Yeah right, unfortunately, it will likely turn out that the planet that we set our sights on would be the only one of tens of thousands that actually does have life on it, and we'd then probably kill it all, by accident of course.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

One of the moons of Jupiter would probably be okay, but we would have to learn more about Venus before trying to colonize.

Correct--it is impossible for an object to physically approach the speed of light. However, there are numerous possibilities for FTL travel, such as wormholes, space-time "pinching," or an alternate dimension (like Star Wars' hyperspace).

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Although, techinally, that is not faster than light, that is more of a shortcut. eh, semantics. Anyway, we still have a long way to go for that, I think we are much closer to terraforming.

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"The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness...This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector."


"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."

--Plato

Correct. An object cannot travel at the speed of light (unless trapped in a black hole's gravity well). That's what I meant by "not physically travelling at the speed of light." It's just a shortcut.

I would say that you are right, but eventually we will have to leave the solar system as well. I consider it mankind's manifest destiny to reach the stars.

__________________
"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

it would be good to be able to colonise without having to go through the genocide that has always been part of colonisation historically. certainly any terraforming would be (by definition) total destruction of the previously existing environment for our purposes. on mars or venus we might be able to argue that there was no life there anyway, but we cannot say that for sure just yet. even if there was no life, it is still destruction of a natural environment to create an artificial one.

other solar systems might have more earth like planets, and any terraforming and/or introduction of earth life would be catastrophic to the indigenous life there (whether it was intelligent life or not).

life on earth is variable and adaptable. i think there would be no problem with life adjusting to surviving on a terraformed mars or venus. there would be parts of the planets that would not be habitable, but parts that were. and if we had the technology and effort required to terraform, we would have the capability to select the right kinds of plants and animals and genetically modify life enough to allow it to survive in these new environments. the environment would not be as rich and diverse as earth, but some things would be able to survive. eventually it would evolve on its own, but this is millions of years into the future.

"Artificial enviroment" might be an exageration, since it implys a fake enviroment, but everything that is done is done with the natural elements on that planet, we'd just be redecorating the planet with it's already exisiting resourses. I can explain exactly how we would do this on Venus, with nothing removed and nothing added.

Also if there was life on the other planets, part of nature is the ability to adjust to changes in the enviroment, if they can't change, that is there problem. I see no reason to keep the status quo on any planet. We can try to live side by side with them and if they can't, sorry. Life is fluid, the living things on this planet have always been changing, the new lives, and the old either adjusts to the new or dies. We'd be the new on a new planet and the old needs to adjusts, fight, or die. That is there choice.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

I'd really like to know how you are gonna terraform Venus. I just don't see it hapnin.
Venus Revealed: Probe Discovers Extraordinary Weather System of the Morning Star
The massive clouds that cover Venus create a greenhouse effect that keeps the planet at a sizzling 864°F.

It's gonna be a minute before we are even sending reliable machines that would survive that kind of temperature.

Not to mention the atmospheric pressure is insane...
Venus

We'll do better on Mars if at all. I still say we should try to colonize the oceans before we try anything else.

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Venus,

97% CO2
3% N2
with clouds of H2SO4 (sulfuric acid)

guess what, CO2 can break into C + O2 (getting you oxygen and carbon, needed for plants).

2*H2SO4 = 4*H20 + O2 + 2*SO2 (after you put energy into it, of which a heat engine would do wonders in that enviroment).

You know the benefits of H2O and O2 in the enviroment for us, and the SO2 can be used as a perservative, a refrigerent, and can be used for bleaching. So it has it's uses too.

Also, the H2SO4 can be broken down into H2 + SO4, the SO4 is often used in lead-acid batteries, so it has a use to us as well, while the H2 can be burned with all the O2 (that came from the 97% CO2) to get a vast amount of water.

Without's it extremely heavy atmosphere, Venus would not be that much hotter than Earth, probably about 30 to 50 degrees warmer on the celcuis scale. The atmosphere is only so thick, not because of the mass of the planet, but because the gas that makes up the atmoshpere (CO2) is so heavy.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

There does appear to be ice - the main problem is lack of atmosphere. I suspect the first step would be the type of lichens that live in arctic tundra - that would make use of the ice, begin an atmosphere, and stabilize soil. I think terraforming would take a looong time - but colonizing, using bubble biomes, would probably be doable far more quickly.

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Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
Ernest Benn

The starter is going to be a moon colony though - so we don't have to deal with launching from earth's gravity well. Of course, biosphere made is clear that we will need a lot of plants per person in order to get adequate oxygen, even in a bubble.

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Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
Ernest Benn