Terraforming

Perhaps I've been using the wrong word. You are, of course, correct in your argument. We could not fully appreciate the beauty of any celestial object without being in its vicinity. We may not even be able to do so without interfering with its natural setting. But by beauty, I didn't mean anything aesthetically appealing to any of the five sense. I meant that there is something magnificently exceptional about it which should remain undisturbed. I suppose I should have used the term exceptional rather than beautiful.

Exactly, I'm decidedly torn between feeling like you do and feeling that it just stands in the path of scientific progress, which has the potential to teach us many things in regard to planetary evolution and so on.

I'm not sure how I feel about our changing the natural order of things on an interplanetary scale. I suppose in the context I presented a day or two ago, that if this became an issue tomorrow, I would be against us changing the aspects of another planet because we still have a lot to learn about taking care of our own planet first.

I have nothing against terraforming and colonizing planets. Our species is a plague ...but I gotta say I'm quite fond of it =P. If we are ever to mature into something really great we just need more time.