Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

soph · 2003-03-29 18:25:33

Steel refinement from iron is one process, here's the reaction:

Fe2O3 + 3CO ---> 2 FE + 3 CO2

malfunkshun · 2003-04-14 17:13:46

Youse guys're so eager to louse-up Mars, even before we get there! That's all we need: Hungry bugs introduced by youse, t'make life on Mars even more hellish 'n it already is. Keep yer cotton-pickin' hands off, see? until we get there, so's ya'll know what the heck yer doin'...get me?

LOL you sound like Anne, the Red Radical from Kim Stanley Robinsons Mars trilogy.
Anywho...
Auqakah, have you read those books? They're steeped in just enough science to make a 200 year complete terraforming of Mars sound 'almost' plausable.
Here's to hoping :;):

Earthfirst · 2003-04-16 11:36:58

Rapid terriforming on mars is a good thing, Rapid too me might be a full terrifromed mars where at lest you dont need space suits to walk around. 100 years would be rapid, you people are talking about 1000s of years thats not very fast.
To the people that say that just because you can have a grass lawn in the desert does not mean they will have never been to Phoenix Arizona before!!! I lived in phoenix all my life and thers one thing that I can tell you if people can have a lawn in the desert they will in the millions. 3.5 million people in fact sucking dry the Salt river, and getting what Arizona was rights too way from Californias greedy hands. The valley of the sun was terriformed from a dry hot desert with only a train station to a huge green valley full of people and farms. This happen less than a 100 years. I think once people start living on mars, if they can terrifrom they will fast as they can its human nature, to change they envirnoment to suit them. Expect no less with mars!!!! 100 golf crouses for each person if you dont belive me chech out the city of phoenix web site.

dickbill · 2003-06-17 17:47:24

Hi all,
There was a short article in red colony.com recently, about the production of PerFluoroCarbon by living organisms. The author susgests lichens could produce PFC. I had done a small bibliographical search in the past about that, not specifically lichen, but about any ecosystem producing PerFluoroCarbons as metabolite wastes or byproducts that could be useful to terraform Mars. So it’s time to post it.

In general, life doesn’t like fluoride. It’s a very reactive element, the most electronegative of all elements, which explains its reactivity. Fluorhydric acid can attack glass, but most importantly for us, Fluoride is a strong inhibitor of enzymatic reactions, very often it’s a poison when it is incorporated in the metabolism.

So, question, is there some microorganisms who can deal with fluor in their metabolism without to be poisoned ?
Yes:

Arch Biochem Biophys 2000 Jul 15;379(2):292-8 Related Articles, Links
Methanococcus jannaschii ORF mj0608 codes for a class C inorganic pyrophosphatase protected by Co(2+) or Mn(2+) ions against fluoride inhibition.
Kuhn NJ, Wadeson A, Ward S, Young TW.
School of Biosciences, The University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, United Kingdom. N.J.Kuhn@bham.ac.uk
Openreading frame mj0608 of the Methanococcus jannaschii genome, recognized by its sequence similarity to that of the gene coding for class C inorganic pyrophosphatase in Bacillus subtilis.... Therefore this protein is a specific inorganic pyrophosphatase. The activities of Mg(2+), Mn(2+), Co(2+), and Zn(2+) ions as cofactors for hydrolysis of PPi were compared at pH 7.5 and 9.0. Unlike the class C pyrophosphatase of B. subtilis, this enzyme required no prior activation by low concentrations of Mn(2+) or Co(2+) ions. However, prior exposure to these ions afforded striking protection against inhibition by sodium fluoride, to which the enzyme was otherwise very sensitive.

Good, but not surprising, this Methanococcus bacteria can adapt to a fluoride salt inhibitor. That was just an example, there are many other examples. But adapting to a metabolic poison is not quite like integrating fluoride into a metabolism to produce PFC.

