Terraforming Mars

[bdewoody]

Just read the story in Space.com This guy Lowell Wood seems very optimistic in his timetable for changing Mars into a human friendly habitat.<br /><br />I'm wondering if some microbal form of life is found either present or past will we push forward to terraform or is such a restriction just the stuff of Sci-Fi stories like Star Trek. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em><font size="2">Bob DeWoody</font></em> </div>

 

[kyle_baron]

From what I've read, (from professional astronomers), Mars does not have enough mass to support a sustainable atmosphere for humans. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="4"><strong></strong></font></p> </div>

 

[docm]

"Professional astronomers" have been totally wrong about things related to Mars, and most other worlds, for centuries.<br /><br />Titan supports a .10 Earth pressure nitrogen atmosphere with .0225 its mass, a local gravity of just .14 G and a density of ~1.88 g/cm³. <br /><br />Mars is nearly 5 times more massive with a local gravity of ~.38 G and 2x Titans density, so its max terraformed pressure could be as high as .40 to .50 Earth +/- depending on the gas mix. <br /><br />The last I checked space suit pressures are comparable.<br /><br />A nitrogen based atmosphere with high CO2 & methane might just have enough pressure & warm the planet to habitable levels. After that it's up to the plants to oxygenate things.<br /><br />Of course the absence of an Earth-style geomagnetic field would probably ditch the whole thing. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[kyle_baron]

<font color="yellow"><br />A nitrogen based atmosphere with high CO2 & methane might just have enough pressure & warm the planet to habitable levels. After that it's up to the plants to oxygenate things. </font><br /><br />Well, there's plenty of CO2, but it looks like Nitrogen won't stick around. Unfortunatly, wishful thinking won't teraform Mars either:<br /><br />http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/ask/a11122.html<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="4"><strong></strong></font></p> </div>

 

[dragon04]

<font color="yellow">From what I've read, (from professional astronomers), Mars does not have enough mass to support a sustainable atmosphere for humans.</font><br /><br />On a geological timescale, you're right. However, with sufficient, intentional gas <b>production</b>, that might not be the case in terms of tens or hundreds of millenia.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[dragon04]

I think Lowell Wood is a little overly optimistic.<br /><br />Although I wonder if any study has been done that determines an eventual atmospheric pressure if we could liberate all the known frozen surface CO2 if we could wave a magic wand and "make it so".<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[3488]

Big problem.<br /><br />True Mars is much denser & more massive than Titan, but there are serios issues to hand.<br /><br />Firstly, no global magnestosphere. The solar wind would make light work of stripping<br />much of an artificial atmosphere away.<br /><br />Secondly, no replenishment. AFAWK, the volcanoes on Mars are inactive. <br />Whether or not they are all<br />truly extinct, is unknown, but evidence points to the fact, they have not done <br />anything for many millenia.<br /><br />Thirdly, Mars orbits not far inside the Asteroid Belt. Devastating impacts are likely to be far more <br />frequent than on Earth. Like NEAs<br />Amors are also being found at a quick pace.<br /><br />The lack of any large moons. Phobos & Deimos are the size & mass of small asteroids. <br />Perhaps that is what they are, captured by Mars long ago. The lack of a large moon<br />like ours will result in the rotational axis of Mars varying during the present aerological <br />period between 15 degrees & 35 degrees. It has been sugessted that Mars at one time Mars<br />may have had an axial tilt of 80 degrees, not very<br />different from Uranus or asteroid 433 Eros<br />(in other words, the poles laying only ten degrees away fom the plane of the orbit around <br />the Sun).<br /><br />People forget. Mars is the way it is for a reason. Natural forces have made Mars the way it is.<br />Terraforming Mars will not change the reasons. A terraformed Mars will have to be maintained.<br /><br />Where will the supply of fresh water come from, once the water at the polar caps have <br />been exhausted?<br />Trawling around the Kuiper Belt harvesting comets??? Mining ice from Europa? Transporting desalinated<br />sea water from Earth??<br /><br />These people are reading too many boys comics & watching too much SciFi.<br /><br />Terraforming is impractical. May work for a very short period, before natural processess <br />cause Mars to revert.<br /><br />It would be more practical to encase our Moon in a larg <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[mithridates]

That's true about encasing the whole Moon in a greenhouse being cheaper. You just can't argue with a mere 3-day travel time. Often you'll see the argument that people can't live in a place like the Moon that doesn't have something close to a 24-hour day which is a bit odd - are they under the impression that nobody has ever lived above the Arctic Circle?<br /><br />I remember reading about how the Apollo program made the Moon's tenuous atmosphere some ten times thicker due to exhaust from the rockets. Have studies been done on how much of this has been blown away? I remember reading a few months back that apparently the atmosphere on Mars doesn't get blown away by the solar wind as much as previously thought, which would probably mean that we're wrong about smaller bodies as well. It's good to remember that though smaller bodies like the Moon do get their atmospheres knocked away, that's in geologic terms, not the unit we understand time through (decades and centuries). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>----- </p><p>http://mithridates.blogspot.com</p> </div>

