This re-instated what passes for faith in humanity

[--Pete]

Hi,

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.
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The distance thing is not a big problem. By the time we realistically have the technology to contemplate terraforming, we will have the technology for moving planets. Not fast, but in a few dozen years, Mars could be moved to one of the Trojan points in Earth orbit. Throw a few comets at it (dirty snowballs, rich in water :) ) and we'd be well on the way to Earth 2. Then pull Venus back to the other Trojan and snag a big (Ceres, maybe) asteroid for its moon to help get that atmosphere thinned out, and we'd have Earth 3.

Personally, though, I think we should go for a ring world (or even a Doyson sphere) right off the bat ;)

--Pete