red planet turning green?

[slum_goddess]

'There’s a new mission to Mars. But we’re not talking about cute little robot rovers anymore. CBS News Correspondent Jerry Bowen reports on a plan to turn the Red Planet into a green one – one that could support life. "What we propose is to use greenhouse gases – the same ones that are currently on the earth causing climate change," said Margarita Marinova, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology.

'That's right. Earthlings are thinking of using the same toxic stuff already blamed for global warming here to put some life back on Mars. Marinova says that the goal is to warm Mars enough so that the planet’s south polar cap will evaporate.

'Ever since Hollywood directors started yelling “Action!” B-grade science fiction thrillers have depicted a warmer, livable Mars. Marinova hopes to turn those fictional accounts into reality. She has co-authored a NASA study that says it’s doable – even if it's not understandable. As Marinova explains it, the devil’s in the details. And the little devil’s name is octafluoropropane. "This is our favorite molecule,” Marinova said....

'...It would take hundreds of years but eventually ice sheets would melt, grass would grow here, and temperatures would hit 50 degrees along the equator of the planet. Martian organisms might be revived too – if there are any...' from cbs

[CTC Command]

The technical term for this process is terraforming. It's was first envisioned by sci-fi writers (For example, Star Trek developed a whole classification, K-Class planets, that are suitable for terraforming; several episodes that dealt with the topic) but it is also a serious branch of scientific inquiry being explored by NASA and other scientists.

Myself personally, I think that if any planet has lifeforms on it, even microscopic ones, then it should be off-limits to any terraforming. But if Mars for instance turns out to be devoid of indigenous life, then it would be a really neat thing to do. At some point the real estate here is going to turn into a bad neighborhood (the next majorasteroid/comet impact, Earth going into the Sun when the latter has used up all of its hydrogen fuel and it enters its red giant phase) and we are goijng to need to go somewhere...

[Ken]

I think it's an ok aspiration, but it still remains to be seen if humans (or just the countries involved in this project) could even survive long enough to complete a process like this.

[Ken]

Myself personally, I think that if any planet has lifeforms on it, even microscopic ones, then it should be off-limits to any terraforming. But if Mars for instance turns out to be devoid of indigenous life

I wouldn't care about microscopic life.

I don't see any crying about microscopic life on earth being destroyed (viruses anyone?).

Why the hypocrisy then? I'd support the terraforming of Mars, even if it had microscopic life forms.