How would you terraform mars?

JammerG55 · 2004-03-20 14:45:28

I personally would use all of our factories to produce green house gasses to warm it up.

Rxke · 2004-03-21 04:09:06

wind-blown/propagated dark-coloured lichen... Perfect 'pioneer' lifeform, preparing the surface for higher plants by creating biomass... And heating the surface by trapping heat.
Problem: they grow very slowly, and some heavy tinkering with their genes would be necc. to adapt them to the low CO2 atmosphere, for starters. Let them get irradiated, could lead to a variety that's maybe even better suited to the Mars enviro than scientists came up with?

MarsDog · 2004-03-31 03:24:37

A friend, who studied cockroaches as a hobby, told me of an experiment, putting cockroaches under Martian conditions.
Although the cockroaches did not thrive, they survived, only to be flushed down the toilet at the end of the experiment.
Maybe, if we just bioengineered cockroaches to be a little more hardy, to jump start the Martian ecosystem.

Byron · 2004-03-31 05:03:52

Maybe, if we just bioengineered cockroaches to be a little more hardy, to jump start the Martian ecosystem.

I honestly hope you're joking, as a whole planet overrun by hopped-up coakroaches is not someplace I'd want to be... Would you?

B

dicktice · 2004-03-31 08:32:25

What about just recreating the conditions that produced the "seas of Mars." Call it "marsaforming, adapt ourselves to it, and be done with it. We won't be able to move back to Earth to live after a generation or two, anyway, so who cares what we become physically.
How starting as a topic: What might we become physicaly after colonizing Mars for good?

Josh Cryer · 2004-03-31 18:13:50

Totally agree dicktice! I think I even used the term "marsaforming" before. But I do think a more human friendly atmosphere would be in order. Warming Mars and thickening its atmosphere could be done by asteroid/comet collisions. CFC's wouldn't hurt, either. And for all we know, Mars did indeed have a human breathable atmosphere at one point.

Hazer · 2004-04-01 01:17:39

I would hit it with asteroids that consisted mostly of water. The impact, plus the water, would probably jumpstart the atmosphere somewhat.

Ian Flint · 2004-04-01 17:27:13

I'm glad nobody voted for nukes. Here's a nice terraforming slogan:

No Nukes For Mars! (rockets, yes -- bombs, no)

And bumper sticker:

No Cockroaches On Mars! ???

I'd go with a combo of anything and everything that is gentle (no nukes or asteroids). It would be nice to find a big comet full of nitrogen or other breathable inert gasses. We could push it into Mars orbit and shave of pieces of it to drop into the atmosphere. I don't like just letting the whole thing crash in at once, though. There will be settlers on the planet already and I wouldn't like it to destroy any settlements.

stratoghost · 2004-04-02 00:19:09

How about several, thousand square kilometer, mirrors pointing at the poles?

Does the low gravity on Mars have anything to do with the reason why it lost much of it's atmosphere?

SBird · 2004-04-02 11:38:58

The low gravity of Mars has a lot to do with its small atmosphere. The other half is that it doesn't have active plate tectonics like Earth. Basically, CO2 dissolves into water to form limestone and similar rocks. On Earth, that limestone gets pulled own into ocean trenches and the mantle where it's remelted. It then bursts back up in volcanic activity and puts CO2 back into the atmosphere.

On Mars, first most of the CO2 got turned into rocks. The planet basically froze. The whole time, the lack of an ozone layer cause UV-induced breakup of H2O into H2 and O2. Mars' gravity is low enough that the H2 was able to escape. The remaining O2 oxidized the iron and made Mars red. The result is a planet with little water and oxygen and a smidgen of CO2.

Earthfirst · 2004-04-14 16:41:26

Nuke mars, we are not using them here on earth anyways.

PurduesUSAFguy · 2004-04-22 12:11:26

I think 'nuke' has too many bad connotations attached to it. I prefer the term fusion demolition device.

