Red Views

Stu · 2002-01-14 23:38:56

Alex,

<<Sir>> Very formal! ;-)

<< Therefore, by saying that killing bacteria is not worth billions of potential human lives, you have simply stated that you don't value human life enough to care. >>

No, absolutely not, and if you re-read my post you'll see I don't say that *anywhere*. You are totally putting words in my mouth. I actually state, and have stated elsewhere on new Mars, very firmly, that I am not against the colonisation of Mars. I want it. I write about it in books for children, give lectures and presentations about it in schools and to all manner of public groups. I'm jealous of the people who will go..!

All I'm saying is that if we find life on Mars we should find a way to co-exist with it, and protect it, instead of just rampaging across the planet and obliterating it. We can (and should) still build colonies, but located sensitively and with a view to protect an incredibly important lifeform which has a fundamental right to exist. I don't say *anywhere* that I value microbes more than people, you're putting words in my mouth there again. Come on, protecting and preserving martian microbes won't mean the loss of a SINGLE life, never mind billions. And it may well be that Mars will have to be terraformed eventually because of population pressure or impending global disaster, but what I'm saying is that if we discover life there, unless there is a life-or-death reason for a flash-terraforming project then we should delay the timetable and concentrate our efforts on understanding the native life and its implications for us and our place in the Universe.

If we go ahead with terraforming, then I propose we turn Phobos or Deimos into a sanctuary for transplanted colonies of the native lifeforms, cultivating them in craters or chambers domed or sealed to enable them to recreate martian conditions. That way we won't lose them forever. Cos I'm sure even *you* don't want that?

Stu

Bill White · 2002-01-15 11:09:35

Today, I saw a report in the SpaceDaily online magazine (www.spacedaily.com) which discussed the discovery of bacteria deep under the surface of Antarctica. This discovery is said to be encouraging for the possible discovery of bacterial life on Mars.

For the record, I hope we do find life on Mars, however my amateur opinion is that such discovery will be very unlikely. I am very much persuaded on this issue by an argument derived from the Gaia hypothesis which asserts that if life can survive, it will thrive.

The Darwinian algorithm combines the flexibility of mutation and natural selection with the extraordinary power of exponential growth inherent in biological reproduction. Any life that thrives WILL engulf every available niche, all in an astonishingly brief period of geological time. Bacteria deep under the south pole ice demonstrate the ability of a Gaia to colonize far flung and inhospitable locations.

The obvious non-existence of a Gaia-like biosphere on Mars is a very strong argument that Mars is a dead planet.

Also, as Mars lacks liquid water, plate tectonics, radiation protection, tidal forces, and the many other features of pure serendipity that made a Terran Gaia feasible, I cannot believe that any surviving Martian bacteria found deep underground are the forerunners of a coming Martian Gaia. Rather such bacteria, if they exist at all, could only be the last survivors, the rear guard, of a Martian Gaia that thrived millions of years ago.

If Martian bacteria exist, are they more likely the survivors of a waning Martian biosphere or more likely the present day ancestors of a future waxing Martian biosphere? I submit that Mars, as it exists today, cannot be the cradle of a future Gaia and that the prospects for the geological and climatic changes needed to become such a cradle are slim to none, except with human intervention.

If we believe Martian bacteria (if there be any at all) are the last survivors of a now extenict Martian Gaia, human intervention is not only justified, such intervention is morally and ethically mandated in order to save such life from extinction.

If I am right about this, keeping "hands off" Mars is morally indefensible.

Bill White

Stu · 2002-01-15 23:39:10

I agree with Bill that it is *very* unlikely that any life found on Mars today is destined to flourish unaided in the future; any bacteria found will be the stubborn, against-all-the-odds survivors of a warmer, wetter Mars of long ago.

I'm not suggesting for a second that we should, having found them, leave primitive martian lifeforms in peace and abandon colonisation plans for Mars, that would be foolish; Mars is Mankind's insurance policy against extinction, and settling it is vital if we are to avoid being wiped off the face of the Universe by either a man-made or natural disaster. But I *am* suggesting that the discovery of primitive martian lifeforms will impact seriously and dramatically on our colonisation plans, because suddenly we won't be settling a dead lump of red rock, we'll be settling an already living world. Very low level life, admittedly, but life just the same. And with that discovery will come both a) incredible possibilities for the expansion of our knowledge and understanding of the Universe and our place in it, and b) a serious responsibility to ensure that the lifeforms are not, after clining on to existence for all these tens of millions of years, if not longer, wiped-out by us in a bull-in-a-china-shop stampede to settle Mars.

So I agree with Bill's closing statement about our intervention being "morally and ethically mandated". If there is life on Mars, we should go there, find it, study it and then protect and preserve it. That doesn't have to mean declaring Mars off-limits forever, just seeing it in a different light and treating it with more respect. And not taking it for granted that we have a right to terraform the place, just because it's technically possible and would make the place look prettier.

Any life which exists on Mars today is never going to suddenly explode across the planet and transform it by itself, I'm not suggesting that we "wait and see what happens" if we leave Mars alone. It isn't going to flourish by itself. The only way that mars can be brought to life - brought *back* to life you might say - is with our intervention, and maybe that is our destiny, spreading life through the Universe. But "spreading life" doesn't mean trampling over any more primitive life that exists in any given place already.

We find bugs on Mars, we hit the 'Pause' button and slow things down until we can fully understand the implications and importance of the discovery, that's all I'm saying.

Stu

Bill White · 2002-01-16 11:54:39

Stu:

In a great many ways, I agree with your last post. I, too, would not want to "bulldoze" Martian bacteria, if any be found.

However, a significant amount of "greening" of Mars will be necessary if humans are going to be able to survive on Mars in sufficient numbers to establish the capabilities needed to initiate the rescue missions of any such microbes. Also, if Mars is to become a "lifeboat" of the Terran Gaia, an even more significant amount of "greening" will be necessary.

I have been thinking about the idea of dividing the terraforming debate into issues of "micro" terraforming and "macro" terraforming.

Suppose an enclosed greenhouse is set up. Martian CO2 is pumped in to allow plant respiration; Martian regolith is processed to obtain elements needed to formulate hydroponic solutions and Martian water wells are used to irrigate the plants (or perhaps water is wrung out of the atmosphere or regolith).

The plants, in turn, discharge oxygen and create organic molecules in the form of vegetable matter. Strictly speaking, this is terraforming, turning inorganic Martian materials into organic materials that are the building blocks of our Terran biosphere. Thinking about the differences between inorganic regolith and the black loamy stuff called soil should make this clear.

If these processes are kept reasonably well enclosed (given the UV bathed, alkaline blighted nature of the Martian planetary surface, that should not be exceptionally difficult) then such processes can perhaps be called "micro" terraforming, but it is still terraforming.

Such processes are essential if we are to settle Mars and therefore we cannot be too dogmatic about imposing rules such as "take nothing but pictures" - even MarsDirect requires that we appropriate Martian resources sufficient to sustain life and formulate rocket fuel.

So, it will necessarily end up being a matter of balance and we will not be able to avoid the challenge of trekking across slippery slopes. (How much "micro" terraforming is enough?)

My fear about present day Martian idealists (including "red" and "white" idealists) is that by pushing too hard for an ideal agenda, they end up refusing to compromise and ally with those people who do have the resources needed to accomplish humans to Mars.

