I was thinking more about Hoagland and the Face(tm) yesterday and wondered where he would even get the idea that something like that would be made artificially. Here on Earth, nobody has ever changed a landform into a monument on such a scale that it could be seen from space1. Mount Rushmore, for example, is difficult to see from directly overhead at reasonable altitude. An orbiter can't see it at all. And Rushmore is one side of a mountain; it's not like a whole mesa was carved into the faces of George, Abe, Tommy, and Teddy...
My next question would be why such a sculpture would be built. Any ground-based Martian paying homage to the Face wouldn't even know what he was looking at...it won't look like a face from one side, where they would see it from. Blasting a mesa apart takes a huge amount of resources, so there should be at least a worthwhile reason to do so. I doubt the Face was intended as an interplanetary billboard.2
Which brings me to my next question: Building on that scale takes lots of time, lots of Martianpower, and lots of energy. Where were/are the legions of Martian sculptors on harnesses jackhammering away? Where were/are the (probably massive) blasts to carve out sections? (Or, equivalently, the massive laser to shave the mesa from overhead?) Why didn't/doesn't anyone notice a massive landform changing shape? On the scale of engineering mesa-carving is, this work should have been easily visible to an orbiter, and possibly even from Earth.
1What would be the point? Again, it wouldn't look like anything from the side, which is all you'd see from the ground.
2Which renders the issue of "sibling" Faces, which is what this thread was based upon, moot.
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