Terraforming the Moon?

[owenander]

Aside from solar radiation, is there any obstacles out there that would thwart a project like this?

 

[owenander]

If you had enough being produced there would always be enough to sustain life near ground though?

 

[j05h]

Domes. Or a giant pressurized bubble around the whole moon. There was one suggestion on Technovelogy a while ago, to build a floating/tower greenhouse across an entire planet. <br /><br />The moon is not a likely candidate for atmosphere creation. If anything, I think the lunar vaccuum will be a precious commodity and there will eventually be efforts to remove even the current trace atmosphere. Mars is a far more likely candidate for a new atmosphere. It has the gravity to hold gas for a long time, the frozen water and CO2 on Mars itself could produce part of it. The big issues for Life As We Sort-Of Know It on Mars (or Luna) are nitrogen and access to trace elements once you have basic terraforming (atmos, temp) taken care of. Biggest showstopper, IMHO, will be the lack of magnetic field. It will require an artificial fix or people will always live under some shielding. <br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[nexium]

The low gravity of the moon means there may be many caves and tunels hundreds of kilometers below the moon's surface. Water and other volitiles are likely in these very deep caves at a few tenths of Earth's sealevel pressure because of the very tall column that extends to the surface. It may be practical to produce a mostly oxygen atmosphere in some of these caverns where leakage will be a minor problem. The very long trip to the surface however will be a problem for human colonists. Neil

 

[scottb50]

Journey to the Center of the moon! Could work. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[spacefire]

or maybe not. see thread:<br /><br />http://uplink.space.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=missions&Number=511145&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[edeewildwild]

I read in the book "Mining the Sky" that the moon was an ideal place for no-atmosphere mining and building.<br /><br />Mars is a much better candidate for terraformation.

 

[bountyhawk]

So on mars, with life in it, a human clan live like what, half the age on earth right?<br /><br />so do you realy thing earth is going to support Mars so mars will have life again, or for the first time ever.<br /><br />if mars gained life, we will not know what kind of things will come first in the generation of living, we would see the first ever generation of life, on mars, so this means we would see unknown animals, but the first generation is bugs right, being little tiny micro, living things, or is it even possible for mars to produce a new age of life, cause did n't earth complety turn to liquid rock, so how would have other generation to us be produced...<br /><br /><br />Also the one abuve is like a 2-3 way question...<br /><br />as we know today, how did we get here if everything died at one time...<br /><br />could have we been a small plant of a sort at one sertin time to generat a newly living thin to turn to its next form, to the next for of monkey.....<br /><br />my most basic questions?<br /><br />How long would life even live on <br />Mars?<br /><br />How would life even get on mars?<br /><br />How did humans first become a possible, before the monkey was ever a next or new generation?<br /><br />And if life destroyed completly how did we come in how did everything come in?<br /><br />and is it true that the dolphin is the smartest living thing on earth?

 

[nyarlathotep]

<font color="yellow">Yes, a big one: it's low gravity would make it almost impossible to hold onto an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere without copious and frequent replenishment.</font><br /><br />Also, no native source of nitrogen, carbon or hydrogen. Build a stanford torus instead.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Domes. Or a giant pressurized bubble around the whole moon. There was one suggestion on Technovelogy a while ago, to build a floating/tower greenhouse across an entire planet.</font><br /><br />Unless they are domes buried under 100 feet of regolith, this isn't a good idea. Huge mofo gravity well, remember. <br /><br /><font color="yellow">If anything, I think the lunar vaccuum will be a precious commodity and there will eventually be efforts to remove even the current trace atmosphere.</font><br /><br />Again, think about a torus. L1 has good quality vacuum and microgravity, it's cheaper to access, and safer to perform EVA.

 

[bamabuc]

Too little gravity is one factor. The other is that the moon has no atmosphere and has never had one. Mars, on the other hand, has more gravity and an atmosphere. That means we dont have to start from scratch, we just have to improve the current atmosphere.

 

[edeewildwild]

On Mars, the year is almost double the length as here and the day/night cycle is almost 24.5 hours.<br /><br />On Mars the gravity is .38 of here and the atmosphere is much much thinner, even than being on the top of Mt. Everest, by a factor of 100.<br /><br />Earth, or rather some enterprising space program could colonize mars. See Robert Zubrin's book "A Case for Mars' and his other interesting book "Entering Space".<br /><br />If Mars was to be Terraformed, the first thing that would need to be done is raise the ambient temperature, which would in turn melt out the water. However, because Mars does not have a magnetic field or at least its a lot smaller compared to here, we would need to have shelter from cosmic rays (etc). Life for at least a century, probably several, would be confined to habitations built by and for humans. As soon as it was safe, microbes would be the first life seeded, followed by other things in turn when it is safe to do so.<br />Bear in mind, humans and the rest of what we settle Mars with, will for several more centuries past the microbe stage, still not go outisde unless we/they have to.<br /><br />Evolution would at some point stop being a terraformation process and Mars would start Aresianforming us (Ares is the other form of the word Mars).<br /><br />Life on Mars would not be easy, but then life on Earth is not easy.<br /><br />If Mars was treated as a garden and great care and time were taken, Mars could bloom just like Earth has bloomed. The key here is time.<br /><br />Life is a progression of adaptations to the environment called Evolution. To answer your question, monkeys have never evolved into humans BUT Humans ans Simians had a common origin point and a series of titanic splits. Some scientists claim that this is only adaptation others scientists calim intelligent design and some of us see both without conflict.<br /><br />We will get to Mars, to answer your question, by space ship.<br /><br />And, when Mars has Oceans again, we will

 

[torino10]

As far as terra forming the moon is concerned I think I like John Varley's Disney concept. Take a large nuclear weapon, explode it under the surface, vent radiation to space, then build simulated "disney" type environment to look like it's outside. <br /><br />Free floating space colonies, either torus or O'niel, would have to be really huge to have enough shielding to allow the normal reproductive cycles of humans to occur. Smaller colonies or mining ships will have to look at alternative ways of dealing with gamma radiation and still allowing for population growth as work loads, and colony size increases. one method might be to only procreate through invitro and screen for birthdefects, and aquire reproductive material from offspring at the earliest possible date to keep in specially shielded med labs/nursuries. This would make female offspring more attractive as they are born with all there reproductive material while males will have to be raised in shielded nurseries until puberty.<br /> small freefloating space colonies will be extremely difficult places to raise a family.<br /><br />As far as mars goes I would like to sea a mission where a small comet is intentionally crashed into the surface, to raise the temperature, and gain information about how to avoid an impact and what the actual effects of an impact would be on earth.