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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bonefish who wrote (888360)	9/16/2015 3:13:46 PM
From: combjelly	1 Recommendation Recommended By J_F_Shepard Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575421

It has an atmosphere. It is just thin. As Mars goes through its seasons, about a third of its atmosphere freezes out at the pole in darkness. As soon as sunlight hits the frozen CO2, it evaporates, raising the air pressure until it freezes out at the other pole. Some does erode due to the solar winds, but it is thin enough where the process is very slow. So part of the process already happens. Now a thicker atmosphere would erode quicker than it is now. So at some point the lost gasses would have to be replaced. Considering that there are plans to fly to an asteroid, break off a chunk and return it to either lunar or Earth orbit in the next few years, it isn't a huge stretch to mine comets for gasses. We hit the 'pause' button when we developed the Shuttle. We have had the technology to go to Mars for decades. Just not the will.