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Question
Is it possible to initiate a terraforming process on Mars that may one day make it more hospitable to the development of terrestrial ecosystems?
Scientists don't know if we will ever be able to terraform Mars, but this is an interesting possibility to think about. Chris McKay of NASA Ames Research Center believes that it may eventually be possible to modify the atmosphere of Mars sufficiently to allow some genetically engineered plants to grow there in the open or in simple greenhouses. But if by terraforming you mean create temperatures as warm as on Earth and an oxygen atmosphere that we or other animals could breath, then McKay thinks this is impossible. Mars is just too small and too far from the Sun to sustain that much atmosphere. Another issue is an ethical one. If there is life on Mars today, do we have the ethical right to modify its atmosphere and climate dramatically, to the possible detriment of life that already is present?
David Morrison
NAI Senior Scientist
June 9, 2004
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