The politics of how human beings interact will remain the same before and after we first travel to Mars. The ability to compromise and integrate the divergent goals of various people is the special province of politics and a willingness to engage freely in such politics would seem essential if there are to ever be any Mars missions at all.

Bill White

Stu · 2002-01-16 14:09:08

Bill:

Really enjoyed reading your last very thoughtful post re micro vs macro terraforming... and it really does seem we agree much more than we disagree. :-)

I wholeheartedly agree with the need for enclosed "gardens", research laboratories and living areas, where micro-terraforming can be undertaken to help us live on Mars, and learn more about the planet. That way settlers can live in (relative) comfort while they explore Mars and get to Know it. And we don't ruin anything in the process! :-)

And if we go on to macro-terraform later, so be it... I have to admit I look at some of the latest Mars "renders" and can't help sighing at how beautiful a "Blue Mars" might one day look... but that will, I think (and hope) *only* happen after a political decision - i.e. a "Yes" vote in a referendum - is taken by the settlers and their offspring, not by politicans or pressure groups - of *any* colour - here on Earth.

I'm actually quite proud to be an idealist in a world full of apathy and cynicism, and I believe, hand on heart, in our duty and obligation to protect and preserve the best of Mars, whether that be its native organic creatures or its inanimate rocks and canyons. But I agree with you that we all have to pull together to actually GET to Mars in the first place, and believe me, I may seem a bit, well, "focussed" here, but out in the real world when I'm talking about Mars to groups I always give both sides of the terraforming argument. And I like to think that on here I'm always open to discussions, debate and, the magic word, compromise. That's actually *why* I like it here on New Mars: we all get along despite our often opposing views - which is SO not the case in other online communities, believe me.

So... deep breath...! ... in the spirit of compromise - which I totally believe in and support for the sake of future Mars exploration - this Red is extending the hand of friendship and compromise to you my Green friend, and assuring you that, Red as I am, I'm happy to talk and work with the bluest of Blues and the greenest of Greens, because the main challenge is GETTING THERE AT ALL.

And seriously, I really think that here, in these Forums, we're taking steps towards doing just that :-)

... but once we're there, if you lay a *finger* on those bacteria I'll rip yer air hose out! ;-)

Stu

gbbaker · 2002-01-19 08:21:40

The urge to survive as a species (human) will overide any other "reasons" we have not to terraform mars.
It will be a land grab one way or another.
So we find hydrogen eating co2 breathing life in the permafrost.
Or fungi living in the highly salty permafrost.
Or we find there are areas so highly salted that frost bite doesn't hit till -50 farenheit and we have scattered water.
We will examine the life and look for more and the whole thing will be important for a while and carefully studied and then the urge to survive as a species will come back to the forefront.
There is no reason to not do a land grab.
There is no reason to not terraform mars.
You either contract or expand as a species there is no choice.
Eventually we will run out of room here.
If anyone goes and reads up on the effect and cost of making a nuclear pfc machine and getting it there and running you'll see that a dramatic effect will occur in a matter of years.

Although we still have to wait on more data to be gathered by odyssey and the additional missions you can bet on it that putting one of those pfc machines there or even making smaller versions ....say 5 or so scattered about the planet spewing out these pfc's will not only cause the runaway greenhouse effect raising it 40 or 50 degrees globally but you'll get all sorts of other things occuring.
There are differing estimates on the amount of regolith/cap trapped co2 that would be released because of this. I've seen estimates from 200 to 1000 millibars.
Think about it. Hydrology will start up and that will further increase the atmospheric pressure and lend itself to magnetic effects which will in turn lend itself to changing all that biologically toxic red dust layer (who gives a flying #### about the color red) into something survivable.
We might even get more nitrogen out of the mix.
It's worth it as a land grab to terraform. The lengthly "pain in the butt" things that will have to be handle will be sufficient nitrogen and oxygen.
A recent news item was that there was evidence of a lot more hydrogen than previously thought. And with all that oxide in the regolith we have a lot to work with as far as resources are concened with the exception of nitrogen.
Now if we can get some remote controlled capitalistic mining operation going on on one of those stupid moons we could have that operation shooting containers of nitrogen at the planet. That's the only thing I can think of to handle the lack of nitrogen quicker than would biological engineers.

The study I read on pfc's basically said that only a few parts per million would be sufficient to get the runaway going and if I am remembering correctly it was at the cost of one megawatt year for five years which is the equal to one nuclear power plant.
Now I also read somewhere else some student (whom I can't remember) went over the various pfc molecules possible and their suspected life spans and their uv blocking abilities.
And recommended a certain mix of which all could be produced by the processing of regolith on mars.

Once you get them going and keep it up it's effects will occur exponentially. You'll see.
It'll probobaly go something like no visible effect for the first 3 months and then - whoa... big effects. Rapidly receeding co2 deposits, clouds clouds clouds, pooling briny water, land slides, uncovered craters, uncovered unseen minerals, new trace amounts of other elements, maybe a little helium 3 (reactor fuel).

I've also read a lengthy theory on the source of the iron oxide, olivine and basaltic rocks as being externally deposited -
most of this being in the southern hemisphere.

If that's the case then getting hydrology started would I think shift this external layer around and in some Northern areas we will have a different crust show through. Now there's the place to look for native microbial life.

I think that the ultimate solution to the danger of asteroids is to mine them and use the waste product for our own needs.
I don't think that that will occur lieu of terraforming.
I think that we will find a way to mine them and will and it will be capatilistic and occur on it's own independent of governments and will be very profitable and I also think that breakthrough propulsion is on the near horizon and not in the far distant future.
I read somewhere that a 1 kilometer asteroid as just junk landfill dirt is worth 500 million.
This cold red planet next to us is ripe for the taking and the terraforming. It is close. It is doable. Not over thousand of years either but give or take 20 for a barely tolerable temperate, pressurized, plant supporting environment (dependent on confirmation of trapped co2 levels by odyssey). Another 10 to artificially raise the temperature and pressure even further so that it is tolerable by more pfc's.

Another 40 to adjust the atmsopheric gas levels by various genetic engineering and other artificial means to the point where it would be roughly close enough to earths atmosphere to breathe.
So that's a total of 70 years.
Another 30 for fine tuning of n and o to get it matched to earths so that it has enough play in it where it can't drastically change in short amounts of time.

Mars is smaller so you can't do the little mental short circuit in your head of equating it to "doing it here" whenever a terraforming idea is proposed.
Although it's still a huge task to undertake. It's smaller than here.
Of course we have to use leverage. The runaway greenhouse effect via pfc's is exactly that. It leverages a lot.

The only other thing I can think of in terms of leverage is genetically engineered black lichen to lower the albedo.

As far as arguing for the innate right of life to live without our interference and reapairing any damage we have done along these lines - namely the lower forms (animals and bacteria and such) - if you take a look back at all the thousands of species that have evolved and died here on earth it could be argued that through dna and cloning advancements we might someday be able to bring back to life some of these formerly existing earth species and that these might have just as much right to exist on the newly terraformed mars as the native mars bacterial life. Being that they are only bacterial and these created ones would be animals not competing for resources with the bacteria.
What a grand scientific experience that would be - to put a food chain there - especially one consisting partially of formerly extinct species.
Now that's a good peaceful constructive thing to do not a violent one.
Dodo bird, passenger pigeon, mammoth, that marsupial dog, the colecanth. Aren't there some extinct whales and birds and insects? Don't we still have frozen samples for these?

