Terraform Humans First, Then Mars? 480
An anonymous reader writes "Related to the future of Mars, NASA released the transcript of an expert panel which debated terraforming the red planet. Planetary scientists including NASA's Planetary Protection Officer, John Rummel, and science fiction writers (Kim Robinson, Arthur C. Clarke, and Greg Bear) chimed in. When asked if Mars should be transformed to a place where humans could walk without life support suits ("naked"), Sir Clarke responded, "Perhaps we should ask the Martians first." Can it be done quickly-- or at all? Is terraforming ethical? If humans colonize, are the colonists on a one-way trip akin to exile?" Read on for a bit more.
"A consensus seemed to be that like waking a sleeping giant, planet building seems possible if oxygen is not a requirement and some microbial life is dormant underground. But the question of making a planet suitable for plants alone seems to span tens of thousands of years. The remaining science fiction notion was terraforming humans, instead of planets, and making us survive on what is now a very alien world."
ET, is that you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ET, is that you? (Score:2, Insightful)
Nope (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember, just because Mars won't become a grassy paradise overnight doesn't mean humans can't live there in the meanwhile. Humans can live in surprisingly little space, when combined with hydroponic gardens and nuclear power. Dome cities, or underground cities, would work and support millions of inhabitants while the surface of the planet is slowly transformed.
science (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Suggestion... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's the problem people don't think of when they deal with interstellar travel. Most sci-fi has some FTL communication, it's only a few books that don't. I'm not sure that entanglement will ever work itself out, so it might never happen.
Terraforming humans? (Score:5, Insightful)
Terraforming [reference.com] isn't the right word. Terraforming is forming planets to make them more like Earth (Terra). Purposefully altering humans/human physiology does not yet have a word accosiated with it, I think.
Good Idea? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:science (Score:5, Insightful)
Science fiction authors also think about this sort of matter on a regular basis, and not as a mere idle notion. Combine that with significant knowledge of the subject matter, and it isn't unreasonable for the government to be asking them what their views on terraforming are.
the toughest bit (Score:5, Insightful)
Before someone else says it.... (Score:2, Insightful)
I honestly feel that instead of spending billions fixing up Mars, instead that money should be used on Earth to fix problems that exist here, right now. Hunger, environmental problems, political strife, etc. It'll be a very long time before anything that occurs on Mars has any effect on the majority of human civilization, while investment in fixing Earth problems can have a more immediate global effect for us all.
In addition, we shouldn't view Mars as a place to run off to if we screw Earth up badly.
life: spread it around (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously, if there is no life there, its not as if we would be destroying a species or habitat, but how do we prove there is no life there?
We are at a unique point in the grand scheme of things because for the first time in history, we as a species have the capability to spread life beyond the bounds of our world. Life wants to spread. With this new found cpability, is it our duty to help it spread?
Now, terraforming is a bit extreme, but I really struggle with even the basic idea of wether it is ethical to, say, introduce bacteria to other worlds and give life a chance to do what it does in other places.
Re:ET, is that you? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Terraforming humans? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are hard ways and less hard ways to do that.
Natural selection would be the hard way, and I doubt we could be adapted in that way in any reasonable amount of time.
Genetic engineering would be another way
A third way might be some sort of symbiotic relationship with another biological life form or articificial organism that could metabolize CO2 at a sufficiently fast rate. You still have to deal with climate and weather issues I suppose.
Re:ET, is that you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:science (Score:3, Insightful)
I also don't necessarily concur automatically with the "well-somebody-will-eventually-do-it-so-let's-jus
Note that none of this actually indicates I'm
Re:Terraforming humans? (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the word is "Eugenics".
Re:Before someone else says it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, the sooner we start working on Mars, the sooner we'll start learning how environments actually work, and the sooner we'll gather the expertise needed to avert major catastrophes.
The way I see it, terraforming Mars is an absolutely necessary safety measure, and no amount of money spent on problems "back home" will provide that safety. If we can turn Mars into a self-sustaining world of 20-million people or so, I don't see anything short of alien invasion or Sol going nova that could wipe us out.
Re:Maybe we should solve home planet problems firs (Score:3, Insightful)
Terraforming and colonizing Mars should be done as soon as possible. It will mean that the human race will survive an Earth wide disaster. Colonizing Mars will never directly help population problems on the Earth (we can't ship people faster than we breed), but it is still a noble goal.
