New Mars Forums

Mesmer,
Welcome...

I guess it all depends on how many Earth like places exist in our Galaxy.
If we find Earth like places are pretty common then spending a very long time turning Mars into an Earthlike place might be a waste of time.

If we guess that we are only a few hundred to a few thousand years from visiting the other earthlike worlds we discover then that would be all the effort and time i think was warranted in Mars.

As soon as it was possible to visit earthlike worlds around other stars then Mars would become a very low priority to try to terra form.

Just thinking about the waste products from converting water into 02 and hydrogen, and C02 into 02 and Carbon.

CH4 (methane)and 3 Carbon for soil building.

If we do discover that we need to separate water and separate C02 we can use up all the waste products as more greenhouse gas and soil amendments.

I think this might be a better way to approach the problem.

1. How much super greenhouse gas do we need to liberate frozen C02.?
2. How much C02 do we liberate.?
3. How much more Super greenhouse gasses do we need beyond that before we begin to liberate H20 vapor at a rate higher than it re freezes.?

Some educated guesses here will give us a final C02 Total for Mars.
We are probably stuck with that quantity of C02 less the percent we can use up when we replace C02 with water vapor warming.

I think if we can't get a formula to keep C02 in the 50mb range or less and keep Mars warm enough to melt H20 we have little hope of making Mars a life friendly atmosphere.

We can't grow anything without liquid water and to get liquid water to form i think Mars will not be a life friendly atmosphere.

We always have the option of altering life to suit Mars.
Just create life that is suited to Mars and not a Mars that is suited to our life.

jumpboy11j,

Underground water deposits should have florine mixed in the water already.
Some water won't have any flourine but some will and the bacteria we design would be very efficient at using it all up.
We should get all sorts of goodies from the ground water for bacteria to grow gas for us, iron, sulphur, flourine, hydrogen, carbon, oxygen etc.
With just that mix of elements we have lots of gas options.

It's really quite a small quantity of super greenhouse gas we need on Mars to get the C02 liberated.

Final Atmosphere:
20 kPa (200 mb) O2
10 kPa (100 mb) CO2
8.8 kPa (88 mb) N2
1 kPa (10 mb) H2O
0.2 kPa (2 mb) NH3

Total: 40 kPa (400 mb)
...............................

At 100 mb of C02 in this 400mb atmosphere we have a total of 25% C02.
In a 400mb atmosphere, i think around 5% would be the maximum amount of C02 we could expect life to endure at 400mb.

100mb of C02 will require an atmosphere of around 1.5- 2 bars total to be at 5% C02.
1 bar of atmosphere on earth and 2% C02 is pushing the limits for life.
So a 1.5 -2 bar atmosphere on Mars would require C02 levels to be maybe 1.75% or less of the total atmosphere.
We might get away with 5% C02 since 02 levels would be much higher, so a 2 bar atmosphere would be a minimum for 100mb of C02.

No math works for 100mb C02 as the primary warming gas on Mars if we also expect it to be a terra formed place for life.

It's not realistic to think of a 2 bar Martian atmosphere, so we need something other than C02 as the main warming gas, or at minimum we need much less C02 reliance on warming allowing us to have C02 in realistic totals for life.
Or we need to alter life for Mars.

Just my opinion on the C02 math problem for Mars.

dunwich,

Great idea with anaerobic bacteria.

Mars right now at some depths and locations should be warm and wet enough to seed bacteria like that.

We could engineer all sorts of custom bacteria to produce all sorts of super greenhouse gasses on Mars in those areas that have liquid water beneath the surface.

All we would need is a drilling machine and a packet of those custom bacteria, place them into the bacteria friendly locations.
The drilling machines could be mobile so they can seed all of Mars underground water resources.

Time scales might be a problem to show any buildup of gasses in Mars atmosphere, but they will accumulate over time.

We can engineer custom bacteria to make copious amounts of the gas or gasses we choose.
We are sure to have all sorts of chemicals mixed in that ground water, so sky is the limit for gasses we can have bacteria create.

Might be a great way to get Mars warm enough so all the frozen C02 starts to release from the frozen layers.

Interesting thought and efficient possible way to warm mars with little input from us.
Wonder how much Methane, PFC's, etc we would need and the time scale for bacteria to create that?

A snippet from an article on Super greenhouse warming of Mars.
........