Alexander Sheppard · 2002-01-20 15:31:57

That post was completely arbitrary. Do you have any actual evidence for how long each of those steps would take or did you just pull a rabbit out of a hat?

I generally agree that ecopoesis will take a matter of decades.

gbbaker · 2002-01-25 13:43:39

Well there is no way for me to have evidence (literally) as terraforming has never been done before.
But I am basing it on what scientific studies and theories I've read, alternative studies/theories, my estimate of how much enthusiasm will increase and therefore "up" the effort put forth, and how much we will technologically make advances within that time period thereby increasing the effectiveness.

I'll explain.

First off I said:
"Not over thousands of years either but give or take 20 for a barely tolerable temperate, pressurized, plant supporting environment (dependent on confirmation of trapped co2 levels by odyssey)."
Earlier in that post I mis-stated the power needed for a nuclear pfc machine to start the runaway greenhouse effect however I was still essentially right as far as the time needed.
Here is an excerpt from Foggs'
"TERRAFORMING MARS: A REVIEW OF REASEARCH"
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/paper1.htm
==================================================================
It is now thought likely that the Martian polar caps are composed principally of H2O ice with perhaps just a frosting of CO2 of an admixture in the form of CO2 hydrate. It is thus doubtful that the caps are a rich enough inventory of CO2 to satisfy model requirements. However, it is possible that a substantial amount of CO2 might occur adsorbed on mineral grains in the upper kilometre of the martian regolith. McKay (1982) suggested that a modest heating might serve to trigger a runaway release of CO2 from this source, in an analogous manner to previous suggestions concerning the polar caps. This early speculation has been further explored by computer modeling (McKay, Toon and Kasting, 1991; Zubrin and McKay, 1993). It was shown that if the regolith carbon dioxide is distributed evenly over Mars then the gas must be very loosely bound for any runaway to occur. For a polar regolith containing an equivalent of 1 bar CO2 the effect works better: an initial warming of the martian surface by 5 - 20 K (depending on model parameters) increases the atmospheric pressure to a few tens of millibars at which point a runaway becomes established resulting in a stable end state of ~ 800 mbar and ~ 250 K. A 2 bar reservoir would runaway to give a mean surface temperature of ~ 273 K and a 3 bar reservoir, > 280 K.
Lovelock and Allaby (1984) suggested that regolith degassing could be triggered by releasing CFC gases into the martian atmosphere to create an artificial greenhouse effect. Since these chemicals have, molecule for molecule, a greenhouse effect > 10,000 times that of CO2, residence times of decades to centuries, and are non-toxic, the idea at first sight looked promising. McKay et al. (1991) looked at this question in more detail, modeling a cocktail of CFC gases active in the infrared window region between 8 - 12 mm where CO2 and water vapour have little absorption. They found that a concentration of ~ 10 ppm of such an absorber would be capable of warming Mars by about +30 K, but that any temperature excursion in excess of this would be prevented by the increasing loss of heat from other spectral regions. However, they also noted that CFCs on Mars are far less stable and long lived than on the Earth since UV radiation between 200-300 nm, which breaks the C-Cl bond, is not shielded from the surface by an ozone layer. Residence times for typical CFC molecules are reduced from many years to just hours! Thus, a CFC greenhouse on Mars might work (manufacturing the absolute quantity of trace gases appears feasible), if only for the fact that these gases would require replenishment at an absurd rate. A solution to this problem might be to use perfluoro compounds instead as the C-F bond is much more robust. Perfluorocarbons are so inert they can survive conditions on Mars, but most of their relevant absorption bands, at least for compounds of three carbon atoms or more, appear to be unpublished. Whether it will be possible to use perfluorocarbons to greenhouse Mars remains an open question (Fogg, 1995a)
===============================================================================
And here is an excerpt on the power levels needed - from Zubrin and McKay's
" TECHNOLOGICAL REQUIREMENTS FOR TERRAFORMING MARS"
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/zubrin.htm
===============================================================================
Producing Halocarbons on Mars
In Table 1 we show the amount of halocarbon gases (CFC's) needed in Mars' atmosphere to create a given temperature rise, and the power that would be needed on the Martian surface to produce the required CFC'c over a period of 20 years. If the gases have an atmospheric lifetime of 100 years, then approximately 1/5th the power levels shown in the table will be needed to maintain the CFC concentration after it has been built up. For purposes of comparison, a typical nuclear power plant used on Earth today has a power output of about 1000 MWe. and provides enough energy for a medium sized (Denver) American city. The industrial effort associated with such a power level would be substantial, producing about a trainload of refined material every day and requiring the support of a work crew of several thousand people on the Martian surface. A total project budget of several hundred billion dollars might well be required. Nevertheless, all things considered, such an operation is hardly likely to be beyond the capabilities of the mid 21st Century.

Table 1: Greenhousing Mars with CFCs
-------------------------------------
Heating CFC Pressure(mbs) CFC Production Power(MWe)
5 0.012 263 1315
10 0.04 878 4490
20 0.11 2414 12070
30 0.22 4829 24145
40 0.39 8587 42933

===============================================================
Now that's CFC's right?! So they're talking about CFC's and also saying that a lot of people would be needed for support of this 1315mwe power plant and according to this second excerpt that it would take 20 years to induce a 5 degree increase and start the runaway effect. But the first excerpt says 10ppm would be sufficient enough to give a 30k rise. But cfc's destroy the ozone and we need the ozone right so ...
Here is an excerpt from a study on pfc's
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/98/5/2154
===============================================================
Although the lifetimes in Table 3 look long, they imply that the greenhouse gases considered here would require replenishment at a rate of nearly 400 kilotons per year to offset photolysis. Because the lifetimes in Table 3 were modeled at 1 astronomical unit from the sun, it would be plausible to multiply those lifetimes by 2.3, reducing the annual requirement to 170 kilotons. In either case, the rate compares very favorably with the 3-teraton annual rate of CFC production mentioned in ref. 1, which was based on a recognition that CFCs would destroy any ozone layer.
Fluorine on Mars would have to be mined locally. For comparison, South African export of acid-grade fluorspar was 470 kilotons in 1980 but then receded somewhat because of weak commodity markets (20). It takes 2.2 tons of acid-grade fluorspar to produce a ton of HF, and the majority of the weight of the gases we are discussing is the fluorine weight. Even though the bulk composition of Mars may be richer in fluorine than that of Earth's (8), whether the element can be found there in sufficient concentrations is unknown.
And here is table 3

Table 3. Column amounts to raise grey opacity of a doubled terrestrial atmosphere to 3; lifetimes in present terrestrial atmosphere
Gas Suggested column per m2 Lifetime against photolysis, yr

CF3CF2CF3 1.1 × 1022 >1 × 108
CF3SCF2CF3 1.4 × 1022 8950
SF6 5.2 × 1021 3200*
SF5CF3 1.0 × 1022 4050
SF4(CF3)2 8.0 × 1021 3070
===============================================================
You see those lifetimes there. Wow. Multiply by 2.3. That was a study on maintaining an atmosphere that has already been raised by 70k.
Here is another study on pfcs basically stating that pfc's and SF6 are the best for terraforming and gives their abosrobtion bands.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/marsfront.html
So I am getting the idea here that a correct cocktail of sf6 and pfc's would require less power to produce and maintain a 5k (or possibly more) increase needed.
Some of this stuff is conflicting but overall you could say that if odyssey returns back the data that we have atleast an overall 700mb trapped co2 reserve and we stick a 1000mwe pfc/sf6 producing machine there for 20 years by the end of that time we'll have a barely tolerable, equatorially above freezing temperature of water planet. Right?!

