This re-instated what passes for faith in humanity

[kandrathe]

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It occurrs to me (in answer to my own question during last reply to Jester) that The Final and Complete Answer (or nearly Final and Complete) is necessary to fulfill a future requirement.  If we (we puny humans) wish to terraform successfully other planets and/or moons (playing god at the local level?) we have to better understand and be able to replicate a myriad of cause and effect relationships, or those terraforming efforts won't result in habitable planets: a critical part of the biosphere will be missing.
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I had three thoughts on this; first, ala Star Trek and the prime directive, we should be sensitive to tromping around the universe with our brand of life. From the perspective of Earth being the one basket with all the eggs(heads), perhaps establishing alternative baskets is desirable.

Second, If you take Mars as an example, there are reasons that it is nearly a dead planet, so removing those obstacles(energy, water, CO2, O2, N, cycles) would help life to get a foot hold, but due to it's distance from the Sun (less energy) it would never be quite like Earth. Colonization is a far cry from creation, and much, much easier. We could begin by bio-engineering organisms that could withstand a Martian environment, or my favorite Mars terraforming idea is to smash large ammonia or water rich asteroids into Mars.

Finally, I wonder also (chicken and egg wise) whether we should begin terraforming Earth first to reclaim our own out of whack atmosphere, before endeavoring to build one on Mars. But, we might learn much from doing it on Mars first.