New Mars Forums

If you mean a practical demonstration by practicality, then you could try going to a search engine and trying the key "Mars Jars" with the " 's. That might help find you some info.

Frankly, trying to figure out how many intelligent species there are in our galaxy is rather like asking, "how many grains of sand on a beach?". Firstly, there is nothing that says life has to develop along our carbon-based lines. Secondly, there is again nothing to say that life must develop on a planet - which widens up the possibilities of intelligent life in space considerably. Thirdly, we have no idea what the exact limits of environment that life can exist in. Many have guessed; but nobody can know for sure.

"'And if there are beings out there who are at least as intelligent as we are, there's a good chance they'll have scientific curiosity the way we do.'   

Why? They could be completely intelligent but devoid of any true scientific inquiry- there are many "intelligent" humans who display this trait afterall, so why not an entire species?"

I'm guessing, mostly, here, but it seems logical to me that no entire intelligent species is going to be the same, or even alike. Intelligence insinuates the ability to choose to be different to others - without that, a being cannot be classified as "intelligent". Therefore, any intelligent species would have at least some interest in science, although what they call science could well be very very different to what we call science. Also, survival of an intelligent race - and perhaps even a non-intelligent race - requires some modicum of curiosity, and that is just what science is, at its most basic.

"There is a lot that goes into the evolution of intelligence- how in your mind would a highly radioactive environment HELP intelligence evolve? In order to protect itself from radiation, an animal would have to know about the radiation- the radiation would ave to kill the slower, dumber ones, while sparing the smarter one- that's a lot like expecting a snow-storm to be continually discerning on its victims..."

Well... If a biosphere developed on a planet that was highly radioactive, then naturally the animals/plants/whatever would have developed under those conditions - they wouldnt need to know about the radiation, their chemical make-up would ensure their survival. Radioactive environments could well make things easier for an intelligent species to develop, as the mutation rate would be far higher, even with a high resistance to radiation. And once intelligence was developed, the species would be at an advantage to us, scientifically, as they would have a highly radioactive environment to study - thus they would most likely be highly specialised in particle physics. I see no reason why intelligent life could not develop anywhere in the universe, with the exceptions of the most violent portions, whatever they may be. Life, I am sure, can exist in many many forms - probably most of them very different to our own. Perhaps every single form of life in the universe has developed so differently that interaction, and even knowledge of each others existance, will always be impossible - there is simply no way to know until we know that it is not so. But life here on Earth is amazingly diverse, and I somehow think that in all that space out there in our universe, there are beings sitting behind what passes for their computers, discussing this same subject in forums on their version of the internet.  Wish I had their email address, though......

lmao Phobos - I'm sure a chair of some sort would be preferable than the walls, though

I don't see how the terraformation of Mars will benefit "billions", as I see no way that these billions of people could be transported to Mars. In order to move people on that magnitude, in any appreciable time period, you're talking a mammoth effort that would cost more in terms of capital and resources than a terraforming project.

Asteroids, comets and volcanic eruptions are all forces of "nature", as it were. We are not. All those things are influenced by a billion variables, each one finely balanced, in fact so finely balanced that it could be argued that anything that does happen, should happen. But that doesnt apply to us. So an asteroid slamming into the surface of Mars, and changing the face of its surface, is nothing at all like us heating up the planet and destroying geological formations that have taken millions, and sometimes billions, of years to form. If we do terraform Mars, it won't be on a "millions of years" timescale, obviously - so there is a vast difference between a normal geological (geological is probably the wrong word, areological is a far better one with relation to Mars) process and a sentient species coming along and destroying  a few billion years of slow, gradual change. Even if Mars once was host to a warm, wet atmosphere - to which there is no real evidence, as any formation of land you can think of could possibly be formed by an impact, or vulcanism - that doesnt mean that it ever will again. Mars has no magnetosphere, in comparison to the Earth. It will never naturally be host to a diverse biosphere, at least not one useful to us, because of the intense radiation in the ultra-violet spectra. So "because it was and might one day be again" is no valid reason for changing the surface of a world.

