The question of humans going to Mars and living there for a certain period of time has been addressed at length in a great documentary called Mars Underground.

From that documentary, you can see that:
- It is possible to place humans on Mars with current technology
- It is possible to make Oxygen on site on Mars
- Is is possible for humans to live on Mars for a year or so and then return Earth (2-way trip)

The plan is to have 2 separate launches, where the second launch takes place a year after the first launch. In the first launch, the plan is to send some cargo as well as the machine to produce oxygen. All those equipments will sit there on Mars for a year while we wait for Earth and Mars to come close to each other again the next year. During this time, the equipments will be tested and re-tested and re-re-tested as many times as possible. Also during this time, the equipment will start producing the necessary Oxygen for the astronauts when they arrive one year later.

If the machines/equipment malfunctions, there's no worries because you can always cancel/postpone the second launch, which will carry the humans, more food supply and etc.

If all goes well, the astronauts who are sent to Mars in the second launch will remain on Mars for another year until the next time when Earth and Mars passes close by again. The vehicle that the astronauts used to get to Mars can be again used to launch out of Mars. Since the gravity of Mars is only 1/3 that of Earth, you don't need a huge rocket to achieve Escape Velocity like how you need on Earth.

But there are a few dangers though. The biggest danger so far is solar and cosmic radiation once they leave Earth. Unlike Earth, both the vehicle to go to Mars and Mars itself does not have a Magnetosphere. This means that radiation from solar storms and from the rest of the universe will affect the astronauts. This increases the risk of cancer to many times that of what we face here on Earth.

The interesting thing is that, I recently read somewhere (can't remember when or where) that there's work being done to develop an artificial shield (think Star Trek deflector shield...) to protect the crew as they fly to Mars. It's got something to do with plasma or something like that, can't really recall.

No doubt that this is going to be incredibly risky, and with current technology the health of the astronauts who travel to Mars are not certain. It has to be a voluntary thing but from what I read, most astronauts are happy to go. Heck, I would go even if it's confirmed that I would die.

I think it's entirely possible from a technological perspective to put a human on Mars by 2021, the only thing stopping us is, as always the case, money.

It's really very frustrating.

Yes, but this takes millions of years, by then we'll all be either extinct or we'll have technology so awesome we don't need to evolve to our environments.

Also on Earth now, human evolution is somewhat slowed down a lot because of our own intelligence and how we live. Unlike our predecessors, we no longer need to adapt to the environment, nowadays we force the environment to change to suit us (cities, houses, etc... all built to suit our current form).

If I were to make a prediction on what the next stage of evolution would be for humans, I would say that the evolution would be to adapt to modern living conditions. We may evolve a genetic mutation that allows us to process fats and sugar much more efficiently since nowadays we have lots of fat and sugar in our foods unlike a few thousand years ago.

Most of our other more noticeable evolutions I believe will come from our own doing, for example we may have the technology to biologically/robotically enhance ourselves long before our bodies would have otherwise evolved such traits.

Also the way our modern society works doesn't always allow for evolution by the survival of the fittest like it did long ago. For example, in the animal kingdom, a genetic mutation that causes weak bones will eventually disappear from the species because the stronger animals will kill/abandon the weaker ones and won't mate with them.

But in Human society, we do the opposite instead. We still care for/develop feelings for/mate with Humans that have disabilities or genetic pre-disposals to certain diseases and still allow them to have children who might inherit that same "bad" genes. We develop treatments that allow the affected people to lead a normal life despite the weaknesses. So this leads to evolution not happening in humans the way it did a long time ago. The weakness remains, just that it's suppressed by technology.

Which is why intelligence rocks, because we can piss on nature's face and call it's momma fat... and we'll still be fine until global warming kills us all lol...

If there's intelligent life on Mars, the first question that would come to most people's mind is:
1. "Is it a threat?" which is then followed by
2. "If we fight, can we win"

If the answer to both questions is a yes, then we can say that humans will still colonise Mars if it's urgent that we do so because we know we can handle any threats. If it's bacterial life, then I would say that the best option would be to do limited colonisation and/or preservation of the native Martians.

Venus is insanely hot, so the chances of finding life there is slim. It's too close to the sun and has an atmosphere of nearly all carbon dioxide, causing severe global warming there.

Other plantets wise, we have found several planets that seem Earth-like or also called "Super Earth". There are planets that look like Earth but are many times bigger and have much stronger gravities.

