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Has anyone thought about using probes to begin terraforming planets now?
For example, a few hundred probes with Plasma rockets on them could pick up asteroids and direct them into planets/the moon. A few Iron asteroids could be directed into Venus, water ones into Mars, maybe even a few into the moon.
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It's just that, the way everyone was talking, it seemed the stations would be manned and the craft transporting comets and asteroids would be manned.
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Building for example an asteroid-pushing tug will be much more expensive if it's man-rated than if it is automated. You'd have to have an atmosphere circulation system, food, bathrooms, waste recycling, all kinds of extraneous stuff that would add huge amounts of weight that an automated tug wouldn't need to implement.
I suspect you've been making incorrect assumptions if you've been assuming people think early tugs would be manned.
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Then what are NASA waiting for? Launch 100 probes with a $10,000,000 price tag each and begin terraforming.
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Probes that cheap wouldn't be able to do anything.
Plus, I don't think there's agreement on what the first target should be, how the terraforming should be conducted, nor even if terraforming *should* be conducted.
So it's both a matter of a) money; huge amounts are needed to terraform, and b) disagreement; nobody can agree on what to do.
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Even just 10, maybe even just 1, probes that could direct asteroids/comets to targets would be an improvement on the current stasis.
Multiple targets to get round the disagreement?
I'm in favor of the 'bombard it with objects' approach to terraforming. And the 'scorch it!' approach. It's the quickest.
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Even just 10, maybe even just 1, probes that could direct asteroids/comets to targets would be an improvement on the current stasis.
True, it would be. But a very trivial improvement. There would be no tangible return on the investment. Basically, to the ones that have the money, it would be like throwing away money on something that doesn't do anything noticeable. Of course, it's arguable that the current missions don't do anything noticeable either...with a few notable exceptions. Mars rovers and Huygens lander were/are some amazing stuff.
Multiple targets to get round the disagreement?
Which would only mean being able to do even less on each separate front. If we can't even muster enough money to terraform Mars, how well would it work out if we tried to terraform Mars, Moon, Venus and Titan at the same time, and Mars got only a quarter of the funding it would have otherwise gotten? We'd get nowhere even slower.
I'm in favor of the 'bombard it with objects' approach to terraforming. And the 'scorch it!' approach. It's the quickest.
And there's a lot of objection to such tactics from those holding the purse strings. Today's world is all about pussyfooting around and being wimps, not men.
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I just don't want to wait about ten years until I'm the one holding the biggest purse strings.
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Hi Everyone,
My gut feeling is that no one will try to terraform a planet until there are people there that want it to be terraformed. It is just too expensive. I also think that one or a few asteroids won't be enough to significantly change things.
Warm regards, Rick.
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Robots could do it! Intelligent robots. This would be part of interstellar colonization.
1) Remote sensing, study the planets through telescopes.
2) Send Von Neuman Robots that use local materials to make copies of themselves and terraform the planet.
3) Send the colonists.
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And then everything could go the way they did in the X series of games.
4) Earth sends an update that gets scrambled in transmission.
5) The robots believe they need to terraform planets already terraformed.
6) Humans try destroying them.
7)Interstellar war ravages the galaxy.
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