Slashdot Mirror
Could Mars Be Habitable In 100 Years?
ChazeFroy writes: "About 150 physicists gathered to discuss how Mars could become habitable. They suggested that by introducing PFCs (a cousin of CFCs) into the Martian atmosphere, they could transform the climate of Mars into something resembling Canada's climate (this would be enough to sustain lichens and algae). This process would take only 100 years, but they estimate it would take nearly 100,000 years for the oxygen levels to increase to a suitable level to sustain human life." Heh -- or you could say, "Soon, Canada could be almost like Mars."
I think by climate, they are referring primarily to temperature and weather condition. The reason this would only be enough to sustain lichens and algae is because of the insufficient oxygen level, which is discussed later.
/. and the editors here.
I think you came down a little hard on
--
Ian Peters
I'd like to believe that within 100,000 years humans would be exploring the deepest reaches of our solar system, if not our neighboring stars. We will have inevitable learned to survive on Mars, despite the lack of oxygen and abundance of Canadian weather. Rushing to heat up a planet so we can water our gardens on Mars without breathing aids in 100,000 years from now might sound a bit silly. Will terraforming a planet still be a human priority? Maybe. We gotta live somewhere. (Or do we?) We should at least check the place out ourselves before we move in and start rearranging everything. Our feable 20th Century brains shouldn't be planning that far ahead.
Besides, if it's atmosphere your looking for, we've got lots of it in our drinking establishments here in Canada, eh!
Despite the rising cost of living, it remains a popular activity.
He had them setting up windmills to power electric heaters to warm up the planet. Of course, the energy of wind ultimately turns into heat anyway.
He also had them covering the floor with computer printouts - he didn't say what they used for paper.
True, but apparently the story is a little more complex than that. Russian cosmonauts on Mir were supposed to do intensive exercise regimes to preserve muscle tone, but these exercise regimes failed to work. What instead happened was that the cosmonauts weren' actually *doing* their exercise routines - Shannen Lucid, the American astronaut who was up on Mir for ages, actually bothered to do her routines and was able to walk around virtually immediately after returning to Earth.
It's equally possible that human lifespan will be substantially *lengthened*. Until we actually go and live there for a while, we won't know.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Say the scientists decide that this is a bad idea and don't go through with it.
Then say Joe Tinker throws together something with duct tape and old intertubes in his backyard that can launch canisters of these PFC's to mars and he does it. Since Mars isn't governed by anyone, can they stop him (aside from FAA launch regulations and other such things)?
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
XML causes global warming.
Oh, come ON people. It's EXTEREMELY unlikely there's life on mars right now. If we find it, we'll find it long before or maybe even BECAUSE of these efforts making exploration of mars _possible_. You're smoking moon rocks if you think that a couple robot probes that can MAYBE test a few dozen or hundred individual samples will be able to make ANY conclusive decision. You'd need a research base there and a LOT of money and effort to determine if life is there, but the MUCH more interesting question in my mind is WAS there ever life there, WAS it ever intelligent, and DID it fertilize a once inhospitable earth?
Rant mode on; Donning flame retardant jacket:
That said; Jesus H. Christ, what do you think terraforming mars is about? Worrying about stepping on some freaking bacteria? You kill bazillions of life forms when you step in the shower, or sneeze on a wall. Terraforming mars is about making it hosipitable for the Human Race to move someplace else and make another home; To help guarantee we won't be extincted in case something happens to earth - Have people forgotten - especially you americans - that your own citizens, under the employ of the US Department of Defense, EVERY DAY, practice the procedures that are in place for the exinction of ALL life on this planet? And that their counterparts in Russia and China do the SAME THING? And you can tell me with a straight face you're worried about fucking up a dead planet, because you MIGHT step on something? Oh my _GOD_.
Are you going to cry when we set up a moon base, too? We're ruining a static environment! There might be moon creater fuzzy creatures!