Now I know we have to wait on more odyssey confirmation of trapped water in the poles and subsurface water - but if we do this and put a machine there the most likely place (even if it is a slow roving machine) to put it will be in an equatorial area. In which case locally the machine will have a greater effect.
The immediate hundred concentric miles surrounding the machine will be highly concentrated in pfc's right?
It would stand to reason that locally the defrosting effect will occur rapidly and so we will see sort of an example of what will occur as the gases mix in with the rest of the planet.
These studies don't include the effect that water will have as a greenhouse gas.
I'm sort of guesstimating that we will see immediately surrounding the machine for 30 concentric miles or so sufficient UV protection and probably a 5 to 10k temperature increase and more pressure and a little water vapor which would start to handle the oxide in the iron oxide regolith and would weather the olivine into other minerals neccesary for plants in the first 6 months such that we can start the black lichen colonies.
I doubt that scientist will not forsee this and not start the colonies and once started this will increase the effect (next year around) such that even if the machine is slow roving (say it moves 100 feet a day) and just drops of these lichen samples as it goes it would still be effective in lowering the albedo OVER TIME and establishing the colony.
As we go along spitting these out the effect will reinforcingly occur especially during summertime with the orbit closer to the sun the heating up will not recide as much each mars year.

Oh and I just saw an update on the discovery channel of data on the new "Archae" one celled organisms found living deep underground, in the toxic geyser waters of yellowstone, and in the blacksmokers deep in the ocean. This is the simple one celled organism that survives EXTREME TEMPERATURES AND DOESN'T NEED OXYGEN.
On this national geographic presentation they showed that the underground Archae adapted by breathing iron and having an extremely slow metabolism.
They stated that they put them in liquid nitrogen and they survived this extremely low temperature just fine.
NOW THIS EXCITING...... GET THIS.
THEY PUT THESE ARCHAE INTO A TEST TUBE OF RED IRON OXIDE.
AND SHOWED THE RESULT.
MAGNETITE!
MAGNETITE IS BLACK.
THERE IS THE MARS ALBEDO SOLUTION.
So just use that instead of or along with black lichen.

Secondly I said:
" Another 10 to artificially raise the temperature and pressure even further so that it is tolerable by more pfc's."
If you go read those references you can see why I said that. DEPENDENT ON CONFIRMATION THAT WE DO HAVE SOMEWHERE BETWEEN 700MB AND 1-1/2 BARS OF CO2 reserve trapped globally in the regolith and the caps. It seems as though this newly discovered archae orgaism from what we just saw demonstrated on tv with it eating the iron out of the iron oxide would be releasing the oxygen and the reserve of oxygen in the mars regolith it would stand to reason is much higher than the trapped co2 in it.
So even if we have only 700mbs of carbon dioxide it seems to me that we will increasingly spread the archae organism and black lichen across the planet so that in this second phase - the atmosphere/temperature being more tolerable and the overall outlook and feasibility of the terraforming becoming a stronger reality - we will step up the efforts. Those efforts will greatly speed up the melting of underground water in the permasfrost since the albedo will be decreasing which will further increase the greenhouse effect.

Thirdly I said:
"Another 40 to adjust the atmsopheric gas levels by various genetic engineering and other artificial means to the point where it would be roughly close enough to earths atmosphere to breathe.
Now there I'm just estimating from what I have read by researchers thus far on how to use organisms to convert carbon rocks into nitrogen and what I feel they will be able to accomplish by genetic alteration.
And also I'm sort of estimating that by that time we will come up with a way to mine asteroids of which there are plenty of varying sizes and of which contain high amounts of nitrogen which could be simply shot at the planet as waste byproduct in waste metal containers.
If you want you can say that I just pulled a rabbit out of a hat but I didn't. I'm just keeping up to date with current progress and intentions in "over unity devices," advanced propulsion, nasa projects, mining (somewhat), patents, a little on bioengeering and cloning, and also because I think based on the IMO higly probable "mars is a former green tidally locked moon with destroyed planet debris spread on it's southern hemisphere" theory that there is more trapped nitrogen, water, hydrogen, and other life supporting elements in this planets crust that just need to be activated by decreasing the albedo and propping back up the now partly destroyed atmosphere.

If you have any specific questions in any area that you want me to give you online references for I will be happy to post them.

Shaun Barrett · 2002-01-26 02:18:17

Phew, gbbaker !! Your Posts add up to quite a tour-de-force on the topic of terraforming!
In my more sober and pessimistic moments, I get to thinking that the whole terraforming thing is wildly optimistic. But I think it was Sir Arthur C. Clarke who, in examining where luminaries of the past had had trouble in predicting future advances, said that often it boiled down to a failure of nerve. And with the quickening pace of technological improvement, I have to say I'm inclined to agree with gbbaker ... always assuming the existence of the political will and the cash!
As for the conservationists, rightly concerned about indigenous Martian organisms, I don't think it will be a problem. As I have said elsewhere in New Mars (more than once, I think!), Mars has never been biologically isolated from Earth, due to impact transfer between the two planets of viable bacteria and mould, or their spores. This is now common knowledge but it seems that most people are unable, or unwilling, to assimilate this information into their world-view.
They still cling to the now outmoded idea that life could have arisen independently on Mars and Earth and never interacted. Not so!
The transfer of life-bearing material must have been two-way; Mars to Earth and Earth to Mars. Yet in all our travels and scientific studies all over Earth, we have never found any life forms based on anything but good old RNA/DNA and the same set of familiar amino acids. What this tells me is that life arose on EITHER Earth or Mars (not both ) and was spread to the other planet by meteoritic impact. (The only other possibility is that life arose independently on each planet but one type completely outcompeted and eliminated the other at some stage in the past ... but I doubt it.)
So the kind of life we have here is the kind we will find on Mars. And I mean 'WILL FIND ON MARS', because life is enormously tenacious! Ancient life on Mars, whether from there or from here, will have survived into the present without any doubt (and been supplemented periodically with new arrivals from Earth). Maybe not as obviously as the Gaia theorists would have us believe, because the Martian surface conditions are so ferociously hostile, but it is there ... somewhere. Maybe we've been looking right at it, in the form of some of the surface anomalies noted by NASA, but have failed to recognise it for some reason; another failure of nerve, perhaps!
Anyway, the point is that we won't need to concern ourselves with a philosophical debate over native Martian life-forms, and the morality of killing them. Martian bugs will be the same as Earth bugs and anything we do to make Mars more Earth-like will only be advantageous to those bugs, ... and to us! Is everybody O.K. with that? Excellent.
One other thing: Although ecopoiesis may be relatively easy (we hope!), I'm inclined to side with those who believe the apparently poor nitrogen inventory on Mars could end up as the limiting factor in totally transforming the environment. Does anybody know whether any of the asteroids contain large quantities of frozen nitrogen? If they did, of course, there would be the prospect (a la Kim Stanley Robinson) of steering a few into Mars' atmosphere, along with some big watery ones!!
Any thoughts or rebuttals on any of this ... ? (Incidentally, I prefer Blue to Red!)

