How can Mars be terraformed?

[cowcommander]

I've always been fascinated by the idea of making Mars a habitable planet once more, but is it actually possible in real life? Or could whatever made it the dead planet it is today make it pretty much impossible?

[TreasonousBastard]

1. First, someone has to get there.

[MercutioATC]

3. like the Phoenix mars lander?

or are you speaking of a manned mission?

[TreasonousBastard]

10. Isn't that the gadget that's stuck in a hole right now? Anyway...

it's unimaginable that we could remotely change the face of an entire planet any time in the foreseeable future-- we can't run a terrestial project without immediate supervision.

[MercutioATC]

2. Give us the will (and $$$) and we'll find a way.

When first proposed, teraflop computers (one trillion floating-point operations per second) were estimated to be 20+ years away. We did it in 8...because it became a goal and that goal had practical applications.

Make terraforming Mars a goal with prsactical applications and we'll have a basic plan within 24 months...prototypes within 48...and be ready to go within 72.

[dave29]

4. Joementum.

n/t

[Chulanowa]

5. Where does all that water come from?

There's certainly water on Mars. No doubt on that.

However, there's sure as hell not enough to make a big ol' ocean. if there were.. .Well, Mars would HAVE a big ol' ocean. Or it would be a ball of water ice. or something, there would be lots of water clearly visible.

[RC]

7. Then there is the matter of an atmosphere.

It is my understand Mars lost it's atmosphere because;
1.) The planet is to small to hold on to its atmosphere.
2.) It does not have a magnetic field to shield it from being striped away by the solar winds.

[baldguy]

9. Comets - the answer to both.

They'll add enough water & atmospheric pressure to make habitation possible. It wouldn't be permanent but it would last on the order of several hundred to a thousand years.

[sakabatou]

12. Wrong

1. It does have an atmosphere, albeit, a very thin one.
2. It does have a magnetic field. However, I'm usnure if it's intrinsic.

[joshcryer]

58. It has minute local magnetic fields, but no global one.

Those fields aren't enough to prevent solar wind sheering. However, if you replenished the atmosphere (with comets) it would take tens of millions of years for the solar wind to have an effect.

[joshcryer]

57. Mars has enough water to easily make that ocean.

The more we learn about Mars the more water we learn it has.

[Cirque du So-What]

6. All you need is the Genesis device

Just make sure it doesn't fall into Khan's hands.

[Meldread]

8. The big issue with Mars is -

lack of a magnetic field. Even if you could somehow terraform Mars without one, the solar radiation would be the death of you and any living creature on its surface. If life still exists on Mars in any fashion it is deep below the surface to protect it from solar radiation.

It's likely what caused Mars to die to begin with... magnetic fields seem to be generated by the internal core of a planet spinning. Mar's core likely stopped spinning, and when that happened solar radiation killed whatever was on the planet. Over time the Solar Wind eventually blew off much of the planets atmosphere.

It's also rather small, which makes it difficult to hold a decently sized atmosphere like our own planet.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of terraforming. I think there are some interesting reasons to do so, but if our species is to leave Earth - as will eventually be necessary for species survival - I support building artificial habitats in space itself. They could be manipulated and controlled to suit the needs of the population, and could also be mobile in nature.

However if humanity ever decided to go the terraforming route, I'd still encourage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming#Paraterraforming">paraterraforming instead. It's more practical and scalable.

[Indenturedebtor]

11. How about Venus?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Venus

Interesting read at the wiki-link above.

[Meldread]

13. Venus is far worse.

First, while it has a magnetic field it is extremely weak. Second, the slow orbit of Venus is a killer. If we were going to terraform a planet, Mars would be much easier by a significant margin. In fact, I largely agree with one of the posters above. If there was a serious commitment and financial backing, I think serious efforts could begin in a few years time.

That being said, I really don't see things going in that direction.

If I had to guess how things would play out in the future...

Step 1) We'd paraterraform a proof of concept structure in Antarctica. It would be able to be self-sufficient and have the ability to handle the extremes in weather. It would be built largely by unmanned machines.

Step 2) Once we have a successful paraterraformed city or large colony in Antarctica, and have made leaving the earth cheap (at least as cost effective as a modern day plane ticket) we then move to the second step. That would be establishing a paraterraformed colony on the moon. Why the moon? To get H3 and other materials and send it back to Earth. Ideally, this would fund the future projects.

Step 3) Once we've successfully proven that people can live on the moon in paraterraformed structures, then we move that same concept to Mars and other places in the Solar System.

Step 4) As people can live in peraterraformed structures on Mars, that's when terraforming and handling the other issues become viable.

[Fumesucker]

14. Venus is closer to the sun than Earth or Mars, hence it orbits more rapidly..

Kepler's third law.. The square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.

