New Mars Forums

I’m not an engineer or scientist, but if I were asked to terraform Mars, my two main concerns would be the lack of a planetary-wide magnetic-field and nitrogen.

Just assuming I’ve got an open cheque-book to spend billions (100s of billions,) and again I’ll like to interate, I’m not a scientist and my ideas may simply not work.
I would start without even going to within 1,000,000 KM of Mars.  I would start at the Martian-Sun L1 point.   I would populate the L1 with hundreds of permanent magnets or electro-magnets, resembling the shafts of ships.   These magnets can be arranged, orbiting vertically in the shape of a circular shield, slightly wider than the diameter of Mars.  If this is at all workable, the combined magnetic-fields of these magnets might deflect the solar-wind, and protect the Martian atmosphere down-stream from L1.  You would hopefully be creating a “solar-wind shadow.”
 
This system may protect the planet from solar-wind and solar-flares, but not from cosmic-rays and other high energy particles originating from outside the solar-system.

These magnetic-field sources in the shape of rods or shafts would have to be massive enough so that they don’t get blown away by the solar-wind.  These shafts would have to be maybe a 100 metres long with wide diameters, because as you can image, if these shafts were light-weight, a surrounding magnetic-field bubble would act as a sail.

It might be possible to construct these giant magnet-field shafts using a 3-D printer.  One might envisage an orbiting industrial complex at L1, crushing iron and/or nickel derived from asteroids (and maybe an addition of rare-earth elements,) to be loaded into a specialised 3-D printer to print large magnets in space

If in decades from now we seriously want to terraform Mars, and work out a way of giving Mars some form of planet-wide magnetic-field, there’s probably to getting-away from the fact that it’ll involve some form of mega-structure.

I hope that humans will be around for a long time yet, and we don’t wipe ourselves out in some ghastly nuclear war or other calamity.  If humans are still here in centuries from now, and we do indeed start terraforming Mars, it would be ideal to have a planet Mars with some form of planetary-wide magnetic-field to ensure that Mars retains a new atmosphere over geological time.  If  humans do manage to survive over geological-time, such luck might be inter-related with the terraforming of Mars and becoming a dual planet specie – and an introduction of the Earth’s flora and fauna to another planet.
So long as progress, innovation, and scientific endeavour continues, and we don’t end up in a “Mad Max” type world; just think of the medical possibilities alone.  Besides the conquest of cancer, the Zita virus, AIDS, could we restore someone with severe, horrendous burns?  Restore someone severely deformed and rebuilding damaged DNA?  Restore someone severely brain damaged?  Could this be achieved in a century from now?  Two centuries from now?  Four centuries?

There is a problem though with an L1 lagrangian points.  It’s being deduced of late that they may not be as stable as once thought of.  This means that an object placed at L1 will require satellite “house keeping” unfortunately.  It might be possible equip satellites at L1 with an “EM Drive” or a “Cannae Drive” to maintain satellite orientation/attitude and also stop the satellite from drifting away from L1.  According to research done by NASA, these “EM Drives” or a “Cannae Drives” produce thrust without the use of propellant.  If we want to build a system that is to survive over geological-time, then it has to be as maintenance-free as possible!

As with nitrogen, there are probably significant deposits on nitrates on Mars, as there are in the Atacama Desert.  Again, assuming I’ve got an open cheque book to spend billions; I’ll start with the assumption that there aren’t any significant deposits.  I would build a fleet of Hybrid, nuclear-electric, solar-sail ships, not to go to Mars, but to search the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud for nitrogen-rich icy bodies.  On the out-bound trip to the Keiper Belt and beyond, the solar-sail can assist the spacecraft in gaining speed.  On the in-bound journey to the inner solar system (to Mars) the solar-sail can be used to shield a captured icy body from the Sun’s rays.