So question, it there some micro-organisms who can actually deal whith a fluoride poison like fluoroacetate like any other metabolite ?
Again, Yes:

FEMS Microbiol Lett 1992 Jan 1;69(2):201-4 Related Articles, Links
Dehalogenation of trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11) by Methanosarcina barkeri.
Krone UE, Thauer RK.
Laboratorium fur Mikrobiologie der Philipps-Universitat, Marburg, F.R.G.
Methanobacterium barkeri was found to catalyze the reductive dehalogenation of trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11), also known as FREON 11. Products detected were CHFCl2, CH2FCl, CO and fluoride
microbiology, Vol 141, 1385-1393, Copyright © 1995 by Society for General Microbiology

This bacteria can remove the fluoride atoms from the freon molecule, but this is the reverse of what we want, we want a bacteria who could take carbon atoms from ambiant CO2 and add Fluoride atoms, from a fluroride salt bed or fluoride crystal for example, to that carbon atom, to make a fluorocarbon molecule.

APPLIED AND ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY,
0099-2240/01/$04.000 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.67.10.4919–4921
Oct. 2001, p. 4919–4921 Vol. 67, No. 10
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Isolation of an Aldehyde Dehydrogenase Involved in the
Oxidation of Fluoroacetaldehyde to Fluoroacetate
in Streptomyces cattleya
CORMAC D. MURPHY,1,2 STEVEN J. MOSS,2 AND DAVID O’HAGAN 1,2 *
School of Chemistry, University of St. Andrews, Fife KY16 9ST,1 and Department of Chemistry,
University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE,2 United Kingdom
Received 10 April 2001/Accepted 19 June 2001
Streptomyces cattleya is unusual in that it produces fluoroacetate and 4-fluorothreonine as secondary metab-olites.
We now report the isolation of an NAD -dependent fluoroacetaldehyde dehydrogenase from S. Cattleya that mediates the oxidation of fluoroacetaldehyde to fluoroacetate. This is the first enzyme to be identified that is directly involved in fluorometabolite biosynthesis....

Great, the first enzyme identified to produce fluorometabolites ! Maybe that could be the basis for a primitive fluoride metabolism. Notice that the initial fluoride is in the form of fluoroacetaldehyde, this is still far from a fluoride salt or a fluoroapatite crystal that could be found on Mars.
A little bit more on that:

Biosynthesis of fluorinated secondary metabolites by Streptomyces cattleya

KA Reid, JT Hamilton, RD Bowden, D O'Hagan, L Dasaradhi, MR Amin and DB Harper
Department of Food Science, Queen's University of Belfast, UK.

The biosynthesis of organofluorine compounds by Streptomyces cattleya NRRL 8057 was examined using 19F NMR spectroscopy. The organism produced 1.2 mM fluoroacetate and 0.5 mM 4-fluorothreonine as secondary metabolites when cultured for 28 d on a chemically defined medium containing 2 mM fluoride.

We’re getting close, here the substrate is plain fluoride in solution, from a fluoride salt then.
If they are some chemists here, they might be interested by these articles:

Biol Chem 2000 Jan;381(1):1-5 Related Articles, Links
Enzymatic halogenation catalyzed via a catalytic triad and by oxidoreductases.
van Pee KH, Keller S, Wage T, Wynands I, Schnerr H, Zehner S.
Institut fur Biochemie, Technische Universitat Dresden, Germany.
During the search for haloperoxidases in bacteria we detected a type of enzymes that catalyzed the peroxide-dependent halogenation of organic substrates . However, in contrast to already known haloperoxidases, these enzymes do not contain a prosthetic group or metal ions nor any other cofactor. Biochemical and molecular genetic studies revealed that they contain a catalytic triad consisting of a serine, a histidine, and an aspartate. The reaction they catalyze is actually the perhydrolysis of an acetic acid serine ester leading to the formation of peracetic acid. As a strong oxidizing agent the enzymatically formed peracetic acid can oxidize halide ions, resulting in the formation of hypohalous acid which then acts as the actual halogenating agent. Since hypohalous acid is also formed by the heme- and vanadium containing haloperoxidases, enzymatic halogenation catalyzed by haloperoxidases and perhydrolases in general lacks substrate specificity and regioselectivity. However, detailed studies on the biosynthesis of several halometabolites led to the detection of a novel type of halogenases. These enzymes consist of a two-component system and require NADH and FAD for activity. Whereas the gene for one of the components is part of the biosynthetic cluster of the halometabolite, the second component is an enzyme which is also present in bacteria from which no halometabolites have ever been isolated, like Escherichia coli. In contrast to haloperoxidases and perhydrolases the newly detected NADH/FAD-dependent halogenases are substrate-specific and regioselective and might provide ideal tools for specific halogenation reactions.

