terraforming questions

DrMars · 2004-06-02 07:36:14

Could someone answer these terraforming mars related questions for me for a paper I amm writing?

1) How long will the whole process take?

2) What steps must be taken to terraform Mars?

3) What is the ratio of Eath/Mars size?

4) Is it ethical?

Thanks for the help!!

MarsDog · 2004-06-02 13:12:09

(1) It will newer be done - largest Earthlike conditions on Mars will be inside city sized enclosures. Captured atmosphere inside an enclosure is easier to maintain than an atmosphere leaking to space.
(2) Warmth and lot of gasses from somewhere. Theoretically possible, but unstable over the long term.
(3) Mass, Diameter, Magnetic Field, Gravity, Escape Velocity ....
(4) Ethically, the Big Hungry kill and eat the small.

atitarev · 2004-06-18 20:32:00

Could someone answer these terraforming mars related questions for me for a paper I amm writing?
1) How long will the whole process take?
2) What steps must be taken to terraform Mars?
3) What is the ratio of Eath/Mars size?
4) Is it ethical?

Thanks for the help!!

I am sure Mars can and will be terraformed.
:band: :band: :band:

MarsDog · 2004-06-19 01:12:22

The whole planet has to be changed, and you wont be able to call it Mars anymore.
-
With wishful speculation and enormous effort:

(1) add more mass (where is the dark matter when you need it ?)
(2) bury the carbon (plate tectonics wont do it for you)
(3) create oceans and keep them from freezing somehow
(4) create an artificial magnetic field.

It all takes too long.
Mars is there, as a convenient place, to quickly occupy and expand into space.

chat · 2004-06-19 05:55:34

1. About 14 hrs, plus about 48 hrs for atmospheric changes to spread.

2. De-orbit deimos, impact on the north pole.

3. Not sure what the mass of (eath) is, or even where it is.

4. Ethical, and our destiny if we plan to colonize the galaxy.

5. Mars will never be teraformed as a clone of earth, but can be life_aformed.

chat · 2004-06-19 06:01:55

MarsDog,

I agree.

Why is the best question of all.
As you say, it is already ready for us to colonize.

De_orbiting deimos might make for a hostile place that can't be colonized.
It could easily become a second Venus.

So why bother toying with what is already ready.

dicktice · 2004-06-19 09:56:27

DrMars: A waste of time to write the paper, unless it's about all the time already wasted by others' attempts to write such papers. Sorry, but it's been done to death. Mars is turning out to be exciting enough, just the way it is.

karov · 2004-06-25 12:19:06

The whole planet has to be changed, and you wont be able to call it Mars anymore.
-
With wishful speculation and enormous effort:
(1) add more mass (where is the dark matter when you need it ?)
(2) bury the carbon (plate tectonics wont do it for you)
(3) create oceans and keep them from freezing somehow
(4) create an artificial magnetic field.
It all takes too long.
Mars is there, as a convenient place, to quickly occupy and expand into space.

Object with the same mass at the same orbit -- why we should change it`s name.
-
(1) why to add more mass? - Mars kept it`s atmosphere and it`s water for billions of years. If it occur that ~1/3th Gee is enough for the human body to be functional during it`s whole lenght lifetime -- pregnancy-birth-reproduction again-aging-death, than it will be no necessary neither to search methods for local or global increase of the gravity, nor to leave mars out of the terraformation list. ... If the functionality of the original human body is full under ~0.3 G, or if it needs just medicine or reversible nano-augmentation, than it eases further our task in other star systems: remember already discovered systems where a gass giant is very close to the star or the system is in very early stage of it`s formation - rather billions of planetesimals than several planets... Regard, also, the mass/surface ratio of Earth and Mars. The Earth has about 10 Mars masses but just ~4 times it`s surface. The Moon has 1/16th of the Earths surface, but 0.0123 of it`s mass. So in Mars size units the Earth gives us about 2.5 times more habitable surface (if the third of G is enough for permanent habitation). In moon sized pieces - ~5 times the eartyh area under 1/6th G.
Little mases are more surface efficient. One human colonists` group "abroad" could decide to dismantle a gass giant or forcedly coalesce planetesimals in artificial planets (if they LIKE the custom planets) with the Mars or Lunar size or just down to the "sanitary" minimum (especially if they have used to inhabit such smaller planets in the home Solar system) in order to gain as much as possibly bigger mass/area
benefit. A giant with 1000 earth masses (~3 Jupiters) could give birth of extremely numerous progeny of , say, 100 000 Moons cyrcling around the new sun in controled by refined mutual gravity assist&dinamic comporession manner, giving totaly ~5000 earth surfaces.

(2) Why to bury the carbon -- you don`t need plate tectonics at all. Fix the CO2, export it, pump it underground and release it whenever it is necessary. Grow very extensive biosphere -- initially rush the producents (plants) to make as much as possible biomass, then slow down the exchange of chemicals in the biosphere...

(3) keeping the oceans from freezing will be intrinsic part of the total work, just a byproduct of the overall needed heating or gass-greenhousing.

