Mars apparently to be colonized not just visited

[slomo]

Just wanted to engage -- not saying you're wrong, just that I disagree.

Because this dream of colonization reflects a destructive ideology. First, it reveals a form of ultimate arrogance and hubris, presupposing that human life could actually be separated from all other terrestrial biological and chemical processes. This notion of separate identity represents, in my view, a grave spiritual error.

Odds are pretty even that our terrestrial biological and chemical process were imported in the first place. Certainly our ecosystem is not importable, but Life is. I think that's an interesting and worthy project.

There is no future for white culture in space, but there's no future for white culture anywhere else, either.

Second, it encourages a notion that the earth is somehow disposable.

Could be. I think it also reflects the notion that the earth is not a permanent home. That our Life here is incredibly fragile.

Calling it "Colonization" is definitely hubris. I'm thinking of Martian Permaculture...Cosmic Seedbombs. I also don't have a lot of funding...but you know what? That's the biggest lesson of Biosphere 2 (or the Raelians) -- it doesn't take a lot, and fringe projects can get way more done than they ever expected. I might be a weirdo but at least my plan is more feasable than Crackers in Space visions of a new frontier.

You make some valid points, but your proposed projects and associated ethical orientations assume an ideology that is a minority player, if it even has a place at all on the world stage. Big institutional exploration projects are all about White Boys in Space. Likewise, not saying you're wrong, but that I disagree, mostly from the standpoint of Science As It Actually Happens, not Science The Way I Wish It Were.

[barracuda]

However one may view the hubris of men for their considerations that their scheme of influence might pass beyond the boundaries of the planet's biosphere, doesn't it make sense biologically to consider the planet as a whole as an organism? And just as a flower sends out it seed into the world, every organism is fated to either reproduce or wither and die barren. It seems wholly natural that the biology of the planet would reach a stage of maturity and attempt to grow larger. The only question for me is whether that biology is fated, in the same way that some plants are, to mature in the wrong way, or too soon, or incompletely, and fail in the culmination of its natural processes. As my mother the gardener says, sometimes a plant just dies.

[slomo]

However one may view the hubris of men for their considerations that their scheme of influence might pass beyond the boundaries of the planet's biosphere, doesn't it make sense biologically to consider the planet as a whole as an organism? And just as a flower sends out it seed into the world, every organism is fated to either reproduce or wither and die barren. It seems wholly natural that the biology of the planet would reach a stage of maturity and attempt to grow larger. The only question for me is whether that biology is fated, in the same way that some plants are, to mature in the wrong way, or too soon, or incompletely, and fail in the culmination of its natural processes. As my mother the gardener says, sometimes a plant just dies.

Maybe. But maybe also "life", defined not as a particular biochemical system based on the pairing of purines and pyrimidines in helical molecules supported by the interactions of numerous other amine-based molecules, but rather as a complex system of interacting sub-systems each in a state of self-organized criticality, is a common feature of the cosmos, and that our attempts to impose our particular carbon-based system on other non-carbon-based or non-molecular systems (e.g. plasma dynamics common to stellar processes) might actually be its own form of hegemony? I'm just sayin'....

[Wombaticus Rex]

Maybe ... our attempts to impose our particular carbon-based system on other non-carbon-based or non-molecular systems (e.g. plasma dynamics common to stellar processes) might actually be its own form of hegemony? I'm just sayin'....

Sure. Just like cyanobacteria terraforming and oxygenating the atmosphere was genocide.

[slomo]

Maybe ... our attempts to impose our particular carbon-based system on other non-carbon-based or non-molecular systems (e.g. plasma dynamics common to stellar processes) might actually be its own form of hegemony? I'm just sayin'....

Sure. Just like cyanobacteria terraforming and oxygenating the atmosphere was genocide.

It very well may have been for all we know. Maybe that's why the Jinn hate us.

I'm not saying "DON'T". What I am suggesting is that there are many potentially unexamined ideological underpinnings of space exploration, however you envision it - what it means to be "human", what "life" means, and what our place in the cosmos is - and that it is wise to examine those assumptions, because it tells us a lot about our own present psychological ecosystem, even if we as individuals never live to see any mammal set foot on Mars.

[barracuda]

The paradigm of life as we understand it here on earth is clearly one which has parallels on other planets, Mars being the obvious case. Contained bio-states seem to be an illusion even here on earth, as populations are constantly in ecological flux, breaking in and out of the range of their abilities and natural habitats to invade other habitats, testing and poking and prodding the biundaries of their environment in an attempt to spread, locate resources, and reproduce in larger amounts. It's a reflexive chemical tropism to which we, and the earth itself, might be suseptible, despite the clear limitations of our actual carbon-based chemistry.

Having said that, I feel that a sick plant can only rarely produce viable offspring, so any goal of colonisation may be doomed to fail if it does not generate from a healthy organism in the first place.

[slomo]

The paradigm of life as we understand it here on earth is clearly one which has parallels on other planets, Mars being the obvious case. Contained bio-states seem to be an illusion even here on earth, as populations are constantly in ecological flux, breaking in and out of the range of their abilities and natural habitats to invade other habitats, testing and poking and prodding the biundaries of their environment in an attempt to spread, locate resources, and reproduce in larger amounts. It's a reflexive chemical tropism to which we, and the earth itself, might be suseptible, despite the clear limitations of our actual carbon-based chemistry.

Having said that, I feel that a sick plant can only rarely produce viable offspring, so any goal of colonisation may be doomed to fail if it does not generate from a healthy organism in the first place.

Fair enough.

[Ben D]

Having said that, I feel that a sick plant can only rarely produce viable offspring, so any goal of colonisation may be doomed to fail if it does not generate from a healthy organism in the first place.

