There's little doubt (long before these most recent & spendy Mars probes) that free/unfrozen water and various forms of life once existed upon Mars, and to think if some of those were terraform assisted forms of life, as then of natural evolution by way of whatever Mars had to offer on its own is not a factor.
There's plenty of folks stipulating that we should be going in person to Mars, actually there seems to be thousands of them, including the likes of Dr. Zubrin that perceives any to/from mission as a mere bus ride to another remote walk in the park. As for having to reside on Mars itself is apparently a no brainer for the likes of Dr. Zubrin, except perhaps for total lack of there being any local energy resource, damn little atmosphere and thereby even less possible O2 extraction, plus there's all those sub-frozen (dry-ice) to death aspects, and that of being easily pulverized to death without warning, and otherwise getting your DNA thoroughly TBI to death, plus the odds of becoming infected with some dormant but nasty microbe, that which all of the above hasn't manage to kill off, as otherwise there's no apparent fault with our spending those additional hundreds of billions if not trillions on sending those nice folks to Mars, and of Earth's environment having to expend the horrific sorts of masive energy requirements in order to make all of that happen, plus our suffering with another 100 tonnes of artificial CO2 as being generated per tonne of whatever is shipped off to Mars. Eventually (if anyone ever makes it back) defending ourselves from God knows whatever those surviving Mars microbes are going to do the rest of us should make life interesting.
I believe so far that's about as realistically warm and fuzzy sort of mission outlook for our doing Mars, whereas overall the entire mission, of its ongoing support and aftermath should only cost us a few trillion bucks and euros, and perhaps subsequently warm mother Earth up another notch or two, as for what's another global warming degree ot two worth these days anyway?
Now then, if it's so supposedly doable as to getting folks to/from Mars, and worth all of that trouble and extreme risk, then what about taking at most 10% of the Mars budget as for our just doing the same for Venus, or how about at most 1% of those trillions for establishing the initial phase of the LSE-CM/ISS infrastructure on our moon?
At the very least the LSE-CM/ISS investment would provide invaluable Earth sciences, including absolutely terrific astronomy capabilities, and that of offering a darn good gateway for others going off to vist the wizard of Oz of whatever other planet. One other aspect of our doing the moon first, besides obtaining all sorts of new and improved energy for mother Earth, we'd certainly have created the necessary and ultimate safe-house for keeping all of those infected folks that somehow managed to return from Mars, and if need be accommodating such for the rest of their lives.
At least for the notion of arriving upon Venus there's no shortage of easily available energy. The thick atmosphere is absolutely ideal for rigid-airship usage, as the notion of folks skydiving or gliding below them clouds would take forever getting through that soup, and it's actually not all that hot and nasty after midnight within their season of nighttime, whereas the atmosphere below them relatively cool nighttime coluds is relatively calm and crystal clear, there's certainly no corrosion going on, plus there's already numerous structures, a suspension bridge and even a large tarmac that's situated due North of at least one township that we can utilize, with several nearby reservoirs and a nifty canyon to boot.
I bet we could trade cold bear and pizza for use of one of their rigid-airships, and if that dosen't turn the trick we could always trade off a few tonnes of pot, thus we don't have to R&D much of anything, although we may need to learn how to utilize photons for communications, as otherwise they're going realize exactly how dumb and dumber we really are, and/or how pathetically arrogant and dumbfounded our leaders have been all along.
Regards, Brad Guth (BBCI h2g2 U206251) http://guthvenus.tripod.com/update-242.htm
There's plenty of folks stipulating that we should be going in person to Mars, actually there seems to be thousands of them, including the likes of Dr. Zubrin that perceives any to/from mission as a mere bus ride to another remote walk in the park. As for having to reside on Mars itself is apparently a no brainer for the likes of Dr. Zubrin, except perhaps for total lack of there being any local energy resource, damn little atmosphere and thereby even less possible O2 extraction, plus there's all those sub-frozen (dry-ice) to death aspects, and that of being easily pulverized to death without warning, and otherwise getting your DNA thoroughly TBI to death, plus the odds of becoming infected with some dormant but nasty microbe, that which all of the above hasn't manage to kill off, as otherwise there's no apparent fault with our spending those additional hundreds of billions if not trillions on sending those nice folks to Mars, and of Earth's environment having to expend the horrific sorts of masive energy requirements in order to make all of that happen, plus our suffering with another 100 tonnes of artificial CO2 as being generated per tonne of whatever is shipped off to Mars. Eventually (if anyone ever makes it back) defending ourselves from God knows whatever those surviving Mars microbes are going to do the rest of us should make life interesting.
I believe so far that's about as realistically warm and fuzzy sort of mission outlook for our doing Mars, whereas overall the entire mission, of its ongoing support and aftermath should only cost us a few trillion bucks and euros, and perhaps subsequently warm mother Earth up another notch or two, as for what's another global warming degree ot two worth these days anyway?
Now then, if it's so supposedly doable as to getting folks to/from Mars, and worth all of that trouble and extreme risk, then what about taking at most 10% of the Mars budget as for our just doing the same for Venus, or how about at most 1% of those trillions for establishing the initial phase of the LSE-CM/ISS infrastructure on our moon?
At the very least the LSE-CM/ISS investment would provide invaluable Earth sciences, including absolutely terrific astronomy capabilities, and that of offering a darn good gateway for others going off to vist the wizard of Oz of whatever other planet. One other aspect of our doing the moon first, besides obtaining all sorts of new and improved energy for mother Earth, we'd certainly have created the necessary and ultimate safe-house for keeping all of those infected folks that somehow managed to return from Mars, and if need be accommodating such for the rest of their lives.
At least for the notion of arriving upon Venus there's no shortage of easily available energy. The thick atmosphere is absolutely ideal for rigid-airship usage, as the notion of folks skydiving or gliding below them clouds would take forever getting through that soup, and it's actually not all that hot and nasty after midnight within their season of nighttime, whereas the atmosphere below them relatively cool nighttime coluds is relatively calm and crystal clear, there's certainly no corrosion going on, plus there's already numerous structures, a suspension bridge and even a large tarmac that's situated due North of at least one township that we can utilize, with several nearby reservoirs and a nifty canyon to boot.
I bet we could trade cold bear and pizza for use of one of their rigid-airships, and if that dosen't turn the trick we could always trade off a few tonnes of pot, thus we don't have to R&D much of anything, although we may need to learn how to utilize photons for communications, as otherwise they're going realize exactly how dumb and dumber we really are, and/or how pathetically arrogant and dumbfounded our leaders have been all along.
Regards, Brad Guth (BBCI h2g2 U206251) http://guthvenus.tripod.com/update-242.htm