If we're going to survive, we need to realize a concequence of their being 6 BILLION people on this planet is that people are EXTRAORDINARILY good at F*CKING SHIT UP. Unless you're going to exterminate a LOT of people REAL fast, we're INEVITABLY going to COMPLETELY ruin earth if we haven't already and their isn't JACK that ANYONE can do about it. Are you going to give up driving? Electricity? Are you not going to have any children? Are you going to stop eating anything but gruel until you die? HELL no. Neither is ANYONE else, and the 5.5 billion people on the planet that DON'T live a privilged existance like us in the west are SURE AS HELL going to go throught THEIR industrial revolutions. Then comes THEIR contribution to global warming. Not so fun when you're the one that's going to be sucking in CO2 from China, eh?
It's time we wake up and realize what human civilization means; We need to wake up and accept that there's little we can do about environmental impacts; We can slow the damage, but it's not going to be stopped anytime soon; And that YES, MAYBE, it's a damn good idea to start looking for a new place to live and expand to, and that YES, OF COURSE, we're going to COMPLETELY ruin whereever we move, and that's a natural course of human development, unless of course you're a hypocrite who doesn't think that the 90% of the earth's population has the same right to drive a SUV or Sports Car that YOU and I do.
Give me a break. I want my offspring and their offspring to a) have freedom of choice and b) have some quality of life. That means we're going to need to start looking for more resources. And I didn't even TALK about the extreme likelyhood that man himself will obliterate earth - remember, you practice it every day, and the United States of America and Russia both have enough nuclear weapons to exterminate ALL life on earth. My own country, Canada, is a leading researcher into Biological and Chemical weapons research, as is the USA - and these things are the nastiest inventions that you will ever hear about. Go read what a dose of a modern nerve gas agent will do to a child. Hitler invented that technology with Vx gas. We perfected it.
Damn, that felt good. I needed to vent after watching the puppets dance on that debate. They never talked about any of that; Or the billions and billions they spend on the War on Drugs. Why not build universities instead of prisions, shmucks. Do you know what percentage of the prision population has a college degree? Hint: Your initial hunch is right.
Kudos!
..don't panic
Well, I live in Canada. (Winnipeg, MB to be exact.) And, let me tell you, if they are talking about the -WINTER- atmosphere, then, quite frankly, I'd pick a polluted ol' planet any day.
I woke up this morning, and, while I was waiting for the bus, I could see my breath. Now, for all you Americans, that means it's pretty dam cold. And it only gets worse. (Last year, the mercury dipped to -34c, which is.. uh.. almost 0f.)
On the other hand, Canadian beer rules.. now where did I put my hockey stick and parka? Oh, here they are, in my Igloo. =)
------------
CitizenC
on the other hand.. it's probably easier to stand up again when you fall down in a drunken stupor..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Where do you think those fizzy bubbles come from? That's CO2 from the martian atmosphere!
BTW, while you yanks were aiming for the moon, we canucks were already setting up shop on mars, or yellowknife or something.
We are not above it, either. If we screw up Mars we screw up our own future.
If we're going to do it (and I think we should, someday) we need to get it right, or at least be able to weigh the risks. Right now we don't even know for certain what effect our civilization has had on Earth's atmosphere. And we know a hell of a lot less about Mars than we know about Earth. If we did do something to the atmosphere of Mars it is unlikely that we'd be able to figure out what the effect was.
So no, we don't have the right to mess with the martian atmosphere. Rights come with responsibilities, and if we can't accept those responsibilities we don't have the right.
Second, this is an old idea. As others have pointed out, it was used to great effect in Kim Stanley Robinson's phenomenal Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars trilogy (great science fiction not only because of the science but because of the social, political, interpersonal, and cultural questions it raises).
Third, I find it unconscionable that the scientists (or the writer) didn't consider the possibility that life already exists, or did once exist, on Mars. That final quote -- "we have the chance to spread life beyond its origin" -- is arrogant beyond belief. I suspect that in another century or two (and sooner if we're lucky) the assumption that Earth must be the single "origin" of life will appear as misguided as the belief that Earth was the center of the universe. Yet another example of us stupid humans assuming that the universe exists for our benefit.
This is not to say I'm opposed to extraplanetary colonization or terraforming -- in fact, I think it's critical that, as a species, we ultimately extend ourselves beyond our tiny blue planet. But it would be unconscionable for us to even consider intentionally messing with the climate on Mars until we've determined conclusively that there is no indigineous life. That's not just an ecological argument, it's a scientific one -- if indeed there is life (or evidence of past life) on Mars, the research value would be incalculable. Just think what we could learn about genetics, biology, and evolution if we had access to life that evolved entirely independent of that on our planet. (Or perhaps it didn't evolve independently, giving weight to "panspermia" theories that life can actually be propagated between individual planets and whatnot.)