[Meldread]

15. Sorry, that's not what I meant.

I meant rotation, not orbit. One Venusian day lasts longer than the Venusian year. If you were on the surface of Venus it'd take almost 117 days from sunset to see the next sunrise. The Venusian day lasts 243 days.

[Fumesucker]

16. I figured that, I was just pulling your leg a bit..

:hi:

[Indenturedebtor]

17. Sounds like a plan :D

Of course before anything like that would happen via Antarctica it will be warm and hospitable... There will probably be colonies of rich people and golf courses as far as the eye can see in my lifetime :(

Or I'll be killed during the water wars.

[qazplm]

24. if paraterraforming is the way to go

then the Moon would seem the way to go and would seem to solve whatever population/resource issues we have for quite awhile.

If you could get it up to a few million people or even more, you could even theoretically survive a dinosaur killer asteroid on Earth as a species, just wait for the dust to settle so to speak and reverse populate.

[Meldread]

34. Absolutely.

The H3 from the moon could fuel the Earth's demand for energy for thousands of years... and there is more H3 out there beyond the moon. H3 is a great source of energy because it effectively removes the radioactive aspect out of nuclear energy, meaning nuclear power plants could be built in cities without fear. It could also fuel nuclear powered spacecraft. There are other things on the moon worth mining as well, but H3 would effectively be the cash crop.

I imagine paraterraformed structures being built on the moon looking somewhat similar to giant spheres. They'd have an inner and outer shell. The outer-shell would be stationary, thick, and very strong. The goal of the outer-shell is primarily to protect the inner shell (where the people live and work) from micro-meteorites. In addition it provides an additional seal to keep the structure properly pressurized, prevent oxygen leaks, etc. The outer-shell would also have some form of artificial magnetic field to protect the humans inside from solar and cosmic radiation.

The inner-shell would be connected to the outer-shell via a system that would be similar to high speed levitation rail. The goal is to spin the inner-shell, creating centrifugal force, and therefore artificial gravity - allowing us to create Earth-like gravity inside.

This is one of the reasons it's important to build a structure on Earth first as a prototype. The structure would have to be largely constructed remotely by machines on the Moon itself, likely using MOSTLY the resources native to the moon itself. That allows us to work out all the kinks and unforeseen issues here on earth, and then export that knowledge to the Moon and then beyond.

Eventually, one day our technology will be capable of taking any type of DNA and artificially re-creating it. One thing I imagine, which brings me back to your point, is having the Moon effectively have the DNA of every known plant, animal, and living organism on the Earth stored for safe keeping. This means that if something horrible should happen on planet Earth, those living on the Moon can effectively return to the Earth and re-establish the ecosystem that once supported human life.

Or if someday we find another earth-like planet that for some reason didn't establish life, we could seed that planet with life from our native planet, making our home there as well.

[Ter]

32. Will it ever be possible to terraform the moon?

It's a lot closer, so getting back and forth would also be cheaper and faster.

[Meldread]

33. Not really.

Not in the sense you're thinking about, at least.

The moon's mass is too low to hold a real atmosphere, and over a few thousand years any atmosphere created would eventually dissipate. That doesn't mean you can't create one, though! It'd just have to be artificially sustained indefinitely, unless we somehow master some type of amazing technology that allows us to increase the mass of the moon. Although, the side effect of that would be bad for Earth (tidal forces).

We could actually easily produce a visible atmosphere from Earth in a decade or so with our current technology. However, it would take massive amounts of money and engineering feats we've never before accomplished. In effect, we'd simply have to re-produce the same amount of gas and such China and the United States pump into the air each year. This would create an atmosphere on the moon. However, that in turn would create weather, and that could have unintended consequences.

...the real advantage of creating an atmosphere on the moon is to protect any structures we build from micro-meteorites. It means they'd burn up before they could cause any damage (even potentially kill people).

[Odin2005]

18. All the hot air comming from Congress.

[krispos42]

19. Space elevator

Lift water up the elevator to the zero-g point and dump it outside. Let it freeze, then lower it to the far end of the the tether and let it go on an intercept orbit with Mars. This assumes a very long tether that extends well past the geosynchronous point.

Repeat daily, with the end result of repeatedly slamming thousands of tons of water into Mars on a daily basis. The impact would pulverize the ice, vaporizing some of it immediately and pulverizing the rest, making it easy to subliminate in the near-vacuum of the Martian atmosphere.

:shrug:

Or blast Europa out of Jupiter's orbit and arrainge a convenient collision with Mars. THAT will dump plenty of water on Mars.



Methane is a potent greenhouse gas as well... transporting large quantities of it to Mars would warm it up. Perhaps from Titan?

And in an exygen atmosphere it has an half-life of 7 years, then it decays into water and carbon dioxide, both also greenhouse gasses.


Hmmm... we need to get more carbon dioxide on Mars, then we could import oxygen-producing plants or algae to get some oxygen on there, then import quantities of methane to build up the atmosphere.