Perhaps the plant is not sick, but its the end of the season and a natural transformation appropriate for reproduction is underway.

You said earlier...

However one may view the hubris of men for their considerations that their scheme of influence might pass beyond the boundaries of the planet's biosphere, doesn't it make sense biologically to consider the planet as a whole as an organism? And just as a flower sends out it seed into the world, every organism is fated to either reproduce or wither and die barren. It seems wholly natural that the biology of the planet would reach a stage of maturity and attempt to grow larger.

Now I tend to see the motivation inspiring SOME mankind to travel beyond the biosphere of Earth as having its genesis from the planetary 'organism' rather than being purely a human originating desire. So sticking with your analogy of the planetary organism as a plan(e)t with mankind being the flower/s, the seeding process only occurs at the appropriate time after which the flowers loose health and die. Only only a small section of the mankind gets to be the those who are destined to 'seed' the solar system at the end of the summer season, so the rest naturally have no inherent desire to leave since they form the flower itself which is destined to decay. Good news is though next spring will bring fresh flowers in superb health.

Sorry for getting carried away there...

[barracuda]

It's okay. Sometimes pushing analogy to it's fullest extent can be fruitful, I think.

If the organism is pursuing the culmination of a cycle by focusing energies toward reproduction which otherwise would be used to maintain the health of the organism, then, yeah, I can see that. It doesn't, however, appear that this is what we are seeing. In the former case, I would expect the variety of damages we see to our habitat in the form of pollution, overfishing, overproduction, waste, and global warming to be somehow channeling into a system-wide process toward the end of colonization. Admittedly, this channeling may be on a meta-level I cannot be presently aware of in any real way.

As things stand at the moment, and looking at the state of things as they are, I can only postulate that perhaps planets which evolve in a certain way create a mechanism in the form of their own destruction which eventually simply requires an offworlding attempt as a last hope of specie survival. This is the most pathetic form of optimism I can muster given the circumstances, and assuming an extrapolation of existing parameters within the system. In which case, yeah, only a few will offworld, and those few will be forced to embark by the loss of habitat here on earth. What a shitty way to have a baby. It's so much better to plan. But wonderful things do happen by accident, sometimes. Presumably that's how life began in the first place, according to some.

[Ben D]

Yes, I see where your coming from. However it is premised on some assumptions that I do not presume, and likewise you would not presume some of the premises on which my perspective is based, so there's a limit on how much of the whole we can reasonably share.

FWIW, I don't see human beings as merely temporary lifeforms, but rather as temporary incarnations of a enduring evolving 'souls'. This naturally gives me a totally different perspective in the context of contemporary unfolding events on the planet at both the personal level and the long term (beyond my lifetime).

But thanks anyway cuda, I do share with you the concept of humanity being an integral aspect of the planetary life form.

[barracuda]

Ah, well, I was basing my comments upon the premise of the OP, a colonization of our closest neighboring planet via the complex yet primitive method of encasing the temporal bodies we inhabit as mammals within a metal cylinder and igniting a compressed fire out of one end of it. Soul-colonization of the galaxies (or whatever premises you hold which influence your point of view here), is an entirely different aspect, which I'd love to hear your thoughts on.

I'm quite open, also, to the notion that mushrooms spores or other hardy and viable life kernels may be constantly leaking through the exosphere all the while we mankind live our little lives and make our little plans in the pompous, erroneous misunderstanding that we constitute the highest, most upwardly-mobile form of life on the planet.

[Ben D]

Yes I understand that, it is I who tend to expand discussions originally based on 'normal' reasonable premises to the larger 'cosmic' perspective,..can't help myself.

So far as the premises which influence my perspective on the way I understand the natural evolutionary processes at work with the dawning of the space age, well briefly mankind is only about half way through the evolutionary process though all men are not equal in terms of their present stage of unfoldment. Raises questions of elitism I know but it's my understanding synthesized from personal experience, intuition, and teachings of the mystical and esoteric traditions. But so that you know where I'm coming from, it is not I who possess or exhibit extraordinary faculties beyond the normal, but I have subjectively experienced being in the presence of such. Perhaps an analogy of the school can be used, while all students attend the one school, they are each learning the lessons appropriate for their stage of development.

For logical reasons, I wouldn't expect anyone who hasn't had a similar experience to give any credibility to that which I've just expressed so I will just hang that out and leave it at that for everyone has their story to tell which is just as essential to the whole as anothers, but this truism applies to all,... it is only through each carrying out their own dharma that will see their destiny fulfilled, not that of another.

[norton ash]

I'd rather die on Earth than move to Mars. I'm confident it'll turn out that way anyway.

[Nordic]

I know. Monsanto can genetically modify earth species to survive on Mars. Then both planets can be overrun by franken-plants and animals.

[vanlose kid]

China to send probe to Mars

Posted By admin On October 22, 2010 @ 8:17 am In China Space Power | No Comments

BEIJING, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- China has drawn up a technical plan for an independent Mars orbiter exploration project, according to China's [1] space technology expert.

The plan was based on research conducted by the China Academy of space Technology (CAST), said an expert Thursday here at a forum on China's space technology.

The project will make use of technologies developed for China's first lunar satellite launched in 2007, the expert said.

The technologies likely to be used -- including ones to boost the satellite's payload capability and exploration accuracy -- were already quite advanced, according to the expert.

The earliest possible launch date for the orbiter was 2013, Huang Jiangchuan, scientist with the CAST, told China's state broadcaster China Central Television on Thursday.

[ http://www.china-defense-mashup.com/?p=7729&print=1 ]

*