HeloTeacher · 2002-01-26 14:01:13

Back a few posts someone said something about why people would go to mars. Some of the headings seemed odd to me, especially the idea that pioneers would be few and far between.

I see a pioneer as the first martian. Here's how.

I come up (personally or by contracting) w/ a Mars one-way plan. I'm going to take with me hydroponics gear, seed-stock, a power plant, the essentials of a chemical plant and a machine shop. Add in a vehicle or two and LOTS of spares.

I purchase a commercial launch spot and off I go.

On arrival I set up shop, start processing CH4 and O2 and others. I get the hydroponics going, and cannibalize my ship in doing it.

When the scientists or engineers or astronauts or religious refugees or whoever shows up I have goods to "sell" them. A barter system to a point I imagine.

How did I pay for all this? My sponsor is Texaco (for instance) or CNN or somebody. They get to put their name on what I do, and take a cut of the money I make. Their part was initial cash and support and access to what I learn and produce (material, samples, and information<read publicity>).

Why would NASA or anyone buy from me? Because it's cheaper than re-inventing the wheel. It reduces risk to use what is already available.

I could even get the ball rolling by sending back small sample return packets, at cost plus a little mark-up, to NASA or a university or the ESA, anyone really.

Is it risky? Yep. Would I still do it? Yep. Would I try to mitigate risk? Yep. Would I have to justify it to Congress or the Kremlin or a commitee of hundreds? Nope.

How did I manage this?

I look at the plans like Mars direct, and I take away:

I take away the extra people (I work better alone anyway).
I take away the return hardware (I'm here to live not visit).
I use low-tech and interchangable hardware (obvious).
I accept the risk that if I don't grow food I die.
I accept the risk that if no-one shows up I'll be lonely.
I'm motivated to build a home, not a base or a station or an outpost or a research facility.

Maybe if I'm lucky some-one would even want to come stay with me eventually, once I work the bugs out.

How does this relate to terraforming you ask?

A pioneer engineers his environment to help him as much as possible. Breeding life that can live outside of greenhouses and pressure vessels is good sense. Getting the hydrosphere going is good sense.

My message to the scientists would be simple: If you want to see Mars before it changes too much, you better be first in line to take advantage of Hotel Elysium and Texaco station just past the 3rd crater on the left. If you ask nice I'll even cater the first inter-planetary geology seminar.

I'm open to comments, criticisms, etc. But it seems to me this is what will eventually happen.

Alexander Sheppard · 2002-01-26 17:56:23

Interesting post on the terraforming issue there. So, the suggestion that your idea was pulled out a hat was wrong after all. Yes, I agree that PFCs are probably some of the best compounds for greenhousing, CFCs are just not enviornmentally friendly, you don't want them floating around later after you are done with ecopoesis and are thinking "Well, now that we are done with the absolute essentials, what about other stuff..." and realize "Oops".

HT I think your plan sounds outstanding, if you are prepared to sacrifice human contact [well, you know what I mean] for ten years or so (which is not at all infeasible, as many people have been trapped on islands or live alone in the mountains or tundra, or in similar situations, and they generally don't go insane or whatever, and they don't have the benefit of technological communication)

Stu · 2002-01-26 18:20:49

Hi, Red Menace here again... ;-)

There have been some very interesting and passionate postings in this forum recently, a real joy to see and read all of them. Healthy, respectful debate like this is priceless - and good practice for when the first settlers eventually set-off for Mars too. :-)

And as much as I'd like to, I can't challenge the long technical pro-terraforming posts because I'm not a scientist, I don't have a scientific background like some of the members of this community obviously have. I'm an amateur, just an enthusiastic but unqualified layman. My background is in public education, popular- and entry-level child and adult "Science Outreach" programs, and writing books for kids too. So, to my frustration, I'll admit, I can't go through the longer posts and challenge - or even comment on - their contents, point by point. I don't know much about the gases or chemical processes mentioned, or about the hardware. All I have are gut feelings, personal opinions and beliefs, and my own experiences and senses, you know?

But I'm a firm believer in gut feelings and personal experiences. And I trust my gut feelings. And the other day, whilst showing a visiting friend around my rather beautiful part of the world (the Lake District, in England, for the record) I had an experience, little more than a "moment" really, which told me a lot more than piles of science reference books or acres of equation-covered blackboards ever could. Thought I might share it with you, if only to inspire a more - I hesitate to use the word but there's no alternative - spiritual element to the discussion.

We, my friend and I, were walking through a lakeside wood and, both being Mars enthusiasts, were discussing terraforming. Well, it seemed appropriate under the circumstances, surrounded as we were by so much life on a brutally-cold, brittle-blue-sky winter's day. At one point we stopped by a gate, just to enjoy the view, and that was when it hit me, quite hard to be truthful, that - and I'm NOT slagging-off or insulting anyone of a Blue-persuasion here when I say this, please believe me, and don't have a go at me, okay?! - pro-terraformers are kidding themselves if they think that we can just cook-up a Green Mars with a Delia Smith (oops, Brit-specific reference, sorry; American members please insert name of your favourite TV chef there! ;-) ) recipe of the right chemicals, reactions, processes and hardware, and stir and then bake it long enough, even if "long enough" is thousands or even tens of thousands of years. Because there's more to making Mars "like Earth" than just dipping it in glue and rolling it around in dirt and leaves.

As I see it, there are two types of terraformers, two terraforming Schools Of Thought if you like. Some terraformers want to terraform Mars because they see it as a scientific necessity: we must settle and T-form Mars because it offers Mankind a cosmic "lifeboat", a second home in space, and if people are going to live there they won't want to walk around on the surface hindered with air masks. Fair point. Other terraformers are more idealistic about it, they think we have an almost blood-written duty to the Universe itself to take life to Mars and bring it back to life. Viriditas, etc. Also a fair point. They may be right, who am I to say? By now everyone here knows *my* views on why I think we should leave Mars alone for as long as we can, not just for the often-derided rock-hugging, bacteria-loving reasons, or the conservation-of-landscape reasons, but because of respect for What Already Is rather than a craving for What Might Be.

But standing there, in that wood, I really did think that there's a very basic, fundamental misconception here about terraforming, or more specifically what constitutes a "terraformed Mars".

People seem to think that with the right checklist of ingredients, processes, hardware and an adequate timescale, Mars can be "greened" and "made like Earth". Sorry, it's just not true. It won't be "like Earth" at all, because it has taken Earth *billions* of years to look like this. We can thicken Mars' atmosphere all we want, warm the planet with greenhouse gases, melt permafrost and icecap reserves with mirrors or nukes or whatever, plough cometary ice into the air and all the rest, but it won't give us an Earth #2, because Earth is ancient, its landscapes have been sculpted and carved on *geological*, not human, timescales.

