Just at thought, at this resolution, you could probably do HOLOGRAPHS too :).

Real time ANIMATED HOLOGRAPHS.

Also of course the 3D specs idea, wearable head sets.

The idea of being able to vary the resolution of your display continuously up to some huge resolution is awesome.

We relay on cleartype at the moment to see many screens reasonably crisply. Presumably really high resolution displays would look much crisper.

If I look at my screen I'm using right now, with a critical eye - though it is much higher quality than my older screens, you can pick out the pixelation if you look carefully, e.g. for brackets (). With higher resolution it would probably look at least as good as a printed page in its crispness.

I think you can't really understand how much better it will be to have higher resolution displays until you can see them for real.

One thing it might do is make it easier for the eyes to focus exactly on the screen, and so reduce the tiredness of the eyes you get from long sessions at the computer.

Have you seen this - relevant to the discussion I think: http://www.livescience.com/space/090718-survivor-microbe.html Could be something like this causing the methane on Mars. And whether or not, is reason to be very cautious about possibly accidentally introducing new Earth lifeforms to Mars in future space missions, until we know what effect they may have on the planet - and perhaps also on Earth if they get returned to Earth after evolving further on Mars. (see my other posts to this topic for why I think this may be a cause for concern and caution until we know a lot more about terraforming).

Of course if you can establish with reasonable certainty that life won't spread, or won't cause inadvertent terraforming that's another matter.

But - the scientists are giving conflicting messages there. They sterilise their spacecraft to make sure no life does get transferred to Mars so clearly believe that is possible - yet at the same time are proposing a human manned mission to Mars which just could never be sterile in the way a robotic spacecraft is.

They also argue that life could exist on Mars because of similarity to Earth conditions - those very arguments also suggest that Earth life could spread widely on Mars.

It doesn't add up. If it matters whether life gets transferred from Earth to Mars, as I believe, don't go there, except via telepresence.

Don't take the risk.

Investigate thoroughly. Find out if the risks are real (as I believe they are). Then if they are real, again, don't go.

If somehow you can establish that it is safe then you can go but only once sure that it really is safe.

The thing that really concerns me is that it is a one off experiment. Once you introduce life to Mars, you can't remove it again, it is done and dusted. And it is our only nearby almost Earth like planet. It may be very valuable in some way or another at some time in the future because of its similarity to Earth, and it would be very easy to spoil it by inadvertently introducing life to it too soon.

I agree with your other reasons as well BTW good points. But for me this is the overriding reason for not going to Mars except by telepresence at our current stage of knowledge of planets and terraforming.

It's an argument for not going anywhere as human explorers where you could inadvertently start off life on a new planet that doesn't have it yet.

Telepresence is okay, same technology used e.g. for exploring the deeps of the sea too deep for human explorers to visit, or nuclear reactors etc, and this technology will surely continue to develop so that it is almost the same as going there yourself - though you would need to be in orbit around Mars to do it because of the lightspeed time lag from Earth to Mars.

You can't rule out an argument just because you don't like the conclusions, if the reasons for it are cogent. I believe the potential dangers are real, hard to quantify but a risk that one shouldn't responsibly take without much more knowledge than we have now.

Conditions on Mars are similar to those in cold Anatartic deserts on Earth where life survives, similar enough so that there is a possibility life may get a foothold there. Then once it does, life has a way of modifying its environment to make it possible to spread.

In that way just a few organisms from earth, from e.g. the faeces of a human explorer or just hijacking a ride on skin cells that flake off the skin could establish a foothold on Mars, then after the first human explorers leave, the most hardy of them could multiply and spread, carried by the wind they could spread widely and fast. Next time you return to Mars, the planet could be covered in patches of organisms derived from skin bacteria or organisms that live on human faeces, but evolved - would evolve rapidly since there are so many generations, similar to the way disease organisms evolve in hospitals.

Mars is cold now but scientists who study it think that it may be possible to make it much warmer by starting some process that gradually releases the CO2 and water vapour into the atmosphere. Life might well do that. After as short a time as a few centuries, it could become as warm as Earth nearly, with dense atmosphere especially at the bottom of volcano craters and water on the surface and running streams. The gas however can only be kept for a few hundred thousand years, then escapes and after that the planet is so dry and with little CO2 left that from then on, the planet is then an inhabitable desert (bar heroic intervention with colliding comets etc).

It would be possible to terraform responsibly, decide what you want to seed the planet with first, choose organisms that you know work well and that will spread, and create good conditions for further development. But I don't think we know enough to do that yet. Also I think the planet may be needed in the future, for the reasons I gave. Do we really want it to be an uninhabitable desert for billions of years into the future after a brief flourishing of a few hundred thousand years of life?

Can still do robotic exploration and explore Mars by telepresence. And there are plenty of places in the solar system that aren't suitable for life such as the asteroids, moon, mercury etc.

