I've been a fan of Niven for over a decade. I just wanted to take a moment to let you know I think he represents a tremendous addition to your team.

Thanks & keep up the great work!

-- Bryan S. Kehr

Thank you. I had never heard of SPACE.com until I saw a comment on SciFi.com that Larry would be writing a column for you.

That's enough to get me to come take a look. I'll be taking a look at the rest of your site now that I have it bookmarked.

-- Eric Sakara

"Who needs Mars?" We do.

If the public is romantically enthralled enough to twist open a government pocketbook for some space development, we will need all the Mars we can get.

We need to be able to move space habitats around the solar system using nuclear or ionic engines that can propel large masses more quickly than movement by light sails. To develop these engines, we need a farside moon base where test engines can be fired safely without danger to humans.

How about a near-term science fiction story based on a small band of humans and robots that operate a farside moon base where ionic engines are developed? No end of possible disasters that would threaten these pioneers and provide a story plot.

Then, if a moon base still turns out to be too close to Earth for testing really large nuclear engines, there's that Mars location again.

-- Roy Paul

Let's use Mars to do our engineering studies for the beanstalk, long-term space habitation design, radiation shielding, hydroponics under reduced solar illumination etc. Mars will allow the study of raw material mining, analysis and subsequent refining, smelting and use as building materials for space based technology.

Build an engineering school, call it the Martian Institute of Survival. Let the Martians set the curriculum and the agenda. They are the ones that will directly benefit and its in their own best interests to support and operate the "school."

When the Martians have proven they can survive and build a maintainable and self-sufficient colony, let the Martians come back to Earth. They can sell their technology to the governments and commercial interests here to support their projects back home.

The American settlers relied on a base level of technology and their own ingenuity. Some of them died, but the survivors established settlements that did not rely solely on factories in the east to maintain their survival. In time, these settlers traded their products to the eastern stay-at-homes.

If we go to Mars let us start out at the beginning with the attitude and the design of establishing a colony on Mars. Just set the general goal and recruit the best and brightest to do the work the way they see fit.

-- Miles Wade

I like Niven's attitude towards space exploration: neither vague and smarmy nor purely profit-and-mining driven. Remain adaptable -- it's always been one of our secret strengths.

Lets not get hung up on the "beanstalk" or orbital city thing. Niven sounds like Arthur Clarke in his 3001 in advocating it.

Agreed; propulsive, escape-velocity launching from the earth's surface is crude, expensive, inefficient, and sometimes dangerous. But once the ISS or something like it is finished an ever-increasing percentage of the construction, outfitting and crewing of missions can accomplished in orbit aboard the station.

As I understand it, what Mars needs is a nice "Class M" atmosphere approaching 21 percent oxygen and 70-something percent nitrogen. Let's our cues from the Rolling Stones: Paint it Black.

We could darken the surface sufficiently to warm the joint, trapping more of the sun's radiant energy release water and oxygen from the poles and rocks. Why not spray large quantities of black ash or pebbles -- just heavy enough not to be blown away -- all over the surface?

The guys who do it would invariably be dubbed "painters" or "blackers" and come to attain John Henry-like hero status. "Then there was blacker Hank Fratz who, its said, darkened seven thousand acres near the poles on one month's Oxygen ration back in the pioneering 30's on Mars."

Or how about borrowing from that American quasi-myth, Johnny Appleseed? Our "Johnny Weed Seeds" would be hardy volunteers who would sow the seeds of hardy plants that can convert the Martian carbon dioxide to oxygen.

I have an excellent candidate: kudzu is so hardy and prolific that it can start from a small planting, spreads like wildfire -- covering a house in less than a week -- can't be mown or buried, and must actually be eaten to be eradicated. What an unlikely environmental savior . . .

-- Rich deRevere