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Comments on Planetary Parks Proposed For Mars Conservation
A set of seven 'planetary parks' have been proposed for the conservation of the martian environment by two European scientists. (Read
the complete story)
| "The article is incorrect when it states that the United States is not a signatory of the UN Outer Space Treaty of 1967. The United States, along with the former USSR, and China, signed this treaty and its descendants. The exception is the Moon Treaty of 1972, which neither the United States, Russia, or China signed. (Michael - you're right. I went to the UN site to check it out; found the necessary references here and here. Thanks so much for writing! Chief Technovelgist.)" (Michael J, Listner, Esq. 11/30/2004 9:05:20 AM) |
| "The tension between "Red" and "Green" Martians, that is, those who would leave Mars as untouched as possible versus those who would develop as much as possible, is the main underlying theme of the "Red Mars" trilogy ("Red Mars", "Green Mars", "Blue Mars") by Kim Stanley Robinson. In the narrative, a park is built in the caldera of Olympus Mons which, being at very high altitude, is of little commercial use anyway. But, the planet ends up being terraformed, thus, "Blue Mars."
The trilogy is an excellent work of science fiction and near-future social fiction, thoughtfully exploring this and many other such issues." (Courtney Duncan 11/30/2004 9:46:56 AM) |
| "Extraterrestrial nature preserves abound in the work of Jack Vance -- try the Cadwal trilogy (Araminta Station/Ecce and Old Earth/Throy) for starters." (Glawen Clattuc 12/1/2004 9:27:34 AM) |
| "The author of the article may be unaware of the works of Alan Dean Foster, which frequently deal with the need to preserve the natural beauty and uniqueness of alien planets, such as Chachalot. The author may also wish to reference Jack McDevitt, whose novels tend more toward archaeological preservation than environmental, but do touch on both and definitely suggest that portions of planets be "Preserved For All Future Generations."
I could go on, but there are so many that it would be difficult to list them all in a reasonable amount of space. The author may wish to obtain a copy of Clute's Encyclopedia of Science Fiction or some similar reference work to assist him in this." (Skua September 12/1/2004 3:47:12 PM) |
| "Hello,
Thanks for all these excellent points. A word from one of the authors of the paper here.
First, I am not sure about the comment on the US not being a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty. We do not discuss this in our article. Maybe the reader has read the article before ours (in the same issue) about the 'Ethics of Treading on Neil Armstrong's Footprints', which discusses this. Whatever, there seems to be some confusion here and this error does not appear in our paper.
Second, it is true that nature preserves are discussed in some science fiction, but this is not really a forum for systematic discussion of ideas. What we have proposed here is a more systematic approach to evaluating a park system for Mars specifically." (Charles Cockell 12/3/2004 7:34:29 AM) |
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