Re:ET, is that you? (Score:4, Insightful)
What a great idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:science (Score:3, Insightful)
Who are they to decide on something like that? Am I not a human myself, able to make ethical decisions if asked? All people are. Granted, most people don't, because they act selfishly. But what's to stop an ethicist to get blindsided by the glory of being someone that helped instigate the colonization of Mars for humanity, to forever go down in history?
It works both ways... (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless, I vote that we terraform the Sahara Desert first... it would be good practice and actually serves a purpose NOW as well as in the future.
Re:ET, is that you? (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps the term you were looking for is xenoformation.
Mars terraforming is unfortunately unavoidable (Score:3, Insightful)
The terraforming of Mars seems to be, in my opinion, unfortunately quite unavoidable, to say the very least, and that is because of all of us who are "marsaforming" Earth so well that soon we sadly will be unable to live here any more. That's very sad. It might not be a problem for us, but for our children or grandchildren.
I am sure one day someone will remember the timeless implications of our today's Slashdot discussion looking at the Mars University and will say: "Very impressive. Back in the 20th century we had no idea there was a university on Mars," to which his professor will answer: "Well in those days Mars was just a dreary uninhabitable wasteland... much like Utah. But unlike Utah, it was eventually made livable, when the university was founded in 2636." That will be a great day in our history.
I am very excited. I dream of being able to ski on Mars one day. That would be amazing. We definitely have to bring some water there and lower the temperature somehow to freeze it (we could use the process of so caled desublimacion to change the steam--a product of hydrogen and oxygen synthesis--directly into snow). That would be great. I am so excited. I haven't read such an exciting article for a long time.
The Slashdot headline is misleading, though. We don't need terraforming of humans, but rather marsaforming. I, for on, am already terraformed quite well, thank you. I hope Slashdot editors will correct this mistake as soon as possible. Other than that, the very idea of marsaforming humans instead of terraforming Mars is novel and extremely exciting. Great read.
Also, I find the ethical implications very interesting. After all, who gave us the right to live on Mars? The answer is sadly: no one. But does that mean we should not live there? Probably yes.
Re:ET, is that you? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you think of it as us taking territory from bacteria, it sounds oh-so-hypersensitive and politically uber-correct to think we should care, but if you think of it as though there must be a minimum value to any whole, complete ecology, even one made up entirely of simple life forms, it makes more sense.
If Mars even has bacteria, and it turns out there is nothing exceptional about them, we will probably terraform the planet eventually. But the first thing we should conclude on finding a bacterium not native to our own world is not that Mars has nothing but bacteria, but that it has an ecoystem, and the only other example of an ecosystem we know is a complex and marvelous thing indeed.
Prime directive for bacteria (Score:3, Insightful)
> "barbarians pre-space humans who exterminated bacterial diversity on
> Mars".
Yea, I suspect you are right. And the heart of the movement will be at Mars University. They will be weak kneed mushy headed students lead by a few ivory tower dwelling pseudo intellectuals. But the most anyone else will say is "oh well, I ain't giving it back to the germs." and get on with their comfortable martian life. Or in other words, nothing new. Just a bunch of useless morons with nothing better to do than bitch and moan about how 'evil' their forefathers were once things have progressed to a point where genetic culls like themselves don't get killed off by the harsh pioneer environment.
IF we find life on Mars I'd probably agree with going VERY slow so as not to screw up something before we understand it fully. But if there isn't life there, it belongs to us to use as we see fit. Same goes for the rest of the Solar System.
Re:It works both ways... (Score:5, Insightful)
If we're betting we can establish new species on Mars, wouldn't it make sense to first restablish some more Earthly species in ranges we have wiped them from right here? A hundred or so years ago, we failed in attempts to reestablish the Passenger Pigeon to the wild or keep it alive in zoos. We've just now gotten pretty good with the American Buffalo, and results on the Eastern Red Wolf and the Giant Panda are still mixed at best. Looking at the endangered species list, I'd say until things come off of it (in a positive direction only) at least as fast as they go on, we are not ready for Mars.
Re:Before someone else says it.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Nope (Score:2, Insightful)
Wether or not you like these ideas, is irrelevant, and thankfully, the universe is vast enough for us to go our separate ways. Though, it will mostly be the new generation of "people" who colonize the further reaches of space, since our fragile bodies simply won't weather the radiation and acceleration necessary for such ventures.
I think there are more than a few folks who would happily trade in their current lives to exist as a process in some fantastic VR of the future. Certainly, an even greater number would appreciate a body durable enough to exist in space, or perhaps just survive the impact of your SUV.
