Mars has water!!

[Navigator]

In case anyone missed it.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aI10wpl35qqY&refer=worldwide

Shake and bake time.

[Distracted]

OMG! This is HUGE! This means terraforming is actually possible if we can erect domes to get a greenhouse effect and heat/melt the water, keep all the water from evaporating, and then add enough organic nutrients to the soil for crops to grow. Unbelievable!

Okay... so when I'm 80 I can go visit Mars Colony. Better stay healthy, then (and invest wisely, because it sure as heck won't be cheap!)

[Elessar]

Okay... so when I'm 80 I can go visit Mars Colony. Better stay healthy

Oh yeah. Like that'll be hard Miss I-look-17

[JadziaKathryn]

OMG! This is HUGE! This means terraforming is actually possible if we can erect domes to get a greenhouse effect and heat/melt the water, keep all the water from evaporating, and then add enough organic nutrients to the soil for crops to grow. Unbelievable!

Maybe it's just me, but all terraforming this sounds awfully expensive. You'd have to get a bunch of billionaires on board to finance it, because I can't see a large-scale operation like this getting paid for otherwise.

Then there's the pesky year-long trip...

[Distracted]

No problem! We get all the billionaire computer geeks on board. You can't tell me that Bill Gates didn't grow up reading science fiction.

[blacknblue]

A lot of it could be automated.

[Navigator]

Yes, it could. And if I remember my basic science, if you could get moisture into the air, then the temp of the planet can be increased, because the moisture helps hold the temperature. Paul Allen from Microsoft is who needs to get interested. He is probably the most out of the box thinker. Also, people like him are most likely to come up with a propulsion system to cut the trip time.

[Elessar]

OMG! This is HUGE! This means terraforming is actually possible if we can erect domes to get a greenhouse effect and heat/melt the water, keep all the water from evaporating, and then add enough organic nutrients to the soil for crops to grow. Unbelievable!

Maybe it's just me, but all terraforming this sounds awfully expensive. You'd have to get a bunch of billionaires on board to finance it, because I can't see a large-scale operation like this getting paid for otherwise.

Then there's the pesky year-long trip...

Oh I see it getting financed. I see it getting financed when the caps melt and 85% of the population centers find themselves under 75 ft of water and/or without breathable air and/or without sunlight after a mile-wide meteor impact and/or after the supercaldera of Yellowstone erupts and/or after all electronic devices are made useless when the magnetic poles reverse . When TSHF (ask if u don't know this acronym), you'll see some stuff get done real quick. Soon as the survival of the superrich is at risk, we'll have a Mars colony in a couple weeks.

[JadziaKathryn]

Even I know that acronym.

Hmm, I wonder if babies born on Mars would have a hard time coming to Earth with the gravity.

[Entilzha]

Babies born on Mars can't come back because of the low gravity environment. As for the propulsion the best option in my opinion is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_thermal_rocket . Rocket engine types are at the bottom of the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_engine .

[Asso]

Babies born on Mars can't come back because of the low gravity environment.

If I don't mistake, there was a SF book, about that.

[JadziaKathryn]

Babies born on Mars can't come back because of the low gravity environment.

Really? That's rough. Also a hard sell.

Wait. What if someone lived on Mars for, say, 15 years and then wanted to visit Earth or move back? Could their body handle it?

[Entilzha]

No the muscles and bones would have atrophied too much. The up side theoretically is that in a lower gravity environment you could live longer because there is less stress to your body.

[Elessar]

Babies born on Mars can't come back because of the low gravity environment.

If I don't mistake, there was a SF book, about that.

yeah, "Stranger in a Strange Land", by Robert Heinlein.

[Asso]

Yes, but in my memory there's something else.
I don't know!