no real reason to terraform - title say's it all

oker56 · 2002-06-30 13:38:17

I agree with just about everything Zubrin say's about space colonization except about terraforming mars. I have no problem with it on a technical level, I just really see no reason to terraform mars. I see nothing from him about a good reason why we should except some vagure philosophical talk. I think the next immediate goal for martians after becoming permanently settled is to build O'Neille colonies. Zubrin is correct about them being impractical to build from earth, but he say's nothing about doing so from mars. O'Neille colonies should be the next focus because they have advantages of mobility. One of the main reason's humanity should establish itself in more than one world is because of asteroid impacts. By having humanity on more than one world, it increases the chances of humanity surviving an impact. If an asteroid hit's one world, humanity is on another world. Even with humanity on mars and earth, we should build O'Neille colonies because they are smaller target's for asteroids to hit, and are more manueverable. Mar's is actually less same from asteroids than earth with it's 1) closer proximity to the asteroid belt, and 2) less atmosphere. The thinner atmosphere actually allows smaller pieces of space rock to be more dangerous. Earth's atmosphere protects us from most of those smaller space rocks. Mar's atmosphere makes them dangerous once more.

Terraforming mars may increase mars atmosphere and hence reduce the danger from smaller space rocks, but that takes away some of the advantages of being on mars: namelly, the moon advantages, less atmosphere means less arrowdynamics to worry about. Mar's combines the advantages of being on earth(resourses), with the moon(a perfect lauching site to the rest of the solar system).

Zubrin argues terraforming mars is our human duty; i'd say building an O'Neille colony is our destiny. Humanity is the technological animal. It looks to control every aspect of itself and the environment to ensure its survival. O'Neille colonies are the greatest reflection of that aspect of humanity.

Phobos · 2002-06-30 18:01:22

One of the main reason's humanity should establish itself in more than one world is because of asteroid impacts. By having humanity on more than one world, it increases the chances of humanity surviving an impact. If an asteroid hit's one world, humanity is on another world. Even with humanity on mars and earth, we should build O'Neille colonies because they are smaller target's for asteroids to hit, and are more manueverable. Mar's is actually less same from asteroids than earth with it's 1) closer proximity to the asteroid belt, and 2) less atmosphere. The thinner atmosphere actually allows smaller pieces of space rock to be more dangerous. Earth's atmosphere protects us from most of those smaller space rocks. Mar's atmosphere makes them dangerous once more.

Sometimes I also have a hard time buying the idea that we should setup a Mars colony simply to preserve our species if Earth is wiped out. In reality the chances of a Mars colony being wiped out first is way more probable. I mainly want a Mars colony because it will be a driver of new space technology, science, and wealth. As for terraforming, I think if we want to grow our population to any reasonable size on Mars we should at least try to thicken the atmosphere up to the point that we don't need pressurized spacesuits, but only breathing gear.

Palomar · 2002-06-30 22:56:20

Zubrin argues terraforming mars is our human duty; i'd say building an O'Neille colony is our destiny.

*What is an O'Neille colony? I must have missed something somewhere...

Also, I don't feel terraforming -- or even going to Mars in the first place, and exploring -- is a human "duty." The word "duty" is a pretty weighty word with me, and it gets thrown around a bit too easily.

To me, humans going to Mars isn't a duty...it's a DESIRE. It is truly my hope to see humans land on Mars in my lifetime, and hopefully not when I'm old and senile.

--Cindy

oker56 · 2002-06-30 23:04:49

I could be misspelling his name, if that is what your refering to. Sorry, if I affended anybodies sensabilities, but I for one don't mind people making mistakes if I can understand them perfectly well. I can tell the difference between making a misstake on purpose for teasing purposes and making perfectly innocent mistakes.

Anyway's, an O'Neile colony is a completely human creation. It is an overblown space station if you get my meaning. I do believe Mr. Zubrin has a picture of the insides of one in his "Entering Space" book. If you've seen Arthur C. Clarke's 2001, or if you want to see an example of an O'Neile colony, see 2001! In the befinning after the monkey's part, you'll see a whole bunch of spacecraft. Eventually, you focus in on one jetplane looking spacecraft which has a few seens with the lady walking gently and upside down and stuff. The jetspaceship then is shown going into a incompletelly built spacestation. Essentially, this is what an O'Neile space colony looks like, only O'Neile space colonies would be much bigger with ecologies in them. Hope this helps.

