Word: planetful
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Inhospitable as such a Red Planet redoubt would be, two years after you arrive, another crew will show up, and another two years after that, and another after that. By 2017--about the time that children born this year approach voting age--mankind's first tiny settlement on another world may be taking hold...
...Mars is back on the cosmic itinerary. Scientists at NASA and in the private sector have been quietly scribbling out flight plans and sketching out vehicles that--so they say--could make manned landings on the Red Planet not only possible but also economically practical. The hardware, they believe, is largely in hand. The funds, they argue, could be within reach. "Within 25 years," says NASA's Bret Drake, director of mission studies at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, "I project that we could have human exploration of Mars being conducted routinely...
...past decade--ever since NASA's 1989 proposal laid its half-trillion-dollar egg--the space community has been intrigued by a mission scenario known as the Mars Direct plan. Developed by engineers at Martin Marietta Astronautics, a NASA contractor, Mars Direct calls not merely for visiting the Red Planet but also for living off the alien land...
...some curmudgeonly types, all this E.T. talk is pretty brainless. Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, for one, considers the likelihood of life of any sort beyond our planet close to zilch. Says he: "The chance that this improbable phenomenon [the creation of life] could have occurred several times is exceedingly small, no matter how many millions of planets in the universe...
...Mars (where water once flowed) and the likely ocean under the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa as sites for primitive life-forms. One recent false alarm: the much trumpeted Martian meteorite found in Antarctica apparently does not contain convincing evidence of the existence of microorganisms on the Red Planet, as originally claimed...