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

SBird · 2004-04-16 11:35:39

As it is, there's at least 4 reasons I can think of why that wont work. However, small mirrors in Mars orbit aren't a bad idea. You'd have to have them working in concert with fluorocarbon gasses and possibly painting the polar caps black with carbon soot but every little bit helps.

kippy · 2004-04-16 12:30:40

As it is, there's at least 4 reasons I can think of why that wont work.

Let's hear them.

SBird · 2004-04-16 13:04:27

1: The biggest reason is that you just can't focus the light out to Mars reliably with low weight components. The fiber otics doesn't work since that doesn't actually help in the focussin or dispersion angles. In fact, most optical fibers have terrible properties from the perspective of collimation and therefore would make it even harder to focus the light.
Focussing sunlight from Earth orbit or closer usinga direct mirror or variation therof requires a mirror of very high precision. You're talking about a focal length of tens to hundreds of millions of miles. Inor der to keep randon mirror vibrations from just spraying the reflected light over massive areas of space that aren't Mars, you'd have to have either a very stiff mirror (heavy) or with adaptive optics (complicated and heavy).

2: You'll simply melt your optical fiber by putting any usable amount of energy into it. Unless you're talking about mirrors the size of a small table or less, the amount of energy you put into that fiber end (not a trivial task, let me tell you - in order to get a sufficiently small spot to couple into the fiber, you'd have to have a very wide acceptance angle which means that you'd have terrible ability to focus the light later) would simply melt the fiber. These tings aren't perfectly transparent. They are almost completely transparent at specific wavelengths. If you're talking about wide spectrum light, you're lucky to get 99% energy transmission. Even a tiny fraction of absorbtion in a small fiber at the energy levels your'e talking about would vaporize a fiber optic cable.

3: Aiming - keeping that spot of light on MArs at the distances you're talking about is not trivial. If you're actually focussing the light to a spot the size of Mars ( so that all of your energy is transferred) you've got to maintain a pointing accuracy of 12.1-1.7 arcseconds of accuracy depending upon the relative positions of the planets. While this is a pointing accuracy far lower than what can be achieved by modern space probes (Hubble can get 0.005 arc seconds) it is not an easy thing to do, either. You're going to need sensitive gyros, reaction wheels and very accurate thrusters in order to maintain that level of pointing accuracy. This is neither cheap nor lightweight.

4: Mars position - Mars spends a fair portion of it's orbital path at large, obtuse angles on the sun/Earth/Mars lines. Since fiber optics will not work, you have to rely upon pure reflection. Any angle that forces the mirror to sit at greater than ~45 degrees to the sun causes so much foreshortening with respect to the sun that you are hardly delivering any power to Mars at all.

In short, you could get it to work but it delivers low power and requires heavy and very expensive craft to do so.

kippy · 2004-04-19 15:33:36

Fair enough. I'm no expert on fiber optics. I still think that it's more productive to gather the light closer to the sun. Would it be possible to forgo the fiberoptics all together and just bounce the focused sunlight back with a curved mirror? You could have a small hole in the bottom of the sun-facing mirror to allow the focused beam to reflect through. Would it be possible to focus and direct it using light mirrors and lenses? You would still need to make them smart to point to mars accurately but if Hubble can do it, so might these things.

Or should I just let this one die?

Alternatively you could mount the whole rig on a large body like the Moon or Mercury but you get the issue of them not facing Mars all the time. That and a planetary quake could take them all out if they are unmanned.

The Fed Man · 2004-04-19 17:31:38

My science teacher once told us that 85% of Earth's oxygen comes from phytoplankton. I'm not sure if this is ture but if it is then wouldn't it be fairly easy to scrub CO2 from the Martian air once the planets is warmed up? I mean you rais ethe temps with greenhouse gases in order to get oceans. Then fill the oceans with algae and plankton. A whole lot of them. Then when there is enogh oxygen add some whales to take care of the plankton and start the ocean biosphere.

Could this idea work?

SBird · 2004-04-19 23:49:28

kippy - it could be done alright, just not cheaply as you seemed to be hoping. If the optics nad pointing mechanisms are going to be pricy, you might as well start making giant mirrors to get the most mileage out of 'em. If you're going to make cheapo, small mirrors, just put then in a polar orbit around Mars - as long as they're relecting light in the general direction of the planet, you're OK.

