Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
New Page 1
The Phoenix Mars Lander probe
is to descend on the Martian north pole with a mission to detect water and
analyze the habitability of the neighbor planet.
Some researchers believe that this is an important step towards the conquest of
Mars and its terraforming, its conversion into a planet where humans can live.
Scientists most optimistic claim that it would take about 50 thousand years in
terraforming Mars. Among them is aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin, who says that
is a moral obligation to conquer Mars. Others are more cautious. Christopher
McKay, who argues that if life is discovered on Mars awe should not be move to
attempt to cultivate that life on earth, but rather encourage its growth in its
habitat..
Why is Mars the candidate to be our second home in the universe? It is the
closest planet to Earth and has a good amount of water frozen below ground. This
has been echoed by a number of NASA scientists, including over 15 years ago by
Joseph Francis Shea, an aerospace engineer and NASA manager.
But Mars is very cold (-46 degrees average temperature) and has a very thin
atmosphere (atmospheric pressure is a hundredth of the Earth). Those are the two
characteristics that should be reversed to make it more livable.
For heat, the most viable method is to activate a process known and very
dangerous on earth: the greenhouse effect.