Mars will never be the home to billions of humans, for the simple reason it will never be as comfortable as Earth (and possibly other Earthlike planets which we may find in the future, and eventually gain the ability to reach) nor will it ever be as safe a home as Earth. Any biosphere created on Mars would be extremely fragile - and as such Mars is simply not a viable second home for humanity. If you wish to look for a safe haven for humanity, so that in the event of a mass-extinction event here on Earth there would still be surviving, safe remnants,  then it is far more logical to look to orbiting habitats and the like. Mars is not Earth. It is not our natural habitat, and nor will we ever be able to change it sufficiently enough to truly call it a second home to Earth. Mars doesnt truly have all that much space to build on either, when considering the amount of people you would want to transfer as mentioned earlier ("...billions of citizens a partially terraformed world could support."). Simply because Mars would have to have a much "taller" (my apologies, cant think of a better word) biosphere than Earth - and its not even known if that would be possible or not. Granted, Mars has the same land-surface mass as Earth - but how much of that is truly usable? And how much less would be usable after terraformation? Not near half as much as would be needed for a reliable back-up home in the event of Earth being wiped out, I'm willing to bet.

The only reason that Mars appeals to us, either for simple colonization or full blown terraformation - and we should have the courage to admit it - is that it excites us with its mystery, and the romantic appeal of human beings stepping, eating, sleeping where no-one ever has before, and because it will be the first world other than our Earth (and perhaps the moon? will be interesting to see which comes first) that we will live on, plus a thousand scientific reasons. But terraforming is a dream, in the same way that the people who live in the desert dream of their world being full of greenery, and flowing free water. But that won't happen. Nor should it happen; the deserts serve their purpose just as they are. But consider; our world, Earth, has different zones of climate all around its globe. What if our solar system, in a similar way, has its own zones of climate? On Earth, if you were to shift all the arid climates to say, temperate ones, you would see a massive shift in the weather cycles of all the other climates. What if its the same in our solar system? Most agree that there is probably an area around every sun-like star that is a "habitable zone" - but if there is a habitable zone, surely there are other types, and each supports the others in some way? The entire universe is composed of endlessly elaborate but enendingly simple (once revealed  ) systems, so why not our own star system?
Besides, why is it that nobody can see that Mars is just fine the way it is? What need is there to change it? People have, and continue to, live in far worse conditions than colonists on Mars would if we dont terraform - why should we change a whole world without need?

Many thanks for the compliments 

I doubt that if we aren't alone in this universe that our curiosity is anything new, nor do I believe that we have any qualities that any other species couldnt have - I think that until there is evidence either way, its probably best not to comment. If there is an ancient race out there, and they are watching us, I'm sure they raise a chuckle when we make comments such as "there's nothing like good old human ingenuity" and the like  .

That aside, I have to point out that we have only really reached this point where we are today through centuries of - no, millennia of - deliberation, soul searching, and thinking. Oftenwise, the shortest and most blunt course of action is the best. But not where there is great risk involved. And playing with a planet in your metaphorical backyard, treating it as if it is some sort of sandbox in which to make pretty gardens and forests, is hardly a good use of the produce of those millenia of deliberation, soul searching, and thinking by all of our previous great thinkers. Put simply... it just seems an awful waste of time, to me. I mean, the longest reaching guesstimates of timescale are somewhere around five hundred thousand years. Now I dont know about you, but I would like to think that maybe, just maybe, in five hundred thousand years time, we will be on millions of already-habitable planets in millions of star systems. I don't see any reason why that shouldn't be possible. So compare: terraform Mars and get one planet, ready made, in 10,000 to 500,000 years. In the meanwhile, chuckling to itself, the rest of the human race would be spreading around the galaxy (universe?), and when the terraformers could finally say, "Hey everybody, we're done", the rest of the universe would simply laugh and say, "But what was the point?"

Partly comical anecdote aside, (anecdote seemed the right word, my apologies if it isnt - its kindof late ((well, early late)) and my brain is not fully functional at this time) it does seem to me to be a huge waste. Consider what a romantic idea it is. Terraforming Mars! Who wouldnt want to be involved in that?! So all (or a great deal of) our great thinkers would be devoting precious time to that (and to other terraforming work, on yet more celestial bodies?). That would be wasteful, dont you think? There are surely some things which, put simply, are too attractive. Everything beautiful, is likewise deadly. While we terraform Mars, muttering to ourselves about "protecting the future of humanity", any potential planet killing asteroid is not going to wait around - if its going to hit, it will hit. And barring two thousand or so years of human occupation of Mars, it won't matter whether or not we live on two planets. You simply cannot move enough people from Earth to Mars fast enough in order to keep the gene pool big enough in order to prevent genetic decline if Earth was to cease to be. Imagine that Earth gets hit, and there are only a few hundred thousand survivors. Mars has been terraformed, in a few hundred years. There are nine and a half million people on Mars, across five generations. Now, would that be enough to ensure the survival of the human species? I think not. Mars is not exactly going to ever be even close to Earthlike, even with dramatic intervention on our part. As such, the mutation rate on Mars is likely to be higher, which would probably mean that normal rules governing how many people you need to maintain a gene pool over a certain period of time.

