Water, they say

The Curiosity rover on Mars has uncovered some fairly credible evidence that the red planet once possessed a water-based biosphere:

The sample was drilled from sedimentary bedrock in an area which previous research had shown to be an ancient river system or lake bed. It was found to contain clay minerals, sulfate minerals and other chemicals. Based on the analysis of those chemicals, researchers were able to determine that the water in which the rocks were formed was of a relatively neutral pH -- not overly salty, acidic, or oxidizing.

"We have found a habitable environment that is so benign and supportive of life, that probably if this water was around and you had been there, you would have been able to drink it," said John Grotzinger, a Curiosity project scientist from the California Institute of Technology.

That's cool and all, but what does it actually mean for us?

He said the new data helps add to the picture of what the red planet may have looked in a previous era, with a possible freshwater lake and a snow-capped Mount Sharp. But it wouldn't have looked like that any time recently, the researchers cautioned.

Although it is hard to confirm an exact date, it was probably at least three billion years ago, said Grotzinger.

Oh. So the answer to my question would be "not much."

What I'm much more interested in is how easy or difficult it would be to free up the surface-locked water and oxygen in order to terraform Mars into a habitable, colonize-able planet for humans. Carl Sagan once suggested it could be done in less than 200 years with very simple biotech (e.g. - algal seeding). I think our time, energy and money would be far better spent investigating the practicality of Sagan's hypothesis. Yes, yes; microbial life forms billions of years ago. That's great. I don't think they're gonna mind if we turn the place into a park. They certainly won't be protesting -- though I'm sure we'll have plenty of micro-lobed, self-styled "exo-environmentalists" who will be more than willing to do so. After all, one thing you can be absolutely sure of is that if you build a house, you will attract cockroaches.

As for the very remote possibility that the ruins of some ancient civilization are waiting to be found... Well, even if they survived three billion years of erosion and decay, (highly unlikely), they'll still be there after we terraform -- and will be much easier to get to when we're not trying to uncover them from within the confines of pressure suits.

In fact, the more I think on it, the more I believe we should act now. Screw the "discovery" phase of the project. Let's just start dropping various algal seeding on the polar cap and watch what happens. This is reality, not a silly Star Trek episode contrived by unionized liberal scriptwriters; we don't have some retarded "Prime Directive" we have to obey. If the protestors don't like it, they can combine all their barista tips, build themselves a spaceship, and go pick up the seeds. They can christen it the USS Clueless.