Considering how long it took us to realize that life survives in some pretty surprising niches on earth -- miles down on the ocean floor, deep inside solid rock, at all kinds of temperature ranges -- I suspect it'll be a long time before we can conclusively declare Mars sterile and even contemplate manipulating the environment. (And that's without even worrying about nonliving attributes of the environment worthy of research, such as geological features.)
Of course, there is some interesting potential here as well. If we do someday terraform Mars, by the time the environment is suitable for higher life we'll probably be pretty good at cloning extinct species and fun stuff like that, so we could turn it into a big nature preserve, Jurassic Park-style. Wouldn't a Canada-like environment be just perfect for those baby woolly mammoth?
Also, this leads me to wonder if we could develop some anti-greenhouse gases that we could use to cool Venus down to habitable levels. If we figured that out, we might also be able to keep ourselves out of trouble if global warming turns out to be the destructive force some have predicted.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
This looks like a case where the fastest way to make Mars' atmosphere breathable to humans is to wait until our technological knowledge increases. If I remember correctly, the quickest way to crack RSA encryption (40 bits?) was to wait 10 years for a better algorithm.
Actually, I'm American and I have watched Canadian Bacon - probably one of the stupidest movies I've ever seen. However, The part where John Candy looks across the river at Canada and sees a beautiful landscape is kind of humorous. The part when he gets back on his boat and crosses back over to the US and sees nasty smog producing factories is even more humorous. I saw this movie about a month before I went from Texas to Detroit, Michigan to visit a friend. When we were on the bridge, crossing the river that separates the two countries, I finally realized that the Canadian Bacon movie was no joke. On the Canadian side, I saw a beautiful boardwark alongside the river, nice landscaped flowers and trees, and people strolling. Looking back at the American side, I saw smokestacks, factories, nasty railyards and general ugliness. Mind you, I have been to Montreal and Vancouver before so this was really no surprise to me. However, seeing the stark contrast on the two sides of the river was a surprise. It was at that point I convinced myself that I was a Canadian trapped in an American body! Well, maybe, but, I have really enjoyed every trip I have taken to Canada. The country is beautiful, the people friendly, and damn that maple syrup sure tastes great. It sure beats the corn syrup imitation crap we have here. At any rate, I will definately be going back to Canada for another visit someday. I can definately see why Canada has been voted the best country in the world to live by the UN. Oh, and another thing, If you see some fat guy coming across the river in a motorboat, it's not me!
Setting aside the scientific value of Mars unaltered for a moment, why exactly shouldn't we do this?
Guess what! Humans are a part of nature. We are not below it, despite what the religious fundamnentalists of the aesthetic-environmental movement/religion would have you believe. Mars posesses no right to not be modified by humans any more than it has a right to not be modified by asteroid strikes.
Steven E. Ehrbar
If there's money in it, without a doubt. And there's every possibility there will be money in it.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The question I have is this.... Are they proposing that it would take 100 years to allow the temperature to rise enough for lichen to live on Mars, then 100,000 years for those lichen to create enough Oxygen for humans to live on?
:).
Why not continue the influx of PFCs for another century, which would probably raise the temperature again by quite a bit so that more substantial plants, even so far as temporate or fairly tropical level forests could be raised. That would surely cause much more oxygen to be created then via millions of small lichen.
Besides, if they heated again for another century or two, we would be able to walk around Mars without a jacket on while we breath the fresh air
-Julius X
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
I am no expert on planetary biology or atmospheric science (is there such a field?), but it seems like there is a chance that we might make Mars more hostile to human life if we aren't careful. If we screw up Mars, where else are we going to go?
What, exactly, is it you think there is on Mars to screw up? The thinly-disguised religion of nature called aesthetic environmentalism strikes again.
