Bremen Human Space Exploration Seminar

Guest: François Forge

François Forget is a Senior scientist at Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), France.

The concept of terraforming Mars has been popularized in the pop culture and more recently by Elon Musk. The aim is to transform Mars into a planet more suitable for habitation by living organisms and possibly humans (by creating a breathable atmosphere, or at least thick enough to avoid the need for a pressure suit). However, after decades of Martian exploration, the feasibility of terraforming is being questioned because there is not enough volatile on Mars. Terraforming Mars also raises many ethical issues. While it can be seen as a strategy to extend life, it violates many principles of modern environmental ethics, especially if there is indigenous life on Mars. 

François Forget is a planetary scientist working to understand the environment of other planets, particularly Mars. Based in Paris, he worked for several years at NASA in California. He is involved in many robotic space missions (Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Trace Gas Orbiter, Insight, New Horizons, etc.) and has created numerical models of planetary environments that are widely used to prepare space missions and analyse observations.

Bremen Human Space Exploration Seminar

The seminar will take place every second Thursday at 2 pm CET/CEST at the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) from 2025 during the lecture period. 

The invitation for the seminar will be send via email to all registered members of the space-exploration mailing list. You can register for the invitation here.