SBird · 2004-04-19 23:53:31

Fed Man - phytoplankton account for most if not all of the CO2 sequesteration on the planet. most terrestiral forests are pretty much a net zero for getting rid of CO2 - it gets put back into the atmosphere from burning or rotting. Phytoplankton, however, make CaCO3 skeletons that sink and end up becoming limestone. (the cliffs of Dover are basically giant phytoplankton graveyards)

While the conditions for phytoplankton survival on Mars are a long ways off, they would represent a good tool to pull that CO2 out of the air.

dicktice · 2004-04-20 09:00:59

If Earth had 1.5 times the current solar radiation, then there would be constant rain, at twice, Venus conditions.
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Moving Earth away from the Sun, via asteroid Jupiter and Earth momentum transfer, was proposed to offset the effect of the Sun's warming, as it gets older.
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Kuiper belt objects, to be crashed into Mars, might have similar composition to Triton, lot of carbon; Instant broth of life; just
add a few cockroaches.

You may have been kidding--about adding "cockroaches" I mean---but, hold on: you may have a new forum on your hands! Social insects from Earth, implanted on Mars beneath covered and pressurized O2 rich atmosphere, e.g., ant colonies, to tunnel into the sides, foraging plantlife also introduced. Not my main point--just the motivation. You know the arguments regarding the huge loads ants can carry relative to their size on Earth. How large could ants (as well as other species of insects) become under one-third gee conditions? This could lead to all sorts of speculations, including (not-so) human growth possibilities. Anyone?

SBird · 2004-04-20 10:49:07

The low gravity would help the insects get larger but you'd need a very high O2 content for that to happen. Insects are limited in size by both their weak musculature and lousy repiratory system.

It's a common misconception that insects are strong. Actually, their muscle content is tiny. They only carry large proportional loads becasue they're so small. If an ant were made human sized, it couldn't even lift itself off the ground. Conversely, a human shrunk to insect size would be an insect Hercules, able to fend of arthropod enemies by simply rending them limb from limb.

dicktice · 2004-04-20 15:22:46

Well, forgetting size, which I have to admit to more than an old science fiction movie addiiction (spoilsport!), how about the question of insects from Earth for breaking up the soil. I would not accept arguments against, at this stage of our awareness, which exclude the feasibility on the basis of too salty underground water content. But where's the harm? aside from "contaminating the ecosphere" of Mars. We've got some pretty impressive social insects to choose from. Anyone?

The Fed Man · 2004-04-20 16:16:20

What type of inscets don't need oxygen? Are there any? If so these could be introduced first. We could fill the martian soil with worms in preparation for plant life.

MarsDog · 2004-04-21 16:47:19

Deep sea, sulfur oxidizing bacteria, have not developed into multicelled life forms, but supply tube worms with food. Something unexpected on Mars might be the basis of an ecosystem. But, where are the liquids ?

Trebuchet · 2004-05-17 02:50:57

Could you vaporize the water in Mars's polar caps with nukes? Both we and the Russians are getting rid of a bunch; might as well put them to use.

Of course, realistically you'd have a political conniption fit over shooting large numbers of warheads into space. However, pretend that someone slipped valium into the DC water supply. Would it matter? Or would it just look really cool with no postive effect? :laugh:

holger2401 · 2006-02-08 07:15:17

Try crashing some Kuiper Belt objects into Mars,
Maybe 2 at a time to nullify the momentum.
Extra mass, lot of water and ammonia
Instant heat and atmosphere ?

Well, the suggestion of crashing Phobos might actually be inevitable. Phobos will shortly crash or rather brake up anyway, in about 100000 years. If a terraforming effort is undertaken it will be sooner rather than later. Phobos might not be the best candidate regarding composition, but excellent as a test object. As I know Phobos has lots of water, which always come in handy on Mars :-). 20 kilometre diametre is also something that can scratch the Marsian surface and maybe even more water evaporate from the marsian surface. That might be enough to trigger the melting of the polar caps. I could imaging crashing Phobos, which already is very close to Mars, can be done rather easily. I think that is the first thing we should do before trying anything else.

MarsDog · 2006-02-11 01:40:03

Comets become visible, then in a few years, enter the inner Solar System.

Once we develop a presence within the Kuiper Belt,
all kinds of collision scenarios become possible.

But it may take hundreds of years to crash a comet into Mars.

Unstable orbit of Centaurs allows an easier and quicker way ?

http://www.google.com/search?client=ope … 8&oe=utf-8

chat · 2006-02-12 05:23:07

holger2401,

Phobos is a good candidate to alter Mars in a big way.
With a little nudging you could get it to impact Mars on the pole and cause quite a release of gas.

An impact on the pole also decreases the dust edjecta compared to any other impact scenario on mars.

The energy evolved might be just enough to liberate all of the pole gasses and cause a global greenhouse.

In my opinion you would get 10,000 - 100,000 years of a warmer mars with only 3 months to 1 year of nuclear winter directly after the impact.
With so much water vapor liberated from the impact maybe no nuclear winter at all.

2 down sides exist to the idea.

The impact happens, all the water vapor turns to snow and covers mars causing a permanent dramatic plunge in temperature.

