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In other words, it is the low levels of available nitrogen which is the major obstacle in the scenario?
With today's technology, it is for the moment difficult to do something baout it. But once there is a settlement on Mars, brainpower will be used to solve problems and to see if all that is required is present. If not, ammonia could be brought to the planet from the outside:
http://www.aubreyrhea.com/bookbag/csi655/index.htm
"Importation of ammonia rich objects:
Another greenhouse gas is ammonia (NH3). This gas, along with methane (CH4), is less powerful than halocarbons but more powerful than carbon dioxide. Ammonia rich asteroids could be diverted from the outer solar system towards the Martian atmosphere. This would actually be easier than diverting an asteroid from the Main Belt within the solar system, because the father away an object is from the sun, the slower its orbit. Therefore the velocity change needed to distort that orbit smaller, and the gravity from other planets in the solar system can assist in deflecting the velocity as well.
For this to be done, nuclear thermal rocket engines would have to be somehow attached to asteroids from the outer solar system. The rockets would move the asteroids at about 4 kilometers per second, for a period of about 10 years, before the rockets would shut off and allow the 10-billion-ton asteroids to glide, unpowered, toward Mars. If it is possible to smash an asteroid of such enormous size into Mars, the energy of one impact would be enough to melt about a trillion tons of water. That is enough water to form a lake, with a depth of one meter, that could cover an area larger than the state of Connecticut. Enough ammonia would be released to raise the Martian temperature by 3° C and to form a shield against UV radiation."
It should be possible to use different methods at once to find the best combination. I must admit I havn't read the link I posted myself yet, except the part I posted, simply because I found it right now. But it looks interesting.
And then we have the surface chemistry on the planet:
http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_mo … 60223.html
"Martian dust could be even worse. It is not only a mechanical irritant but also perhaps a chemical poison. Mars is red because its surface consists largely of iron oxide and oxides of other minerals. Some scientists suspect that the dusty soil on Mars may be such a strong oxidizer that it will burn any organic compound, such as plastics, rubber, or human skin, as viciously as undiluted lye or laundry bleach.
"If you get Martian soil on your skin, it will leave burn marks," says University of Colorado engineering professor Stein Sture, who studies granular materials such as lunar and Martian dirt for NASA. Because no soil samples have ever been returned from Mars, "we do not know for sure how strong it is, but it could be pretty vicious," says Sture.
Moreover, according to data from the Pathfinder mission, Martian dust may also contain trace amounts of toxic metals, including arsenic and hexavalent chromium--a carcinogenic toxic waste. That was a surprising finding presented in a 2002 National Research Council report called "Safe on Mars: Precursor Measurements Necessary to Support Human Operations on the Martian Surface."
The dust challenge would be especially acute during the windstorms that occasionally envelop Mars from pole to pole. Dust whips through the air, scouring every exposed surface and sifting into every crevice. There would be no place to hide."
This is another reason why at least some form of terraforming would be a must. A rise in tempeature and chemical reactions with the dust which is everywhere would change it to something less harmful. Release of oxygen and free water covering the surface would be a good start, and adding of genetically changed microorganisms.
Living inside a giant dome or not, humans of Mars still needs to live off the land. And mining and other operations is much easier and appealing when there is an atmosphere. It is true that the first martians needs to live under a roof, but why not change the planet while the first small cities are expanding? Even the first small population will probably be able to build the first factories releasing super effective greenhouse gases.
Future generations would thank them. It almost seems like there is a mentality among people that if it takes hundreds or thousands of years of doing something, then it isn't worth the effort. And personally, I think 10,000s of years sounds a little long to wait. It would probably take much lesser time than that, even if it is only one way to find out. And who doesn't like the idea of a green new land stretching out in the horizon in front of you? Well, maybe some fanatics who think Mars, the moon and other dead worlds are "sacred" and should remain as they are, but luckily it is not up to them what should happen with the future of the human species.
Thanks.
Some comments to the posts:
I don't think the humans can afford themsevles to just wait for someone to discover an earthlike planet that is more or less ready for colonisation. The transition from living an "isolated" existence in our solar system to move to a new system would be much smoother if we first had learned how to live on another planet. Not to mention all the valuable experiences a civilization on Mars would give.
Another question is what we should do while we were waiting for the technology to mature enough to bring us to another star. Terraforming Mars wouldn't be stupid. As already mentioned, only be best ideas and technologies will follow the humans to the red planet, where they will improve further. When humans are ready to leave the solar system, once again it will be the best of the best that will be chosen.
