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The Quest to Terraform Mars
by D.E. Hurtak, Ph.D. (Cand.)
AFFS Corporation
Copyright
© 2005 D. E. Hurtak In August 1996, NASA scientists publically announced that a meteorite discovered in Antarctica showed evidence of previous microbial life. Analysis of the meteorite's
interior revealed the same gas and chemical ratio and composition that Viking had found on Mars, leading scientists to believe
that the meteorite (Figure left) had originated on Mars thousands of years ago, and that Mars had once harbored life, however primitive.
Although controversy still surrounds this discovery
(many scientists contend that the biological evidence in the material is not the "tubular structure of carbonates" left behind by some microscopic life form, but a set of
geometries created by chemical outgasings within the rocks), scientists do agree that billions of years ago Mars was a more hospitable place, with conditions similar to those that  gave rise to life on Earth. Viking and Mariner pictures of the Martian surface reveal dry river beds and
drainage patterns that could only have been created by water flow. This water flow was later confirmed by the Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor photos.
Today, temperatures on Mars are well below freezing most of the time, and no liquid water exists on the surface of the planet. Human travel to Mars in
the future will most probably reveal that "life" as we understand the term no longer exists there. If humans wish to colonize and eventually inhabit the red
planet, two options exist: 1) We can build space stations and underground structures as habitations, wearing space suits every time we venture out on
the surface, or 2) we can terraform the planet: introduce primitive life and transform the Martian atmosphere into a climate suitable for at least some life, perhaps similar to what it was in the far distant past.
Critics might say that terraforming is simply a human attempt at "playing God"; others might wonder if other planets throughout the universe could not have been likewise selected as the platform for life
by some "superior intelligence" that deposited a few microbiological life forms in the right places only to return every hundred or thousand years to see how the planet was progressing.
 Earth's history itself is one of terraforming. Scientists believe that carbon
dioxide (CO2) may have made up as much as 80% of Earth's atmosphere around 4.5 billion years ago, diminishing to 30-20% over the next 2.5 billion years. Free oxygen was scarce-to-nonexistent in this early
atmosphere, and indeed poisonous to most of the anaerobic life-forms that existed.2 Through some exceptional, even Divine "Force of Nature" photosynthetic organisms evolved that transmuted carbon dioxide into
oxygen. Aerobic organisms, those that utilize oxygen, later evolved, and thus so did our "perfect" atmosphere. This atmosphere not only provides
the right chemical elements for breathing, but gradually changed the earth's temperature to allow mammalian life to thrive.
The current Martian atmosphere is around 95% CO2, 3% nitrogen and 2% argon, compared to
Earth's atmosphere of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and a 1% mixture of other gases— argon, water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and ozone — all of
which (except argon) have influenced the regulation of the Earth's climate and brought the average surface temperature to a comfortable 15° C (60° F). What has become an important factor is how
these "greenhouse" gases can rapidly increase, as we have seen in the 20th century manipulation, misuse and mismanagement of our ecosystem (see Chart). Yet without most of these atmospheric
gases, so crucial to life, Earth would be a cold and barren planet, at least 12° C (over 50° F) colder on the average.1 |
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