The impact happens, masses of co2 and other greenhouse gasses fill the atmosphere, they are not scrubbed from it and cause and dramatic increase in temperatures that are uncontrollable.

Both are pretty bad.

Rxke · 2006-02-12 06:51:15

Sorry to sound so blunt, chat, but to me it sounds like 'yes, let's do the impact, consequences could be good, but I'm just guessing, they could be downward catastrophical, but anyway consquences will be significant.'

I don't think such an approach would find a lot of support...

And how do you think you could precisely predict such a massive object to be impacted precisely at the poles?

karov · 2006-02-12 13:30:02

Comets become visible, then in a few years, enter the inner Solar System.
Once we develop a presence within the Kuiper Belt,
all kinds of collision scenarios become possible.
But it may take hundreds of years to crash a comet into Mars.
Unstable orbit of Centaurs allows an easier and quicker way ?
http://www.google.com/search?client=ope … 8&oe=utf-8

Or the much closer JOvian Trojans - several years of delivery time... They are out of the 4 AU water-ice boundary and indeed are short-period comets: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0 … comet.html very volatile rich. Do you see how the boundary comet/asteroid blurs?

karov · 2006-02-12 13:55:01

Sorry to sound so blunt, chat, but to me it sounds like 'yes, let's do the impact, consequences could be good, but I'm just guessing, they could be downward catastrophical, but anyway consquences will be significant.'
I don't think such an approach would find a lot of support...
And how do you think you could precisely predict such a massive object to be impacted precisely at the poles?

I think the consequences are not so hard to predict. Not so hard also to point so huge projectile to crash onto target many hundreds of miles wide ( talking about the Southern ice cap - mostly water, and situated on the higher ground of the southern hemisphere) . "Just" select one crater on the leading lobe of Fobos along its orbit ( Fobos is tidally locked, isn`t it?) Lets the crater to be as much off the leading "pole" as the rocket action to not only lower its orbital velocity / orbit in curve intersecting the martian surface, but also the orbit to be curve south. Use this crater as nozzle for natural "orion-style" pusher plate. In case of lack off such crater "just" blow several thousand multimegatron nydrogen bombs several hundred meters above the exact point of Fobosian surface... The rublepile of Fobos wouldnt desintegrate if the nuclear blasts are not directly onto or into the body of the tiny satelite... Lots of deuiterium, lithium, uranium ... around -- on Mars, the asteroid belt, etc... Immediatelly before the impact, when the little moon certasinly is deorbited, THAN blow one or several implanted gigatonne bombs in it in order not single projectile, but shower of smaller pieces to clash the martian south pole area...

Easy to roughly calculate the impact energy -- Fobos ( excuse me Phobos! ) mass is about 10exp16 kg, avg. orbital speed of ~ 2 km/s ( Mars is light atractor! )... Terminal impact velocity cshould be about the escape velocity for Mars of ~ 5 000 m/s... Impact will liberate about 25x10exp22 Joules or 10 000 times 100 megatonne nuclear warhead... Perhaps enough for huge melt down and degasation of the southern ice cap.

Phobos is cheap - i.e. mnot unique and could be replaced by millions of similar bodies around, but using more icy sub-planetary body ( Centaur, Trojan, KBO...) is better -- bigger terminal velocity, itheir own water reserve... Oportunity to use multiple smaller hits...

Rxke · 2006-02-12 15:38:41

I think the consequences are not so hard to predict.

Again being blunt, it's not what you think that matters, it's what the scientific world thinks. And so far, I've seen no good scenario's... I would even go as far as saying that today it is impossible to predict, because we simply DON'T KNOW the chemical composition of Mars' underground, at this point.

Of course, that could change rapidly, Mars Express doing a good job, computers getting faster, so climate-prediction becoming more refined etc.
But to say 'oh, let's do it anyway, it might turn out allright,' is downward ... crazy, sorry. You can't go playing billiards with asteroids and moons, and just hope for the best.
I mean, I'm not against the idea per se, but only as an idea with lots of 'ifs', not as a reccomendation, too much unknowns.

Not so hard also to point so huge projectile to crash onto target many hundreds of miles wide

Karov, I do like your posts a lot, but when you say 'not so hard' and outline the scenario, I have to smile. It's incredibly hard, with today's budgets, even impossible. But fundamentally it's simple, heh.

You know, someone, in a private email exchange once said the following :"Karov, for example, ... ...He never sees any problems; only solutions! A great contributor."

I have to agree on that.

chat · 2006-02-13 05:18:44

Rxke,

The support for crashing phobos into mars would be somewhere between 0 and nothing.

It does show the energy needs for a mars mini teraform though, so a good place to start with impact scenarios.

