you know?

Stu

Sax:

Another very thought-provoking post, thanks?

> But the colonists will only go if it is in their personal interest.
> ? and if they can afford it.
> ?I imagine colonists being able to buy their own ticket, just as Europeans did coming to America.

Hmmm, all interesting points that I'd like to comment on, and use to float a scenario or two? ;-)

What "interests" might those be? What reasons and motivations might individuals, or groups of individuals, have for wanting to go to Mars? (And I assume we're talking post Settlement-founding here, not "first citizens". )

1. POLITICAL:  Perhaps some will be drawn to Mars because it would provide them with a place where they could hold, and develop, their unconventional political views and beliefs and systems, without interference from, or disapproval of, others? Perhaps they might see Mars as a place for "political asylum" if their own beliefs became dangerously unpopular on Earth? Mars might be seen as a kind of  "clean slate" for these people. Or a recruiting ground.

2. RELIGIOUS: Basically the same reasons as above.

3. PERSONAL: Staying with the "clean slate" image, Mars might provide people with a "personal escape" from any one (or several) of many problems - relationship problems, financial problems, family problems. Mars might be seen by people like these as a place to make a "new start". As long as they pass the Security checks, there shouldn?t be a problem.

4. CAREER: Obviously many people will go to Mars because it's their job, or their partner's job. There will be many scientists involved in many different projects and research fields, and they'll have assistants, staff etc. But Career Settlers won't be limited to "beakers". A Settlement will need engineers, doctors, a legal team, all manner of experts and specialists. And, ::sigh:: I guess they'll even have Politicians, sooner rather than later, as relationships with Earth develop and evolve. Some politicians will travel to Mars to become Ambassadors, or Representatives, liasing between Earth and Mars. Others will want to represent various groups within the Settlement population itself. Still others might fancy themselves as Settlement President (or King! ;-) ) and will travel to Mars with very grand designs? but hopefully the only politicians we'll see in a Mars settlement will be people from the Settlement, who just want to serve, and make life on Mars better for everyone.

Oh, and let's not forget Journalists? any Mars Settlement will have to have journalists, not just to archive and record the growth of the Settlement but also to ensure, during times of strained relations between Mars and Earth, that the true story is told. Mars will be a HUGE story for a dedicated journalist - the chance to be there at the birth of what will literally be a new civilisation will be too much for many to resist, surely..?

5. PIONEERS: Ah yes, the Pioneers, can't forget them.:-)  Some people will want to go to Mars for all the Zubrin-esque reasons. It represents a bold, dangerous, exciting New Frontier, a place to be challenged and defeated, a place where (cue theme music from "The Big Country"!) men can be heroes again, untamed lands can be tamed, the wilderness crossed, and broken, to forge a new? yeah, I know. But seriously, many will want to go to Mars because they will see it as a frontier, and it will literally be a New World, presenting Settlers with unique new challenges - not just scientific and engineering challenges, but social and cultural challenges, political challenges, medical and spiritual challenges too. Some will want to go because they dream of living in the Great Red, and want to wander the planet seeing as many of its spectacles as possible. Others will want to get down in the fines and build a new civilisation literally from the ground up, that will be their challenge, and their reward.

But the irony is, that the PIONEERS will probably make up the smallest part of the first groups of Settlers to set-off for Mars, simply because of the cost of the seats on the ship. Even when launch costs come down, way down, getting to Mars will still be hugely expensive because it will only make financial sense to send large ships, carrying large numbers of people. I mean, we could be talking in terms of hundreds here, because the cost of sending a dozen at a time would just be prohibitive. So, the first Settlement ships will have to be big bloated things simply because they will have to cram as many people in as possible to make it worth launching them in the first place.

But hang on a minute? What about the guys slaving away on their "X-Prize" projects? Well, personally I think that they haven't a snowball's chance in hell of doing it. I admire them greatly, there are some very dedicated, clever and passionate people around the world working on this, but they haven't got - and will never have - the power or the funds to resist the tech-poaching big businesses or agencies. And if past history is anything to go by, as soon as a viable low-cost-access-to-space technology emerges from someone's garage or basement, NASA will either buy it, or strangle it, just to maintain its monopoly on manned spaceflight capability.