Look, we are part of Nature. What we do is inherently natural. Nature changes things all the time. It is prudent to avoid actions that risk our existence, and it is nice to preserve as much biological diversity as possible. But there is nothing wrong with changing an environment per se, whether Earth's or Mars's or Pluto's or any other.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Maybe it's just what future generations need. A completely galvanizing, international effort to begin to explore and colonize Mars. Not for the sake of money, but for the sake of humanity. When was the last time humanity felt a unified interest in a human endeavour that surpassed all ideas of nationalism? Probably when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
And ultimately, Mars represents a chance not to mess up another planet, but perhaps in a bout of completely head up my ass hopeful idealism to get it right. A chance to start all over again, and this time, with such a precarious and concerted effort to terraform the planet, maybe we'll even begin to understand how precious, rare, and difficult sustainable environments are.
Someday that lovely Sol is gonna go. Mars is the first and perhaps one of the most essential steps to readying mankind to continue. And I, for one, think we ought to. So hands up who thinks our new information driven economy is a more lofty goal than mankind exploring alien worlds and bringing life to where it is not.
I, for one, long for the day when news is reporting about humans walking on the surface of Mars as opposed to blather about Metallica and MP3s. Don't the rest of you?
** http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/ ** Human rights in North Korea. 1 million estimated dead from starvation.
I'd hardly call the moldy Mir free of pests. WWII Japanese submarines, infamous for rats and roaches, are another artificial environment that could change your perceptions of such things. Yummmy, a fart in a space suit. Hell, there are some buildings I don't like being in and fresh air is right outside.
There are a few other nice things about a planet with a large, regenerating atmosphere. Gravity can be your friend in lots of ways, and it never breaks. Some mirco meteor is not going to ruin your day with body piercing and sucking out that atmosphere. Nor will solar storms send you running for cover.
Continuous sunlight is not what enables alternate day lengths. Sure, it's nice to see the sun durring the "day", but alternate day times were pionereed here on earth by tunring out the lights on submarines.
Colonizing free space and exploiting resources there is very important, but let's not try to glamorize it too much or let it get in the way of spreading to other planets. Ateroid smelting is going to be about as much fun but more seperated from the rest of humanity as oil drilling is today. The goal of points beyond will have to be the surface of other planets. The long time it will take to make it happen should not delay the start.
Bravo to the people considering this seriously!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
(On-topic: Among some of my associates, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books are known as "Marx Goes to Mars". Spread the meme.)
Actually, you don't get turtled, you get jerseyed. When you turtle (you have to do it yourself), you basically curl up in a ball, allowing the punches to rain down upon your back. When you get jerseyed (someone does it to you, like in the commercial), your jersey (or your business jacket) gets pulled over your head, so you get forced into having punches rain down upon your back.
There's a difference.
Actually, you don't get turtled, you get jerseyed. When you turtle (you have to do it yourself), you basically curl up in a ball, allowing the punches to rain down upon your back. When you get jerseyed (someone does it to you, like in the commercial), your jersey (or your business jacket) gets pulled over your head, so you get forced into having punches rain down upon your back.
There's a difference.
(woo! massive duplicate posting!)
Won't the Bene Gesserit or the Bene Tleilax get upset that we're ruining THEIR plans for this planet?
-Chris
{insert something about poor /. quality/hot grits/goatse.cx here}
Umm parts of Canada are farther south than Detroit (.01%). So are we talking this part of Canada or are we talking the part above the arctic circle. Just commenting on the /. story blurb.....
"Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson. Science fiction, yes, but very scientific in how the author describes the terraforming of Mars. A good read.
Actually, you are right... I need to get out of TX!!!!!
Heh -- or you could say, "Soon, Canada could be almost like Mars.
At the rate we are going Canada will probably be more like Venus.
Before we can start Mars on the same road.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
I do know the magnetic field is not strong enough to provide the protection that we are used to having here on earth.
The rover that landed a few years back was tested for exposure to radiation that would be similiar to that of Mars.
The electronics involved were designed to reboot every so often. This was due to solar radiation effecting the way it preformed.
I would guess that would be too much for us as well.
Some people have talked about putting dust in the amosphere to help shield Mars.
Some people at NASA from a generation raised on planetary sci-fi just doesn't get it. Colonizing the surface of the Moon would create a habitable area equal to Africa. Colonizing Mars would produce a habitable area with a surface area equal to Earth's land masses (not including ocean surface). Sure, do it someday for fun, but not first.