I'm not sure if these Super Earth's contain water and oxygen though...

This post has been edited by DeniseLau: Oct 28 2009, 12:00 AM

Dude what are you talking about? There's no "March" in that article, there's only "Mars".

The Mars Underground
History Channel's The Universe Series
PBS Nova The Elegant Universe

If the sun suddenly disappeared, it would take roughly 8 minutes before the sky goes dark, a few seconds later Earth will loose it's orbit and start hurtling into the universe.

Eventually most of us will die of extreme cold and hunger. There will be a new eternal ice age. Power plants will continue to work for a while, until the water that feeds them freezes up, then those too will die. Diesel power plants may work for a while longer than the rest, until we run out of diesel or the diesel too freezes up.

But there will be fights and desperate attempts by people to get heat. Cities will burn.

In time we'll be pelted from the skies by asteroids that are now free from it's own orbit. Jupiter can't suck in all of them, most will roam free and many will hit us.

Finally, humans will be extinct (unless we had already invented Warp drives lol).

Can't really say that we're in an infant stage. If those microbes were as intelligent as us, they will be thinking that they're in an infant stage because they need Methane to breathe...

It's just that we evolved in a different environment, so we need this kind of environment everywhere we go.

Actually I think it is possible to achieve absolute zero. If we take atoms, the "temperature" of the atom is determined by how much kinetic energy the atom has. So if you can slow down the atom, the temperature drops. And if you can hold the atom fixed with no movement at all, then you get absolute zero.

There's a technique called Laser Cooling where they trap atoms using multiple lasers. The multiple lasers create a sort of cavity where the beams meet, and they can slowly bring the atom to a stationary (or almost) state.

Gravity is a form of force. As for the question of what exactly causes the force, there's no real explanation if I'm not mistaken. There's a theorised particle called the Graviton that causes gravity (it's pure theory). Wikipedia has a good explanation on the Graviton.

Also I suggest this documentary if you'd like to know more: PBS Nova The Elegant Universe
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

As for the question of "should we live out there"? My personal answer would be yes, definitely. Living on another planet is more or less like migrating from Malaysia to Australia with a few extra challenges. You still give up your citizenship and you become the resident of a new place. After that, you life will still go on even if Malaysia were to suddenly sink into the ocean. Your life is not tied to the geographical location of your origin.

All of us, regardless of race originated in south eastern Africa, yet today most of us outside Africa are not really attached to nor concern about Africa. It will be the same case as we spread through the universe, future generations born in distant worlds wouldn't be that concerned about Earth.

For me, the purpose of our existence is not merely to exist. If it were like that, it's a horrible waste. I think that whatever the "real" purpose may be, for us our purpose should be to pursue understanding of everything around us. I would like to see us in a Star Trek-esque future or a Battlestar Galactica-esqu future where our civilisation spans multiple worlds and where we as a civilisation are actively aware of our goals (the pursuit of understanding) and we actively engage in attaining those goals.

Right now, the state of most peoples lives is such that they study until they're about 25 years old, then they work for another 30 years so that they can sustain their lives and the lives of their offspring during that 30 years and for another 30 years after.

The majority of the human race doesn't go much beyond that and it's incredibly sad. If I were an alien and I observed this, I would conclude that humanity is just a very highly evolved animal.

Eventually I hope, things would change. Perhaps when we're all far more educated and when we have machines to do for us everything we need, we may then be able to dedicate our lives wholly to the pursuit of understanding the universe.

This post has been edited by DeniseLau: Oct 30 2009, 10:45 PM

That in itself is evolution.

The very act of evolving itself has evolved.

Initially evolution was about us adapting to the surroundings, now evolution is more in the mind. We're evolving now faster than ever, but our evolution now is judged by how much knowledge we can gather and how fast we can apply it.

Biological evolution may have slowed down, but our minds are racing.

Eventually, I believe that we will use technology to evolve biologically. Even as we speak, there's many different researches being done to improve our biological systems. One of the most attractive ones to me is the research being done to prevent cellular damage that will result in perfect restoration of our bodily cells. Meaning we can live much much longer. Another interesting thing is transhumanism. Where eventually we'll supplant our biological form with electronics.

No, what I meant by that was that we're evolving more in terms of how much we learn and stuff. Perhaps I shouldn't call it evolution... it's a bit misleading.