And this means I think that, sadly, there will be no romantic repetition of the settlement of the US. There'll be no Martian "Oregon Trail" for (mylar?)covered wagons to rattle and roll across, no rag-tag, Battlestar Galactica-type settler fleet heading for Mars. And, as much as I love the image personally, it will be a long, long time before there are dozens of Ingalls family Little Houses on the Martian Prairie scattered over the Red Planet. Instead there will more likely be laboratories, churches, embassies and "official" buildings, because for the first couple of decades following the establishment of a Martian Settlement, the only people wanted there will have either expertise or money, and preferably both.

So if getting to Mars is going to be so damned expensive, how could it possibly be achieved by non-Governmental programs or groups?

I think the scenario outlined in Gregory Benford's excellent "The Martian Race" is possible, in as much as there are several individuals alive today with enough personal wealth to back such a venture, but I think that rather than being the pursuit of one man it is more likely to be a long-term investment by a group of several large companies - a MegaCorp if you like. Why bother? Why not leave Mars exploration to NASA or world Govts? Because a) they haven't got the money or the patience, or, let's be honest, the interest, and b) when the settlement of Mars begins, as it will, the same companies that dominate the business world here on Earth now will desperately want a presence - and influence - on Mars, on the New World. They'll want a presence, a commercial outpost or beach-head, on that new frontier. It's just sound business sense: they'll want to make sure that they're well-placed to take commercial (and political) advantage of the situations which will arise on Mars. It's basically all going to be about INFLUENCE.

Because the three basic needs of a fledgeling martian settlement will mirror the needs of a Mega-Corp Mars program and ship construction - Engineering & Construction (of Habs, spacecraft, rovers, labs etc); Communications and Data Pricessing (comms on Mars, between Mars and Earth, keeping track of Settlement systems and records etc); Medical and Life Support (again, on Mars, between Earth and Mars, etc).

Let's speculate? which huge international companies could, right now, collaborate on a Mars mission as a Mega-Corp..?

* Engineering & Construction - Boeing? McDonnel Douglas? Airbus?

* Communications and Data Processing - Microsoft?

* Medical and Life Support - no idea, sorry. Anyone any suggestions?

The key would be to keep everything INTERNAL. Avoid interference from Governments or agencies such as NASA etc.

This is why I believe that any Settlers going to Mars will be paying passengers - or, more likely, paid-for cargo - on a big, bulky, logo-covered Mega-Corp hauler.

How could this work?

Well, here's one scenario, just for fun. Let's say that tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of the First Landing, and after half a dozen crewed flights there is a small Settlement on Mars, ready and eager for expansion. After months of secret meetings Boeing, Microsoft, CNN and a handful of other companies call a Press Conference and announce the formation of BMC-Mars, a Mega-Corp dedicated to "accelerating the human colonisation of Mars?" They propose to enlarge the existing scientific settlement on Mars by building a purely civilian "suburb" of several modules and Habs, inhabited by volunteers, not career scientists or astronauts. They plan on taking 50 people to Mars, in a specially designed and constructed cargo ship? and here's the killer?while half the seats are taken up with BMC-Mars employees and staff needed to run the new sub-Settlement, the other half are for sale to anyone and everyone interested?!

Of course, it's not quite that simple. For a start there's the cost: $400,000 per berth. Oh, and Settlers have to fit the criteria laid-down by BMC-Mars, they have to be useful when they get there, have skills and abilities which will benefit the Settlement, but apart from that it's a free for all!

Now, obviously that $400K is a big obstacle for people who want to go. True, it's only a fraction of the cost of a seat on an old Space Shuttle, but it's still not exactly loose change. So, BMC-Mars announce they are willing to pay the fares of people who can't afford or raise the money themselves, or can't obtain sponsorship. All the potential Settlers have to do is sign themselves over to BMC-Mars and agree to work exclusively for them, on Mars, for a ten year period. In effect, they're selling themselves for a decade. At the end of that period, the Settlers will have paid-off their passage, and are free to either stay on Mars as free citizens, or return to Earth - which would be expensive again, but terms could be agreed, surely?

How many people do you think would sign-up under these terms? Would people be willing to basically sell themselves into virtual slavery for the chance to get to Mars?

Sax also said:

> We will be able to harness the power to engineer a nascent planetary ecosystem within 100 years.