Since phobos just needs to slow down to hit mars we could probably use a small comet or asteroid to impact Phobos.
Or a giant solar sail attached to Phobos to decrease its orbit.
Getting phobos to hit near the pole would require a bit more brute force depending on what the small impactor or sail did to alter phobos orbit.

As karov points out icy objects will do a better job as impactors on mars just because of the h20/co2 etc input and control of what is impacted when.

Slamming phobos down on mars without erroneous amounts of information about what is in the pole and what is below it, would be asking for a climate shift of unknown results.

The only problem with small impactors spread out over time is the snowball Mars scenario, small impacts will be more likely to induce global snow, 1 big impact more likely to induce rain.

I think the snowball Mars scenario is an underestimated force in trying to teraform Mars.

Whatever we do to mars it should get the sustained temperature up quick, or mars will be forever covered in snow and with very cold temperatures and little chance for recovery from it.

Rxke · 2006-02-13 12:40:56

I think the snowball Mars scenario is an underestimated force in trying to teraform Mars..

Yeah. The 'solution' then would maybe be to leave Mars as 'arid' as it is, no icy comets etc, but only lots of greenhouse gases pumping... The thermal shock would be slow that way, and maybe, maybe before the big underground ice-reserves melt, (which would have a 'lag' of several decades, even hundreds of years) the avg. temp is well above freezing, and sudden release of H20 would be less of a problem. If Mars turns out to be still too arid or volatile poor, only *then* add icy comets etc...

I still think the sun is the major energy-source, impacts are peanuts compared to even thenths of percentages of better insolation (by 'cleaning ' the atmosphere from the dust) or better isolation/retention (greenhouse gases)

(I do realise this is all wild-eyed speculation, heehee...)

Of course, if one would find a way to reliably produce 'black' snow, we're al set, hah!

karov · 2006-02-13 13:59:37

I still think the sun is the major energy-source, impacts are peanuts compared to even thenths of percentages of better insolation (by 'cleaning ' the atmosphere from the dust) or better isolation/retention (greenhouse gases)
(I do realise this is all wild-eyed speculation, heehee...)
Of course, if one would find a way to reliably produce 'black' snow, we're al set, hah!

About the insolation - wrong! The impacts liberate tremendous amounts of heat / energy in very short time. I.e. very huge power ( Joules per second, Watts) .. The impact energy is very concentrated -- you need little mass and modest terminal velocity to free lots of energy in several seconds... Compare the energy of , say 1 km impactor falling with 50 km/s from the Outer system onto Mars , with the time this amount of info is inserted via solar insolation... There is no estethical or ethical reason to prefer slow and gentle vs. fast and furious energy deposition methods. Mars is a dead planet -- deasn`t metter whether after the impact it turns into little Venus or the snow-ball-Mars outcome turns it into big Luna / the Moon... In any case the conditions can not get worse... Most of the sscenarios involve pastoral pictures of colonists peasefully bartering food for oxigen, etc and they commensing terraforming, which is so stupid as to imagine that the southafrican or australian aboriginals to commit mass scale of desert greening project. Most probably Mars will be terraformed quickly, BEFORE settlement ( although my oppinion is that it is not usefull as territory, and will be left as it is for vacation site for the multi-trillion population space colinies Gunkle- and Birch-style )...

Black snow -- just settyle it with mild extremofile bactieria or single-celled plant with black or very dark photosynthesising pigment. The snow or ice are like soil for creatures freezing substantially under the local water zero...

Rxke · 2006-02-13 14:29:09

karov wrote:

wrong! The impacts liberate tremendous amounts of heat .
Sorry. What was I thinking? I was thinking about the nuclear explosions scenario's (which are peanuts, compared to insolation or impacts of massive bodies)
There is no estethical or ethical reason to prefer slow and gentle vs. fast and furious energy deposition methods. Mars is a dead planet
no but there is a practical reason: if we could somehow keep the reaction within limits, we could keep eyes on the ground, instead of orbit. IMO, It would be scientifically more interesting to be able to follow up on the terraformation with live crew or robots on the surface. Keep the Armagheddon scenario's for another planet or moon maybe (I mean, it would be quite interesting too)
In any case the conditions can not get worse...
No, but for a significant timeframe it would make it all but impossible to land there and do research. And the human race is a short-term thinker... And don't underestimate the Reds, that would scream bloody murder, and make decisionmakers very nervous...
although my oppinion is that it is not usefull as territory, and will be left as it is for vacation site for the multi-trillion population space colinies Gunkle- and Birch-style )...
I'm even of the opinion that by the time we're able to pull off these kind of things we, as sentient beings, a significant percentage of 'us' might prefer to live outside that carbon prison called human bodies, heh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#112 2004-04-21 16:47:19

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

#113 2004-05-17 02:50:57

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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