J Am Chem Soc 2003 Jan 15;125(2):379-87 Related Articles, Links

Assay for the enantiomeric analysis of [2H1]-fluoroacetic acid: insight into the stereochemical course of fluorination during fluorometabolite biosynthesis in streptomyces cattleya.
O'Hagan D, Goss RJ, Meddour A, Courtieu J.
School of Chemistry, University of St Andrews, Centre of Biomolecular Sciences, North Haugh, United Kingdom, KY15 9EA.
A sensitive method for the configurational analysis of ®- and (S)-[2H1] fluoroacetate has been developed using 2H[1H]-NMR in a chiral liquid crystalline solvent. This has enabled biosynthetic experiments to be conducted which reveal stereochemical details on biological fluorination occurring during the biosynthesis of fluoroacetate and 4-fluorothreonine in the bacterium Streptomyces cattleya

But other bacteria than Streptomyces cattleya are interesting, in the next article, the authors suggest sulfate reducing bacteria can remove chloride from CFC11. Then again, this metabolism could be developed to form the ancestor of an halogenation metabolism, the basis for a PFC producing ecosystem:

Appl Environ Microbiol 1994 Dec;60(12):4567-72 Related Articles, Links
Dechlorination of trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11) by sulfate-reducing bacteria from an aquifer contaminated with halogenated aliphatic compounds.
Sonier DN, Duran NL, Smith GB.
Biology Department, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces 88003.
Groundwater samples were obtained from a deep aquifer contaminated with halogenated aliphatic compounds. One-milliliter samples contained 9.2 x 10(5) total bacteria (by acridine orange microscopic counts) and 2.5 x 10(3) sulfate-reducing bacteria (by most probable number analysis). Samples were incubated anaerobically in a basal salts medium with acetate as the electron donor and nitrate and sulfate as the electron acceptors. Residual levels of trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11) in samples were biotically degraded, while trichloroethylene was not. When successively higher levels of CFC-11 were added, increasingly rapid degradation rates were observed. Concomitant with CFC-11 degradation was the near stoichiometric production of fluorodichloromethane (HCFC-21); the production of HCFC-21 was verified by mass spectrometry. CFC-11 degradation was dependent on the presence of acetate (or butyrate) and sulfate but was independent of nitrate. Other carbon sources such as lactate and isopropanol did not support the degradation. The addition of 1 mM sodium sulfide completely inhibited CFC 11 degradation; however, degradation occurred in the presence of 2 mM 2 bromoethanesulfonic acid. These results indicate that the anaerobic dechlorination of CFC-11 is carried out by sulfate-reducing bacteria and not by denitrifying or methanogenic bacteria.

Unfortunatly, I have not found any report of PFC being produced by bacteria or other organisms. Maybe it’s not possible, given the law of chemistry and physic. So in this case, we should not focuse too much on a PFC producing ecosystem. NH3, ammoniac is a greenhouse gas too, less good than PFC but still usefull for our purpose. A NH3 producing ecosystem is much more likely feasible, providing that bacteria can be engineered to use the nitrogen in nitrate beds or in the atmosphere of Mars, in the tough martian conditions, and if terraforming was something desirable.