What evidence is there for this? If you're talking in purely technological terms, perhaps; we are making great leaps in that way. But I still maintain that Terraforming is unlikely, if not impossible, because of the time scale involved, and events happening right now provide us with evidence to support this claim. No one country, not even a Superpower, could terraform Mars on their own. Even the initiation of a practical Terraforming program , i.e. one with a good chance of actually succeeding, would require the formation and survival of an international - if not global - technological, political and cultural "coalition", to use the current buzz word. And, just as we are seeing with our present "coalition" against terrorism, support and enthusiasm for the ultimate goal would wax and wane as time passed and circumstances - and public opinion - changed.

I mean, look at the agonies experienced by the International Space Station - and that's a kids' science fair project, an ant farm, compared to Terraforming Mars?

And this is no good because Terraforming would be a very time-sensitive program. By that I mean that once started it would be very vulnerable to delays. Once the terraforming ball had started rolling it would have to be kept rolling, or it would grind to a halt and would take an age to get moving again. Terraforming couldn't be a stop-start project, it would have to be all or nothing, total commitment? and I just don't think that we can do that now, as a species, there are far too many conflicting interests now. Because let's face it, any individual, company, government or trading block which signed up for the Mars Terraforming Coalition would only do so if, and when, it was made clear that they'd get something back on their investment. And what would that be? There's only one thing it could be. What? Satisfaction? Don't make me laugh. Pride? Yeah, right. Honour, at having helped ensure the survival of Mankind? Per-lease! No, they'll want the same two things that all Frontier-hounds want, and have ever wanted: power, and land. They'll want power, and influence, over the way the Settlement is run, and grown. And they'll want land of their own, to fence-off, build-on and exploit once the terraforming was complete.

So, Mars will be carved-up before the first lichen have even been dropped on the poles, or the first nuke was popped under the surface to release water from the permafrost. But only carved-up amongst the richest countries? so those countries that can't afford to ride on the carousel will resent the ones that can, and maybe begin to see them as smug, and trying to escape an overcrowded and resource-robbed Earth? rats, sinking ship, you know?

Bear in mind this will all probably be happening at a time, and in a world, where terrorists had already used chemical or biological or even nuclear weapons, where world peace is shakier than ever before, and where the gulf between rich and poor is wider than ever before, too. We will only initiate a terrafoming program when we have to, when it is seen as a potential species-saving measure? and for it to be that, things will have to be pretty godawful here on Earth. There'll be resistance - vocal, and possibly worse - from people who feel the money, and time, could be better spent here on the troubled Earth.

Okay, fire away? ;-)

Stu

A very thoughtful and eloquent posting, as usual, and there are areas where I agree with you totally (gasp!), but others where I don't.

For a start, while I agree that "conquering Mars" is certainly a test for us, and maybe - although you didn't say it in as many words - a test of our "worth" as a species, it isn't, and can't be, our *first* or most *important*, or for that matter THE reason why we go to Mars. Why? Because it's not going to work anyway, that's why. Because if we were to suddenly find a place where money did grow on trees, and used it to fund a Mars mission, and set-off in seven, eight years time, it would still be DECADES or maybe several GENERATIONS before any colony there was self-sufficient, and in that time an impactor could hit Earth and devastate or even destroy civilisation, leaving Mars Colony dead in the water - or the dust, rather. So, we can only truly protect and preserve Mankind and ensure its survival by initiating a "Project Spaceguard" -type program which would allow us to detect incoming asteroids and comets. You know me, you know that I am a great advocate of manned Mars exploration, and I'm not suggesting for a split second that we should delay going to Mars until we have a Spaceguard in place. What I am saying is that if we grandly claim that we have to go to Mars to "Safeguard Man's future" or "Preserve our civilisation and history and heritage and? etc etc?" then we're not being honest, with  the public, the politicians - or ourselves. Yes, we have to preserve our species, but I can't help thinking that sending some of our bravest and finest off to a barren frozen world half-way across the Solar System without at least trying to make sure they'll have a reliable support network from home? or even a home to come back to? would be irresponsible and seriously tempting fate.

