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Tom Kalbfus

Banned

Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

"Rip Van Winkle" of Mars

Lets suppose one of us were put on ice, cryonics. Lets suppose that some future generation learns to reverse the cryonic procedure, and we wake up on a Mars of the distant future, one that has been terraformed. Lets further suppose that our benefactors are mysterious, so we wake up alone with no one to explain things to us. We open our eyes while lying on a grassy meadow, the sky is above us. A stream trickles down from a mountain through the forest and into the grassy meadow, emptying out into a lake. A moose is grazing on some grass along the shore of the lake. You see he sun come out from behind a cloud, it seems smaller than usual, your shadow sharpens under its light, but somehow it doesn't seem that bright out, not even under full sunlight. You get up off the ground with hardly any effort at all. You attempt to walk towards the lake, but it turns into a slow jog, you feel a bit light, you sort of skip over the ground, and you land more slowly than you expect. After getting used to this new mode of locomotion, you pick up a rock, it feels lighter than you expect, you toss it into the lake, the rock soars further in a flatter parabolic curve and then plops into the water, and a slow ripple propagates from the splash points, as water droplets hang in the air for longer than they seemingly should. A frog startled by the thrown rock leaps into the air, going much further, up to six feet off the ground, clearing a boulder and then plopping into the water and swimming away. A bird glides lazily in the air searching for a meal. the trees in the forest seem tall and thin for their height, a chipmunk as big as a raccoon scrabbles up a tree trunk when it sees you.

What is the first thing that would clue you off that you were on Mars? What else would you notice that was different from Earth?

karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: "Rip Van Winkle" of Mars

What is the first thing that would clue you off that you were on Mars? What else would you notice that was different from Earth?

Acc. to Gerald Nordley the plants and animals won't be just taller.

They'll be HUGE in all dimensions.

http://www.gdnordley.com/_files/Gravity.pdf  - pg.10

Tom Kalbfus

Banned

Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

Re: "Rip Van Winkle" of Mars

What is the first thing that would clue you off that you were on Mars? What else would you notice that was different from Earth?

Acc. to Gerald Nordley the plants and animals won't be just taller.

They'll be HUGE in all dimensions.

http://www.gdnordley.com/_files/Gravity.pdf  - pg.10

Interesting.

Here is a possible animal we might genetically engineer for a terrafomed Mars. Remember the Oliphant from Lord of the Rings?
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ima … ay&first=1
This gives you a better idea of its scale and what it can do.

Here is a still. These creatures look similar to elephants, so it appears that we might create such creatures from Elephant DNA, they question is, would we want these things on Mars?