In any event, I think that a great way to start terraforming would be to drill into the large permafrost beds and ice caps and plant a series of large fusion explosive devices with diminished (or no) fallout properties*. Detonated in sequence huge amounts of C02 and water vapor could be instantly volatized and melted pumping tons of heat into the system and jump starting a hydrosphere. Then a series of carbonis chordate asteroids could be redirect towards mars adding to the volatiles inventory. Large orbital mirrors would also be effective in adding heat. I think with a comprehensive industrial strategy I am convinced that we could have a thick and warm atmosphere on Mars within 60 or 70 years, although it would likely take another 100 thought the introduction of plants to render it breathable, that is if we can introduce enough nitrogen and argon from both local sources and asteroids.

* (It is a little known fact that the last generation of American warheads were designed with a very high fraction of the yield coming from fusion, with minimized fissile material input and neutron lenses designed in such a way that long half life products were minimized, also much research was done/is being done in the black world on building fusion weapons that use conventional hyper-explosives instead of a fission primary, this is desirable because they produce no fallout, and from a military stand point would not be limited by arms treaties since they wouldn't be ‘nukes’)

clark · 2004-04-22 12:22:09

I think 'nuke' has too many bad connotations attached to it. I prefer the term fusion demolition device.

LOL! :laugh:

I think 'Death' has too many bad connotations attached to it. I prefer the term going to sleep, permanently.

PurduesUSAFguy · 2004-04-22 14:35:31

I think 'nuke' has too many bad connotations attached to it. I prefer the term fusion demolition device.
LOL! :laugh:
I think 'Death' has too many bad connotations attached to it. I prefer the term going to sleep, permanently.

I'm quite serious! The public has an illogical fear of anything with the word 'nuclear'. Also in the context in which I am advocating the use of these devices is actually in a demolition role. The same RDX based explosives are used in excavation and mining and in the war head of GBU-74s. It's all in the use!

That's why in all the work I do for my nuclear engineering classes I never use the 'N' word if I can avoid it.

clark · 2004-04-22 14:40:48

So are other "N" words. :laugh:

I just found it funny is all.

JammerG55 · 2004-04-28 12:39:08

really If you use Nutron bombs then you may be able to break some of the remaining hydrogen and nitro gen that is in the rocks on the planet.

Martian Republic · 2004-06-20 20:39:48

How about several, thousand square kilometer, mirrors pointing at the poles?
Does the low gravity on Mars have anything to do with the reason why it lost much of it's atmosphere?

Mars only has about 38% of the gravity of the Earth, defenetly is one of the reason that Mars only has only 1% of the air pressure or density of air that the Earth has.

I have heard that another contributing factor for is Mars having low density air pressure is that Mars has no Magnetosphere surrounding it like the Earth does. They say that the solar wings blow some of the upper Martian atmosphere away or other wise Mars would have a denser atmosphere. As to where or not that true or not, I don't know.

Larry,

MarsDog · 2004-06-21 20:33:20

Preliminary discoveries indicate that all is there for self sufficient human existence, inside enclosed spaces. It is going to take a lot more time and gasses from somewhere to produce Imitation Earth. Various estimates range from 1.000 to 100,000+ years. But then again, quick technological advances might produce self replicating robots, mining the solar system, to fine tune Mars.

John Creighton · 2004-06-22 12:00:52

I would do a feasibility study.

MarsDog · 2004-06-22 13:10:27

It will be a few more years before we have an inventory of Mars resources.
And the robots will locate possible settlement sites.
-
Looking at http://www.l5news.org/]L5 news, it is amazing how detailed the plans were,
but the motivation was lost.

Martian Republic · 2004-07-03 09:37:27

I would do a feasibility study.

I would tend to have a go slow policy at first, because we don't know what our actives will do on Mars. We may get short term results that we like, but have long term bad effects. Like if we heat up Mars, will the moisture evaporate into space and we get warm dry Mars instead of having a wet cold Mars.

But, one thing that we should be able to do is to put a Magnetosphere around Mars to fend off the harmful radiation and it may also increase the air density on Mars, because it would fend off the solar winds from the upper Martian atmosphere.

But, any further terraforming action would have to be studied to see what affect it going to have on Mars.

