Monica Groover from California interviews Dr. Raj Baldev, Cosmo Theorist from India for II Series on December 24, 2007:

Monica Groover: Once you said and as I have read on the website that it is possible to use Mars for human settlement and now you said that it is not practical to form colonies on Mars even in a million years. Why such a vast difference in your statement?

Dr. Raj Baldev: “Ultimately possible for Man to settle on Mars but it is just a question of period involved. In my opinion, it may take a million years to form a colony over there despite utmost efforts by NASA in all respects.

Dr. Raj Baldev continued: “ NASA can only reduce the distance of reaching Mars by propulsion system with new technologies and may send lab either in the space or on Mars by 2009.  It shall be its first unmanned experiment to do so in terms of its traveling time on which it is working.

“ The Nature has no concession for NASA, it has to take its own course of a million years to change the friendly atmosphere for a permanent human settlement over Mars.

“No doubt there was once ample water flowing on Mars, life would have naturally been there at that time, perhaps not the species of a human being.  Whatever life might have developed on Mars while water facility was there, there is no evidence whether the atmosphere on the planet was ever friendly for existence of life of a human being or even other animals.

“Only life for reptiles like animals was possible and that would have been there, it all depends how the evolution might have taken place on this planet? Mars has many similarities but has a vide gap in the area of man’s evolution.

“The life of a human being is a result of long evolution. A question arises whether the life of human being ever existed there and then extinguished? Perhaps, it is not the case. There never was a human life on Mars despite   different claims by old Hindu seers and mathematicians and I have been listening to such guess work right from childhood.”

Monica Groover: Dr. Raj Baldev, will you please shed some light on the characteristics of Mars and be kind to explain why human settlement is not possible for a million of years? Also please give a touch of Astrology about Mars and the native on the Earth?”

Dr. Raj Bldev: “Mars is called Red Planet and in astrology, it is considered aggressive, either it freezes the mind and obstructs it in taking a reasonable decision or causes suffocation in thoughts by making it puzzled.

“Mars creates quarrels and differences, provokes to war and helps generate hotbeds between regions and countries, even elevates a person or community or country to a high position or status depending on its orbiting position.”

Dr. Raj Baldev continued: Exactly as per its nature, a native who has more influence of Mars, positive or negative, at the time of his or her birth, behaves in the similar manner, when Mars comes closer to the Earth, it makes their mind freeze and suffocate in their thoughts and decisions.

Monica Groover: “Dr. Raj, please explain some more characteristics of Mars and how you justify your opinion of human settlement over Mars?”

“ Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, the seventh largest. Its orbit from the Sun is 227,940,000 km, mass 6.4185×1023 KG (0.107 Earth), diameter 6,794 km. It is the only planet whose details of surface can be observed and easily worked out. It has slightly more mass than that of Mercury, which is the third smallest. Its mass is 0.11 (Earth being 1). 

“Mars has three important features, bright areas, dark areas and polar caps. The two-thirds area of its surface is reddish rust-brown, dry, desert like regions look to be covered by dust, sand and rocks.

“The surface of one - third area of this planet is dark, most of them show irregular outlines, and normally seen to appear greenish-gray or bluish-gray.

“The people from the olden days called this area as Maria (seas), with a strong belief that it has reserved water in that particular area. The interesting aspect is that the size and shape of these areas change from time to time depending on seasons. As the season changes, these characteristics are equally affected and they also change accordingly. To the most astonishing part of it is that its colors also change with the change of seasons.”

Monica Groover: “ Dr. Raj Baldev, what do you say about  polar camps of Mars?” 

Dr. Raj Baldev: “As regards its polar camps, they have small areas located on its North and South poles. If we observe it from the Earth, it shall give a reflection of white color of ice. As in the region of Maria, each polar cap grows and gets smaller with the changing seasons, they appear to fade away and shrink during the time when they are exposed to Sun and come back to its original position when it is far away from the Sun.”Monica Groover:  Dr. Raj Baldev, what would you like to say about the Orbit of Mars?

Dr. Raj Baldev: “ To be brief about its orbit - Mars has an off-center orbit. At one extreme of its orbit Mars loops 42.4 million km farther from the Sun than at the other. Its mean distance from the Sun is 228000000 km/141700000 miles. At its closest approach to the Earth, Mars is 78390000 kilometers /48700000 miles.

“Since Mars moves faster when closer to the Sun and moves slower when far away from the Sun; its seasons differ in length. Northern spring lasts 52 Martian days more than fall.  The surface conditions on Mars are more like the Earth's than those of any other planet. The temperature on Mars ranges from -191F to -24F.

“ Mars rotates once every 24 hours and 37 minutes. One year on Mars takes about 687 Earth days. Its Orbital radius is 9378 km. As regards its rotation, it is like that of the Earth, its tilting axis causes seasons.
Mars has two moons, Deimos and Phobos. Deimos, which floats 20,123km above Mars, orbits every 30 hours. Phobos hovers at 5,973km and orbits in less than 8 hours. Phobos rises and sets twice a day.

“Mars is much smaller than that of the Earth but its surface area is about the same as the land surface area of Earth. Mars' crust is about 80 km thick in the Southern Hemisphere but only about 35 km thick in the North. Mars' low density compared to the other planets shows that its core probably contains a large fraction of sulfur in addition to iron.” 

 Continued…..