The researchers say that adding approximately 300 parts per million of the gas mixture in the current Martian atmosphere, which is the equivalent of nearly two parts per million in an Earth-like atmosphere, would spark a runaway greenhouse effect, creating an instability in the polar ice sheets that would slowly evaporate the frozen carbon dioxide on the planet's surface.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200501 … _sys.shtml
..................................

A snippet from an article about Mars liquid water.
...
Liquid water apparently carved Mars's large channels, its smaller valleys, and its young gullies. In addition, there are vast quantities of ice within about 3 feet (1 meter) of the surface near the south pole and perhaps near the north pole. Thus, water apparently has existed near the surface over much of the planet's history. And water is probably present beneath the surface today, kept liquid by Mars's internal heat

http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/mars_worldbook.html
.............................................

SpaceNut,

15% C02 only in a 150mb atmosphere with 55% O2.
As we lower the bar pressure we can sneak up C02 levels that would be toxic on Earth.

It's an even worse formula for C02 than you would expect on Earth.
2% C02 is getting close to what most forms of life can tolerate all the time on Earth, 5% for short terms.

I think 15% C02 is pushing right on an absolute maximum for Mars with 150mb.
10% or less would be much better.

I don't think we have any chance of C02 15mb or even 22.5mb getting or keeping Mars warm.
Think we are stuck with not only having to import N2 as buffer gas, but we will have to import or create maybe 2mb of super greenhouse gasses for warming.

I've tried to keep the mb pressure as low as i can to keep importation of N2 down as small as possible.
Each 100mb increase of atmospheric pressure total for Mars equals 30 mb of N2 import.
I think 150 mb pressure and most of life would adapt to it.

150mb pressure also has a different boil point of water, i don't think it would come into play on Mars but something to keep in mind before we get to 150mb.

No reason we couldn't continue to import N2 even after the 150 mb pressure is reached.
Adding more of N2 beyond 150mb wont alter the makeup of the atmosphere in any adverse way, so we could keep adding N2 until it's at earthlike levels as a permanent project.

jumpboy11j,

I've been working on this problem and come to a conclusion about a secondary problem with C02 on Mars.

I personally think we could resolve quite a bit of the toxicity problems and bar quantity problems of C02 with small amounts of Methane or super greenhouse gasses in it's place.
Our main goal for C02 is warming Mars so we can use whatever we like for that.
1% C02 will be more than enough for life so we really don't need more than that.

I seem to remember a long discussion about C02 quantity to keep Mars warm and if i remember right it was 70mb.
If we do the math on 70mb as 15% of the total atmosphere, we would need way to much total bar pressure for C02 to work as the main greenhouse gas.
If we have C02 as more than 15% of the total atmosphere it probably won't support life.

I figure something like this will work for all the gas percentage needs of animal and plant life and to keep Mars warm.

1% - 15% C02
50% - 60%  02
30% - 40% N2
1%- 5% Other. (Some can be methane or other super greenhouse gasses to decrease C02 needs and lower final bar pressure needs)

Working out the total bar pressure for each gas would require the heating totals for Mars of C02/methane/super greenhouse gas. 

If we replace most of the C02 warming with super greenhouse gasses we could also lower 02, N2 and C02 needs, we make a much thinner atmosphere that stays warm.
Methane or other super greenhouse gasses will require much lower final bar pressures to do the same job as 15% of a C02 atmosphere would.
It would require much less time and much less work than having to create a nearly 500mb atmosphere to keep 02 and C02 in life levels, the import of large quantities of filler gas and to have C02 keep Mars warm.

We still need to import N2 in a lower bar pressure Mars just as a filler gas, but with much lower bar pressure needs for warmth the N2 quantity needed would be much smaller.
We would be just importing enough to balance the other gasses.

At first glance this minimal Mars atmosphere topic seems simple but it is quite complex infact.

Midoshi,

I can't figure why more studies are not done on minimum levels and maximum levels for plants for C02 and 02 combinations and the n2 fixing cycle of bacteria in n2 poor places such as Mars.

With all the thought about some day colonizing Mars you would think these basic studies would have been done long ago.
Even greenhouse domes would need this basic info on Mars if we plan to grow plants and not be permanent nitrate miners.

We sure could spread out nitrate around the planet to get plants going.
Down side to that is we become the nitrate cycle for plants when natural process don't replace the nitrate at the rate it is used.