Terraforming will green Mars, yes. It will give us fields of spiky grass, hardy shrubs and flowers, and maybe even forests of tall, toothpick trees. The sky will be blue - maybe more white than blue if papers I've read are correct - and water will run in lazy, reduced-g streams across the plains, but anyone expecting to go to a terraformed Mars and step out onto the floor of Yosemite Valley when they get out of their shuttle is going to be severely disappointed, even if terraforming is quick and effecient. Because even if all the scientific papers are right, if all the chemistry checks out, if all my fellow and just-as-enthusiastic and -passionate fellow Forum members here are right about the technology and timescales required to "bring Mars to life" it will be millennia before Mars "looks like Earth", or feels or smells or tastes like Earth. We can't recreate Nature. And we can't hit its Fast Forward button either.

You see, I stood in that wood, on the shore of Derwentwater, and looked around me, and I saw it all so clearly: how long it had taken to look that way, to reach that state. It *looked old*, it *felt* old, *smelled* old. It was **natural**: the trees were tall, and old, with weather-worn and lichen-stained trunks, and branches literally sculpted and arranged by hundreds of years' exposure to gusting winds; the stream running through it bent this way and that, navigating its way around boulders and rocks, under overgrown ledges and banks; the boulders and rocks themselves were old and worn, covered and stained with Old Master-like mats and veils of lichen and moss. The very ground beneath my feet was springy and wet with water from rain, dew and melted frost from the previous evening. It had all taken time to get that way, so much time.

And I thought "We can't make Mars like this." Not *shouldn't*. *Can't*. We're not good enough. And we probably never will be.

I honestly think a lot - not all, don't bark at me that way! - of people who support T-forming think it is going to allow us to turn Mars into a second Earth, make it just like our Homeworld, a carbon(based) copy of our own little corner of the Universe. Well, it won't. It will make Mars habitable, yes, and will green it, yes, but it will only resemble Earth on a very basic level - blue sky, green plants, running water, air you can breathe etc. Even our best T-forming efforts won't allow us to prematurely age Mars to the point where walking on it will feel like walking on Earth; that can, and will, only happen naturally, at the planet's own pace.

So let's be honest here shall we? When we talk about terraforming Mars, we're not really talking about making it as beautiful and as amazing as Earth, we're talking about making it habitable, *survivable*, turning waste ground into a garden. We don't have a Star Trek "Genesis" device to sweep a wave of viriditas around Mars like a green tsunami, leaving behind a lush and emerald-green paradise. As beautiful as it would surely be in its own right, a terraformed Mars would be, for a long, long time, literally millennia, a pale imitation of the original. The trees and plants, sky and clouds, rivers and lakes would look familiar but not the same as the ones on Earth. There'll be no "springy ground" to squelch over; have any of us any idea how long it takes Nature to make *soil*? You can't just make soil! It's not just dirt. Soil is like an organic sedimentary deposit, the settled remains of a rain of organic material laid down over tens of thouands of years, shot-through with microbes... we can't just "make" it, you know?

It's often said that terraforming will take a long time. Too true. It will take much, much longer than any of the timescales mentioned here, because *truly* terraforming Mars - as opposed to making it "just good enough", which is what most terraformers really mean - will take an Age.

Take a look at Kees' amazing renderings of an ancient Mars, which could just as easily be of a terraformed Mars, and you can see my point. From orbit yes, a T-formed Mars might well look like Earth: patches of green forest, silvery rivers and streams wriggling across the landscape towards lakes and oceans. Fluffy blue clouds drifting lazily here and there. But land your shuttle and you and Toto would realise you definitely *weren't* in Kansas anymore. The lower gravity, thinner air and different geology on Mars will influence the development of any life we take there.

Terraformers want to bring Mars to life - bring it "back to life" some insist - and in so doing gift future generations a world where they can live, raise families, continue Mankind's work and pursuse his eventual cosmic destiny. But they should be aware that they will never be able to gift those future generations the huge, golden crop fields of Oklahoma or the grass-oceans of Montana; they'll not be able to recreate the subtle elegant beauty of an English countryside or the sheer, jaw-dropping gorgeousness of a Yosemite panorama. There may well be martian equivalents, but it won't be the same. And if that's what the aim of terraforming is, to make Mars "like Earth" than it's not going to happen. Not by our hands anyway. If it happens it'll be in millions of years. We may kick-start the process, sure, but let's not kid ourselves - or anyone we talk to, in articles, at conferences or symposia or whatever - that we are big or clever enough to make the changes required to make Mars into a new Garden of Eden. The best we can hope, and aim, for is "survivable"... and then see what happens.

It all comes down to what we want, and why we're doing it. If we just want people to be able to live on Mars so that Mankind won't be erased if a natural or man-made disaster destroys Earth, then we can make the changes to Mars necessary for that to be possible. But if we want to be able to walk and run and live and love on a Mars that's as beautiful as Earth, as natural and as sublime a home as our own world has been for millennia, then no, that's not going to happen. We can't do that. We're not good enough. We may never be good enough. And if we ever are, we almost certainly won't be *patient* enough to see it through; like the cosmic adolescents we are we'll sigh and yawn theatrically and then go and find somewhere cooler to hang-out - like another star system, with planets which have been green and blue as long as Earth has, and therefore feel more "natural" to us than the Mall food court Mars we've created back near Sol.

I respect the views, and work, of the scientists and scientifically-sound Posters to this Forum. I believe their reasons for wanting to T-form Mars are, for the most part, genuine and sincere. But I really do think that there's more than a little self-delusion going on - and a lot of over-optimism about our own capabilities, present or future.

Go stand in a wood yourself and you'll see what I mean. :-)

Stu

Alexander Sheppard · 2002-01-26 18:31:14

No, Mars will never be a second Earth, but that dosen't mean it can't be a second home. And if it is our home, I suggest we make it comfy. Bring on ecopoesis!

Stu · 2002-01-26 18:49:00

I'm all for it being a second home... and "comfy" is good...

Just think people should have realistic expectations, that's all.

Stu

HeloTeacher · 2002-01-27 09:45:32

Stu, I really enjoyed reading your post. I think I actually agree with you in a lot of respects.

I believe the scientists will go to Mars eventually to learn. One government will go to prove they could do it first and maybe others will go to prove they could do it too. And corporations will go if they can make a profit.

But the pioneers will go to make it home for themselves AND their children. They will be the ones who actually terra-form the planet. And as they do so they will change themselves. Mankind doesn't change much now becausew, really, we live with insignificant risk. The pressures of pioneer life will force new pressures on these people and as they make Mars more liveable for themselves, they will make themselves more able to live on Mars. Their children and grand-children will not have an artificial view of what Mars SHOULD be, as you described above, but rather they will know and love and appreciate the beauty in the world they have grown-up in.

You are very right that the Earthling explorers will have moved on and out of the Sol sytem or somewhere to keep their short attention span motivated, but the people who are growing crops and raising families and building towns in a world of their own making will not be trying so hard to re-create Earth, they will just be living.

I hope this makes sense. Thanks.