Yes, we live in a "warm, comfortable home", and it's very nice, I love it here, but until we take steps to ensure that we at least have a chance to stop our warm, comfortable home being flattened by a Texas-size chunk of space rock or ice then let's not kid ourselves that going to Mars will ensure the continuation of our proud genetic Line, or our art, history, music or anything else. Face it: we are a fragile, blue and white duck in a cosmic shooting gallery, and we're long overdue for a prize-winning pick-off from the Universe... :-/

I also think we need to stop assuming that learning how to live on the *surface* of other worlds is the prime objective. We have to learn how to live IN SPACE as a whole, not just on solid alien surfaces. And because most of those solid alien surfaces are far away - and far apart - we need to know how to live en-route to them and inbetween them, in spacecraft, space stations and habitats. We mustn't rush to Mars and rush back, cos politicians will just say "Right, been there, done that" and it'll be Apollo all over again. We have to learn how to fly to Mars regularly, reliably, and safely. Personally I'm a huge fan of the cycle-ship idea, though I know we can't use that for the first mission(s), that can only come when there's sufficient demand for such a service. But for the future I think we have to seriously consider it.

As for what you say about "Learning about Mars", yes, I agree with all your points and goals, and in a way I too mourn for what we will lose when we start to explore. And as for pumping and drinking water from aquifers, well, something Ann Clayborne said in Red Mars ( :: sigh:: I KNOW she's only a fictional character! Don't look at me like that! It's okay to quote characters from literature if what they say makes sense? someone put those words in their mouth, okay? ? ) has stuck with me as common sense: "We obtain water to allow us to explore, we don't explore just to obtain water!"

That's the philosophy we need to take to Mars - do the absolute minimum damage, make as little impact on the places we visit as possible. Of course our beach-head base will be a construction site within weeks of arrival, criss-crossed with tyre-tracks, scattered with sensors and instrument pallets and ten kinds of crap, but I know we can't avoid that, we have to live after all, and I'm not suggesting for a moment some kind of minmimalist presence on Mars when it comes to the landing site? not suggesting astronauts tip-toe away from the lander so as not to disturb any dust! ? what I am suggesting is that on our travels from the landing site we respect the land and the landscapes we will see, you know, kind of like the Wilderness Code you see on notice boards in National Parks etc, "Take only photographs, leave only footprints." Okay, so we'll take more than just photos - like a few hundred pounds of rock! - but the principle is sound.

Landing does not have to inevitably lead to Terraformation, you know? We can - and should, and I  actually think will - take generations to explore Mars and study it and get to actually Know it before we even consider terraforming it, not just for the ethical and practical reasons I've already outlined in previous postings, but because I think that once we get there and people on Earth start seeing for themselves just how spectacular a place Mars is, they'll want to see more, and more. There'll be a hunger for views from the floor of Marineris, or the summit of O Mons. And I honestly think that once we get to Mars it will hit us just how hard terraforming Mars will be in practice. It's fine for us to sit here on Earth in our warm labs, running our computer-models in peace, watching Mars' atmosphere thicken and warm, and water begin to pool on the surface, but that's a Disney Mars, it's not real. We can simulate Mars "coming to life" in magnificent detail, but we can also simulate Dune-like sandworms tunnelling across Chryse, or Utopia, it doesn't mean it's ever going to happen. To terraform Mars we'll need to shift truly huge amounts of greenhouse-gas-producing hardware there, or deliver enormous amounts of algae or lichen, we're talking a daunting number of launches, and a staggering timescale, quite possibly too large a timescale for us to consider taking on.

That's why I honestly, hand on my heart believe, for all my Red views about the rights of the rock and the planet itself, that once we get there we'll realise that it's just too big a job, and will have to compromise, dome over craters and valleys and terraform enclosed areas of Mars and choose to live comfortably, and safely, in oases as soon as we can, instead of flogging our guts out in the pursuit of something which will quite possibly be out of our grasp for many many centuries. Why? Well, we're a resourceful and stubborn species, Homo Sap, but  evolution has made us impatient; we want things Now, or Yesterday if possible. We just aren't comfortable thinking Long Term, we fidget and fuss and get jumpy. And when we get to Mars the people who dedicate themselves to the New World will want to breathe fresh air and drink fresh water and walk around in shirt-sleeves and shorts as soon as possible, they won't be willing to live in sweaty, locker-room smelling tin can Habs while scientists back on Earth? in their clean, warm labs? smile lovingly at their latest computer model of a terraformed Mars, ignoring the fact that the date displayed in the bottom left corner of the screen is "9000AD".

We don't - and won't - have the tech, to terraform Mars as quickly as we will want to. Or the patience to wait for it. And that is why I seriously doubt the Big T will ever happen.