 

[mithridates]

Oh, and wasn't there also a potential problem with a thicker atmosphere acting as an aerobrake on Phobos and causing it to come down much quicker than before?<br /><br />One other weird factor to keep in mind is that anybody that gets something set up on one of the moons has a platform in which they can launch rocks at colonies below by just throwing them if they so desire. I expect the usage of the moons would be a pretty delicate issue.<br /><br />Hm, actually Wikipedia claims 30-80 million years before Phobos breaks up into a ring as opposed to crashing into the surface. Ignore my first point then. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>----- </p><p>http://mithridates.blogspot.com</p> </div>

 

[SpaceKiwi]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>A future human society might decide that terraforming Mars will be worth the effort as a long-term investment in human survival. If we do it, it would be with the understanding that any artificially-created biosphere on Mars would have to be maintained against the "natural processes".<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />A future human society might be quite adept at it by that point also, <b>if</b> you buy into the idea we've screwed with the balance on this planet over the last 200 years and need to take corrective action to reverse the process. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em><font size="2" color="#ff0000">Who is this superhero?  Henry, the mild-mannered janitor ... could be!</font></em></p><p><em><font size="2">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</font></em></p><p><font size="5">Bring Back The Black!</font></p> </div>

 

[kelvinzero]

How much do we need to heat the planet just to create large bodies of water? Could this happen much earlier than earthlike air pressure? I quite like the idea of creating a thriving biosphere on mars that is suited to mars. Perhaps the only land form is a black lichen to grab more heat.<br /><br />Standing on the surface without breathing equipment is romantic, but I also like the idea of underwater diving-bell-city fishing-based communities. We could import various earth creatures right up to dolphins. I bet they would be bright enough to learn only to surface in the bells.<br /><br />For that matter we could invent gills or dolphin-like lung capacity. This would also solve the problem of how a mars person could return to live on earth with its massive gravity. We could build ocean cities on earth to pretty much the same design and gravity wouldnt be a problem.

 

[dragon04]

<font color="yellow">Firstly, no global magnestosphere. The solar wind would make light work of stripping<br />much of an artificial atmosphere away.</font><br /><br />Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought I read somewhere that solar wind was not as significant a factor as the absence of outgassing via volcanism.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">The lack of any large moons. Phobos & Deimos are the size & mass of small asteroids.<br />Perhaps that is what they are, captured by Mars long ago. The lack of a large moon<br />like ours will result in the rotational axis of Mars varying during the present aerological<br />period between 15 degrees & 35 degrees. </font><br /><br />I don't think that precludes the notion of a less than prohibitive environment based on a substantial atmosphere. More drastic weather swings on geological timescales, perhaps. But a non-starter? I don't believe so.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Where will the supply of fresh water come from, once the water at the polar caps have<br />been exhausted?</font><br /><br />Again, unless I've misunderstood hard data, there's a LOT of water locked up in the Martian substrate down to a kilometer or 5. That may define the upper limits in terms of population, but again, I don't see that as prohibitive to a regulated population.<br /><br />As time progresses, and without chaotic influences, I don't see the relevance of Mars' proximity to the Asteroid Belt as a definitive prohibition to colonization.<br /><br />In fact, due to the higher mass and resultant gravity of Earth, it seems intuitive to me that the Earth is a more likely target for a significant impactor than Mars.<br /><br />The orbital area that Mars sweeps through is vastly larger than that of the Earth. That would indicate to me that there would be less impactors by area in Mars' orbit than in Earth's orbit, no?<br /><br />Mars also has the benefit of receiving more proportional heat that Earth from the standpoint of albedo until <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[derekmcd]

As temporary as terraforming Mars might be, it would still be a learning experience beyond reproach. A stepping stone if you will. If we gain the knowledge and have the wherewithal to accomplish it, we would be idiots to NOT do it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div> </div><br /><div><span style="color:#0000ff" class="Apple-style-span">"If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing." - Homer Simpson</span></div> </div>

 

[azorean5000]

i agree. Terraforming mars is a dream virtually impossible to acomplish. By the time that it can be done, humankind wont have any use for it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[dragon04]

<font color="yellow">As temporary as terraforming Mars might be, it would still be a learning experience beyond reproach. A stepping stone if you will. If we gain the knowledge and have the wherewithal to accomplish it, we would be idiots to NOT do it.</font><br /><br />I find that to be a very salient point. Despite the fact that we might render ourselves extinct, and that we still have over a billion years of comfortable existence here on Earth, the ultimate inevitability is that we will have to ensure our existence as a species somewhere else than the rock we currently inhabit.<br /><br />I personally think that's an endeavor better undertaken sooner than later in whatever measure is practical. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

So you're running in the elction of 20,000,008? <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br />I wuz confused! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>