I think (?) NASA commissioned a study a few years back, if I remember correctly, and the findings were (generalised) that you would need around 37,000 people in order to have a population that could survive for one hundred generations. So that would mean that would mean that humanity would have only 256,756 generations - significantly less, in real world terms. Assuming we've been on this planet for 1 million years, we have already seen around 50,000 generations - on Earth. On Mars, on the other hand, things would be different. Longer days and longer years would mean lower birth rates - naturally. The reasoning for this is that people tend to leave one to two years between having their first and second children - and assuming that we will keep the year unit, that trend will probably continue, at least for a number of generations. So if we assume that people would have say, one less child than normal - thats still about 1.8 children per person on average - then that means the population would certainly steadily decline steadily for a number of years after we first colonize Mars. Firstly, due to accidental deaths, people getting lost in dust storms (early in the terraforming effort - later on there will no longer be any dust storms, which for some reason I find troubling), radiation associated cancers, perhaps Martian bacteria will even some day adapt to Earth organisms (assuming it isnt already  :angry: )... the list goes on and on. There are simply more ways to get killed on a planet like Mars - and the more active the biosphere, the more ways to get killed. So Mars is not really a "safe haven" for humanity should our homeworld be destroyed. Also, who's to say that a cluster of asteroids wouldnt swing through our solar system, slamming into Earth and swinging back around and hitting Mars too? (Perhaps thats even less likely than being hit by a meteor on your left foot while dancing on your hands in a bus station at around 2:30 pm, but still)

I just don't see Mars as a safe haven. On the contrary, seeing as we have to terraform the place (or so everyone seems to believe) in order to live there, it doesnt truly seem that safe a place to rest our hopes of not being wiped out by an asteroid. Rather, it seems a far better idea to simply use the resources to better see the damned things early enough in order that we can shift their course enough - or maybe wait til' they're close enough to go out and meet, slap mass drivers on them and use them to build space elevators, hell of a way to change your fortunes, I reckon - so that they are no longer a problem. And in the meantime, also use more resources to find ways to change their course. Far simpler than sending huge quantites of people to Mars and trusting the universe won't wipe out both planets. 

Ah heck... sorry for the length... When I get typing, I don't notice how much I've said 

Perhaps you will find this a rather stupid sentiment, I have no idea. But, consider the terraform or not-terraform argument from an entirely different perspective. We are biological entities, and as such view the universe with a bias towards other such biological entities. Therefore, a planet with no life is "barren", or "empty" or "desolate", or any number of other terms. But, consider the fact that no matter how many planets/planetary bodies we discover that do have life on them, there will always be far more that dont. Life, as we know it, exists in very specific conditions - and the odds are probably mostly against those conditions even arising on the majority of planets. The truth of the matter is, us living beings are, have been and always will be in the vast minority. The question is, should be strive to change that - or trust that things have developed this way, and after all, it bloody well works?

Consider things from a rocks perspective (I warned you ).
If rocks suddenly gained consciousness (not to mention hands and opposable thumbs, and some method of movement lol) and eventually developed technology, they would undoubtably spread out and terraform worlds like our beautiful Earth, without a thought for the "life" which covered its surface. The point I'm making is - its all a matter of perspective. What right do we, as a species, have to go to another planet, and irrevocably change its whole environment, and replace it with one better to our liking? How can we be sure that we could even identify life on another world? What if Mars was home to an intelligent but primitive  species (long shot, I know, but consider) that existed in some way fundamentally different to the way that we do, and as a result we were unable to be aware even of their existance, and as a result genocide was commited? Basically, what right do we have to change another planet, anyway? Who gave us Mars to change? Did someone lay it on a metaphorical table, hand us metaphorical pens and pencils and say, here, make of it what you wish? No, they didnt. The only reason people want to terraform Mars is because its the easy option, in that it requires plenty of money and resources, but very little thought. No offense intended, but its true. For example - detonate a few hundred high-grade nuclear warheads at say, 10 km beneath the surface, as a starter. Then maybe drop some black dust on the northern pole to encourage the water ice stored there to sublime faster. If the money is available, slap a mass driver onto one or two (or three) of the Amor asteroids (one with a suitable composition, of course), areobrake it in the Martian atmosphere - that should add some heat and maybe a couple hundred millibars of air pressure. Of course you could also have regolith processing plants, to process the oxygen from the iron oxide in the regolith, then releasing it. Depending on what sort of model you're following, either long term two-phase or long term one phase, you could detonate hundreds of nuclear warheads in boreholes under the southern pole, adding hundreds of millibars more to the atmosphere, and contributing to the greenhouse effect, as well as presumably releasing a decent quantity of water ice. Although, this is rather a ridiculous approach - it would be rather tough to scrub the CO2 from the atmosphere, and having a thicker atmosphere doesnt mean a breathable one. So for the one phase model, you could (once having done all of the above, barring the last) begin releasing genetically engineered fungus and bacteria, to lay down the beginnings of your biosphere - and so on. However, I wonder if anyone can solve the problem of how to live on Mars without terraforming it? It seems to me that the problem that is the most challenging is the one always worth the most time - and terraforming seems a rather simple process, really. I mean, consider the experience we have with changing our own planet's climate .

