Originally Posted By: Mike Kremer
Originally Posted By: Rallem
I think Mars is dead and will be an expensive yet important mission in learing what we will need to colonize a proper planet like Venus

[Reply by Mike Kremer]

No, I think NASA are doing the right thing by preparing for a future manned landing on Mars.
Venus has a very dense Carbon Dioxide atmosphere, Sulphuric acid clouds, no Magnetic Poles, very hot, and no water, according to Wiki.
I'd bet that Phoenix does find some earth-like bacteria under the soil. Earthlike because they were probably ejected by ancient earth Volcanoes? Or prehaps a hint that they came in from slushy meteorites, when Mars had an ocean.
If that last sentence is true, -it could mean that the DNA "molecule of life" is present throughout the Universe?
Comment and implication of that?
Its even possible that Mars might have some pockets of water hidden deep within its crust?
I'm very optimistic that positive indicators of life will be found, within the next 4 months.




First off I do agree that Venus has too dense an atmosphere, but it does have a magnetic field which simply isn't strong enough to protect the atmosphere from the Sun's radiation. It is believed that the magnetic field of Venus can be strengthened if a fast enough rotation can be attained by Venus. A question I am asking myself is if we could add a spin to planet Venus by hurling comets at it, should we do so to add a faster spin to its already counter clockwise spin or should we try introducing a clockwise spin so Venus would have a similar spin to all of its sibling planets?

As far as the planet of Venus having too much atmospheric pressure of the wrong sorts gasses, I would have to say that I think, that if comets were flung at Venus to introduce a proper spin, it would probably also add huge amounts of hydrogen and nitrogen to Venus’ atmosphere and possibly expel some of the carbon dioxide into outer space. I think that if the comets didn’t expel the carbon dioxide into outer space though and it did add sufficient spin to the planet so that its magnetic field would protect the planet’s atmosphere from further ravages of the Sun and that may help some. Also I think that if huge amounts of carbon dioxide remained then mankind could probably do something to mine that gas and use it somewhere else.