In our solar system it only rules out Mars, Europa, Titan just possibly (not the surface can't imagine Earth life would live there but maybe below the surface) and some of the minor moons with active venting - and just possibly the atmosphere of Jupiter too which is fairly warm at some levels.

A remote possibility also for the higher atmosphere of Venus, maybe earth life could survive there.

At least according to current knowledge, the rest of the solar system is likely to be fine for human exploration. Conditions are so harsh that any life we seed will be limited to our habitats (unless life evolves to be able to spread in a vacuum).

Yes I agree, it is probably only single cell organisms if there is life there, since life on Earth took a long time to progress beyond single cells, and probably only single cell organisms could be transported by meteorite to Mars.

But a single cell is a very complex thing, here on Earth anyway so it could be easily have very complex single cell organisms, and unique to Mars almost certainly if they have evolved for the conditions there - and maybe a completely different line of evolution from anything we have on Earth. And it could be wiped out before we even know it exists, we might never know what happened even.

Depends on the organism. Viruses are simple, but some single cell organisms are like huge cities with different components interacting in complex ways, a complex structure that has evolved over billions of years. If life has evolved on Mars, it is possible that it may have got as far as complex single cell organisms. .

Yes I agree. It is something I am quite passionate about.

If people travel to the surface of mars, then they are bound to introduce earth micro-organisems - plant or animal, as soon as they or their spaceship sets foot on the planet - look at how the spacecraft have to be sterilised at present.

There probably has been some transfer of life between the planets through meteor impacts, but rare and only of a few organisms.

This will introduce a whole new biota. It's like introducing organisms from one continent to another on the earth, but far worse. Although conditions on Mars surface are harsh, it seems quite possible that a few organisms will survive, maybe by getting into the ground below the surface so shielded from the sun and the reactive chemicals on the surface of the planet.

If there is any life in Mars, maybe in deep underground aquifers, it is very liikely that it will become extinct as a result of the earth lifeforms invading the planet.

Even if there is no life on Mars, this is like a big uncontrolled experiment in terraforming. Who knows what plant or animal life may evolve from it and spread to cover the entire planet?

Newly evolved Mars organisms may be viruses, fungi, and other disease organisms hazardous to human life and prevent future colonisation of the planet. After all the life would be evolved mainly from micro-organisms that live on human beings. So they may become dangerous to earth life, so that Mars can no longer be visited because of the risk of returning the newly evolved Mars organisms to Earth..

Newly evolved Mars organisms could also release gases and transform the Mars atmosphere in ways that we don't want to happen. They are bound to transform the soil and atmosphere in some way or another if they spread and are prolific.

Or they could be totally benign, improve the soil and atmosphere, evolve in ways that are beneficial to us and to the planet, and produce useful products, even fruit and vegetables etc. But in our present so very limited state of knowledge of terraforming, this isn't the moment to begin an uncontrolled and unintended experiemnt in seeding Mars with a random sample of life from Earth.

Humans can explore Mars robotically as we do at present with great care to sterilise our explorers.

There may be reasons for humans to orbit the planet by spacecraft too, with great care as a crash of a spacecraft with humans on board would be potentially a disaster. But if you orbitted above the planet and explored its moons Phobos and Deimos, you could maybe build a base on them and then explore Mars by telepresence with carefully sterilised vehicles.

Once you know for sure that there is no life on the planet - BUT HOW CAN YOU EVER BE CERTAIN - and also KNOW MUCH MORE ABOUT TERRAFORMING, you could carefully introduce a few selected micro-organisms to the planet perhaps. And establish a benign biota there BEFORE ANY HUMAN SO MUCH AS STEPS ON THE PLANET.

But there are also strong reasons for never terraforming the planet at all. If you do terraform it, then the gases are released. The gravity isn't enough to hold onto them. So within a few hundred thousand years, the gases are all gone. After that point, no future terraforming is possible again, except by heroic methods such as changing the orbits of millions of comets so that they hit Mars.

We - well our descendents - may need Mars later on - when the sun gets much hotter, and Earth is no longer habitable. It may be just the stepping stone we need in our outward migration towards Jupiter as the sun expands to a red giant. And maybe by then we will have the wisdom to be able to do it properly and responsibly.

So probably we should treat it as a preserve, and not terraform it until then, if at all wise.

There are plenty of other places to explore. The moon. The poles of mercury where there is believed to be ice, so could be made short term habitable to humans. Asteroids. Moons of jupiter perhaps - but to be very careful of course with Europa - and so on.

First may be the asteroids, asteroid mining is likely to be an industry in the not too distant future since there is no gravity well to get out of with so materials can easily be delivered to the moon or to the earth.

But, keep clear of Mars. The potential for danger to humanity is just too great to risk it until we know a lot more about terraforming and how planets work. Until we can sort out our ecological issues on Earth, then we are obviously far too young as a species to attempt Mars terraforming.