Technological Requirements for Terraforming Mars

This is in depth but quite interesting, That would be sweet to see but i never will more than likely.

alright the first thing that you have to understand to answer this question is how you define life. for instance, wikipedia states that although there is no universal definition for life it defines like as '...a characteristic of organisms that exhibit certain biological processes such as chemical reactions or other events that results in a transformation. Living organisms are capable of growth and reproduction, some can communicate and many can adapt to their environment through changes originating internally.'

so if we are talking about the kind of life that you and me are most familiar with, bacteria, fungus, mammals, fish, plants, etc than there are some hypothetical solutions to the situation. now there is really 3 different conclusions you can come up with.

1) aliens do not exist, we are a fluke - this seems plausible, though our existence seems counter-intuitive because we exist and thus life forming is possible. there are literally billions of solar systems in our galaxy, and billions of galaxies in our universe. so even if the chances of finding similiar conditions to our planet are 'one in a million', there is tens of billions of unique cases of life evolving elsewhere in the universe.

2) aliens do exist, and they observe us (for the most part without us knowing) - this seems... unlikely. i know people have 'real footage', but like big foot the proof is in the pudding. there is no REAL evidence to prove they have been observing us. yet, assuming they knew how the hell to get out here, one might think they could easily evade our best attempts to notice them.

3) aliens do exist, and they (like us) are all alone - this explination is by far the most probable. we know life can exist, therefore we shouldnt go on thinking we are some special fluke. from a statistical standpoint we are the 50th percentile, meaning that we arent the first\last nor the smartest\dumbest. from our current understanding of science, even if we could somehow shut off our bodies for extended periods of time, there is not enough energy stored in all the chemical bonds of the ocean to transport a small spacecraft that far into space (relatively speaking). so even though life most certainly exist and evolves all around the universe, it is highly unlikely any of us will ever meet.

i mean really think about it. think back 250 years, the train was the marvel of man. since then we have developed a nuclear weapon that could destroy all of humanity, launched ourselves into space, figured out how the universe started, and are beginning to fully understand the fundemental elements of the universe. that was 250 years. now assuming we are the 50th percentile, there has been (many) alien civilizations millions of years in the past. what is more likely, that in the last million years they havent devised a method of letting other life know they exist, or that there is ultimately a limit to how far we can reach?

some scientist are beginning to speculate that asteroids\comets (cant remember which) could have alien bacteria on them and transfer into earths atmosphere when they pass by closely. i believe one of their reasonings is that certain pandemics in history spread all over the world (even to remote isolated civilizations) in a very very short amount of time, when world travel was restricted to a much slower pace. recently an indian baloon sent into the high atmosphere found 4 strains of bacteria that resembled nothing they could distinguish. i think we will confirm foriegn life exist in our lifetimes, but it wont be anything near as spectacular as we all grew up believing it would be.

It really depends on how you think about it. I have stated that a fluke is at least a chance and just to be fair to chances I would assume that with an infinate number of them something has to give.

I have a hard time believing that everyone who has stated (military and otherwise) there are infact ufos or that there are aliens crashing into/observing our planet are lying. Also that the abundance of videos/sightings avalible, though some obvious cries for attention, are all fake. I would say that it is possible for our Gov to be testing aircraft that we are unaware of, however i personally think that there are other crafts in our skys though rare, that do contain other than human lifeforms. So the real proof in the pudding is that neither of us have enough rock soild evidence to be deemed right or wrong.

Lets wait for the Keplers results before we make assumtions that all possible alien life is alone. Since we too are possibly someone elses alien. Also digging a tad deeper the ideas of being able to go fast enough to get from one place to another in space are reduced to the idea of bending space time. With this tech if and when avalible there will be no need to go any speed at all.

Also yes I agree look at the Technology as compared to even 50 years ago. We basically have what it takes. I think that before this planet is doomed we will have colonys all over the vast corners of the universe given a planets climate. Honestly though in my opinion I dont think that we are the only planet that harbors intellegent life. Once again it is an opinion, they already have rocks from mars that contain fossilized bacteria. So there you have it life though its a dead planet now there was at least bacteria there and thats right next door to us. Like I was saying though, these are just my opinions.

i dont deny UFOs, but i would be more likely to believe in a government with 'top secret' programs than an alien who flew all the way across the universe but couldnt quite figure out how to keep from crash landing (of course leaving no evidence behind). i dont think you understand the 'proof is in the pudding'. it means 'don't believe things without proof'.

as far as 'bending space time', it is not something that is proven possible physically only theoretically. now before i even waste my breath going into detail about the technology consider this; if this is possible, why havnt the (likely abundant) other intelligenct species stopped by to say hi? not one of them wants to rape\murder\hug\reproduce us or let us know they exist? i mean they would know ALL the species because they could instantly be anywhere right? i didnt mean to say we are 'all alone' as in there is no other life elsewhere, only that chances are there isnt any intelligent life within arms reach of us and likely never will be. and no, they do not have fossilized bacteria from mars. they have hypothesized that some microscopic images of a martian meterorite has shown structures that resemble something like bacteria... BIG DIFFERENCE

Not really that big of a difference to me. 1) its not from here
2) It resembles life elsewhere.

There are so many things that we are unaware of that happen every day, people are so wraped up in crap they dont take notice to the less obvious things in life.

There are ancient Hieroglyphics that only further credit visits from afar, Peoples testimony that cant all be bs, Constant ufo sightings, ect. So far all you have told me is that its unlikley. The problem with that is that its only an opinion based on what you know, or think you know. I happen to have my own, that would be that we are not alone in this universe that there are other planets just like ours or different, where organisims have adapted to that planet and intellegent life has blossomed. Given what that planet has to offer, Which we would know nothing about, I would say that there is a chance that they may have a more advanced civilization and may have the technology to do what we can only dream. I feel like there are so many chances in the universe that anything you could possibly think of doesnt even come close to what has long past on other planets.

I respect your thoughts...

we pretty much know aliens exist elsewhere.

But it doesn't really matter if they aren't close. If they are a billion light years a way and we find proof they exist i still wouldn't care.

I think that people are just talking about physical evidence.

i see a 100% no doubt chance that there are aliens becasue of how big the universe is and it is still expanding

100% confidence in anything other than pure mathematics is not a wise stance.

This is awesome, I was happy to see this article..

New planet