And as for thinking about "The Long Term", well, while I agree with what you say about us having a  duty to "spread life" if we can, I think it's wrong to take for granted the notion that it's our sole responsibility and duty to "spread Life through the galaxy" because the Galaxy is so big, and so old, that the chances are we're not the only species with that goal. Stephen Baxter covers this concept in his recent (and excellent) book, "Space". Look up on a clear summer night and you'll see the Milky Way cutting the sky in half like a broad vapour trail? it's possible that when you look along those spiral arms that there's already one or more wave-fronts of ET colonisation rippling through them, gathering speed and depth, tsunami-like? So, yes, "spreading Life" is a noble goal, but we're a young, arrogant species in an ancient, patient Galaxy, and there's a good statistical chance that there may be many ancient civilisations Out There with a good head-start on us when it comes to "spreading Life". It's frankly arrogant to assume otherwise. We can't assume that our Life is the only Life that needs, or deserves, to be spread; our "duty" may be to contribute to the great Galactic Gene Pool of Life? or merely to compete with the others, do our best. Natural Selection on a Galactic scale, you know?

But I know, there's no evidence of other civilisations, so another argument says that it is is just Us, that we are Alone? despite decades of SETI work the Fermi Paradox is alive and well? so I accept that just as we can't assume we are the only species with the ability to spread Life through the Galaxy, we can't assume we aren't, either, which brings us right back to why we go to Mars in the first place. How do we justify it, especially at a time like this?

Well, we CAN'T "justify" it - no, we can't, there just isn't an argument good enough, let's be honest about this! None of us could, ever, even if we lived to be a thousand years old, convince an African mother nursing her starving baby, or an Afghani child scrabbling in a minefield for a dropped food parcel, that we Have To Go To Mars, for this reason, or that reason. We can wax lyrical all we want about the need to preserve the species, and they'll just - justifiably - tell us to look around us and see what a godawful mess we're making of things down here, and as us why we shouldn't clean the crap out of our own yard first before going to crap in another one.

What we have to do is just give in gracefully to the fact that it?s in our nature to explore and look for new places. We are a curious species, we are never content to just stay in one place and "make the best of things", we are always drawn towards the horizon, itch to see what's over the next hill, a belief that the grass actually WILL be greener on the other side is wired into us. It's what's led to wars, and horrors, true, a primal desire to get more land, more resources, but it's helped us to survive this long. So no, we don?t have to justify going to Mars because we can't, we just can't, all we can do is obey our programming and go there because it's What We Do, we explore. We need goals, new horizons, new frontiers and challenges. Mars is our next goal, our next horizon, our next challenge.

But the greatest challenge won't be getting there, it'll be STAYING there, SURVIVING there, and we'll only be able to do that - and deserve to do that - by truly getting to Know the planet, studying it, mapping it, its resources and riches. That will take time, a lot of time, and in that time chances are we'll discover life there, and then our duty will be to stop, step back and do everything we can to protect and preserve it. I don't care how primitive or basic it is, it'll be Life, a wonderful, remarkably rare thing. And if we're serious about spreading Life through the Galaxy, if we really feel we have a duty to do that, then if we find Life on Mars we absolutely, absolutely have to stop and get to know it inside out, take as long as we need to to understand it, because if we just take a look, go "Hmm, interesting, but just a bacteria" and drive or build over it then we'll be guilty of unbelievable arrogance. We'll have made a judgement that it's not worth as much as "our" Life, that it's somehow inferior to the terrestrial Life we want to spread across the Galaxy and out into the Universe.

So yes, maybe going to Mars is a test, maybe even a test of our worth to spread Life across the Galaxy. But maybe the test isn't to see how determined we are to spread Life from Earth, it's to see how serious we are about the worth of Life itself, and how much we respect it.

Getting to Mars will be a test in itself, I agree, but once we're there the real exam will have to be sat, the really hard question will have to be answered: if we're so serious about the worth of Life, what will we do when we find it already out there?

Maybe the Galaxy, the Universe even, IS a big, dark, empty cave, and it's our duty, as a species, to bring light into that darkness and turn it green. But maybe it's our duty to protect and preserve the life that's out there already, even if it is just the most basic kind. Maybe it's our duty, our obligation, to be Gardeners, and not Construction Workers.

These are dangerous times, but we'll get through them, and one day we will go to Mars, because we have no choice, it's calling to our monkey brains and no matter how hard we press our hands against our ears we can't block it out. But when we get there, whenever that is, however that is, we'll not be content to stay there, we'll stand on its surface and think "Hmmm? where next?" and eventually move on. What we leave behind is the test. We can either leave a world worth coming back to, a unique world, or a poor copy of the world we evolved on, changed just for the sake of it, to make things easier for ourselves for a while before we found somewhere better.

