Hell, if we’re going to move the planets around, why not just put Venus and Mars in Trojan leading and trailing points of Earth’s orbit?
Within a few hundred years, Mars gets habitable. Venus would take a bit longer, but we would help it out in various ways.
Man I wish I would live to see that.
According to this Mars is fairly sopping with water. I say we do a manned mission now!
I once read Mars being described as “flash frozen” just add heat and poof! Instant viable planet.
Where do I make a donation to help cover the entrance fee? 
I’m with you, but with our deficit increasing and the war on terrorism taking front seat right now I’m afraid that people will not be going to Mars any time soon. NASA will surprise me if they land a manned mission on Mars within 20 years.
We can’t even get back to our own Moon right now!
Sheesh.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… the future of the US space program is in Private Industry.
Once we can clear up the monopoly on space launches and such that the US gov’t keeps in place, things will get interesting quick.
Private enterprise would be better off utilising the nesources closer to the Earth- the Moon, and Near Earth Objects…solar power collectors could be established, either on the moon or in orbit-
(I particularly favour the L1 lagrange point)-
and power could be generated to replace the shortfall from vanishing fossil fuels.
Colonising and terraforming Mars is going to be a long slow process- especially if there is a shortfall of carbon dioxide-
so it would make sense to establish an energy economy in Near Earth space first…
that’s resourses not nesources
heh heh
Why does everyone always assume that the alien microbes will wipe us out? Why wouldn’t our alien immune system wipe them out?
If we find microbes that could be a reason to abandon terraforming- the microbes perhaps should be left to develop by themselves
in a billion years or so they might develop into an intelligent race and join humanity in the intelligent universe…
the microbes could even have their evolution accelerated by statistical genetic metods and new lifeforms produced to join us in the exploration of the galaxy-
it is unlikely that the microbes would be dangerous, but it is possible- and our unaided immune systems would be unprepared for such alien organisms.
Or perhaps the two ecologies could be integrated , by design or accidentally- here is a story about competing ecologies that did not sucessfully integrate.
eburacum45- I think it would depend on what else we found out. What if those microbes are the last residual life on an almost dead planet?
Pesonally, I would like to see a hybrid of Martian and Terran plants if that is the case. Make something unique to Mars.
But even if that’s not possible, I honstly have to say that, other than a few “game reserves” and “national parks” I think that the terraforming of mars should go ahead… that much land is almost invaluable.
To me, my genetic heritage (my kids, etc) is more important than a microbe on Mars.
Have you seen this?!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/244498.stm
http://www.spaceislandgroup.com/home.html
GOM: There have been plenty of private ventures started up to access space. None of them have come close to even doing something like a Mercury ballistic launch. One of the efforts that recently folded spent 240 million dollars and didn’t even get to the point of flying a prototype.
I’m as big a proponent of the free market as you’re likely to find. But I’m also a realist. Private initiatives in the reasonably near future are going to be limited to satellite launch, like the Pegasus rocket, or piggybacking on government missions, like the Russian ‘tourist in space’ program.
Totally private space hotels are decades away, barring a breakthrough in cost to orbit.
That’s not to say we might not see some really cool private ventures. One of the neater ideas I saw was to launch a payload of micro-rovers to the Moon (say, 100 rovers the size of an R/C monster truck toy), and then charge people to be able to drive them remotely, even over the internet. And a smaller membership fee could get you the ability to browse all the real-time ‘rover cams’. Research programs and colleges could be major funding partners, and could lease extended time on rovers for research programs.
You could make additional money in lots of creative ways. For example, they could sell ‘moon burials’, where a small packet of ashes of a loved one could be sent to the moon for $1000 or something. Corporate sponsorship on the web sites or on the rovers themselves, etc.
The Mars Pathfinder web site received 100 million hits during the few weeks the rover was sending back photos. If they could have charged a dollar a hit, it would have paid for the whole mission. That got a lot of people thinking about how to make money from low-cost space programs.