Stu · 2002-01-27 13:09:35

Hi HT,

Yes, your post made a *lot* of sense... I take your point about how the people "left behind" After The Goldrush will be the ones who *really* change Mars, I think that is exactly what will happen, and I have a lot of respect in advance for the people who go there to raise families and settle Mars rather than exploit it. The danger is that our hardy martian Ingalls family will be just abandoned by the Powers That Be once interstellar travel becomes possible, because they'll almost be an embarrassment, a reminder of a time when Mankind was younger and dumber and less advanced than the race which is reaching boldly for the stars and their blue and white worlds. The terraformers won't finish the job because they'll have identified worlds "out there" which are in need of only "fine-tuning terraformation" to allow people to live on them, and the terraformation of Mars will stall, then maybe even fail, and we'll be left with a pseudo-Earth where people have to struggle just to get by. And as you say, the atmosphere will have to be "topped-up" frequently to prevent it all leaking away, otherwise gradually Mars would revert to how it used to be in the first place, and it will all have been for nothing.

Gee, I must be going soft in my old age, I'm agreeing with far too many pro-terraformers here... better take myself off into the desert and go find a boulder to hug ;-)

Stu

gbbaker · 2002-01-27 23:52:44

Well there is good evidence to suggest that Mars was once very blue i.e. very similar to here but without life. As we study the planets in this solar system more we will soon figure out some of the histories of the smaller bodies such as the minor planets, moons, and smaller planets such as Mars, mercury, pluto, and venus.
Although I think it's impossible and unneccesary to figure out all of them we will eventually put forth theories and confirm them as to what "recently" occured in solar system history and so we will have a more realistic view of what is possible and what is not in regards to terraforming and mining.
But my point here is that Mars is old -
chemically, elementaly, in it's orbit, in it's relationship to the other planets.
Propping back up the atmosphere with pfc's and lowering the albedo in a relatively short time and introducing simple life forms sets Mars back (almost) on it's previous condition plus life.
Plus life!
Also the life forms here also have age.
This quality of "the beauty of life as it has evolved over the millenia here" that you speak of will be transfered in some respects to this new planet.
Although it will never be earth it will still be beautiful with it's own beauty. We will see it blue again and have a gift with the addition of life that is priceless and will be unique for quite a long time (until we go traveling in the distant future and are colonizing other planets).
Yes the soil and the presence of a volume of biologically aged waste matter. The one argument that cannot be overcome.
Yes that will take time.
But to some degree for mars it is simply a question of volume -
of, "how much life is on the planet", as much of the soil here is recycled (gets used by life).
My view is that mars is just a smaller, frozen, with a partially ripped off atmosphere, but similar version of the earth minus life.
With a huge volume of iron oxide, olivine, and some other elements as blast debris that has been weathered down and mixed into the upper layers of crust of this planet.

On a scale of one to ten as to terraformable planets -
ten being the best and one being the worst - in this stage of our technological devolopment - I would say that mars has to be a 8.

Minus two for distance from the sun. Minus two for gravity.
Minus two for lack of nitrogen.

Plus two for proximity.
Plus one for not having a sizable moon causing extra bs gravity tugging. It could be argued that tides and volcanoes and large moon stuff are life friendly but I think we will see that Mars' slightly elliptical orbit and intendent weathering from such will be more comfortable for life than tides extra volcanoes and earthquakes.

Plus one for not having life already there creating an ethical dillema and a neccessity to endanger that life for us to enhance ours.

(Minus one lack of atmosphere/albedo. Plus one iron oxide, co2, olivine)

I'd rather have this than something green with say .50 or .60 or .70 or even 1.2, 1.5g gravity that is already inhabited by some form of life, that is closer to it's star.
Why because then it would be less habitable.
Most likely life would have evolved over millenia to a much different atmosphere. We would have an ethical dillema on our hands. A competition with it's native life.
If it was uninhabitated but not green but better gravity and temperature that would be better. Even better would be sufficient nitrogen already existing.
But there would be a big minus because of distance from us.
With the data now to hand with this discovery of this underground extromophile "Archae" that eats iron oxide and turns it into magnetite releasing the oxygen -
what could be more ideal than this planet Mars for terraforming?
Not much.
This iron oxide deposit to some degree "cancels out" the atmosphere that got stripped off and it's present albedo (red).
I mean look here. Here we have a volume of indigenous life both basic and complicated that has survived cycles and cycles and cycles of sets of millions of years of weathering.
All the little competition things that have went on for sooooo long.
All the phases that life has gone through.
And here we have a planet in close proximity. To the SAME star.
With almost the same qualities.
We raise the albedo using arachae (leveraging tremendous amounts of energy that we otherwise could not produce in any forseeably tolerable time scale),
we prop back up the atmosphere,
we introduce more basic life forms to the now tolerable temperate planet, and then we start putting the food chain there.
We have in our hands the capability of custom sculpting a food chain that has the experience and desire to survive in abundance.
On a planet without presently existing competitive life.
The chances of life turning pathogenic on us there is low
If we truly handle the ozone layer first.
It is already set in it's ways. We pretty much know what each type of life form in the food chain needs.
However natural selection still occurs on small scales and with the differing gravity on Mars and lesser magnetic field;
(I'm of the opinion that propping back up the atmosphere and the induced weathering will kick start a small magnetic field and that life will increase this) life on mars will be slightly different over time.
You know now that I "think about it," this new discovery of underground iron eating Archae could make it possible to set up small solar powered units that heat the ground locally with deposited underground archae colonies and every six months undrill their hollow heat filament filled anchors moving over a hundred feet or so and reanchoring and redepositing.
Hmmmmm
That might even be a precursor to a pfc machine.

gbbaker · 2002-02-25 02:31:24

Terraforming creates an atmosphere and hydrological weathering which along with the depositing of life puts a constant churning and converting of compounds which will contribute to this magnetosphere.
In my opinion a good companion to the pfc machines to create the stable thick atmosphere and heat up the planet is nuclear powered very slow roving regolith heaters that intially inject mesophilic anaerobic bacteria into the first four or five feet into the regolith that will convert the 20% rust to magnetite.
These little traveling "magnetite mothers" that drill down into the surface and heat up for a month and then move over three feet and drill back down and reheat up is the perfect companion.
Why?
1)It's effects are on a curve i.e., It accomplishes very little at the start and increases exponentially over time.
Just as the pfc machines would. With their chain reaction release of the trapped co2 in the regolith and caps.

2) It can be run on a remote control basis with very little directions needed much like a satellite saving the cost of sending humans.

3)It can be doubled with other scientific observational monitoring equipment.

5)Nasa is re-introducing the use of nuclear power.

6)A solar panel could be added on for additional power.

7)Starting high in the northern hemisphere and working around and downwards should ensure plenty of water in the ground for the easy moving and spreading of the bacteria and would be in time synchronization with the moist weather and atmosphere that would be created later by the pfc machines.

7a)It slightly contributes to the purpose of the pfc machines. It should act like a water magnet to some degree drawing in water from adjadcent underground areas and slowly evaporating it into the atmosphere along with any co2 although these effects would be minsicule in the overall view.

8)After the 2 or four rovers step down and initially inject their large load of underground "rust to magnetite" producers they sit there and heat up until approximately 60% of the mass underneath them has been converted.
They then move over three or four feet and redrill down and heat up. This leaves behind a small area (say 25%) of what they have already converted and gains a small area of what they have not converted. This relieves the machines from having to redeposit fresh batches of bacteria into the new area they move into. The effect created is that as the machines move they spread the organism because the organism will travel with the heat source.