If we can live on Mars, and study and explore it, without ruining it, we should. And we can.

Stu

Being against terraforming isn't about being against changing Mars and its landscape just because it's old. It's about wanting to protect it, yes, but because of its nature, its identity, because it's special and unique. I'm not Red because I'm against Change full stop. I'm Red because I'm against changing Mars. Huge difference.

Now, it might make me a hypocrite admitting this, but I don't want to protect and preserve every piece of ye olde real estate in the solar system. If this was the year 2101 I wouldn't be desperate to go start hugging asteroids and trying to bond with their ancient carbonaceous spirits; I wouldn't be laying down on the floor of the Moon's Tycho crater, or at the foot of the Straight Wall, singing "We shall overcome" in defiance of approaching LunaCorps bulldozers. Why? Because this isn't just about age, about protecting something because it's old. I admit it, it's purely personal . The asteroids, the Moon, they don't move me in the same way Mars does.

I'm no environmental crusader, I don?t put stone above people, or people's needs, as a matter of principle. No, this is about the way I felt when I was ten, and saw those Viking 1 pictures on the TV news, about the bond I felt with the planet then, and about how that bond has strengthened since then. This is about me seeing, in Mars, a place that deserves - if not demands - to be preserved and protected, in all its stark, barren, sharp-edged, deep-shadowed, pink-skied, twin-mooned glory, for future generations, so they too can feel the same excitement I did when I sat in front of that TV and thought "What an amazing place?"

( But anyway, what's wrong with wanting to protect and preserve something just because it's old? Why would that be a bad thing? There's nothing wrong with getting sentimental over a gnarled tree, or a hideous painting, just because they're old. Beauty? eye of the beholder, etc?)

Let me try and explain this a bit better, by recounting something of a Fast Forward time step experience I had last week, when I was up in the Scottish Highlands, treating myself to a week-long vacation in Fort William and then on the Isle of Mull. Truly one of the planet's most magical, hypnotising places. On the Tuesday - that ghastly Tuesday we will all remember the rest of our lives - I took a bus out of Fort William to a place called "Nevis Range", a kind of visitor centre at the foot of a mountain called Aonoch Mor, one of Ben Nevis' neighbours. A cable car ride ferries people to and from a lodge near the top, from where stunning views of the Highlands are available. So, accompanied by my ever faithful digital camera, I climbed into my worryingly-small gondola car and began the ascent. It was a wonderful ride to the top? not that much swaying really? and the view from the deck of the lodge was just spectacular: lochs on all sides, glittering and glistening in the low sun's light? mountains blurred and softened to purple by the mist? grey clouds tumbling overhead, splitting open every now and again to allow shafts of sunlight to lance down onto me and my fellow sightseers, bathing the forests and glens and hills beneath us in almost amber-hued light? just spectacular. I'll email you pics if you ask nicely. :-)

But while I was up there, bathing in the utter glory of it all, I couldn't help wondering if Mars would ever be like that. "Maybe", I wondered, as I sat on a huge boulder, some distance away from the bustling lodge, "one day Olympus Mons would be just like this?" Maybe in 100 years time there'd be makeshift cable cars snaking up and down its slopes..? Not necessartily for tourists, it might be too early for that, but certainly for colonists, scientists and settlers taking a well-deserved break from the daily struggles of life on the Red Frontier. It seemed more than feasible to me: quietly- and lovingly-built small lodges at the bottom of the steep wall and at regularly-spaced intervals from there up to the caldera summit, at specially-selected viewpoints. A pretty amateur operation, with probably no more than two people per cable car (the size of EVA gear would dictate that), and at each stop there'd be a chance for people to get out, stretch their legs and admire the view, taking holos for the folks back home. At the very top, a larger lodge with a pressurised area for people to take off their helmets and suits and enjoy a walk around in air-conditioned, 1 atmosphere comfort, enjoying at the same time unparallelled views of "Mars Below". Telescopes in observation blisters would allow visitors to zoom-in on features below, and on objects in the night sky above. A whole set of traditions would follow people from terrestrial mountain summits, like Aonoch Mor, to Mons Caldera - you'd have to send an email from the top, specially "marked" with a "Sent from the highest point on Mars" e-postmark, and of course you'd have to have your picture taken, leaning over the railing, gazing down at the world far, far below? :-)