We can "Terra"-form mars since its close, but we are not going to make it elsewhere in our current form. Meanwhile, we are simply confining our future generations to the same feeble, limited existence, because thats how God intended it. Or perhaps it is due to an inferiority complex or pure envy; in any case, it makes me ill.
Re:Before http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/ (Score:1, Insightful)
http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/
Distinct, practical steps towards improving this planet and society. Put your money where your mouth is.
>In addition, we shouldn't view Mars as a place
>to run off to if we screw Earth up badly.
We also shouldn't curl up and hide "'cuz we're not ready yet!"
There is not, has not, and never will be an idealistic age when all Earth-bound problems are solved. For better or for worse, Humanity is one big problem after another. We're all just muddling along, doing the best we can with what we have.
_Doing_, of course, being the key word here. What a profound waste of a civilization if we don't try to grow and improve ourselves.
Re:It works both ways... (Score:2, Insightful)
Minor correction to your second sentence. No bacteria that we know of has a brain that we know of to think with in a way that we can currently comprehend.
Re:Earth's ICBMs at PEAK could kill 10% (Score:5, Insightful)
And I'm sure those same missiles were designed not to give off the least little tiny bit of radiation and fallout afterward? That they somehow will not allow prevailing winds to carry the fallout into cities, rivers, and farms? You make these things sound so wonderful and neat and clean. Bullshit. You're purposely ignoring all the secondary effects of a widespread series of groundburst or near-groundburst nuclear explosions. No matter how low yield or how "clean" these things are, in a full scale nuclear war like you're suggesting, you'll have enough going off to send an appreciable amount of fallout into the air. And considering that most of our silos are in the midwest right alongside farmland (what fucking moron conceived that one??), that does not make for a very rosy scenario after the war. Whether or not the secondary effects are intentional is a moot point; the effects are real and are not possible to suppress. You have a fission reaction, you are going to have radioactive materials left over.
The Tomahawk Cruise Missile was designed to deliver a nuclear warhead within 7 feet of its target... That would allow you to hit each silo with ONE missile, instead of TWOOh, that makes me feel SO much better.
The end of cold war weapons were finally reaching the goal of winning a nuclear exchange.That's extremely scary thinking. I sincerely hope this thinking was limited to people like you who are not looking at all the facts and not our government. To think that someone could win -- or would want to win -- a nuclear war is sickening.
Taking out downtown Manhattan would take 8-12 nuclear missilesThis boggles the mind. Where the hell are you getting your facts? Though this does sync with your other false statement that these weapons were not designed to take out cities. Each side has different classes of weapons. While it is true that the bulk of each side's arsenals are counterforce weapons -- i.e. aimed at each others weapons -- each side also has many countervalue weapons -- i.e. aimed at cities. These are indeed specifically designed to level cities, taking industry and economic centers with them, and they are not so inefficiently designed to require "8-12" missiles. These missiles typically have yields in the megaton range, and it takes a far smaller number, either delivered via two or three single-warhead missiles, or one MIRV'ed warhead missile.
not "wiping out the world 10 times over" or whatever propoganda we grew up with.The exact figure of "10 times over" is subject to debate and is not the point. The main point in this possible hyperbole is that while the pure, physical destructive force of all the world's warheads is not capable of wiping out the entire world in the actual fireballs, shock waves, etc, this does not take into account all the secondary effects, such as radiation, fallout, and possible climatalogical effects of burning materials throwing thousands of tons of soot and other debris into the atmosphere. And yes, I know there is still substantial debate about the "nuclear winter" scenario. But do me a favor and find some other planet to test the theory on, thank you.
Global Magnetic field? (Score:1, Insightful)
*note* IANAS, just things I've read in a few journals/heard in a few classes. Pros, please share if this is in some way obviously not the case as the idea intrigues me as much as the next person.
Re:But we're not done with Venusforming Earth.... (Score:2, Insightful)
There may be other systems at work, but nothing compares to the program of capitalism in its seemingly viral ability to infect, adapt and expand through-out the world.
We can debate good vs. bad, but you can't say that socialism has won the day and is the dominant form of industrial activity. History and current stats show us otherwise.
You're right that the old Soviet commies and China have a HORRIBLE record on the environment. That's not a distributed scheme though, but a state-centralized scheme. I presume that we agree that state-centralized schemes tend to be less sustainable (when it comes to economic production at least). History has shown this in both the collapse of the USSR and the changes in China.
