Lowell Wood, a physicist and recent retiree of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a long-time visiting fellow of the Hoover Institution, presented his 'Mars Manifesto' at the Aspen Institute flight school last week. Mr Wood believes that there is a 50/50 probability that humanity could terraform Mars within the next century. Given enough selective pressure in our natural earth bound environment humanity may elect to pursue this option.

Wood said that Mars currently is "stuck" in a semi-permanent "thermal depression." But there is a multiplicity of design solutions, he foresees, such as engineering an artificial greenhouse effect at the planet that warms the world and makes it "a more preferred planet."