And 100 years after that? Then we can imagine tourism, with more, and bigger lodges, souvenir shops, fast food stops, and hordes of people scurrying between them, going up and down the mountain like the Grand Old Duke Of York's men, leaving behind them damaged footpaths, litter, garbage and mess. No doubt the martian equivalent of our "mountain bikes" would be rattling along all the paths, kicking up dust and eroding the surface with their wide, wire wheels, swerving in and out of the path of scared walkers? Not hard to imagine how "old timers", first generation martians, would stand on the balconies, surveying all this, and the changing landscape, with sad eyes, sighing wistfully "I remember when all this was bare rock, as far as the eye could see?"

? and 500 years later? Maybe terraforming will have started then, and Olymous Mons' slopes will be covered in hardy Alpine grasses and tall, needle-like fir trees? Almost certainly by then many of the original cable cars and their towers will have been discarded and dumped, toppled to make way for faster,. Sleeker transportation systems, left on the slopes to rust away, looking like bizarre metal sculptures? The Summit  Lodge would sell holo-postcards, souvenir mugs and  VR programs and "I'm The King Of The World!" sweatshirts. (And over there, on the counter look - Olympus Mons mint cake?)

? and what the heck has all this got to do with terraforming?!

Well, that mountain, Aonoch Mor, had, in effect, been terraformed. It had been changed, altered, tames, purely to make its top more accessible to visitors who didn't have the patience, time or personal commitment to walk up to it.

And that's what terraforming is about - not about "bringing a planet to life", or "preserving the species", nothing nearly as noble, it's just about making Mars more accessible. Terraforming Mars wouldn't give us Earth v2, or even Earth v1.5. Yes, we can make Mars' plains green, cover them with grass and forests; we can make water flow across its parched surface again; we can paint its samon-pink sky blue and airbrush clouds above our heads? but we can't make Mars FEEL like Earth. We can't boost the gravity! We can't make the grass or trees grow or behave like they do here on Earth. We can't make water flow and gurgle like it does here on Earth. All those things will be different, you see!

So yes, maybe terraforming Mars would give us a planet where we could live out in the open air, without masks etc, but let's not kid ourselves that it would still be Mars. It wouldn't. It would be  "Disney Mars", a theme park where people weren't quite on Earth, and weren't quite on Mars either, but on an inbetween world where nothing was real or what it should be. People from Earth would feel, instinctively, in their guts, that the trees "were wrong", the sky "was wrong", the rivers and streams and lakes and oceans "were wrong". And the natives would look at the changes taking place around them and feel a growing anger that their planet, their Home, was being changed, and just because it was possible. Terraforming isn't - and is never going to be - essential for the survival of the humen race. It would take too long, cost too much, be too risky, to ever be viewed as that. Terraforming would not be a Great Adventure, nor a survival strategy. It would just be the biggest Science Fair project in history.

We can live on Mars without changing it too much - I'm not so na?ve to think we can avoid changing it at all - and without robbing it of its unique identity. We can live underground, if we have to. We can live in domed-over craters, green and gold biospheres scattered over the surface like splashes of liquid jade and amber, leaving the surrounding countryside untouched, available to be enjoyed by everyone. If we have to terraform - and the only, ONLY justifiable reason for doing so would be to ensure the human race's survival, not just to satisfy the whim of restless scientists or engineers - we could restrict its effects/damage to low altitudes, leaving the high places clean. After all, if we terraform Mars, we lose so much it would be planetary vandalism. We would lose the fascinating, shadowed depths of Marineris. We would lose the fascinating outflow channels. We would lose the layer-cake slopes of the polar ice caps. We would lose everything about Mars that makes it Mars.

Imagine the outcry, the sheer outrage which would follow if people went to Antarctica and started to paint its glaciers and icebergs red, blue or green? Try and imagine the shouts of dismay if someone suggested sculpting a huge macDonalds "golden arch" into the sheer rock face of Yosemite's El Capitan. Would we stand for it? Of course not. Will the future people of Mars - the Natives - stand by and watch as white-coated Dr Zarkhovs from Earth begin to drown their beloved deserts and valleys, cover their towering volcanoes in blankets of alien plants, ####, even change the colour of their sky? Of course they won't. So we can argue the pros and cons here all we want, but in the end this isn't going to be up to us, it's going to be up to the Children of Mars.

