New Mars Forums

Maybe the coming Islamic Caliphate of Western Europe will have the will and the resources to do the job. I doubt that such a society would attract many potential female colonists with valuable skills, but women's opportunities would probably be severely restricted in a colony living under Sharia law anyway.

I would actually welcome it. I'd rather see the Islamic world focus its collective energies on turning Mars into a Mohammedan paradise than endlessly wasting its time blaming the West for all its problems.

I'd think that Martians would get so heartily sick of seeing reds, browns, and yellows outside their windows and faceplates that they'd gravitate toward blues and greens.

It might also be seen as a political gesture of solidarity with Earth. That is, if Martians politicize everything like we do.

I'm an Olympian pagan, and I would love it if a pagan community took root on Luna or Mars.

Mount Olympus is a obviously a place here on Earth, but theologically I view it in the same way that Christians used to believe their Heaven really was up in the sky.

The Gods and Goddesses rule the Universe in my religion. Mars, Earth, anywhere.

Community is nice, but I rather like the term 'Dominion' better. 

Cobra, when you made that comment it reminded me of the "Frosted Mini-Wheats" breakfast cereal commercial.   

Carl Sagan had mulled a similar idea decades ago. However, I believe I read in one of his books ("Pale Blue Dot"?) that the Venusian atmospheric circulation patterns would drag such organisms down to the scorchingly lethal near-surface environment. Also, water is virtually non-existent anywhere on Venus, making it extraordinarily difficult for the terraforming organisms to reproduce in any quantity.

That's one of the reasons I'm pagan. I can't accept atheism, but I can't accept Abrahamic monotheism either.

What man ever gave birth to anything? So how could an emphatically male deity create the Universe?

A Mother Goddess makes plenty of sense to me. :;):

This worldview depends on faith, of course. I know that there is no ironclad logical argument I could make for it.

Personally, I think the eventual Martians will be mostly Chinese. China will never be seen as a Superpower, in the truest sense of the word, until it creates a 'Wonder Of The World'. The only way to do that, in my opinion, will be to outdo the historical exploits of the American space program.

Think the PRC won't feel that it has something to prove in 50 or 100 years? I think you're wrong. The Chinese ascendency is here, and it will affect everything.

I also hope, however, that some Westerners establish colonies on Mars and elsewhere beyond Earth.

On the question of independence, I don't believe Martians will ever successfully rebel against Earth. Kim Stanley Robinson's books aside, it would be ridiculously easy for Terrans to persuade the different nationalities that their best interests lie in the status quo. All you'd need to do is expose the separatists' radical agenda, and I believe that the people will reject them. I believe that supporters of independence are greatly underestimating the degree of suspicion, if not hostility, which may also exist between the colonies.

Don't even get me started about Earth's national and corporate military advantage. Martian cities are just too vulnerable in the event of armed conflict. Even if a rebel army can hide out in the southern highlands for a time, so what? I think that corporate mercenaries and national troops will be able to maintain order while the rebels are exterminated.   

I must say that I also disagree with the notion that native Martians, having lived comfortably in habitats all their lives, will just roll over and basically give the terraformers a blank check...and the power to shape everyone else's destiny.

There will be more Reds than you think, and more vested interests who support the Reds.

There appears to be a massive subsurface ice reservoir where Arcadia Planitia meets Vastitas Borealis, so I'd site the first outpost near the southern reaches of the buried ice. There's enough good science to be had to silence the critics, and enough potential drinking water to supply a city of millions.

An excellent spot for a mining outpost might be the bull's-eye shaped area where Mars Odyssey detected huge amounts of iron, hundreds of kilometers to the west in Utopia Planitia (?). I'd bet a nickel that it's a large, type-M (for metallic) asteroid impact crater buried beneath the regolith. A type-M asteroid is also chuck full of platinum group metals (PGMs), so the Utopia (?) site could yield a number of important strategic metals crucial to the colonists' survival. Needless to say, Mars abounds in iron...the planet itself looks like a rusty iron ball. PGMs are the only reason to mine the asteroid impact site.

I would also consider the southern flank of Pavonis Mons, in the Tharsis region. As Kim Stanley Robinson pointed out in the Mars Trilogy, 'Peacock Mountain' is actually the best place on Mars to construct a space elevator. Whoever controls a Martian space elevator controls the destiny of an entire planet. I'd seize the necessary real estate on the mountain as quickly as possible, by establishing a spaceport to take advantage of the equatorial location...or a fortified 'scientific' outpost if need be. The point is that the land will be extremely valuable SOMEDAY, and if your people can't bargain from a position of strength other nations and corporations will simply take advantage of you.

3700 miles above Mars, like a floating Rock Of Gibraltar, lies Phobos. It also has measurable quantities of water ice, and would undoubtedly make an excellent site for a large space station.

It's just a trick of light and shadow, Zeric. Mars Global Surveyor looked at the "face" in the province of Cydonia, and revealed it to be an ordinary mesa.

Oh, sure it will. There's just a difference between the incidentally [possibly] beneficial effects of industrial waste, and a bureaucratic program of vast scale with all kinds of implications for the culture and economy of Mars.

I seriously doubt that Mars will ever be able to export precious metals to Earth for profit.

However, mining and other large-scale exploitation of natural resources will be crucial to ensuring the viability of Martian civilization. It is that or watch everything they've built die on the vine.

I have zero desire to see bone-dry, radioactive desert be 'conserved'. Strip mine it, pave it, build a habitat on it or beneath it. My value system dictates that economic growth and a high standard of living for humans are more important than preserving a pretty view of rocks.