One other thing - consider what sort of precedent we will be setting our descendants. Right now, at this point in history, we are beginning to fly out of the nest we call home. But in who-knows-how-long, humanity may/can/will (I think will) gain the capability to spread out among the stars in our galaxy, and eventually further. But do we want our descendants to have the prescendant that a fully-terraformed Mars would give them? Think of how we explore, at the moment. Mostly with robot explorers, because generally it is far cheaper. So they will argue in the future, of course, with terraforming - after all, after a few tries it would become as routine as any other operation. So, they would argue, why bother going out to these worlds? Why travel all that way, risking life and limb, when we can send a behemoth terraforming machine to do our work for us? And so, from afar, we would identify all the targets for terraforming that we wanted, and unleash the machines upon our galaxy.
Great, no?

But do we want that? What if those machines destroy, unwittingly, hundreds of biospheres, in adapting those alien environments to something more suited to human beings? How would they tell the difference? Highly unlikely, from this end of history, I'm sure - but you never know.

What we do now, affects the future. Terraforming Mars, seems to me to be a waste of resources and ability - what happens when we develop interstellar travel, and (perhaps) find planets that are perfectly capable of sustaining us? Do we then say, "Oops, that was all pretty pointless"?

Apologies - but I only just saw this:

"I don't want to go to Mars to play with rocks or see a sunset. I want to help build a new civilization. Mars will never reach its economic potential until it has been at least partially terraformed."

Play with rocks? ??? I'm sure any geologists out there loved that one... See a sunset? Very briefly - what point is there in having a "new civilization" that has reached its "economic potential" if you are missing such a basic thing as the beauty of a sunset? Life is great with money, but very empty without beauty.

And geology is not "play(ing) with rocks" - it is vital to our understanding of the universe.

Very true - as I said, I was just curious... It's my one weakness - other than modesty  :0 lol

Try to imagine a child growing up all alone, learning new things and understanding the world around them in very simple terms. Assuming the child survives to adulthood, the effect of (s)he being alone for all that time would result in a large measure of confidence - after all, they have survived. But imagine that that child had never left a small area - say five miles around - and that their understanding of the area outside was very limited. Now they're an adult, they want to explore more, and use what they've learned on the environment outside, to better understand the world around them. Now they set out in good intentions, and use all the knowledge that they've gained - but five miles around is a very small area, and their knowledge, although it seems vast to them, is in fact very limited, and very small. That means that they are outside, in an environment they believe they understand, but don't... In short, they would be extremely overconfident.
That child is exactly like the human race. We have survived for a relativley long period of time, and recently began to mature enough, shall we say, to begin to create very complex tools to manipulate the environment around us to better suit our needs (although, most often not the needs of any other species that has the poor luck to be located anywhere nearby). Going to Mars and using it as a proving ground for our newfound technical expertise is exactly like that young adult going outside its own area for the first time - Earth is our small area, and we havent often moved outside of it. Now we can see out, and we look and hypothesise about things out there from what we know from here - but the truth is the things here and the things there may in fact be very different - and so everything we think we know, is in fact moot. If we go to Mars and use it as a proving ground, a confidence builder, would only serve to shatter humanities confidence if it failed - and worse, would strengthen our confidence and boulster it to arrogance if we succeeded. For a terraformed Mars would only strengthen the misconception that we are exceptional; no time and no person is ever exceptional, it is only emotions that make it seem so at the time. Look back through history, and you shall see that for every single year there is a so-called exceptional event - which means that there truly were none. The truth is, we know only slightly more than our ancestors did, and if we terraform Mars, which would be an "exceptional" achievment (although by no means original, just look at Phoenix, Arizona - to a certain degree, that city and the surrounding area has been terraformed ((maybe euroformed would be a better word?  ??? ))) then humanity will become arrogant. And arrogance is always a bad thing, it leads only to misery.
Oh one thing. I hope that made sense....... it did in my head. 

