>
>Keith Knapp wrote to Mark Bloss about Back to Apes
 MB> KK> Actually, the creationist assertion that Venus is the likeliest
 MB> KK> place to look for life is simply a strawman.  Mars is easily the
 MB> KK> best choice, followed perhaps by Jupiter's moon Europa.
 
 MB> From my perspective here on Earth, Mars is a has-been, Earth is the
 MB> celebrity, and Venus is up and coming.  And I'm _not_ a "creationist".
 KK> You are of course welcome to your perspective, but NASA has to think
 KK> in terms of a 10- to 20-year time frame, and must focus on those
 KK> places where life is likeliest to occur or have occurred.
 Marvelous.  So..............  watsyerpoint?  My speculating has little
 to do with NASA, and what they do is fine and dandy - but they are not
 speculating, they are exploring and performing scientific research.  So
 what has that to do with it?  Oh, you want me to follow along with the
 interjective of what the "best choice" is for looking for life.  And
 for purely convenience-sake, Mars is best (because we can already land
 there, and it's close), and Jupiter's moon Europa, but aren't you 
 forgetting Cassini?  It will fly-by Venus on its way to Saturn and the
 close-up of Titan, with lander and everything.  But the most _likely_
 place to look to find out _how life began_ is in none of those places.
 The most likely place to find out how life began is on Venus, because
 the same conditions exist there _now_ that existed here on Earth 5
 billion years ago, atmospheric pressure et al., chemical attributes of
 the atmosphere et al.  There's no doubt that Earth's life matrix 
 _happened_, and it happened in a Venusian atmosphere, with Venusian
 atmospheric pressure, right here where you are breathing the excretions
 of quadrillions of long-gone bacteria.  And that's why one won't find
 life on Mars, and one won't find how life began on Mars - not in a 
 trillion years.  But there is the chance of actually _seeing_ the
 beginning of life somewhere - watching it happen before our collective
 eyes - and the only place in the Universe that is handy right now is
 Venus, because Venus is very nearly the same as the primordial Earth,
 Mars isn't.  Europa isn't.  Titan isn't.  Only Venus is close.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
... I wouldn't send a knight out on a dog like this.
--- GEcho 1.11++TAG 2.7c
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