Terraforming Mars

[infamous]

Originally Posted by Jay-qu

isnt the atmosphere sulfuric acid... that would have to have one hell of a quarantined area...

The atmosphere is composed of mostly carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets so yes, environmental structures will need to be made of proper materials to stand up to this challenge. I will point out however, that plastics have very good properties for dealing with this problem and as polymer technology advances, dealing with the temp. extremes should also be attainable. As a matter of interest, I believe that there are plastics available at present that are capable of standing up to these tempertures.

Whether Mars or Venus, there are obstacles that we will need to overcome.

[Jay-qu]

Originally Posted by infamous

Whether Mars or Venus, there are obstacles that we will need to overcome.

very true - lets get some pros and cons

venus is closer and probably makes more frequent close passes

[Boerseun]

Venus is closer to the sun (good for solar panels, bad for temperature regulation), much higher surface air pressure (bad), much hotter with a corrosive atmosphere (bad), same g as Earth (bad for return-sample missions), closer to Earth (good), much longer days (in the region of hundreds of Earth days - bad), from the only surface pic we have from the Soviet Venera mission, surface mostly rock (bad - of course, if an alien spaceship took one photo if it landed on top of Ayer's Rock, they'll draw the same conclusion.

Mars seems to be an all-round winner here - if only there was a solid reason for it...

[orbsycli]

heh, why not eh?

[Gabe Bixler]

i say we launch some sort of dead animal and a bunch of trash onto the surface of mars and see what happens.

[orbsycli]

Originally Posted by Gabe Bixler

i say we launch some sort of dead animal and a bunch of trash onto the surface of mars and see what happens.

[Jay-qu]

and the purpose of that been...

[Boerseun]

Actually not altogether such a bad idea.

If there's life on Mars, it will most likely be microbial.

And if you go fishin', you need some bait, right?

Take a cut of beef and chuck it on the surface of Mars, and keep a close watch on it for a few weeks to see if there's any signs of microbial activity. Obviously, the meat should be sterilized and all microbes removed prior to launch. This is not to say that if there is life, it will have a taste for beef, though - I just think any inexplicable discolouration or any other anomaly might indicate something...

[Gabe Bixler]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Actually not altogether such a bad idea.

If there's life on Mars, it will most likely be microbial.

And if you go fishin', you need some bait, right?

Take a cut of beef and chuck it on the surface of Mars, and keep a close watch on it for a few weeks to see if there's any signs of microbial activity. Obviously, the meat should be sterilized and all microbes removed prior to launch. This is not to say that if there is life, it will have a taste for beef, though - I just think any inexplicable discolouration or any other anomaly might indicate something...

exactly, and if it turns out there is no life activity on mars the mixture of trash and dead animal is likely to stir something up.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by Gabe Bixler

exactly, and if it turns out there is no life activity on mars the mixture of trash and dead animal is likely to stir something up.

Just because one version of microbial life here on Earth has taken advantage of human trash and or the killing of animals by other animals, in no way means that microbial life on Mars (or, elsewhere for that matter) will have done the same.