Larry,

Shaun Barrett · 2004-07-12 01:37:26

A lot of plans for terraforming Mars rely on steering volatile-rich asteroids/comets onto a collision course with Mars. This approach doesn't bother me and I have no objection to it, although I know some people shy away from 'celestial snooker'!
However, it doesn't seem likely to me that this method will ever be used. I cannot see humanity being in a position, technologically, to manipulate solar system bodies in the near to medium term (i.e. during the next hundred years). That period, though, could well see a substantial human presence on Mars, including some major investments in climate-changing hardware and other infrastructure.
By the time Mars has such a human presence, we will no longer be prepared to risk the danger and endure the atmospheric disruption of dropping an iceteroid onto its surface.

It may be a case of having to either use the celestial-body-method of terraforming upfront, at the beginning of the process, or not using it at all.
Any comments? ???

Rxke · 2004-07-12 02:46:34

Comments:
100 years is waay too pessimistic, IMO. You could argue we have the capability today, but not the will or the need to do it.
'simply' (it never is simple) launch a handful of ion-or HAL-effect thruster tugs (SMART-1, or the tugs being planned right now by Orbitalrecovery) )and let them soft-land (did that already, with a craft that wasn't even built to land!)
Granted, tiny propulsive power, but if you have patience, it will eventually orbit Mars. Then launch a 'kamikaze' sat that impacts *hard* to either break it up or make it go into aerobreaking-orbit.
(Impactor-style stuff is now in the planning with the Don Quixote craft by ESA, great project, check it out.)

Than you have the 'MADMAN'(? ?) (Not sure about the name,) being developed... They are the type of mass-ejectors like in KSR's novels.

Sometimes I'm wildly pessimistic about us going to Mars, sometimes I'm wildly optimistic.

chat · 2004-07-12 04:46:37

De-orbit Deimos, try to crash it onto the north pole.

That will have a definite impact on the atmosphere at mars, and requires no technical leaps of any kind.

I'm not thinking it will be earth like after the impact, but a lot less mars like for sure.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-07-12 05:20:52

I always have plenty of time for an honest-to-God optimist, Rik, and I've always liked your style!

What I was thinking was that inner solar system objects have had too many close encounters with the Sun and have lost most of their volatiles due to evaporation/sublimation. Anything coming in from the outer solar system of its own accord is already travelling too fast for realistic course-correction; too much delta-V required.
Our best bet is to analyse and catalogue bodies of a suitable size in the Kuiper Belt and choose one or two with the required constituents. Just a little nudge in the right direction at the right time should do the trick, with only small course corrections needed as the body spiralled sunward. I visualise judicious use of Jupiter's deep gravitational well being made to help slow the iceteroid into a highly elliptical martian orbit, whence it should be relatively easy to bring it down at the right spot on the surface.

In all of the above, I share your optimism, Rik. I have no doubt at all that it could be done, just as I have described it. But I think the lead up to actually doing it would be longer, at least in my mind, than you seem to imagine.
The exploration by robotic probes of the Kuiper Belt probably won't even commence for some decades and will take some decades beyond that to produce an adequate inventory of what's available out there!

Even if we're in a position to crash iceteroids into Mars in only 60 to 70 years, there may be enough infrastructure there by then to make the capability entirely irrelevant.
Or am I overestimating the disruption to the martian environment of a 100 km diameter icy body entering the atmosphere at, say, 4 or 5 km/s? Could it be done without wrecking everything that has been built up before its arrival?
???

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#1 2004-03-20 14:45:28

Re: How would you terraform mars?

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#6 2004-03-31 18:13:50

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#7 2004-04-01 01:17:39

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#9 2004-04-02 00:19:09

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#10 2004-04-02 11:38:58

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#11 2004-04-14 16:41:26

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#12 2004-04-22 12:11:26

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#13 2004-04-22 12:22:09

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#14 2004-04-22 14:35:31

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#15 2004-04-22 14:40:48

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#16 2004-04-28 12:39:08

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#17 2004-06-20 20:39:48

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#18 2004-06-21 20:33:20

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#19 2004-06-22 12:00:52

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#20 2004-06-22 13:10:27

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#21 2004-07-03 09:37:27

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#22 2004-07-12 01:37:26

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#23 2004-07-12 02:46:34

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#24 2004-07-12 04:46:37

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