Quote:
Originally posted by Stiltzkin
I'm pretty sure that Mars can't be colonized (at least not by humans) and that it is going to take us $1 trillion to find this out the really really hard way, but I would compare that to a kid trying to learn how to ride a bike.
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Ever heard of a little process called "Terra Forming"?
See, we send up to Mars a capsule of photosynthetic microscopic algae, or lichen, or something else capable of processing carbon dioxide into Oxygen at very cold temperatures and with less sunlight than earth usually gets. Just like every other plant it lives off the minerals and nitrogen in the soil and the CO2 in the air and before you know it (couple of hundred years to couple of thousand years) you have an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and evolving carbon-based plant life that becomes a staple of the food supply for newly arriving colonists.
Of course, that's the short form, but it is theoretically sound.
Then there's Europa, one of the Moons of Jupiter -- which we probably won't get a person to until some time in the 2nd half of this century. It's earth-sized, and has abundant liquid water benath a crust of ice on the surface. We've already seen here on Earth that life forms can develop underwater while being fed by volcanic mineral vents. There's life there waiting for us to find it. I only hope I live long enough to see it.