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"I love that computer science has made mathematics into something like an experimental science. I was never all that good at proving things, but I love doing computer experiments."
- Rudy Rucker
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| Planets Made Habitable | ||
| A plan to "terraform" a planet to improve its habitability by human beings. |
This is an early reference to the idea; see the discussion below for other sources.
| On the other hand, Mars could not be made habitable without first being stocked with air and water; and such an undertaking seemed impossible. There was nothing for it, then, but to attack Venus. The polar surfaces of that planet, shielded by impenetrable depths of cloud, proved after all not unendurably hot. Subsequent generations might perhaps be modified so as to withstand even the sub-arctic and "temperate" climates. Oxygen was plentiful, but it was all tied up in chemical combination. Inevitably so, since oxygen combines very readily, and on Venus there was no vegetable life to exhale the free gas and replenish the ever-vanishing supply. It was necessary, then, to equip Venus with an appropriate vegetation, which in the course of ages should render the planet's atmosphere hospitable to man. |
| From Last and First Men,
by Olaf Stapledon. Published by Not known in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the red weed described by HG Wells in his 1898 novel The War of the Worlds; the word terraform was coined by Jack Williamson in his 1941 short story Collision Orbit.
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Planets Made Habitable-related
news articles:
- Nuke Mars To Terraform It, Says Elon Musk
| Mercury Capsule Ablative Shielding |
| Heinlein And Russian Quail In Orbit |
| Space Construction Tools For Large Structures By OAC |
| Comercial Airlock 'Bishop' Now On ISS |
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