Wanderlust: Kayoed

The Solar System is comprised of the Sun, Jupiter, and other debris of creation. A portion of the debris are called planets; these are broadly classified as Gas Giants (Jupiter Saturn Uranus & Neptune ), and Terrestrials  (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars).

A planet usually has reasonably well-defined orbit. Smaller bodies have a well-defined orbit too, but are more liable to suffer perturbation from larger bodies. These smaller bodies are either comets, or asteroids.

Wikipedia has a great article on meteorites This article defines a meteorite as below

A meteorite is a solid piece of debris, from such sources as asteroids or comets, that originates in outer space and survives its impact with the Earth's surface.

But there are also the rare meteorites that may have originated on Mars. The wikipedia  article on Martian meteorite writes to say

On October 17, 2013, NASA reported, based on analysis of argon in the Martian atmosphere by the Mars Curiosity rover, that certain meteorites found on Earth thought to be from Mars were actually from Mars.

This raises a few questions in my mind

a. Do these martian meteorites contain significant quantities of extra-martian particles? (E.g. Those that belonged to the original asteroid/meteorite which impacted Mars, OR those that were collected during the course of it's journey through space)

b. How much velocity, and mass would the original meteorite have had to impart escape velocity to the rock? Is it possible to formulate these figures & say if a comet has mass X, and velocity Y it may impart escape velocity to Z mass of the impacted body?

Is Terraformation a pipe-dream?

With all the hullaballoo going in with the Space Program lately, the subject of terraformation in the context of Mars could not fail to crop up. There is a general misconception about the term itself - Terraforming is not about making the target body identical to Earth. 'Terraforming' refers to the sustainable transformation of a place into one suitable for habitation by Earthlings.

Typically mentioned candidates are Mars, Venus, and Europa. Albeit perhaps some asteroids may be legitimate candidates too.

Earth's ecosystem is fragile.

Organic & inorganic participants - flora, fauna, physics, chemistry, biology, time; All contribute.

It is difficult to imagine an isolated part, or parts - bacteria/animals/plants/chemicals maintaining a balance without being complemented by the rest of that environment. If complemented adequately (we may be talking biochemistry here) the systems may conceivably take off on unexpected scale in an unexpected direction. Perhaps one way to control terraformation from going badly wrong is to keep the program uniform, and in strict check.

Should terra-formation be common to all targets?

Is it possible to define something like a process/framework like -
1. Determine composition of atmosphere, and soil (leave in-depth exploration the colonials)
2. Thoroughly map the surface contours
3. Determine the critical path for terra-formation E.g.
    - Change atmospheric pressure (increase/decrease surface temperatures) if required
    - Determine the existence of indigenous macro organisms, and value thereof
    - Introduce/Induce the water cycle
    - Transplant workers (robots, bacteria, viruses) to get to work at the microscopic level

Every planet, to our present knowledge, is unique. Given that so simple a macro as the water-cycle is barely in control here on terra-firma; Is terra-formation, at our present levels of technology a pipe-dream?
If not, what would make a suitable test-bed for theory before attempting to put it to practice millions of miles away?

The world seems to be going crazy about Mars. If one is to believe news reports now India too has joined the bandwagon! Since the 1960s there have been over 30 missions focussed on Mars. Admittedly this span of 50 years has seen technology change, and therefore improved our knowledge as also perhaps our path-finding skills.

The question is this - Do we, as nations, duplicate, ... and duplicate redundantly, each other's efforts by building independently?

Apart from incomplete understanding, and one-upmanship between space agencies - what stands in the way of an international consortium to chalk out, develop, and execute missions to bodies in the solar system?