Phobos · 2002-07-01 17:18:03

You've probably seen artist renditions in books of huge, torus shaped space-stations that on the interior look like your average mid-sized Earth town. O'Neil colonies are basically huge rotating rings in space that hold an immense population by space station standards. Something like that could make a good generational ship even though I'm somewhat suspicious if generational ships are a good thing. They'd probably just end up being a rendition of Lord of the Flies in space.

Shaun Barrett · 2002-07-02 07:16:56

I believe the larger O'Neill colonies were in fact enormous cylinders with radii of maybe 5 kilometres and lengths of 20 kilometres and more.
They were to be made of raw material from the moon and/or the asteroids and rotated about their long axis to create artificial gravity on the inside surface. There were to be several metres of soil on the inside surface in order to grow crops and trees and some of the pictures I've seen even showed rivers flowing along the length of the colony! Some were big enough to have cloud formation and possibly rainfall, but on a clear day, you could look up and see the tops of the buildings and the trees and streams 10 kilometres away on the other side of the cylinder!! Long sections of the cylinder wall, at intervals around its circumference, were to be transparent and a mirror system would bring sunlight to the interior. Enormous blinds would block out the sun to simulate night.
There were supposedly many advantages to living in an O'Neill colony which made it preferable to living on a planetary surface. I can't remember now what they were .... total climate control was probably one ... safety from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis etc. were probably some of the others.
As for me, I'm not so sure. I think I'd miss the grandeur of nature you get on a proper planet; the mountains, the oceans, the icebergs, the deserts ... the storms ...
Nahh!! Give me Earth or Mars every time!

Phobos · 2002-07-02 16:38:54

As for me, I'm not so sure. I think I'd miss the grandeur of nature you get on a proper planet; the mountains, the oceans, the icebergs, the deserts ... the storms ...
Nahh!! Give me Earth or Mars every time!

I'm more of a planet lubber myself. Zubrin claimed that the Martian atmosphere could be brought up to a suitable pressure for human habitation in 40 years if you could pump a million tons of CFCs into the atmosphere a year. Sounds a bit on the optimistic side, and I wonder, how you would produce so much CFC's in the first place?

martin · 2002-07-03 02:25:23

the idea of terraformation is dear to me never since i saw 'total recall ' as a kid.
somehow that "artficial biosphere"idea upon a very hostile planet surface seems too fragile to my idea of space colonisation.
maybe it is just an emotional vestige but i would feel real comfortable if somehow we remain as human as possible when we move out of earth.
???

Nirgal82 · 2002-07-09 11:24:06

Hello, I am new here
My name is Matt Gillespie, and I am an advocate of a concept touched upon in KSR's trilogy called Areoforming.
Which, in my opinion, put simply means: Warm the planet through non industrial means (if possible) until the point of positive feedback global warming and introducing plantlife to live out on the surface.
Basically no day by day monitoring and stewardship of terraforming techniques.
This would bring Mars back to the warmer stage before the great impact that smashed into it oh so long ago. (a theory I hope to eventually prove in my studies throughout my life; of course any conclusion is just as fine by me but the big impact theory seems to "hold the most water" at this time)
This method of planetary engineering is as non-destructive as you can get, and you don't have to worry about the excessive REMs you take on the surface today because of the current thin atmosphere.
I must urge some sort of planetary change there, or it will never become a living biome, REMs would be too high for most multicellular organisms, including us.
I mean, whos gonna want to go to a world that you'll get cancer at age 40 just as sure as you would here at 80...

