[FPSPACE] Discovery reveals Mars is not a

[Jens Kieffer-Olsen]

Hey, if you plan to jump a distance of 5 light years or so, then you
must be thinking several millennia ahead!?
 
The only alternative to terraforming Mars first, is to pick the Moon!
Although it will lose an atmosphere pretty fast on an astronomical
timescale, it's perfectly capable of hanging on to one that mankind
has generated without anyone noticing it to be thinning during their
lifetime. 
 
The easy thing about Mars is that it has already got the air needed
to generate an acceptable pressure, provided of course that a deep
canal be dug out along its equator. Someone has calculated that
a habitable area the size of California will be possible. Oxygen must
be carried at all times, but no pressurized space suit is needed.
 
Or is that too quick and too dirty a solution, even for ZMNs?
 
--
Jens Kieffer-Olsen
Slagelse, Denmark
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Kosmos327 at aol.com [mailto:Kosmos327 at aol.com] 
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2009 8:00 AM
To: fpspace at friends-partners.org
Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] Discovery reveals Mars is not a



  
I suspect that by the time terra-forming becomes feasible, there will be an
abundance of near-Earth condition
planets which will serve as better candidates than Mars. I'm sure Mars will
have many benefits for mankind, 
but playing the part of some new "Earth" will probably not be among those.
Too much effort for such little gain.
 
I'm up to four cents now.
 
Regards,
 
David L. Rickman
 

I agree with zubrinites - and the author of New Worlds - that
Mars is a prime case for terraforming. Even if it will not at
all be possible until the next millennium, we need to press on
now as best we can.

For the sake of brevity I did not mention that I firmly
believe that Phobos or Deimos must have had a permanent
base established, before anyone attempts to land on Mars.

As the moonlets will be free of microbes, and since hopping
from there to Mars will be a piece of cake, the existence of
microbes on Mars is just one more obstacle to the challenge
of departing from the planet.






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