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A race? The only nation on Earth with the time and money to waste on such an indertaking is America. Hardly a race with only one competetor. I personally think going to mars is a stupid idea. The success rate of putting probes on mars does not convince me that it is safe to try and put humans there. We have no reason to go to Mars. All there is is desert and a bit of water at the poles. It doesn't even have an atmosphere anymore. So what possible use can going there be? Going to the moon was bad enough. But Mr. Bush wants to get people living there now. Why? What will that gain? It's just a huge waste of money. Money that could be used in rebuilding the middle east and other far more useful things.

There is a huge difference between sending a probe to mars and sending a can full of people. As I said, only America has the money to blow on such an expedition.

I believe that Mars used to have an atmosphere but something happened that completely destroyed it a long time back. Might have been solar flares. Something to do with the sun anyway.

Woodlouse, I don't want to start a flame war around here, but we DEFINITELY HAVE not just a reason but a PURPOSE to go to Mars.

We already have over 6 Billion people on this Earth and counting. That may not sound much to some people, but that appears to be too much for mother nature.

Even is we do concentrate all our money on cleaning the waters, air, and land of this Earth, we will not be able to clean it up entirely because the damage has already been done and mother nature is punishing us with ever-fearsome hurricanes, more unexpecting earthquakes, dangerous wildfires, and so on.

I think mother nature is trying to telling us to GET THE H377 OUT or DIE. i don't think nature will forgive us after all the trash we threw at it.

If we go to Mars ASAP, we can start over. We can use the lessons that we have learned in the passed and try to create a better society of humans. Not a perfect one, but at least a better and more peaceful one.

Even if any government tries to create a society on Mars or any planet, the people living in the societies will eventually try to declare independance. This happend to Britain and Spain back in the 1700-1800's

BTW, Mars is FULL of resources that are more than enough to bring it back alive.

If we had no purpose to go to Mars, then Mars would have NEVER existed in the first place because we would never go to it.

I don't think it's is to protect us from asteroids because we have Earth's big brother Jupiter doing just that.

So basically, YES. We do have a reason and purpose to go their.

The same is true for the moon. The moon is a good place for radio satellites because we want to listen more clearly for E.T. without the interuptions of the Earth's atmosphere or the obstructions of the earth-orbiting satellites.

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It is estimated that the Earth can take up to and beyond 12 billion people before we have too many people on the planet. Whats more the population growth is slowing and soon shall start to fall again. Its a big cycle thing.

Going to Mars is not the solution to all earths troubles. Mars may have plenty of resources but it lacks the two important things needed to support life. Oxygen and water.

We have no reason to go to Mars. And why should it not exist if he had not reason to go there? We have no need to go visit the sun but it still exists. We don't need to go to the centre of the earth but it still exists. Just because something exists is no reason to exploit it. The money spent on going to Mars could be put to far better use here on Earth. Whats more, Mars is a smaller planet that Earth. So if Earth has too many people at 6 billion then mars shall have the same problem. But more so. Because there is no oxygen and very little water. Earth has lots of both. It is not too late for our planet yet. If Mr. Bush hadn't stuck two fingers up to the Kyoto agreement then we would be even nearer to fixing our problems. Basically the solution to Earths problems lies here on Earth and not on Mars.

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err, the last time I did a graph in math involving the population of the planet, we have a dobuling rate of about 50 years.... That means in 50 years from now, there will be 12 billion ppl here.... another 50 years, we will have 24 billion ppl... so on and so forth...

SO

That means that in 2400, we will have 512 BILLION (+- 10 billion)people on this planet..... I am not sure how accurate my math book is, or anything, but that is what is......

And, yes, I think, that we should go to mars because it is not that dissimmular from our own world, and going by the size of it, you could probably fit 5-6billion ppl on it... that may not sound like alot, but it is.... Just think of the world (exept USA) moving there... And also that would make a great study area for looking for other livable planets, so when the population grows so much, we will have room to grow even more.

Well, just my 2 cents

It seems that some of you are forgetting a little basic chemistry . . .

Why does Mars look red?  Rust.

What causes rust?  Oxidation.

What is required for oxidation?  Oxygen.

There is oxygen on Mars, but its all locked up within the soil.  A good way to bring it out would be to send microbes that can break down the rust and excrete the oxygen.  One single rocket could bring in an ounce of the stuff and within a few years it would be pumping the atmosphere full of oxygen, with most of the planet being covered in this stuff.

After that, we could simply send out some simple plantlife (grasses or something like that) and leave it alone for a century.  By the time we got there, we'd have a planet with a primed base for culturing.

i gotta agree with woody on this, we need to sort out the problems we have on this planet before we start creating them on another.
however for space exploration and colonization, Mars will one day need to be populated, it has many advantages, its thin atmosphere means space launched require less energy and fuel so we can travel further with less. i think the main LOOOOONG term goal should be looking for another planet like earth, which could be habitable and within a reasonable distance of travel(remember this is all hypothetical and for the very distant future)
but the money that could be used on this, would be much better suited elsewhere right now.

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Try a few billion.