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Would it be ethically right to terraform Mars?
Yes 69%  69%  [ 9 ]
No 23%  23%  [ 3 ]
Don't know 8%  8%  [ 1 ]
Total votes : 13
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 9:19 pm 
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There has been quite a lot of talk about the long term prospects of artificially transforming Mars, so that future human colonists could live wherever they liked there without spacesuits or pressurized habitats.

This would obviously involve making the Martian atmosphere much thicker than it is at present, and also melting or partially melting the Martian icecaps to provide water for lakes, rivers and irrigation. Once this had been done, the transformation would be continued by the spread of vegetation and by introducing flora and fauna from Earth.

The changes would take many centuries, and would be profound and presumably irreversible. In theory this could provide humanity with a safe new home. But the Mars which has evolved over countless eons, which we now see in pictures from landers etc - that magnificent pristine desert - would be gone forever.

Would we be justified in transforming Mars in this way? Would it be an act of cosmic vandalism? Alternatively, would it be wrong to deny our descendants the possibility of a refuge and second home on Mars by not planning such a transformation? I'd be very interested in your views.


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 3:50 pm 
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You can't be serious. We've gone 2/3 of the way to ruining our own planet and now you want us to start wrecking another one as well? What's the point of using unimaginable resources and effort transforming Mars into a copy of earth when we're already messing up the earth? We'd just mess up Mars too. Given the difficulties, do you seriously think this would alleviate overcrowding on earth? And even if it did help slightly with overcrowding/resources exhaustion here, we'd only be putting our problems off for a short while until we'd used up Mars as well.

We need to sort out these problems of population/ecology/resource usage right here on Earth before we try to colonize anywhere else. Anything else is just escapism - trying to avoid facing up to our problems. :evil:


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 2:09 am 
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Earth is fine; let us terraform Mars ASAP.

I want construction to begin by 2500.


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PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 2:24 pm 
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Steven Hawking said last year that so long as the human race only lives on one planet we are vulnerable to some disaster wiping us all out. Think about that Green Planet. Yes, I think it might be a terrible shame that the Mars we now see wouldn't exist any more because we would have made it a lot like Earth. I agree it would be a pity. But what would be worse to lose?

A - The Martian desert or

B - All the future generations of people that might have existed and then wouldn't because we'd become extinct, PLUS all the achievements of human culture all lost too?

Given that choice, I say, screw the desert.


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 3:21 am 
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Just don't drink the water.

Sorry, couldn't help myself :P


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 12:34 am 
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John wrote:
Just don't drink the water.

Sorry, couldn't help myself :P

:lol:


Ugh, that looks hideous!


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 3:18 pm 
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Alright I love the Doctor Who reference btw, but now I am going to get serious.

There is a current theory that I am not sure if you are aware of that says that when mars was a habitable planet, and either earth or mars were in the beginning stages of supporting life ( microbs ) that it would have been possible for astroids to take microbs from mars to earth of earth to mars. This means life on earth could have come from mars, or life on mars could have come from earth.

If we were to assume this true, we could then assume that mars currently has frozen microbs on its service. If we began to warm up mars, these microbs that had been the start of life on mars so long ago could spur new life on mars. (dangerous to people)

Another thing to think about is, why is mars no longer habitable? because solar flairs have caused the atmospher to ruin. This means the death of mars was natural, and not caused by the miss steps made by humans on earth.

Lastly Terraforming mars will take hundreds of years, even if we begin to do this, by the time mars is habitable for humans, we could have possibly screwed up earth to the point that we are no longer alive.

Just because we will one day be capable of Terraforming mars does not mean that we should put the energy into doing so. Because Why should we revive a dead planet only to push our problems onto it?


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 4:57 pm 
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Green Planet wrote:
We've gone 2/3 of the way to ruining our own planet and now you want us to start wrecking another one as well?

No worries, there are trillions more...


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 6:39 pm 
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John W. Kelly wrote:
Green Planet wrote:
We've gone 2/3 of the way to ruining our own planet and now you want us to start wrecking another one as well?

No worries, there are trillions more...


You are such an idiot! we were given ONE plant to live on. And Mars had life once, it died with the atmosphere. Why can't we just let it R.I.P. ?


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:11 pm 
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zoewiey wrote:
Why can't we just let it R.I.P. ?

And let a perfectly good planet go unused?


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