There's lots of carbon dioxide on Mars, but it's frozen at the poles. However, Venus has plenty of it. Solution: built a space elevator on Venus, one that only decends a few miles into it's atmosphere. Liquify and freeze carbon dioxide in mass quantities, launch it to impact with Mars. Build up the atmosphere, then do the vegetation to get some oxygen going.


Of course, with our own carbon dioxide problem it would be nice if we could export some of our own to Mars instead.

[comtec]

21. Europa is probably already teeming with life however!

Talk about mass murder on a planetary scale!

Better to terraform Europa =]

[Meldread]

35. That would still be planetary genocide. :P

Terra forming Europa to make it suitable for humans, would effectively make it unsuitable for whatever living organisms that may live in the (theorized) ocean underneath it's ice!

Although, I do agree with you that Europa is perhaps hands down the best place for life outside of Earth in the entire Universe.... assuming it has an ocean under all that ice.

[krispos42]

37. I prefer the term "forced relocation", myself

O8)

[Ter]

56. Isn't it too far to terraform?

I mean, even if you terraform it 100% perfectly, it's still gonna be -250 or even -300 degrees below zero.

[Meldread]

60. You'd need strong greenhouse gases.

Basically, you'd heat up the planet by creating a greenhouse effect, similar to what we're doing on Earth right now but on a much more mammoth scale. Some type of genetically engineered organisms that produce lots of methane gas could be used - as an example.

Heating up the planet really isn't that difficult compared to some other issues. Mainly the magnetic field. It might be possible to generate some type of artificial magnetic field, but outside of that we'd have to find some way to re-start the core of Mars.

Keep in mind that it's very clear that Mars once had water on it's surface. It's unclear if there was any life on the planet back then, but there was certainly water there. That means it was once much, much, much, much warmer than it is today.

[Lithos]

20. First thing would be to add mass

Mass I think would help restart the magnetic field and add the necessary water.

Only problem with that, the most efficient way of doing this would require the collision of a fairly large mass-object (moon, or something). Otherwise you are looking at a large term bombardment of thousands of comets/asteroids which probably would functionally equivalent. The result over the long term would probably render Mars uninhabitable (even by domed cities) for tens of thousands of years. Course if you are talking terraforming, then I guess your time scale has to be large in the first place so this might not be a problem killer.

L-

[krispos42]

39. We'd need to warm the planet up first

Warmth makes biological life vibrant, and water vapor is a fairly potent greenhouse gas.


I guess if we were really serious we could build a giant mirror at Mars' L2 point and reflect sunlight on the dark side of Mars as well.

Some Wikipedia work gives me the L2 relative to Mars thusly:

R_L2 ≈ R_Mars * (M_Mars ÷ (3 * M_Sun))^⅓


Okay, R_Mars = 225,000,000 km
M_Mars = 6.4185 × 10²³ kg
M_Sun = 1.9891×10³⁰ kg

Doing the math R_L2 comes to about 1,130,000 km past Mars. So make a giant circular parabolic mirror framework, stretch some Mylar over it, and start baking Mars!

[Recursion]

22. Haven't we #*&$ed up the earth enough?

Do we really want to screw up other planets too?

[qazplm]

23. is this a serious question?

How do you screw up a dead planet?

[Recursion]

25. 1) we don't know it's dead

2) if it is dead, then maybe "dead" is how it's supposed to be, and we shouldn't be going around changing it.

[NoNothing]

26. Nonsense

What does this even mean? Concepts like "should" are only relevant to human beings. The universe doesn't have an opinion.

[Recursion]

27. Oh, are dogs talking about terraforming?

No? That's right, humans are.

[qazplm]

29. you sure told him!

Not sure what exactly you told him but...

[Recursion]

42. I suggested that maybe we "shouldn't" terraform mars

And judging from everyone's responses, I made it poorly, since my basis for that suggestion is that we have no idea what the consequences might be of such a huge change.

On edit: the point of bringing up dogs was that GP said "should" is a human concept; my point was terraforming is a human activity, so "should" seems a fair question to ask of it.

[qazplm]

28. supposed to be?

What?

I guess we shouldn't mine for anything because underground is how it's "supposed to be"

What a ridiculous concept. You should have stuck with "we don't know its dead" as that at least has some validity to it.

[Indenturedebtor]

30. Methinks the line between hating people and hating humanity

has been blurred somewhat.

I am a complete and total misanthrope who weeps inwardly at the barbarism of our history, and yet to me people are still more valuable than rocks. Not more valuable than entire species... yet still more valuable than rocks.

This is black and white knee-jerk thinking with a hint of self-righteousness... got in a HUGE fight with a girl in high-school over colonizing Mars and her feelings were the same.