Which gives me hope. Hmm, maybe cable cars up and down Olympus Mons are inevitable, but I'm thinking maybe any  Summit Lodge wouldn't actually be at the summit, because the top quarter of the ancient volcano would have been declared a Martian Wilderness Park some time earlier by "Mars Heritage", the organisation set-up to protect the martian environment and landscape. The caldera would have been placed under a Protection & Preservation Order, kept raw and bare by MH staff and volunteers, even to the point of clearing-away any lichen or life that had taken root there after being blown up the mountain by the strong updraughts from the greening world below. Up on the Summit people would be able to still see at least some of Mars as it was - red, rocky, raw - by stepping into the shadow of one of the huge boulders scattered around the caldera rim, blotting out the rest of the world?

Here on Earth we preserve, rightly, temples, cathedrals, forests, statues, works of art, so that our descendants can enjoy them as we have done. Maybe just being on Mars will "violate the landscape". But we can limit the damage we do - and make sure that the Mars we fell in love with, the Mars which inspired us all to buy books, attend conferences, surf websites and the rest, is still there to inspire and excite and bewitch the generations yet to come.

Stu

Re Clarke

I've been priviliged to have had some correspondence with Sir Arthur over this, and while he does seem very excited about these dark spots, and genuinely convinced they are large living organisms, I don't think his objectivity is in doubt. I believe that his own research, correspondence with a whole network of Mars enthusiasts and experts - and perhaps inside knowledge of the internal workings of NASA! - have all convinced him that the dark spots are organic in nature. Maybe, maybe not... I'd lean towards "not" personally... but I would hesitate to cast doubt on the objectivity of the great man just because he is excited about a potentially incredible discovery.

We need to image the surface of Mars in mich higher resolution, to answer questions just like this. We need the equivalent of a KH-11 spy satellite in Mars orbit, to zoom-in on small surface features. We need gliders and planes swooping low over the surface, beaming back live images.

But most of all we need PEOPLE there, who can go to a site, get out of their rover or hopper or whatever and go and LOOK, actually kneel down next to a mysterious "something" and poke it and see what the heck it is. That's why I have a slight problem with the whole Translife thing. It won't, in my opinion, accelerate the timetable of a manned Mars mission. We can learn all that stuff from dedicated ISS flights, or even Moon missions, as part of the build-up to a genuine Mars shot. And while it would surely represent a huge commitment from the MS, and would get good publicity, conversations I've had with people, young and old, have convinced me that *public* interest in launching an Apollo capsule of mice'o nauts would be very limited...

... and you know, there's a potential for a backlash against their disection after their return would probably make the whole mission backfire anyway. How is it going to make the MS - and Mars enthusiasts in general - look when we launch Pixie and Dixie into orbit, trumpet out how they'll be helping Mankind on his way to Mars and then the stars, and then cut em up and put the slices under microscopes? Hmmm, we're gonna be *real* popular... :-/

But back to Clarke. Sure, he may be saying some controversial things now, but remember, his past sneered-at "controversial things" include geostationary satellites, a Europan ocean and space elevators...

Stu

Don't want to sound too angsty here, but whilst I agree that the proposed Translife project is certainly intriguing, and has the potential to provide us with useful and valuable biological data, I can't help thinking that our first Big project should be aimed more at enhancing the public's interest in, and enthusiasm for, Mars exploration by *showing* them what an amazing place it is.

I've thought for a long time that there won't be a public (and therefore political) demand for putting people on Mars until one of three things happen - a) Mars becomes the finishing line of a new "Space Race", perhaps with China, b) a probe discovers life, or evidence of life there, or c) people come to realise that it literally is a whole New World, a place to explore and be amazed by. Now, a) is a distinct possibility, we'll see what happens, b) well, ALH84001, you know... c)? Isn't going to happen unless we give people more than still Pathfinder photos, as amazing as they were.

So, as useful and as educational as flying mice or whatever half-way to Mars would be, I'm thinking - and have thought for a while - that it would get more public (and, importantly, media) interest - if we did something to "bring Mars to Earth", maybe by helping fund the flight of an Imax camera to Mars, which could then send back some amazing footage of flights over the volcanoes, down Marineris, over that blessed "Face" etc... Imagine the impact watching *that* film would have on the public, hundreds of people at a time, in darkened movie theatres, flying over Mars, seeing it as a real place, a real world...

Stu