New Mars Forums

http://www.islandone.org/Settlements/Ma … l]Magnetic Shielding

I believe that the creation of a martian magnetosphere is essential to any long term terraformation plans. Doing so would not only help to prevent the long, slow leak of atmosphere from Mars, but it would also help protect the surface from harmful radiation, which even with earth atmospheric pressure and temperature would probably still reach unnacceptable levels during periods of intense solar activity. Utilizing the concept outlined in the aforementioned paper (link), I believe that it would be technically possible to employ this concept on a massive scale, effectively creating a martian magnetosphere. Any thoughts? Anyone care to try number crunching to see what it would take to give mars a magnetic field compareable to Earth's?

Thanks for all the input. I never though

By the way how did you come up with Earth being at near Ice age conditions? Where does it talk about how much temperature increase will occur in relation to the amount of CO2 released?

Also, how can I get an Icon?

I agree. Nuking mars would definitely not be an immediate solution. Terraforming, changing an inhospitable planet into a hospitable one would require far more than just release of atmosphere and raising surface temperature and atmospheric pressure. All I want to know, once again, is how much gas might be released due to a nuclear detonation, and how this might alter the temperature and atmospheric pressure of Mars. I would also like to know how long it would take for any significant radiation produced to dissapate, and just how significant such radiation might be in relation to current surface radiation levels. Im not really concerned about the ethics of this, I just want to know what the outcome would be. I think that if nuking mars proves to be a possibility that may work, it could be incoporated into a larger plan for terraforming which I have yet to develop, and may not develop if this option proves totally unfeasible.

Your right, it does sound more sensible, if youre thinking in terms of unlimited resources. Zubrin says that in order for a mirror to be powerful enough to really make a difference, you need a huge 200,000 ton orbiting mirror. Ouch. If it is at all possible to raise the surface temperature of mars with nukes, heck, we could have a warmer mars for much less the cost of building such a device or say, moving a comet to hit mars, and we would probably have it a lot quicker too. Nuking mars and all seems ridiculous, I know, but its just speculation, an idea that Id like to see proved possible or impossible.

Im not sure anyone knows just how much dust would be released as result of an impact or detonation.  I doubt (but if Im wrong please correct me) that a nuclear detonation at either of the polar caps would release enough dust into the atmosphere to significantly alter the global temperature of mars or even to alter it outside of a certain radius, and simply want to know how much gas it might release per megaton, and if any volume of gas produced by nuclear detonation would be significant enough to alter Mars temperature and atmospheric pressure.

In The Case for Mars, Zubrin suggests employing various means to trigger the release of CO2 on Mars and thus raise the atmospheric pressure and overall surface temperature of Mars. Among these are the use of giant mirrors, releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases over a long period of time to raise the avg temperature of mars so that a chain reaction of greenhouse gas release will occur, and several other methods that all must be incorporated on a vast scale to be effective. I was wondering if a more immediate solution to releasing CO2 on mars might be found in the use of nuclear weapons. Specifically, what would the effect be if a ten megaton nuclear device was detonated over either of the polar caps of mars? I havent really done any research as to what the effects of this might be, and it is my assumption that it would trigger the rapid release of greenhouse gases. Any thoughts?