Lone--Wolfe · 2003-06-18 18:13:40

Heres my theory for that. We either use electrolysis to separate the polar caps, and send some polluted air from our planet to create a light atmosphere. Then we send the organisms, in around 20 years (hopefully) theyll have assimilated the air, and a small atmosphere will be created. then we melt parts of the caps... etc. etc.

dickbill · 2003-06-19 07:14:21

Heres my theory for that. We either use electrolysis to separate the polar caps, and send some polluted air from our planet to create a light atmosphere. Then we send the organisms, in around 20 years (hopefully) theyll have assimilated the air, and a small atmosphere will be created. then we melt parts of the caps... etc. etc.

about PFC: I've read it in the "Case for Mars" and in a scientific paper in 98 which reference (maybe PNAS ?) is in this forum, and maybe it what proposed much before that. I think it's a very serious option to warm Mars.

The only unrealistic thing is to say: "there is plenty of fluoride and Carbon on Mars, so making the PFC is easy" . Theoritically yes, but how do you build the hundred of chemical reactors needed for that purpose ?
How do you bring the Fluoride to the reactors ? with thousands of small, Pathfinder-like, robots foraging in fluoride beds ?

It would be certainly easy to build one of these reactor, and bring the floride by hand to it, for a demonstration purpose, and produce, say, some kg of PFC...then what ? you would need thousands of them.
So the idea to have greenhouse gas (not necesseraly PFC ) produced by a MArs-adapted ecosystem living in fluoride-rich (if a Fluoride based metabolism can be set up) area is helpful, I think. The advantage is the microorganisms (bacteria/algae/fungus/lichen) can be adapted on Earth, in adavance, and seeded on Mars later. I don't say it's the only way to warm Mars, I just say the possibity exists.

space_psibrain · 2003-07-08 21:23:34

Just out of curiousity, how much atmosphere Mars' gravity can effectively hold in without it leaking off into space?

prometheusunbound · 2003-07-09 09:20:34

quite a lot. Zubrin wrote something on this in his terraforming proposal in 'case for mars'. . . .sorry I don't have it with me. .

Almir · 2003-07-14 13:16:56

Just out of curiousity, how much atmosphere Mars' gravity can effectively hold in without it leaking off into space?

The gravity is not problem. The problem is the solar wind.

The Solar Wind at Mars
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast31jan_1.htm

dickbill · 2003-07-14 14:30:18

Another alternative to create an atmosphere could be to dig a hole deep until the martian mantle. That was done in the KSR trilogy but now there is a recent paper suggesting that Mars still has a melted core (ref below). So maybe bringing some magma at the surface through induce volcanism would degase enough gases to increase the surface atmospheric pressure a little bit.
How to induce volcanism ? well, maybe some magma pockets are not too deep and could be drilled. Or a tunnel could be drilled and some nuclear explosives could be left there in a chapelet, then ignited to create a fault to allow the magma to ascent.
That's not a very "aerologicaly correct" way to terraform, with all respect due to Mars, and I would prefer something more natural. The problem is, how much more natural are the PFC or the orbiting mirrors ideas ?

Science. 2003 Apr 11;300(5617):299-303. Epub 2003 Mar 06. Science. 2003 Apr 11;300(5617):260-1.
Fluid core size of Mars from detection of the solar tide.
Yoder CF, Konopliv AS, Yuan DN, Standish EM, Folkner WM.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA. Charles.F.Yoder@jpl.nasa.gov
The solar tidal deformation of Mars, measured by its k2 potential Love number, has been obtained from an analysis of Mars Global Surveyor radio tracking. The observed k2 of 0.153 +/- 0.017 is large enough to rule out a solid iron core and so indicates that at least the outer part of the core is liquid. The inferred core radius is between 1520 and 1840 kilometers and is independent of many interior properties, although partial melt of the mantle is one factor that could reduce core size. Ice-cap mass changes can be deduced from the seasonal variations in air pressure and the odd gravity harmonic J3, given knowledge of cap mass distribution with latitude. The south cap seasonal mass change is about 30 to 40% larger than that of the north cap.

atitarev · 2003-10-13 00:45:13

Does anybody have any idea what the most ambitious ideas on the terraforming of Mars are?