[qazplm]

31. you know I could understand

not agree with but understand the idea that there may be life on Mars and we should preserve it as it is. Now I am not all that interested in microscopic life on a planet that will very likely never have intelligent indigenous life, but still I can understand the argument.

But a dead planet with no life? I agree, rocks v humans, humans win.

[Recursion]

43. Quick: name all the possible consequences of terraforming an entire planet

Not sure of them all? Neither is anyone else. Huge systemic changes should, IMO, be avoided when possible.

[NoNothing]

44. What's the worst that could happen?

I can see your point, if the "system" you are changing is one important to you for some reason.

So, imagine the worst possible case scenario for the terraforming of Mars. If it's a dead planet, the worst thing I can imagine is that the planet is STILL dead, except we wasted a lot of time and effort trying to bring it to life.

It's not like life on Earth depends on the weather on Mars.

[Recursion]

46. What's the worst thing that could happen with biological engineering?

Deadly plagues come to mind

[NoNothing]

50. That's not what I asked

I asked about terraforming. On MARS. Even if a deadly plague wiped out all life on Mars, we're no worse off than we are now.

[Recursion]

52. Presumably there would be some travel between the planets NT

[Meldread]

36. That is absolutely silly due to all the irony involved.

You're saying we shouldn't go around making changes to other (almost certainly dead) planets, because it isn't the natural state that it's currently in...

You do realize that it isn't natural for the Internet to exist? It didn't come from nature. You're using something completely unnatural that "shouldn't be."

Furthermore, I assume you partake in other joys of civilization. By your logic, you should be a naked, feckless savage, wandering around some savanna grassland in Africa scavenging for dead animals killed by other predators. You couldn't use even a basic weapon such as a spear, because it's unnatural. So you're either going to wrestle that water buffalo to the ground and kill it by using your pathetic human teeth or you're going to scavenge for leftovers. Enjoy eating that raw meat, because humans mastering fire is something nature never intended.

I also assume you aren't using any medicine, artificially extending your life in ways nature never anticipated. Enjoy having a life expectancy of roughly twenty five years (if you're lucky).

The problem with your argument is this: Nature is a bitch. Humanity parted ways with her a long time ago, and decided that it was better to seek to master their environment and overcome their innate limitations. Ever since that decision we've been moving toward a day when we will eventually leave this planet. Because one thing is true about us that is still natural, we are a nomadic species. We're not meant to live in one place for a long time. That isn't natural for us. It's that nature that pushed us to explore the world, and settle every corner of it, and it will be that same nature that will eventually take us beyond this world to others.

It is inevitable, and furthermore, it is the only way for our species to survive.

[pokerfan]

38. 'natural'

[Meldread]

40. That only proves that ants are evil!!

...and therefore are a plight to all of existence! They must commit mass suicide, or be forcefully exterminated! :sarcasm:

On a more serious note, all that's rather true. I don't think it's technically impossible to do anything that is unnatural in the literal sense. After all if it wasn't natural, we wouldn't be able to do it. :P

However, I don't think that's what the crazy person who posted meant...but then again... why argue with someone who is a nihilist nut?

Good picture. I laughed.

[Posteritatis]

49. Spacecraft, nuclear reactors, and teh intarwebz are perfectly natural

I'm not even being especially facetious; the difference between those, mud huts, and that octopus that was found lugging coconut shells around for defense strikes me as one of degree more than kind.

[Recursion]

41. I'm not making a specious argument that "natural" (whatever that means) is "better"

I'm making the argument that tampering with how things are, particularly on a huge scale, often has drastic and unintended consequences, rarely to our benefit.

[NoNothing]

45. It's MARS

The "how things are" on Mars right now is utterly useless to us. I can't think of a way how we could make Mars less of a benefit to us.

[Recursion]

47. People thought that about Antarctica too at one point NT

[NoNothing]

51. That's not an argument

Simply saying "people were wrong before" is not actually evidence that they are wrong now.

[Recursion]

53. You have gratuitously asserted there is no risk to us

And, in fact, pointing out similar cases where people making similar assertions were wrong is a pretty good argument.

[Posteritatis]

48. All discussions of settlement/terraforming here will draw out a few misanthropes

Always have the same tired things to say, usually with the exact same tired words, and always utterly, utterly immune to any argument. It's depressing.

[Indenturedebtor]

54. Hey don't confuse anti-persons with anti-humans :P

While I don't wish anything bad on most people in general, I generally can't stand conversing with most people... but I do hope that humanity survives :P

[Posteritatis]

55. Yeah, I mean mainly the "not one of us is wooooorthy!" crowd

You know, the type who generalize their self-hatred to everyone around them and get all upset when the rest of us don't flog ourselves with equal enthusiasm. They always show up in these discussions, and their 'arguments' could be replaced with a perl script.

[daleo]

59. Read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy

The science is very plausible.