TERRAFORMING [6c]
Spring 2013. The Mars One project solicits candidates for their proposed settlement on Mars. Over 200,000 people apply for the chance to be the first humans to colonize the Red Planet. Only 24 will be selected. None are expected to return.
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“The Mars One mission is a very ambitious mission. They’ve canvassed the whole world’s aerospace contractors and tried to make heavy use of the experience on the space station, where they’ve made living modules. Those same modules can be brought to Mars and support human life.” – John Brandenburg, Ph.D. |
Scientists are testing working models of living quarters for Mars, such as NASA’s Deep Space Habitat. Engineers designed these pods to be constructed remotely, before humans arrive. Once built, the habitats will supply oxygen and water and minimize the harmful effects of atmospheric radiation to humans. Yet even these engineering feats won’t allow humans to live on Mars for extended periods of time.
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“We have tried experiments with actually making a survivable environment in a pod, and it seems to be very, very hard to do for a very long scale. If we want long-term habitation on Mars and colonization of Mars, personally, I vote for terraforming.” – Michael Dennin, Ph.D. |
Terraforming is the process of turning an environment unsuitable for human habitation into one that mankind can live in. Scientists are currently researching the various ways we might someday terraform an entire planet.
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“When you think about terraforming Mars, the key, really, is getting a dense atmosphere that forms protection from the radiation from the sun, makes the temperature really high enough, and gets things going with plant life and oxygen. So, one question is, where do you get that denser atmosphere? Couple of options: There is various amounts of gases trapped in the polar caps, so you can imagine melting those, releasing the gas.” – Michael Dennin, Ph.D. |
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“Terraforming another planet is a very, very long-term prospect. Now, if we were going to terraform Mars to make it more Earth-like, we can think of ways of doing that. We can seed it with microbes that might produce a thicker atmosphere. You can dramatically modify conditions on a planet by suitable intervention, and Mars would seem to be a good one to do it for. Mars was once much more Earth-like. Perhaps we could bring it back, make it more Earth-like again.” – Paul Davies, Ph.D. (Theoretical Physicist / Astrobiologist, ASU) |
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“Earth’s early atmosphere and Mars’ present atmosphere, in composition, are very similar. Earth had a lot of water vapor, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. That’s what Mars’ atmosphere consists of.” – John Brandenburg, Ph.D. |
Ancient Astronaut Theorists propose that if humans are planning to one day give Mars a breathable atmosphere, extraterrestrials may have done the same thing with Earth, millions of years ago.
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“There’s a distinct possibility that the Earth could’ve been terraformed. When you look at the development of Earth, what you see is that, at every stage, the planet got exactly what it seemed to need to develop into this beautiful blue world that we live on. When we needed oxygen, there was bacteria introduced into the ecosystem that actually sucked up carbon dioxide and methane gas and-and pumped out oxygen.” – Michael Bara (Author, The Choice), |
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“We’re looking at what Mars is, and we’re thinking of trying to build an atmosphere and everything else. And the first question you’d have to ask yourself is: Did extraterrestrials come here and do the same thing?” – George Noory (Radio Host, Coast to Coast AM) |
But how did our planet, that was once devoid of oxygen, turn into the lush green world we know today? Scientists have struggled for years to discover just how Earth became habitable.
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“There’s always been a problem about life on Earth. Did it actually start here on Earth, or come here from somewhere else? There’s no known transition from non-life to life that we can all agree on. Seeing as we don’t know how life began, it’s up for grabs. But we know, on Earth, it was microbes that made the oxygen atmosphere.” – Paul Davies, Ph.D. (Theoretical Physicist / Astrobiologist, ASU) |
Although scientists agree that Earth’s oxygenated atmosphere most likely can be attributed to the presence of microbes, many theories exist as to where exactly these organisms came from. One intriguing speculation that has caught the attention of Ancient Astronaut Theorists involves grooved metal balls called Klerksdorp Spheres. These mysterious round objects were found scattered in mineral deposits in South Africa that date back 3 billion years.
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“There are people that argue that these spheres are natural, but there’s really no natural objects that bear any resemblance to them at all. And the fact that they’re buried in rock that is so old indicates that somebody sort of scattered them throughout the planet. They appear to be metallic, constructed spheres in which you could have placed bacterial life that would definitely have been able to then spill out into the ecosystem, multiply, divide, and change the environment, exactly as we’re proposing to do on the planet Mars.” – Michael Bara (Author, The Choice), |
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“We might say that this is just a natural occurring thing on Earth, but this may be evidence that Earth was seeded by some kind of bacteria or microbes brought here and what we have today has been purposely created by beings with tremendous powers and knowledge.” – David Childress (Author, Technology of the Gods) |
Did extraterrestrial beings introduce organisms to Earth that started life, just as humans may someday do to Mars? If so, could our ancestral origin actually come from another planet in the galaxy? The answer may be right in front of us, lying within the physiology of our own bodies.
Previous: The Drake Equation | Next: Humans are Not from Earth
References:
[1] Prometheus Entertainment. (2015). Ancient Aliens: Season 8. [DVD Back Cover]. Los Angeles, CA: A&E Networks, LLC / History™.
[2] History™. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.1 – Aliens BC.[Episode Description]. Retrieved: July 24, 2015, from http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/season-8.
[3] History™. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.2 – NASA’s Secret Agenda. [Episode Description]. Retrieved: July 31, 2015, from http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/season-8.
[4] History™. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.3 – Aliens & Robots. [Episode Description]. Retrieved: August 7, 2015, from http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/season-8.
[5] History™. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.4 – Dark Forces. [Episode Description]. Retrieved: August 14, 2014, from http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/season-8.
[6] History™. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.5 – The Alien Evolution. [Episode Description]. Retrieved: August 21, 2015, from http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/season-8.
| [7] History™. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.6 – The Other Earth. [Episode Description]. Retrieved: August 28, 2015, from http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/season-8.
[7a] Prometheus Entertainment. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.6 – The Other Earth. [DVD Footage: Introduction]. Los Angeles, CA: A&E Networks, LLC / History™. [7b] Prometheus Entertainment. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.6 – The Other Earth. [DVD Footage: The Drake Equation]. Los Angeles, CA: A&E Networks, LLC / History™. [7c] Prometheus Entertainment. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.6 – The Other Earth. [DVD Footage: Terraforming]. Los Angeles, CA: A&E Networks, LLC / History™. [7d] Prometheus Entertainment. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.6 – The Other Earth. [DVD Footage: Humans are not from Earth]. Los Angeles, CA: A&E Networks, LLC / History™. [7e] Prometheus Entertainment. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.6 – The Other Earth. [DVD Footage: A Lost Paradise]. Los Angeles, CA: A&E Networks, LLC / History™. [7f] Prometheus Entertainment. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.6 – The Other Earth. [DVD Footage: Inner Earth]. Los Angeles, CA: A&E Networks, LLC / History™. [7g] Prometheus Entertainment. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.6 – The Other Earth. [DVD Footage: Dark Matter]. Los Angeles, CA: A&E Networks, LLC / History™. |
[8] History™. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.7 – Creatures of the Deep. [Episode Description]. Retrieved: September 4, 2015, from http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/season-8.
[9] History™. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.8 – Circles From the Sky. [Episode Description]. Retrieved: September 18, 2015, from http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/season-8.
[10] History™. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.9 – The Alien Wars. [Episode Description]. Retrieved: September 25, 2015, from http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/season-8.
[11] History™. (2015). Ancient Aliens: 8.10 – The Forbidden Zones. [Episode Description]. Retrieved: October 9, 2015, from http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/season-8.
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