Haven't read the whole thread but the most ambitious project is "Terraforming Mars Quickly", by Paul Birch - http://www.marsinstitute.info/rd/facult … /ls09.html

Not my favourite way but it only takes about 50 years and $130 billion British pounds.

dickbill · 2003-10-13 08:09:47

I am more and more a partisan of a soft, gentle, step by step, SLOW, terraforming.
I am against to volatilize the polar cap as the first step in a brutal way (nuclear bombs for example). IF the polar caps have to evaporate, that's OK, but I would prefer that as a result of a general global and gentle warming. It will be more controlable, I think, if the process of terraforming is not faster than the lifespan of an individual.
A fast terraforming could give more trouble than benefits for the first colonies/immigrants, such as landslides, floodings, and uncontrolable catastrophic changes in general.

~Eternal~ · 2003-10-13 22:04:29

Martian terraformation isn't that hard in my eyes... of course I ignore math and use pure imagination within realistic accompishments.
Step One:
Release 20 mb of PFC gasses(Freon being the majority).
Step Two:
Nuke the south pole if its not already melted.
Step Three:
Repeat step 2 for the North pole.
Step Four:
Aerobrake asteroids into the atmosphere.
Step Five:
Huzzah, realease PFC amune Lichen into the wet soil.
~ about 60 years in all.

alokmohan · 2003-10-14 05:25:33

If life is already there in mars ,all calculations fail.

Tyr · 2003-11-20 17:29:04

Nuke the polar caps? Too much radioactive waste. Or do you mean divert an asteroid onto collision course with the polar caps? What about explosive blow off? Better use lots of little impacts. Think shotgun instead of cannonball.

~Eternal~ · 2003-11-20 18:34:13

I personally 1-3 centuries is plenty fast.
Who knows, the way science heading we may
actually have a longevity drug in the near future .

sethmckiness · 2003-11-22 09:25:06

no to be too cynical but terraforming mars to so that you will either die from skin cancer or leukemia?(leukemia cases due to nuclear radiation see hiroshima/nagasaki) I thought the point is being able to walk outside, so trade a space suit for a nuke suit.. sorry.. Not to be offensive.. but I think there may be better ways.. more refined and slower.. But I have my doubts, if we can't control out own planets eco-system and atmosphere do you think we could control a rapid change of another from barren bordeling vacuum to breathable levels?

~Eternal~ · 2003-11-22 11:52:13

Erm hate to dis ya like this,
but YA you do recieve lots of radiation on the Martian surface,
BUT its not that significant, its like receiving half of what the Astronauts/Cosmonauts on the ISS recieve.

RobertDyck · 2003-11-22 17:14:13

we may actually have a longevity drug in the near future

Current evidence shows that gene therapy to activate the gene that produces telomerase with every cellular mitosis, instead of the current activation only by meiosis, would stop all the aging effects you see with the premature aging disease called progeria. The only problem is figuring out how to apply gene therapy to an adult. According to one science journal (New Scientist?) there are over 2,000 researchers currently working on developing gene therapy techniques. This could be tested now on a laboratory mouse by genetically modifying it at the zygote stage, so it is born with the ability to not age. However, there are some researchers who are scared to tinker with aging.

I would still like to see Mars terraformed within 1 century.

Palomar · 2003-11-22 21:24:58

I would still like to see Mars terraformed within 1 century.

*Within one century? What extent of terraformation do you think could be possible in the space of 100 years? Entire terraformation with thickened atmosphere, plants and trees growing out in the open, etc.? Just curious.