FOR MARS...
-Matt

Nirgal82 · 2002-07-09 11:38:25

O'Neile colonies are inherently dangerous and will require materials technology that are probably a century or more away from realization.
You got your huge structure spinning around up there, and that means you got a lot of stresses in the superstructure.
It is far simpler, as well as taking far less resources to live on planets.
All that material for O'neil colonies needs to come from somwhere. And if asteroids are to be used, you either need people who are willing to take the harsh radiation of space for the years it would take to tear apart an asteroid and rebuild it into a colony. Or you need autonomous robot factories, which are, sad to say, probably veerrrryyy far away from reality. (not to mention that the lifting technology for putting things into orbit needs to begreatly improved before being able to launch factories into orbit, no matter where they are launched from, Earth, Luna, or Mars.
Now to address the point of maintaining ecologies inside these structures. This will probably prove to be one of the last great skills humankind masters, the factors are simple to great, and for the most part, unknown.
Now what happens to a colony of 100,000 people 50,000 pets, and about an equal amount of livestock and the immense greenhouse farms, when you start losing efficiency in your recycling systems. You rapidly find your population starving, or worse, running out of water and air.
The planets and moons of this system are there, let us put them to good use. Maybe we'll change over time, and learn to do all these things that will make your space colonies possible, but for now, Mars beckons.
Besides, why deny ourselves the privalidge of seeing how life can develop by limiting it only to our needs and aethetics in the necessarily strict ecologies of O'Neile space colonies.
The only real reasons I can see for not terraforming Mars is to preserve the landscape to learn the history of our solar system and to keep contamination from ruining the possible finds of indiginous life or fossil life...

FOR MARS...
-Matt

Ryjaz · 2002-07-09 13:35:29

To answer ecrasez_l_infame question on O'neill colonies, check out Gerard O'neill's "High Fronteir: Human Colonies in Space" and check out Space Studies Institute at http://www.ssi.org/ to learn more about people who are still working on his ideas. (space fronteir foundation also are affiliated with this idea).

As far as Planet vs O'Neill colony both have their bonuses.

With Mars you have the safety of a planet with lots of space for growing and less of a curve for building a new place to live. You also have the additional bonus of having open skies and more room to grow. The minuses are a restriction to resources found on the planet and be subject to planetary forces outside of your control.

For an O'neill Island 3 type colony you have a sustainable area of limitted size (a few hundred thousand people I think) and do not have the protection from cosmic events that a planet offers. However, you have the mobility to move around and gather material from different space resources (comets and asteroids) and are able to live in a controlled atmosphere.

Also with with smaller islands, you can allow groups who wish to live within their own culture a chance to go out and not be influenced by others should they so choose to.

Both are achievable given todays state of technology and IMO it should not be a question of either/or but a pursuit of both with their common subsytems (like life support) are needed.

Phobos · 2002-07-09 15:48:32

My name is Matt Gillespie, and I am an advocate of a concept touched upon in KSR's trilogy called Areoforming.
Which, in my opinion, put simply means: Warm the planet through non industrial means (if possible) until the point of positive feedback global warming and introducing plantlife to live out on the surface.

Could you educate me further on the concept of aeroforming? Unless you mean warming up the atmosphere via means of gigantic orbiting mirrors to melt the caps or other exotic methods, I don't really see what the difference would be between warming the planet via industrial processes and non-industrial processes if both release the same basic gasses into the atmosphere. I think industrial processes might actually be better because the energy producing the gasses would also be used in manufacturing needed items for what would likely be a very advanced and well-established colony. Your way might be superior because it would just be more efficient or cleaner. Maybe a combo of both would be good.

Nirgal82 · 2002-07-09 22:26:57

Well, I really don't think Areoforming has been nailed down into a hard concept, however here is my take on the concept

Lets say that 10 or so settlements have been established, each consisting of ~100,000 people. Of course large scale manufacturing of all sorts of things has been well underway.
These processes do, through industrialization, produce heat and waste gasses that will inevitably be released into the atmosphere, thereby thickening it and causing warming.
Perhaps I should have been more careful in choosing the term "industrial methods." I should have said something to the effect "highly energetic and potentially destructive methods of forcing global warming"
I suppose Areoforming could be (and I stress "could") nailed down to this, allowing the planet to react to the presence of life and allowing ourselves to react to being present on Mars.
I'm not necessarily against engineering organisms that can live on Mars as-is today, in fact I'm for it, I just don't want to see permafrost resevoirs melted by themonuclear charges and great KSR "moholes" being dug into the surface.
The only thing we have to do as planetary engineers is warm up the planet. Maybe this can be done by blatently designing our industrial processes to release super-greenhouse gasses, or maybe black dust on the poles to absorb heat.
I suppose orbiting mirrors could work, but the orbital mechanics make that sort of thing extremely difficult (has anyone tried to figure that out using hypothetical values?)
All in all, I'm for a Mars that is habitable, however, unniquely Mars, including the biomes and lifeforms that will populate it.
I hope that 10 million years after terran life is introduced there, it will be so different from their ancestors that it could be said that Mars has a self sustaining evolving ecology, that is not analogous to Terra's...