From what I know about evolution, the process doesn't work to suit our environment specifically. It's random.

Let's take a fictional scenario. Imagine we had lots of monkeys a long time ago living in Siberia and none of them had eyes. Then due to some accidental mutation in their genes, one of the monkeys was born with an eye. In modern terms, we would call this "cacat", but it's actually evolution.

Now because this monkey has an eye, it is able to hunt better, avoid predators better and become much stronger than the other monkeys. So obviously this monkey becomes the big boss in the group and gets to mate with all the lovely female monkeys.

And it's offspring will also carry the same genetic mutation that he had, so all of it's children will also have an eye.

Then lets say after many thousands of years (now all monkeys has an eye), another random/accidental mutation occurs. This time, the newly born monkey is born with fur-free skin. But unfortunately for this monkey, the environment that it lives in (Siberia) requires that monkeys have thick furs to live. So eventually this monkey dies and that puts an end to that particular evolutionary chain.

Then again, we fast forward another million years and now yet another random/accidental mutation occurs, this time the new monkey born has 2 eyes instead of one. This allows better depth perception for this monkey and hence this monkey is even better at hunting and staying alive. Eventually as this one mates with other monkeys, all it's offspring will also have the advantage of 2 eyes and so on the story goes...

So the way evolution works is that random things keep happening, and only those random things that suit the environment and gives an advantage in the environment actually gets to stay on.

The reason this doesn't work as easily with humans is: imagine that monkey born without furs, if it was human, it's parents would have given him animal skin to wear as an alternative. And it will also have fire to keep it warm. So instead of dying and just ending an entire evolutionary chain, the hairless monkey instead continues to live.

If I'm not mistaken, the correct way to relate those words is:

Genetic mutation that helps us adapt to the environment is evolution.

Mutations are random changes in our DNA that affect how our body works. If we take DNA, there are 4 chemicals that form a DNA double helix structure, it's called:
- adenine (A)
- cytosine (C )
- guanine (G)
- thymine (T)

So lets take a very simple look at how it works. Remember, this is just a simplified example, not necessarily the actual mutations.

Say the first generation of monkeys have a sequence like this: TAATGCCGAACCG

After thousands of years, one of the new monkeys born has a mutation which changes the sequence to: TAATGCCTAACCG

Note that the underlined chemical has changed from a G to a T. This is a random mutation that happened over many thousands of generations of monkeys.

For our example, let's say that this mutation causes the monkey to have eyes. With eyes, the monkey can now hunt better, run away from predators better and look for mates better. So with eyes, the monkey is able to adapt to it's environment better. As the monkey mates, it's children will also have eyes, which also helps them hunt, escape and mate better. Eventually, monkeys with eyes will be the dominant species and in the end, all monkeys will have eyes. This whole process is called evolution.

This is also why a lot of people disagree with evolution. They believe that thing's cannot just randomly happen and those mutations must be caused by some higher power. But we can see things randomly happening all the time, lots of people who are born with disabilities are results of random mutation. Whenever you read stories about babies being born with 2 heads or 4 hands or etc, it's all due to random mutation.

So going back to TS's topic of living in space, we can't just dump babies in Mars and expect them to evolve to live in Mars, they'll die. Those babies have evolved for about 200,000 years to be perfect for life on Earth, so they're not much different from us.

For us to evolve for life on Mars, we must put millions of people on Mars and let them mate and maybe thousands of generations later, there *might* be some Mars-friendly-mutation that allows some of the babies to adapt better to life on Mars.

This post has been edited by DeniseLau: Nov 1 2009, 10:14 PM

I don't think he means us evolving to live in space, more like us being able to create fantastic technologies that can make Earth-like environment in space easily (i.e. Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Universe).

Perhaps we would be able to achieve this pretty quickly within the next 2 - 4 centuries or maybe even faster. In 1000 years, I hope that humanity would be able to develop massive starships that has entire climates in it... stuff like huge lakes, cities and other Earth-like amenities.

Such a vessel would be cool for long distance journeys to colonise distant star systems or to travel far for research and exploration. Star Trek fans --> the kind of ship I'm describing is the one that the inter-galactic alien race, The Hive, had in Objective Bajor, but with more Federation-esque design and interior, instead of a biological ship. lol.

This post has been edited by DeniseLau: Nov 11 2009, 02:57 PM