Consider that most land-living species base when they mate and produce offspring around when the most food is available. Also note the higher child rate in families living on farms. Plants represent fertility, fertility obviously is a link to sex. The link isnt immediatley obvious, and not so strong outside of isolated conditions, but if you're going to be spending a large amount of time in close quarters with only a few people, you dont really need any reminders of sex. Every single person is releasing pheremones; hence everybody to a certain degree is more sexually charged. The formula for the total number of sexual relationships in any given group is n(n-1)/2.
(n being the number of people in the group)
So if you have a group of just 20 people, then you have a potential 190 relationships. So you dont need to make the atmosphere in those small, cramped conditions - where people are working together, exercising together, eating together, always within site of another person - any more sexually charged than it has to be. Don't need murder en route  ???

Plants are generally considered to be a sign of fertility. Its the growing part, mostly... Also, we eat food. Much of our diet is plant based. Therefore, the best time for us to produce children is when the most food is available, ie. when there are many plants about to become harvestable. It's like in a rural village with no access to outside sources of food, with three farms. The birthrate nine months after every harvest would shoot up, as in many cultures just a few hundred years ago.

Just a few very quick (did I say quick? :0 )  reasons why (mostly aesthetic reasons) we should never terraform Mars.

If we terraform Mars, we lose the vivid, beautiful blue sunsets, and the vibrant red sky. Even if we "only" partially terraform Mars, we change the composition of the atmosphere, probably by adding more CO2 - if we do that, even only to one bar, then the sky would be milk white.
If we terraform Mars, the regolith may well collapse over a vast area in the northern hemisphere. It may well be worth taking a look at the Tharsis region, to see just how much water ice is sitting around in that region. The big problem is, the Martian lithosphere is probably already under a great deal of strain - all of the prince volcanoes, and Olympus Mons, are at the absolute maximum height that they can be. That is surely an awesome amount of pressure on the lithosphere, even in Martian gravity. Now consider the possibility that that weight and mass could well be sitting on pockets of water ice and/or liquid water. Now heat up the planet with terraforming, increase the pressure of the atmosphere........
.....and by doing that you increase the the amount of pressure being put on the lithosphere. Imagine a landslide. Now imagine a landslide, say, the size of the USA. Now naturally, the large volcanoes would be very attractive spots to live in - they are also conveniently cratered, so you could dome the craters without as much hassle as building an entire dome structure in the open (with the added bonus of the probability of another impact on that same sight being rather low, in comparison). So, imagine Olympus Mons. Terraforming is underway. The atmosphere is slowly heating, by a few degree's Kelvin every year, slowly creeping upwards... And the water ice underneath the Tharsis region, if there is a large amount of it, begins to sublime faster... Then, as the heat increases, it starts to melt. The ground above begins to slide, slowly, each layer following the path of least resistance... Until a critical point is reached, and all those pretty mountain-side crater-domes are smashed by billions of tons of falling rock. Not a pretty picture. Now maybe thats not very likely.... not on Tharsis, maybe. But it is true that changing Mars would mean exactly that. You cant change a whole planet "a little". You either change it, or you dont. Consequently the whole surface would be disrupted. Whole areological features would be lost. In some places, three, maybe four, billion years worth of areological history would be destroyed. We would lose so much beauty (go out into the deserts of Australia, and look at the rock formations, ignore any life you see... go to Arizona, do the same... and tell me that there is no beauty there without the life) and so much history, and lose so many lessons that that ancient world can tell us, about itself and its (and our) neighbours. We live here, on this world, and we are slowly destroying it. Lets not go to Mars and do the same to a world to which we do not even belong, for that would be truly unforgivable ... and once its done,

We Can Never Go Back

Odd. I thought an O'Neill colony was an asteroid that had been hollowed out, and occupied... I think the way O'Neill said it would be done was by using an asteroid with a high hydrogen content, and positioning high-grade mirrors at either end... Then using sunlight to spin the asteroid, slowly at first, gathering momentum the whole while, until eventually the pressure internally became such that the hydrogen expanded and was realeased through a number of pre-bored pressure release tunnels - although, I may well be getting mixed up.