FOR MARS
-Matt

Phobos · 2002-07-10 15:39:19

I understand better now. I agree that the least destructive methods possible for terraforming should be used. The last thing we should do is use nuclear bombs to melt the permafrost. I have no problem with using controlled reactors for producing power, but processes like exploding nukes not only irradiate the atmosphere on a massive scale, they could also contaminate the water and other resources. Another high power method we should avoid also is crashing asteroids into the surface, especially if there's already a colony on Mars. After all, the argument that we need a two planet species to avoid extinction in case of an asteroid impact won't mean much if we're intentionally bombarding Mars. Seeding the planet with life I think is a good way to start coupled with the industrial activity of colonies plus maybe a few other methods that aren't so woefully destructive. We have to find a good balance between timeliness and destructiveness I think in terraforming Mars.

Nirgal82 · 2002-07-10 22:06:38

Well as for crashing asteroids, there is a method of using comets or carbonaceous chrondrite (spelling?) asteroids.
If you can direct them properly they could just burn up adding a substantial quantity of volume to the atmosphere. However there is great risk involved, and I'm not sure we should do this as there is going to be a large unknown factor concerning the total composition of objects to be burned, unless of course full surveys were to be performed on each object to determine their exact content...After all we don't want too much methane and other organic gases in the air, no matter their effectiveness as greenhouse gasses...

FOR MARS
-Matt

Palomar · 2002-07-13 11:50:13

To answer ecrasez_l_infame question on O'neill colonies, check out Gerard O'neill's "High Fronteir: Human Colonies in Space" and check out Space Studies Institute at http://www.ssi.org/ to learn more about people who are still working on his ideas. (space fronteir foundation also are affiliated with this idea).....
Also with with smaller islands, you can allow groups who wish to live within their own culture a chance to go out and not be influenced by others should they so choose to.

*Thanks for the link.

As to the last paragraph; sorry, but the notion of isolated space colonies kind of gives me the creeps from a sociological perspective. I'm wondering how many of those would develop as harmonious and "democratic" a society as humanly possible, and how many would turn into something akin to "Taliban In Space," or develop a David Koresch-type guru where all other men are submissive to him and he has first dibs on all the womenfolk.

Isolationism isn't a healthy thing, generally speaking.

--Cindy

Auqakah · 2002-07-13 11:59:46

I believe the larger O'Neill colonies were in fact enormous cylinders with radii of maybe 5 kilometres and lengths of 20 kilometres and more.
They were to be made of raw material from the moon and/or the asteroids and rotated about their long axis to create artificial gravity on the inside surface. There were to be several metres of soil on the inside surface in order to grow crops and trees and some of the pictures I've seen even showed rivers flowing along the length of the colony! Some were big enough to have cloud formation and possibly rainfall, but on a clear day, you could look up and see the tops of the buildings and the trees and streams 10 kilometres away on the other side of the cylinder!! Long sections of the cylinder wall, at intervals around its circumference, were to be transparent and a mirror system would bring sunlight to the interior. Enormous blinds would block out the sun to simulate night.

Odd. I thought an O'Neill colony was an asteroid that had been hollowed out, and occupied... I think the way O'Neill said it would be done was by using an asteroid with a high hydrogen content, and positioning high-grade mirrors at either end... Then using sunlight to spin the asteroid, slowly at first, gathering momentum the whole while, until eventually the pressure internally became such that the hydrogen expanded and was realeased through a number of pre-bored pressure release tunnels - although, I may well be getting mixed up.

NovaMarsollia · 2002-09-20 15:09:31

More reasons for not going to Mars!

YES....I say: SAVE MARS FOR THE MARTIAN BUGS!

Critics of the 'Save Mars for the Martians' approach often suggest that because there is ample evidence of meteoritic cross-fertilization of life between Mars and Earth then Mars is in actual fact the original home of all terrestrial species including humans.