With a bit of bio engineering we could probably alter the bacteria to fix nitrogen more efficiently so poor quantities of nitrogen might not be a big problem.

With the same sort of engineering we could probably have plants happy in 30+% C02 60+% 02 at 1/3 bar.
Or even the best of both with plants that have an efficient nitrogen fixing gene and high tolerance to C02 gene incorporated into the cell structure.

Nature would do this itself on Mars over long periods of time, so we would just be accelerating that process.

Much like animals that have high tolerance to C02 levels will be naturally selected on Mars.
Nature would quickly adapt all forms of life on Mars through natural selection.

I would guess in as little as 10-20 generations what we put on Mars will only look semi familiar to what we placed as the originals.
The long term effects of 30% C02 60% 02 at 1/3 bar on animals and plants and bacteria is sure to alter life very fast at best, at worse create a very high mutation rate.

With 1/3 gravity, additional UV radiation, additional cosmic ray doses added into the mix we would end up with some pretty odd plants and animals when they settled into normal natural selection.

I think the basic idea of the 326mb Mars atmosphere might work, but we probably won't be placing natural Earth organisms on it.
If we do they won't stay that way for long anyway.

Hi Midoshi,

On Earth plants beyond 30% O2 content have a very difficult time collecting C02.
Since levels of C02 would be much higher on Mars and pressures much lower i can't see it as a big problem.
A real unknown though how plants function at much higher levels of O2 and C02 in lower pressure with just trace amounts of N2.

It's nice to see that high levels of both almost work together, but i still see 30% C02 as a problem even in a 326 mb atmosphere.
We also need to think about the bacteria that fix nitrogen in this atmosphere scenario.
How do they function in that atmosphere,  can they tolerate 60% 02 with 30% C02 with 1% N2.?

Bacteria are tough life forms so they probably would survive, but would they fix enough N2 for the plants.

I have a gut feeling around 10% C02 as a comfortable level for Mars at 1/3 bar.
I also have a feeling 1% N2 although more than enough for plants, won't be enough for the bacteria to fix it well.   

Thanks for the interesting data on your posts.
Interesting reading.

CO2: ....... 120 mbar.
O2: ......... 200 mbar.
N2 .............. 5 mbar. (Plants can now fix nitrogen.)
Ar ............... 1 mbar.

Wouldn't 60+% O2 simply self combust in 326 mb pressure?
It's very close maybe beyond combustion.
Not even sure any plant on Earth can grow in such an oxygen rich environment.
Would plants even grow at with 30+% CO2 at 326 mb pressure?
Beyond safe limits for both C02 and 02 i believe.

At one bar on Earth 30% O2 is about a max before it would self combust.
4% - 5% CO2 a max for plant growth at 1 bar for temporary periods.
2% for sustained plant growth.

6% - 10% i think is a constant max for CO2 on Mars at 1/3 bar for plants to sustain growth.
30%-50% 02 i think a max for plant respiration. (unknown)

We could probably live in the set numbers for a 326 mb atmosphere but i doubt plants will, and no smoking on the planet for fear of a global fire.

I think if you add around 150 mb N2 and decrease C02 50 % you get pretty close to safe levels for 02 and C02 for us and plants.

So maybe something like this.

CO2: ..........60 mbar.
O2: .......... 200 mbar.
N2 ........... 155 mbar.
Ar ............... 1 mbar.

Would 60mb C02 keep Mars warm though in a 416mb atmosphere or any atmospheric pressure we select.

I think we need to select how much C02 Mars needs to stay warm first, then select 02 as a filler with no more than 50% of the total final volume being 02 and 40% probably a safer number for plants, then the remaining amount will have to be an inert gas probably N2 and trace other gasses.

A little more thought on the mag launcher for a different use.

Using a mag launcher on one side of Mars we could place as many impactors as we like in one spot on the other side of the planet.

The escape velocities on Mars should allow for a mag launcher to get mass into temporary predictable orbits and de orbits.

Not only would this eventually re start the core, it would release masses of gas from the constant impacts helping to thicken the atmosphere.

If we had a polar impact site we would get the best of both at once since the constant impact heat will melt a large area of that pole.
If we use ice from the other pole as the impact mass we really accelerate the atmosphere thickening process.