The point here is simple: distributed-capitalist schemes are more nimble and widely entrenched due to their distributed nature and are lot more difficult to remove (i.e. not top-heavy) than top-down state-centralized schemes.
Hybrid socialist/capitalist schemes like that of many Euro countries seem to be doing a much better job of taking the strengths from both systems. But we still have a long way to go before we have a sustainable society on this planet....why do we think we have the capacity to build it on another planet?
Thanks for the feedback and the opportunity to clarify.
What about the Magnetic Field (Score:2, Insightful)
I was under the impression that the magnetic field was required to prevent the sun's solar rays from stripping the atmosphere away.
Fritz
Religions (Score:2, Insightful)
The Mormons (LDS) and Jahova's Witness probably have enough money to start settlements, for example. The Mormons lost hundreds of lives traveling through cold winters and deserts to settle out west, so I imagine they would do it again if they thought it was time.
Re:Who said anything about .... (Score:3, Insightful)
Currently we do have the tech to make gas flow between two curtians of flowing gas. I'm not sure this could be made into a protective dome... but without forward thinking, we're all stuck where we are.
Re:Earth's ICBMs at PEAK could kill 10% (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm thinking you should watch the movie "Dr Strangelove or How I Came to love the Bomb" so you could develop an appreciation for how silly you sound waving your dick in the air bragging about your chances for winning a nuclear war.
A likely flaw in your plan is it would have been difficult to take out all of Russia's nuclear subs. If a couple of them were sitting off each coast, undetected, they could pretty much ruin your day with a mix of ballistic and cruise missiles.
I'd be inclined to agree with you that it would be difficult to wipe out life on earth with the weapons currently deployed but if a nut case...oh...lets see....like George W. Bush, were to put all his resources into designing really, really, big hydrogen bombs I bet he could pull it off. As best I recall you can scale them up to really mammoth proportions as long as your a nut case and want to destroy the world. You can also tune them to produce massive, long lived, deadly fallout. Or you can go with designer biological weapons which both the U.S. and the former U.S.S.R were apparently very good at making. There are some nasty natural biological weapons in the world but if you put deviants to work optimizing them using genetic engineering they could develop some that would do real damage. And then there are chemical weapons stockpiles in the U.S. and U.S.S.R so huge it will take years to destroy them, and nanotech weapons are on the horizon.
But I was tending to agree with you its not likely...until of course you come along and start babbling about winning a nuclear war and them I'm amazed we've lasted this long.
We cannot teraform mars. Give it up already! (Score:4, Insightful)
Without a magnetic field to help shield it, the solar wind slowly strips away the upper atmosphere, making the atmosphere thinner and thinner and thinner.
So if we try to thicken the atmosphere as part of a teraforming process, it won't do any good... the solar wind just keeps lapping it up and sending it into space, and would eventually bring it right back down to where it is right now.
It's just not worth the effort for something that wouldn't actually last.
Re:Earth's ICBMs at PEAK could kill 10% (Score:2, Insightful)
It only took one bomb a piece to take out Nagasaki and Hiroshima so I don't know why you figure it would necessarily take 8-12 nukes to destroy a city. Also, unless you believe that most of the population has bomb shelters they can stay in for 20+ years, it doesn't make sense to ignore the damage from the nuclear fallout. It will certainly pollute the water and the air and kill many more people over the long term. Wait until you see the total damage a little radiation leakage from Chernobyl will cause.
What kind of propaganda have you been listening to?
Engineer... engineer thy self... (Score:3, Insightful)
Add to that the magic of anthromorphic biohybrid materials, nanotechnology, advanced materials science, DNA based assembly and construction, and the utilization of interesting new synthetic metabolic cycles, and we can pretty much engineer ourselves to live in any kind of environment.
Why change Mars one wit, when we can build human beings with everything they'll need to live and thrive on Mars just the way it currently is. This does presume that we decide that Mars is such a nice place that we should have millions or billions of us there on a long term basis.
Robotics and some level of AI, make the possibility of building human habitats on Mars in the next decade or two absolutely feasible. These habitats will be able to support hundreds or thousands of human beings who will be substantially identical to the folks that walk around on earth today (save gene therapies that protect Mars inhabitants from the rigors and health threats of low G environments.)
The point is that long term endeavors to new worlds and deep space, demand some intrinsic alterations of ourselves. To preserve that which is best in human beings, we may have to sacrafice our past, and create ourselves anew.
Genda