9)Normal mutation over time should result in the organism adapting to the colder conditions thus it adapts towards the colder conditions at the same time that it and the pfc machines are contributing to the warming of them. The end result will be that as time goes on the organism will be less and less dependent on the machines.
Eventually independence is achieved.
The organism spreads on it's own blackening the entire planet.
This relieves the machines of their duties.

10)These machines now relieved of their duties could be used for other purposes. For example a secondary mission. Or if power is now fully consumed whatever is needed (e.g. batteries, nuclear material) to resupply them could be sent on additional already scheduled missions if they are designed in such a way they could for example have secondary missions as part of the ongoing "mars internet" program being worked on by nasa.

11) Injecting this "magenetite maker" into the regolith in this way with this method results in a permanent long lasting reduction in albedo.
Blowing off of dust and regolith moving around does not ruin the effect that all the money and time has been spent to create.
Water carrying new rust down into the regolith makes for more food for the organism.
Which would be converted.
Eventually water being wide spread the albedo will be increased just like here on earth where the clouds have a certain reflectivity. This method fights/"counter acts" that possible effect which has a chance to ruin our terraforming efforts.

12)This underground rust now converted to magnetite stands to grow downwards on it's own.
Hence contributing to much needed future underground biomass.

13) It stands to reason that it would contribute to the existing magnetosphere which also insures any terraforming efforts.

14)It's albedo effect alone only serves to raise the temperature of mars by 5 to 10 degress but reading analysis by Fogg and McKay of all other current terraforming methods the most important factor in both time scale and effectiveness is the surface temperature so this method reinforces any other method that will be used that is known so far

Michael Bloxham · 2002-04-01 15:45:51

Are you people crazy? I say Mars was made to be terraformed. Think of all those asteroids that are buzzing around us, each one capable of wiping out the whole of human civilization. If we terraform mars, we have a future. If we preserve it, we are doomed as a civilization. If the world grows so much it begins to starve itself, and someone said, 'Let's terrafom the Sahara Desert', Would you say, 'Don't do it, You'll be destroying a very beautiful desert', ? Ofcourse not!
Genesis 1:26-28 says, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let him rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he ceated him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves along the ground' ".
Theres a popular cartoon with the above quote, It goes something like this: "And God said, 'Be fruitful and incease in number; fill the earth and subdue it' ". Theres a picture of a extremely overcrowded earth and underneath it reads: 'Now what?'
Good question. And I beleive Mars is that answer.

Josh Cryer · 2002-04-14 00:08:45

I appalud ?intersteller environmentalists.?

If it wasn't for them, science would be lost. Really, what scientific value is a rainforest without trees? That's really my question.

Now... whether or not my long term goals are the same as theirs... well, we won't get into that, since that would be one heated debate.

::winks in Stu's direction::

A.J.Armitage · 2002-05-31 02:34:00

Having read through the thread, I'd like to make a few comments.

First, I don't buy the aesthetic argument. Suppose I don't share your aesthetic? Suppose I think reddish rocks are fine, but the distinctive Martian trees would be prettier? It's totally subjective. One form of this I find really odd is attaching a kind of mystique to being "pristine" or "pure". Why should a place be defiled because people have been there? If it is, shouldn't we stay here and let ourselves get hit with an asteroid? (Speaking of which, becoming a spacefaring civilization, with all that entails, is the only way to have the capabilities in place to protect ourselves.)

Second, I also don't buy that it'll be settlers who are reds and Earthlings who are are greens. I think it'll be the other way around. In fact, the "Disney Mars" and tourism thing gets it exactly wrong: keeping something the way it is so it's "unspoiled" and "pristine" and "historic" is what you do for tourists. So, do you turn Mars into a red themepark, or do you build a working civilization there, knowing that a viable civilization may not be tourist-friendly, nor will it necessarily fit someone's idea of preserving Mars in the particular state we find it in (which is only the current phase in a dynamic process, a process we ourselves are a part of whether we like it or not, and one we ought to be a part of)? I think, in the end, it'll come down to a fight between sensitive souls on Earth who love the idea of Mars, against the people who actually have to live there, and will want to do things to make their lives, or the lives of their children or grandchildren better (even the intermediary steps will make life on Mars better, if only by making water more available or making life-support a little less difficult).

A last note on that, Stu complained about how Mars wouldn't be distinctive enough after terraforming, and later complains it would still be too distinctive. To my mind it would be just right. No effort should be made to slavishly copy Earth. Nor would that be possible if we tried. And the terraformed Mars will still be the real Mars. Why would you say that the real Mars is Mars as it is, rather than the warmer, wetter Mars that used to exist? Or whatever the fourth planet happens to look like?

On the life issue, any life on Mars would be left over from the warmer, wetter Mars. But a warmer, wetter Mars is what we're talking about making. Terraforming would be good for Martian life. And if it's not, we can still keep samples the way we keep smallpox samples. Even if microbes had rights (and they don't), that doesn't need to get in the way.

And finally, the benefits of terraforming. Even in it's partial form, it'll increase the resources available, especially the most important of all, water and eventually air. Someone made an interesting observation about the life support: whoever owns it can pretty much rule as he pleases (and whoever can take it becomes master; a recipe for political instability). That sort of thing won't work on Earth because air is free. I also suspect that even a nascent biosphere will be beneficial in ways we can't tell.

Bill White · 2002-05-31 07:24:32

On the life issue, any life on Mars would be left over from the warmer, wetter Mars. But a warmer, wetter Mars is what we're talking about making. Terraforming would be good for Martian life. And if it's not, we can still keep samples the way we keep smallpox samples. Even if microbes had rights (and they don't), that doesn't need to get in the way.

Naturally, I agree with this!

If there are microbes left over from a warmer, wetter Mars, then terraforming may be the *most* ethical thing to do - even from their perspective.

Yet, I also agree that extending "rights" to microbes is rather a stretch.

Phobos · 2002-05-31 15:29:29

I believe if we find native Martian microbes we have a moral obligation to let the life develop on its own without drastic interference from us Earthlings. But I don't see any reason why we couldn't have cities there maybe in locally terraformed areas like canyons, craters, or what not. I see your point that it seems somewhat ridiculous to give full blown rights to microbes, but after all what if an alien species had arrived on Earth when only microbial life existed here and terraformed the planet to unlivable conditions for early Earth life? But then again, if it appears Martian life would benefit from us terraforming Mars, that might be a different case.

A.J.Armitage · 2002-05-31 15:54:30

Phobos;

But then again, if it appears Martian life would benefit from us terraforming Mars, that might be a different case.

But then it wouldn't be developing on its own. But really, why should that matter?

Phobos · 2002-06-01 02:30:08

Phobos;
But then again, if it appears Martian life would benefit from us terraforming Mars, that might be a different case.
But then it wouldn't be developing on its own. But really, why should that matter?

I was just leaving the door open to the possibility that future generations who have the power to terraform Mars might not find it apprehensive to do so if native Martian life would benefit from the process. But I do believe that it would basically be immoral to interefere with e.t. life in a way that would be dentrimental to it. Of course one could reason that it's immoral to meddle in the development of e.t. life under any circumstance whether it be beneficial or negative. I haven't however rushed into a decision whether it's moral to interfere with e.t. life if such interference would prove "beneficial." But I tend to lean against it taking into consideration the law of unintended consequences.

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