(I'm for *limited* terraforming)

---

Dickbill: "I am against to volatilize the polar cap as the first step in a brutal way (nuclear bombs for example)."

*Uh...YEAH. Me too. No nuclear bombs on Mars at all, please, thank you.

Dickbill: "IF the polar caps have to evaporate, that's OK..."

*Are you sure? Earth's icecaps are important to its ecology. Same for Mars and its icecaps, right? No? Please explain either way? I'm curious, like always.

--Cindy

Byron · 2003-11-23 07:50:48

Dickbill: "IF the polar caps have to evaporate, that's OK..."
*Are you sure? Earth's icecaps are important to its ecology. Same for Mars and its icecaps, right? No? Please explain either way? I'm curious, like always.
--Cindy

I think what he is referring to is the evaporation of the CO2 that is part of the present-day icecaps, which occurs even now on a seasonal basis. There is growing evidence that Mars is experiencing global warming much like the Earth is now, with more and more of the southern cap being evaporated each year, thickening the atmosphere, etc. If this process continues, Mars could very well undergo partial terraformation on its own (!) This would also explain the recent signs of liquid water on the surface, warmer temps in the recent past, etc.

As for the human terraformation of Mars, I'm coming to think more along the lines of aerobraking small comets into the Martian atmosphere would be the most practical method of terraforming, rather than resort to invasive, "big industry" methods of extracting gases and water from underground. By bringning in water and hydrocarbons from elsewhere, you would be able to thicken and warm the atmosphere without massive destruction to the planet itself. In addition, you would be able to bring in valuable nitrogen, which will be necessary for widespread plant growth.

But hauling in comets from the Kupier Belt would take a long time, although this process could be performed by machines at a reasonably low cost (very little delta-v required to move Kupier Belt objects.) The main point in terraforming (at least in the early going) is not to make Mars into a lush tropical paradise, but to create an atmosphere thick enough so people wouldn't have to live under highly pressurized environments, and to make it possible to grow crops under simply-built greenhouses. I think people could do quite well in an Antarctica-type climate, as they could live in transparent tent cities and the like, using things like thermo-suits whenever they need to venture outdoors.

B

Shaun Barrett · 2003-11-23 18:24:48

I assume Robert means raising the ambient pressure on Mars to somewhere between 350 and 500 millibars, and mostly CO2 at that (?). But I may be misinterpreting his meaning.
It may be possible to produce a breathable atmosphere eventually, by various means, but its hard to see how that could be achieved in only one century. On the other hand, Arthur C. Clarke is fond of pointing out that most of the failures of prediction which have been documented over the last century or so have arisen because of underestimation of the potential of technology, not the opposite. My favourite analogy is to look at heavier-than-air flight at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1902, heavier-than-air flight was a futuristic concept, and the Wright brothers achievement a year later was still not universally accepted as reality for some years after it occurred. Yet, by 1914, aerial warfare had begun and, by 1927, commercial passenger flights were up and running.
So, maybe I'm completely underestimating the ability of future 21st century engineering to rebuild the Martian atmosphere in breathable form. Maybe Robert, quite sensibly, is erring on the side of optimism. I'm not sure.

Almost any degree of terraforming must inevitably result in the disappearance of CO2 ice from the Martian poles. Even a relatively modest rise in average temperatures would cause this to happen and, as Byron points out, it may be happening as we speak, without any intervention on our part!
For the record, I am strongly against the use of nuclear bombs to kick-start any terraforming of Mars and I believe such methods are not only repugnant but in all likelihood completely unnecessary. The point Byron raised, about the current remarkably swift sublimation of CO2 layers at the south pole, bolsters my belief that Mars is probably on a 'hair-trigger' as far as climate change is concerned. It seems likely, at least to me, that quite gentle nudges in the direction of greater warmth will bring about a positive feedback mechanism and automatically change the climate in our favour. (However, I admit this is more hunch than confident prediction.)