(4) artificial magnetic field could be easily establisdhed and maintained by puting the planet in the center of modertate size mag-sail. It is just a rope - easy for replacing if damage occurs. Even on minor planets or very close to the Sun, such artificial mag-fields, could be adjusted either to return back in the atmosphere the dissipating atoms, but also to scoop in the solar wind.

I agree that the giant tube world-space colonies could house us more safely and comfortably than the open-skyed custom planets. I know that a tube world has the best achievable mass/surface efficiency ( equal to the supraplanetary shells, without the supporting orbital rings) - say, 40 tonnes per square meter. BUT:

-- this is matter of demand&supply. At least miniscule part of the future mankind, retained it`s ancesttal form SHALL preffer to live on natural round planet which pushes you doun with gravitational not inertial gravity, and has solid guts. At least part of them will preffer to live on smaller bodies with gravity from 0.1 to 1 G. When the humanity approaches infinity, many-many such excentrics will inhabit many-many sub-earth planets.

Martian Republic · 2004-06-26 15:57:02

Could someone answer these terraforming mars related questions for me for a paper I amm writing?
1) How long will the whole process take?
2) What steps must be taken to terraform Mars?
3) What is the ratio of Eath/Mars size?
4) Is it ethical?

Thanks for the help!!

1. unknown, as to how long it will take to therefrom Mars. But, before we can therefrom Mars, we will have to get there in sufficient number with an Agro-Industrial-Mining base and possibly space station to house the tereforming work crew. That by itself could take thirty or forty year before we even start on any serious tereforming operation on Mars.

2. Tereforming Mars, it all depends on what you want to do to Mars and how far down the tereforming tail you intend to go. I personally think we need to build a city on Mars of a hundred thousand or more people just as a starter. With that kind of population and building several more city, tereforming Mars will become of generational project for the Martian people to make Mars more like Earth as new technology come on line to improve the Martian ecological system and make it more Earth like, but Mars will never be totally like Earth though.

3. Earth has ten times the mass of Mars. Mars has 38% percent of the gravity of the Earth. Mars has .01% of the magnetosphere that the Earth has, so it is virtually non existent as compared to the Earth Magnetosphere.

4. I see nothing wrong with developing the ecological system of Mars and making it more Earth like. If there is life on Mars, we would want to know about and if at all possibly we would want to save it as we develop the planet Mars.

Larry,

atitarev · 2004-06-26 19:33:47

I just want to add my opinion about the ethics. If we start talking about it, we will get bogged down. What's wrong with turning deserts into oases? Martian rocks won't go anywhere, they will still be there for studies. I read KSR's Mars trilogy and I don't understand the stubbornness of the "Reds".

Mars won't be the same even if we just land on it. Creating oceans, seas, lakes and rivers on Mars may take from decades to hundreds of years - enough time to study what was there before, even flooding is not a complete destruction. The remaining land will not erode too fast either, if ever.

In case there is some primitive life on Mars, which I doubt, we need to preserve enough of their samples, so that we could send them as pioneers to planets/moons with harsher conditions than Mars - Callisto, Ganymede, etc.

If we want to preserve human species and other living species we need to terraform and colonize. There are so many dead rocks in the Universe and how many habitable places do we know? :rant:

karov · 2004-06-27 04:58:59

Could someone answer these terraforming mars related questions for me for a paper I amm writing?
1) How long will the whole process take?
2) What steps must be taken to terraform Mars?
3) What is the ratio of Eath/Mars size?
4) Is it ethical?

Thanks for the help!!

In order to figger out some numbers conserning the nowaday existing biotechnology and the parameters of the earth biosphere for comparison with eventual instaled ones on other planets, See:

"The plant life is the only biochemical manifacture process which accumulates energy. The result of this production is mainly biomass. The global productivity of the photosynthesis and the power needs of the mankind are characterised with the following quiantities:
-present biomass on Earth: 1.8 x 10Exp12 tonnes;
-present celulose in it - 7.2 x 10Exp11 tonnes;
-carbon, tied per annum by the plants - 2 x 10Exp11 tonnes;
-energy per annum accumulated by the plants - 3 x 10exp12 kcal (12.54 x 10exp15 Joules)
-world consumption of energy per year (80-es) - a tenth of the overal plant production;
-world consumption of energy with the food - 1/200 of the total photosynthetic production;
... the total photosynthetic productivity of the earth continents is 64.4%,... forests - 41.6%, pasture - 9,7%, agricultural land - only 5.1%".

This numbers concern not well managed ecosystem using chlorophile (1% transformation efficiency) and mostly "natural" species. Even if only gengeneering and optimal conditions` growing of the photosynthesisers is implemented, than productivity at least HUNDREDS of times bigger could be achieved...

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#1 2004-06-02 07:36:14

Re: terraforming questions

#2 2004-06-02 13:12:09

Re: terraforming questions

#3 2004-06-18 20:32:00

Re: terraforming questions

#4 2004-06-19 01:12:22

Re: terraforming questions

#5 2004-06-19 05:55:34

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#6 2004-06-19 06:01:55

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#7 2004-06-19 09:56:27

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#8 2004-06-25 12:19:06

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#9 2004-06-26 15:57:02

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#10 2004-06-26 19:33:47

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#11 2004-06-27 04:58:59

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