Should we terraform Mars?

Question

Not paying attention to cost or time or technology, the question is, should we actually do it?

Why or why not?

And those who say its not right or moral, why?

In my opnion its a (currently) useless red rock, just waiting for someone to "fix it", and utilise it for the good of people.

Answer 1

It's your call pal, go ahead!

Answer 2

no because it has no magnetosphere, it's baking in radiation.

Answer 3

I think we have a moral obligation to first make sure that there's no life there, but after doing so, then yes, we should.

Answer 4

of course we should,but the earth its still habited for life,and they should plant some plants on mars,to see what would happen.First they should calculate if a meteor wouldn't hit the mars in the future

Answer 5

I don't think we should do it until we fix the overwhelming amount of mistakes we have made on this planet. We can't just move from planet to planet ruining each one as we go. We are far from terraforming Mars, and I don't think that we are going to terraform it before we fix the problem on this one. I do think that we should terraform it eventually you are not considering cost, time or technology as a problem.

Answer 6

I think, in principle, we should. BUT - hopefully we will have learned our lesson here on earth by then that we can't just do whatever we please with no thought to how it effects our environment. To do so would make us like the aliens that attacked earth in "Independence Day."

Mars is a clean slate, from our point-of-view. There is no existing ecology (that we know of) to disrupt.

Answer 7

The "should" part of this question is truly a matter of opinion. Or, in the case that "maybe" there already is existing life there," no matter how primitive, could be cause for some people to find moral issues with earthlings "interfering" with the biology of another palnet, no matter how insignificant it may seem.

If it is a "dead planet" which I feel is exceedingly likely, I see no reason for there to be an ethics committee to make a ruling on it.

But, assuming it's a feasible process, and we can find some way to help Mars keep any form of atmosphere we can help provide it with, or make itself...  then, in my opinion, we should.  Is too much of the human process to colonize and form settlements everywhere possible.  I once considered claiming Antarctica as my own nation, encourage global warming, and then sell time shares...  not a well thought out idea, but I'm sure I'm not the first.

There also arises the issue of, how do we create a magnetoshpere?  Without it, any terraforming done would be a wasted effort in a matter of less than a thousand years.  The solar winds would be much too devastating.

The biggest issue with terraforming Mars is, it had a significant atmosphere at one point in time.  Now it's virtually depleted.  Mars just doesn't have the gravity to hold on to the lighter elements when they are in gas form for super-extended amounts of time.  Sure, we probably have the ability to start the process today.  And there would be no problem for a few generations once the whole ball got really rolling.  But *sigh* it might be something we would have to redo after a few thousand years, due to this issue with maintaining the atmosphere.

Answer 8

Its our destiny to make other planets habitable for humans. We  have to do it to survive. One day we will have depleted every thing Earth has to offer. Either we move on...or we move into extinction modus. We may have the option of depleting other planets resources, to keep Mother Earth alive and kicking. Regardless off basic life on other planets .  Only the strongest survives. Natures rule.  

Answer 9

I think we should!

Answer 10

Lets try and Terraform Earth first, once we are sure the technology works on the planetary level we will try it on Mars maybe. Then when all the pollution and atmosphere has been cleaned up we go to Mars and start building domed semi-underground settlements for people to live in because Terraforming Mars will take centuries to complete and people aren't going to want to wait to live on Mars once the technology to get them there is so easily available to them.