I'm still a bit wary of steering massive Kuiper Belt objects into the inner solar system at high velocities. Today, we're hearing more and more about potentially redirecting incoming asteroids in order to avoid having humanity go the way of the dinosaurs. But we're warned, at the same time, that the greatest danger stems from the sudden appearance of previously unknown long-period comets. These bodies travel at maybe 60 km/s and give us little lead-time to change their direction and need greater delta-v values to do so.
What if we manage to push a 200 km-diameter snowball out of its trans-plutonian orbit but get the sums wrong? It may prove much more difficult to turn aside such a juggernaut than it was to shift it from its original orbit .. remember, it will mass quintillions of tonnes and may reach a velocity well in excess of 40 km/s!!
Then again, perhaps I'm falling into the same trap I described above, by underestimating the power of future technology. And, in the absence of sufficient nitrogen on Mars, there may be no alternative to 'snowball snooker'!
But we'd better get it right!

As much as we argue about how to go about terraforming, I think it still comes back to super-greenhouse-gas production, as Dr. Zubrin advocates. The effect of even microbar levels of these gases is phenomenal, especially when used in conjunction with, say, a 400 millibar CO2 atmosphere.
Combined with the use of a large soletta directing extra sunlight to the northern polar regions, where a new Oceanus Borealis may form, Dr. Bob's greenhouse gases will probably give us first-stage terraforming in less than a century anyhow.

Palomar · 2003-11-23 18:38:16

And, in the absence sufficient nitrogen on Mars, there may be no alternative to 'snowball snooker'!

*LOL!! "Snowball Snooker."

Good reading from Byron and Shaun. Wish I could elaborate on what you've both written, but some of it is out of my league.

Snowball Snooker. Teehee...

--Cindy

::EDIT::

Shaun: "For the record, I am strongly against the use of nuclear bombs to kick-start any terraforming of Mars and I believe such methods are not only repugnant but in all likelihood completely unnecessary."

*Thank you! Total agreement there.

Rxke · 2003-11-24 00:16:44

I'm a bit hesitant to bring this up, but...

Anybody has an idea about how much effect the introduction of 'earth' organisms would have on the climate of Mars?

Some recent studies showed that Lovelock's(sp?) Gaia- theory has at least SOME truth in it... ie: life tends to shape the climate towards 'better' variables, to make its ecosphere more suitable to life, regardless the external factors. Would the introduction of hardy organisms trigger a more Earth-like climate, by influencing the composition of the athmosphere or would they simply adapt to the Mars circumstances? How much biomass would be needed to get significant changes (chlorophyl being not overly efficient...) The production of athmospheric oxygen could lead, in time, to a useful ozone layer, making for a better radiation blanket, also...
If Mars is on the brink of 'defrosting' maybe just a little biological nudge could be enough...

As an aside, those super greenhouse gasses, wouldn't it be better to produce a variety that doesn't deplete the already minimal amounts of stratospheric O3? Radiation being already bad enough as it is now...

Shaun Barrett · 2003-11-24 01:02:04

Hi Rxke!
As far as I know, super-greenhouse gases would be a faster way to terraform, though terrestrial plants would certainly be part of any long-term efforts.
The gases used would be tailor-made for the job and would specifically exclude halofluorocarbons, such as chlorofluorocarbon, which 'eat' ozone.

I know there are people who think Robert Zubrin is crazy but he's actually extremely intelligent and, I believe, psychologically stable!
:laugh:

You can be quite sure he's aware of pitfalls like ozone depletion by inappropriate use of chemicals, as indeed are all the serious terraformers whose work I've read, and that he's thought the process through in detail.
For a particularly informative treatment of the subject of terraforming, with only a minimum of technical jargon, read Zubrin and Wagner's "The Case for Mars".

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Re: Rapid Terraforming... - ...the most ambitious ideas?

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