This 'WE Are From Mars' Argument would indicate that because Mars is, in some sense; our home, the practice of terraforming is just humans going back home. The 'We are from Mars' argument is, of course, scientifically questionable since the mere presence of interplanetary cross-fertilization does not determine the origins of terrestrial life to be either Mars or Earth.

The Martians, whom we could claim as our evolutionary parents, might themselves have evolved from an ancient terrestrial meteorite-passenger who themselves had evolved from a previous Martian meteoritic passenger and so on ad infinitum. With no way of precisely stating the Martian origins of our ancestors, humans must accept that we are hard-pressed to classify any planet as our original and home. As well as being scientifically questionable the Mars is our home argument is also ethically questionable. If we are from Mars, then we left it some 400-4000 million years ago. A lot has happened since then.

To say we can go back to Mars and proceed to do what we like with it because our origins lie there and Mars was once our home is like saying that we are within our rights to colonize Africa because humans - as a species - have origins there. Humans no more have the right to claim back Mars than do Europeans have the right to imperiously annex Africa.

The use of the term WE within the WE are from Mars argument is also highly problematic when discussing our supposed heritage with Mars. WE were not humans when WE left Mars; WE were only microbes. Like I say, a lot has happened since then so that any presumed heritage is awfully tenuous. It is tempting to claim such an honorable cosmic heritage for humans since it promotes us as a truly cosmopolitan species with a long and varied evolutionary history. However, if we choose to cast Martian microbes as our forebears the least we can do is protect the Martian environment that they helped to construct. And, ofcourse, we should also be inclined to respect the rights of those who are bound to be more closely related to these supposed forebears; the Martian microbes of today. In any case the the WE are from Mars home argument is an argument that takes a naturalistic stance: it is saying that humans going to Mars to terraform it is just a natural process of humanity going home.

But let's continue this naturalistic stance and stay natural when we go to Mars. Let's step out of our spaceship on to the surface of Mars and see how long we can survive naturally - without artificial help - in this environment that we supposedly call home. Having the air sucked from your lungs, having your eyeballs pop-put of your skull and having your skin sloughing off in burnt frozen flakes is hardly something that happens in your natural home, surely.

Am I an extremist? Or just someone who knows that humans going to Mars is ethically dubious.

Josh Cryer · 2002-09-21 13:05:04

The only thing I find ethically dubious, is preventing humans from peacefully exploring and propogating their species.

There is a huge difference between Mars and Africa. Mars is arguably dormat, or dead; reintroducing life, in whatever form, would be revitalizing. Not doing it when there are people who want to, and when the technology to do so exists, is a kind of, as I've said before, ?planetary necrophilia.?

If you don't want to go, don't. But don't expect everyone else to follow you, or let you tell them what to do. I think you'll disappoint yourself.

Josh Cryer · 2002-09-21 13:05:29

Growl. Another double post. You guys can delete these silly things if you want.

NovaMarsollia · 2002-09-21 18:04:23

BUT Josh, I'm not out to stop people from peacefully exploring the universe, I'm out to stop techno-imperialists like you from destroying the space environment, appropriating public funds, spreading human trash throughout the universe (and then claiming they are doing humanity a favour--they are NOT!).

Josh Cryer · 2002-09-21 19:01:38

I don't advocate technological centralization, so you can't call me a ?techno-imperialists.? I merely wish to find another place in the solar system to experience. Unlike you, I don't struggle with ideology. I know that there are things out there that are worth experiencing. And fortunately there are places (like NewMars), where I can find people who too feel the same way.

NovaMarsollia · 2002-09-21 19:59:17

You don't struggle with ideology, dear Josh, because you have your all nicely set in place--techno-imperialism seems a good name for it. Unfortunately for you, the only place you'll find these freako like-minded techno-imperialists is at the mars conventions--cause you'll never get there that's for sure!

Josh Cryer · 2002-09-21 20:03:35

Ahh, I have never been to a Mars convention. Surprised? I thought you would be. But hey, I won't play this game of insulting people and throwing baseless slurs around.

NovaMarsollia · 2002-09-21 20:09:43

I wish I could go to a Mars Convention. I'm sure, just like science fiction conventions there's lots of weirdoes dressed up like wookies to laugh at!

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Re: no real reason to terraform - title say's it all

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