Quote ="Stand-Offish"Sorry FA, but I thought that Mars had lost its atmosphere because it had lost its magnetic field which protected it from, by deflection, depletion by solar wind. Wouldn't an artificial atmosphere be blown away?'" That was the reason for the loss, yes, about 4 billion years ago, but the NASA (and other) bods, not known for being gung ho or wildly optimistic, are "confident" they can solve it, within 30 years. I wouldn't dare argue with them. They will know more once [url=http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/maven/main/#.UtM2tp5_umQMAVEN[/url is up and running. Incidentally if you haven't already - try this mars.jpl.nasa.gov/

Quote ="Stand-Offish"Sorry FA, but I thought that Mars had lost its atmosphere because it had lost its magnetic field which protected it from, by deflection, depletion by solar wind. Wouldn't an artificial atmosphere be blown away?'" That was the reason for the loss, yes, about 4 billion years ago, but the NASA (and other) bods, not known for being gung ho or wildly optimistic, are "confident" they can solve it, within 30 years. I wouldn't dare argue with them. They will know more once [url=http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/maven/main/#.UtM2tp5_umQMAVEN[/url is up and running. Incidentally if you haven't already - try this mars.jpl.nasa.gov/

I know from other posts you are not a religious man, but I think I've been chosen.

Walked in the house Friday evening after posting to hear on the CD player:
"Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids
In fact it's cold as hell
And there's no one there to raise them if you did
And all this science I don't understand
It's just my job five days a week
A rocket man, a rocket man"

Sheesh
[size=85 didn't post at the weekend as lost telephone connection (again)[/size

Its no coincidence that you keep losing your internet connection - there is a Being out there in space who is sending you these subliminal messages telling you not to send your kids to Mars and he's switching off your broadband to let the message get through.

I don't think you can decide to send your kids. In fact I'm sure as there were only about 250,000 names put forward, not several billion.

Thinking about some kids and many parents, can we volunteer them for a one-way trip?