" It's not real research and honest reporters should start talking about it before real Mars research is looked upon in the same vein."

I agree completely, Barry, but there has been damn little "real research" on Mars for several decades - that's why Nick's White Mars hypothesis is coming as such a shock to these folks -

There is both an emotional as well as a bureaucratic need for an easily colonizable Earth-like Mars...

The idea always has been to make Mars appear as "Earth-like" as possible - and the problem has always been that when the data comes in, Mars turns out not to be Earth-like - and then the folks dependent on this view either for cash or satisfaction of psychological needs get more and more hysterical -

The other part of this idea has always been to show that while Mars is Earth-like, it still harbors no threatening pathogens - and that's why you can get statements like "Mars is sterile", and "meteorites have already carried life from Mars to Earth" supported with equal fervor by the same people, who are completely oblivious to the contadictory nature of the two statements.

They ignore the fact that there is not enough data to justify either statement; further, if you try to point any of it out to them they are oblivious to all of it - press them hard, and you'll get abuse. These illusions play a key role in their psyches - look at the amount of time and effort they spend here. These people are clearly nuts; the only question left is identifying an exact general mechanism, if there is one.

You're focusing on the Mars Society, but you're iginoring the Space Frontier Foundation, and they are far more dangerous. Now that the well financed Space Frontier Foundation attack on US-Russia ties through ISS is over, (a $30 million PR campaign was defeated, and that's about 1/10 of the $300 million that was spent to defeat efforts at health care reform) I really don't have any need to hangout here or anywhere else on the net, for that matter - and in point of fact, I should not be wasting my time - perhaps relieving life's frustrations by venting on the Mars Nuts may explain the strangely addictive nature of it...

ep