Re:Mars COULD hold a decent atmosphere (Score 1)

Has anybody read Larry Niven's The Integral Trees or The Smoke Ring? It basically concerns life that has sprung up in a gas torus surrounding a sun.

Just a really far off idea, Mars is right next to "the asteroid belt", would it be too far off to send some asteroids on an impact course with Mars? Not only would it "beefen" up the planet, but it would allow for easy mining, plus I believe plenty of those rocks have water and other materials that would aid in the terraforming of Mars. Though it will probably be much easier to just set up a base on Mars and do the mining on the asteroids, sending the raw materials back to Mars, the idea of building a planet using asteroids appeals to me. lordaaronj