Should Mars be Terraformed?

[Odin]

This is an off-shoot of the Red Mars thread.

I thnk it should be terraformed. A habitable Mars will act as a futuristic America, a way to get away from the social stagnation and the heavy hand of Capitalism. People on Earth will see martian prosperity and demand no less for themselves, just like Europe in the 1800's. If humanity doesn't expand, we will stagnate; history shows this out very well. The US became as stagnant as Europe when it's frontier closed.

Discuss.

[SlowwHand]

All the needs here, but sink money into terraforming Mars.
No.

[Bereta_Eder]

There are plans to mine ore from Mars, completely automated and ready to put into implementation.

But it's not cost/output "correct" yet.

Too expensive.

But I was surprised that they have mande those plans and that they are ready.

[Spiffor]

I am all for terraforming Mars, but I don't share your enthusiasm for it, Odin. Obviosuly, the terraforming of Mars will occur only if big Earthling institutions will have an interest in the place. And they will attempt to make a capitalist rule there as it exists here.

[Ted Striker]

USA is only interested in Mars if we can hook up our Martian Oil Pipeline to Texas.

[Inverse Icarus]

biodomes are cheaper and sooner than terraforming

[Imran Siddiqui]

Odin, post in the 'Red Mars' thread with your opinions!

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
All the needs here, but sink money into terraforming Mars.
No.

Damn straight!

Why pour hundreds of billions of dollars into a sci-fi geek's wet dream for questionable gain when real progress could be made on real problems?

[Bereta_Eder]

Besides, the asteroid zone is much more easy to exploit

[Imran Siddiqui]

Oh, btw, I'm for partial terraforming. We should make the atmosphere think enough so we can breath the air and not die, but shouldn't change the basic character of the Martian terrain.

[RGBVideo]

It just takes too much time to be even near of cost-effective.

[Ted Striker]

That's why we throw Khan and his gang of steroid superhumans on there and then let them do it.

[SlowwHand]

Change the air on Mars??
Jeez, Imran. Let's change the air here.
Again, stuff to do here, and piping oil to Texas ain't one of them.

[Zoid]

I say no. Not until we have reached equality and acceptable living standards for the people of Earth. Then I´m all for it; I am, after all, somewhat of a sci-fi geek.

[Ned]

AFAIK, It would make no difference at all unless one can figure out how to restart Mars magnetic field. The Gamma radiation will kill anything living on the surface.

When one thinks about it for a second, the collapse of the magnetic field may have lead to the the dead world we see today. The radiation would have killed off life, which may have been necessary to maintain the atmosphere.

So, unless one can imagine radiation-resistant life, having an atmosphere will not get you very far.