Spreading is another factor. Why limit ourself to only one world at the time (althought some have suggested generation ships complex enough would release us from a planetary existence on permanent basis), while we can spread to many more? Asimov wrote the famous three laws of R
robotics:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
One could make similar laws for the human civilization as well; survive, spread, evolve (but without sacrificing the rights of the individual).
And I agree, while we wait, our species could modify itself through genetics. No one will say anything bad about curing harmful mutations in humans, so why not making humans better equipped to handle the society they are living in, as well as the environment (like different gravity)?
In my opinion, the reason why we establish ourself on objects outside earth is irrelevant, as long as doesn't have any negative influences on the final product. Does it matter if the moon is turned into a futuristic Las Vegas for rich people, if it means the will be large and scientific bases there and help to create a self-sustained society there? Especially if the alternative is remaining here on earth.
I don't think we need to worry that cults or terrorists and such will establish their own colonies on other objects in the solar system. Just moving to Mars is a huge task that requires cooperation between countries. It will take forever before small groups will be able to do so on their own, if ever. Even if they did succeed in finding a small moon to live on, so what? They would either survive or vanish. If they survived, they could add knowlegde to the rest of the colonies and the earth. As we have seen from WW2 and SSR and such; when a society become too hostile to its inhabitants, the political systems lives on borrowed time.
The costs of sending humans to the moon or Mars would be greatly reduced if the traffic was restricted between space structures attached to space elevators. From what I have heard, at least it has now become possible in theory. Althought those who travel to Mars will not do it as tourists, but as colonists. And once the population is large enough to become self-sustained, have created their own infrastructure, and is able to grow without the risk of inbreeding, there would actally be no need for travels between the planets, even if they would probably occure anyway. Another way to avoid inbreeding is sending small ships with protected frozen sperm and eggs from healthy donors.
When or if hunans have finally got a foothold on Mars as it is today, they would perhaps not need to terraform it, but they woyld wish to do it. At least if what I assume about the human nature is correct. We may be safe in protected cities, but the idea of being surrounded by a literally deadly vasteland is not comforting. What happens if a disaster occurs and a huge area that protects against the thin Martian atmosphere disappears? Humans will die. An atmosphere would protect us more than one way. And the idea of being able to travel out in nature under a blue sky and feel the sun must be better than just always having some sort of roof over the head. There would probably not be a direct need for outdoor wildlife, forests and nature in general, but if there is a way, it will be done.
I read that some claim that there is no point in terraforming Mars, because it is only "only temporarily", meaning the atmosphere will only last for a few million years if not contained. If it on the other hand could be created a permanent atmosphere which wold last for the rest of our sun's existence, it would make sense in terraforming the planet.
But even a few thousand years would be enough, not to mention some million years. Ten thousand years ago we were still living in the stone ag, and see how far we have come today.
The day it becomes possible to move to Mars and live in the open under a blue sky, the technology will have come even further. With that as a starting point, one can only imaging how the Martian civilization would look after some thousands years. Humans will have counted millions or maybe even over a billion, have spread all over the planet, built cities and domesticated the environments. Humans would most likely also take a chance on asteriod mining, since the asteroid belt is much closer Mars than earth.
So when or if the day comes when it is getting gradually harder to breath on the planet's surface, our descendants will have tools we can only dream of. Then there are three options; recreate the atmosphere once more, cover the main areas with giant glass domes, roofs and use other ways to protects the life (and making protected channels which makes up a huge network of waterways, just as in the old sci-fi stories), or find another planet.
Well, humans have probably already set out to find new worlds at that point, both within the solar system and beyond it, and maybe also repopulated the earth if the human civilization on this planet for some reason should collapse and never recover, resulting in an extinction of humans still living on this planet or throw them back to the stone age and decrease their number to a tiny fraction of what it is today.
There are a lot of possibilities, and as Robert Zubrin says; we can't stay in the cradle forever.
There is no doubt that an atmosphere, free running water and a human-friendly environment would be many times better than the hostile desert planet Mars is today. It is not enough to get a tiny foothold on it, we need to domesticate it and become one with it. Once that happens, and we and the planet are adapting to each others over the next generations, a very slow and gradually reduction of the atmosphere is nothing that our descandants can't handle.
For the same reason I see no reason why giving an atmophere to the moon would be such a bad idea, unless it would require more work, energy and time than just populate it "the old fashion way" by building gradually larger lunar bases. But the moon still comes in after Mars, which in my opinion is (or should be) humanity's main target.
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