Astronomy - Sorry, we've moved to Mars.

[luke]

since people are now heboh about Mars, why don't we discuss about that red neighbor of ours ... I'd like to pose my skeptism here: are we really going to move there if it's discovered that there are enough life supports there? It may sound superb and exotic, but isn't that revolutionary idea a bit too much? I fear the situations that are portrayed in many scifi: human race divides into two classes, the upper class go to Mars and live there in luxury, while the commoners are left on earth, which by that time is just an industrial planet - big factory plants everywhere - pollutions to the maximum - those who are left are forced to work with their safety next to none ..

[luke]

since people are now heboh about Mars, why don't we discuss about that red neighbor of ours ... I'd like to pose my skeptism here: are we really going to move there if it's discovered that there are enough life supports there? It may sound superb and exotic, but isn't that revolutionary idea a bit too much? I fear the situations that are portrayed in many scifi: human race divides into two classes, the upper class go to Mars and live there in luxury, while the commoners are left on earth, which by that time is just an industrial planet - big factory plants everywhere - pollutions to the maximum - those who are left are forced to work with their safety next to none ..

[jo_n]

first thing to worry abt moving to mars is maintaining life there. although we say that we only move if life support is sufficient there, but the maintanence will certainly eat up a lot of cost if we move sometime near future. so i doubt any luxuriant ppl wanna live there n pour away their money. second is, from my impression, i thought Mars' preceeding form is exactly like our mother planet Earth, w/ water n plant n life, just that when the natural fuels n food were depleted, that's where all life extinct, leaving only traces of microorganism behind. am i wrong? if this is true, i doubt we can live in Mars actually. of course, it'll be different story maybe in thousands years later when we have far more advance technology n science compared to now n space travelling have become possible.

[Europa]

Some stuff to correct you my friend.
Well, for the aristrocrats to move there, they'd better bring over their servants and staff, since settling there is no walk in the park. Living on Mars require living off the soil approach which is the most economical, as shown by Robert Zubrin, who's written a book about it.

It's theorised that millions of years ago, Mars posseses huge bodies of water and a thicker atmosphere compared to the present, which is most similar to the Arizona Deserts on Earth and some places in Alaska today. The part about having fossil fuels and higher order lifeforms is probably fiction, or else there would be traces of them found by previous and current missions to investigate the planet. Realistically speaking, it is profound enough to discover microorganisms on Mars of which everyone studying Mars clinging on to the hope that it is true, given all the tantalising results sent back by the probes and rovers for the past few months.

The problem now is just that any missions to the Red Planet is severely lacking in political will, which President Bush is trying to stir up(probably a political gimmick to help him get re-elected, just like what his dad has done before)

Hummanity can reach it, with mostly off the shelf mission components, but the question is not 'Can we?', but really 'Do we want to?'