NASA should instead invest the bulk of its R&D in creating one self-replicating space habitat that could duplicate itself using only sunlight and asteroidal ore. If duplicating once per year in a hundred years such a habitat and its offspring would produce thousands of times the habitable surface of the Earth, enough to support trillions of humans and large populations of other species.
Remember: a planet is a very wasteful way to use mass. It is much more efficient to use shells to contain atmosphere. If you wan't gravity, just spin it. If you don't want gravity, live in bubbles.
Related links: /sp acsetl.htm
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/s ett le.htm
http://www.permanent.com/
http://science.n as. nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/
http://www.luf.org/
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Aren't we going to terraform Mars or Venus?
Terraforming is a long-term project requiring technology significantly advanced over what we have today. Even terraforming advocates admit it would take a minimum of 200 years to modify Mars to the stage where even simple anaerobic microorganisms and algae can survive. [Ref: Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments, Martyn J. Fogg, SAE Press 1995.] Space habitats, on the other hand, can be built with today's technology, and would be homes in space which people initiating the program could move into within their lifetimes.
Interstellar travel may someday become possible, but we have no guarantee that Earth-like planets will be as plentiful in the Milky Way galaxy as they have been in Hollywood, CA.
What advantages would orbital settlements have over a colony built on another planet?
Access to 24-hour-a-day sunlight. This makes solar power a consistent, economical energy source. Photovoltaic panels can convert sunlight into electrical current, and solar mirrors can concentrate it for process heat in industrial operations (such as the smelting of ore). A space-based solar concentrator the size of a football field (which could still weigh less than a car) could provide process heat equivalent to the burning of 1 million barrels of oil over 30 years.
Sunlight also drives the life-support system of the habitat, so the day/night cycle can be set to whatever is convenient. Compare this to the moon, where there is 14 days of continuous daylight, and then a 14-day-long night. Here, some alternate energy source would probably have to be used half the time.
Access to zero gravity. This may have a number of industrial and entertainment possibilities. Structures (such as the above-mentioned solar mirrors) could be built many times larger and flimsier in space than on a planet.
Zero G would be a liability if there were no alternative to it. Astronauts experience loss of bone mass and muscle tone after prolonged exposure to weightlessness. But most of a space habitat would be under Earth-normal gravity, although there would be easy access to regions of reduced gravity and zero G (perhaps for personal flight). With planets, on the other hand, you have to take the gravity that's there, and it's often the wrong kind of gravity to keep us healthy. Lunarians or Martians would probably not be able to visit the Earth (nor accelerate at 1 G).
Long-term expansion of the land area available to the human race. Let's be optimistic and assume that Mars could be made totally Earth-like in the near-term. This would basically double the land area available to humanity, meaning problem solved...until the population doubles again. Right now, that is happening roughly every 40 years. By contrast, if we were to conservatively limit ourselves to using only the resources of the asteroid belt, we could build, in the form of space habitats, 3,000 times the livable surface area of the Earth. This makes space settlement a long-term solution.
Location near the top of Earth's gravity well. We here on Earth are the "gravitationally disadvantaged". We are at the bottom of a pit 6,400 km (4,000 miles) deep. This is what makes space launches from the surface so difficult and expensive. Settlers near the top of the gravity well would be ideally situated for departures to points beyond.
Control of the environment. The weather and other aspects of the surroundings would be those of the inhabitants' choosing. Agriculture in space will benefit from weather control (fresh fruits and vegetables year-round!) and the absence of pests.
Disperse Life
Seastead this.
I may be wrong, but doesn't a planet need a magnetic field to stop the atmosphere from being blasted away by solar radiation?
Even if we could make this happen, do you think the future generations would take the steps necessary to complete the process? I'm sure that generating the PFCs is just one in a chain of events that would have to take place. Sooner or later, future generations will either lost interest, move on to something more exciting, or decide that maybe making this planet more habitable is a more lofty goal.
So which am I -- lichen or algae? ;)
-TBHiX-
...currently enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee-flavoured moss, apparently.
At least Canada will serve some purpose in the mission to Mars. ("Wanna know what Mars is like?? Go to Canada") What a great tourist attraction, eh?
I really don't know about this. We've damaged our own environment pretty badly, not always threw neglect, but often through ignorance. Surely we remain largely in the dark in our knowledge of how our atmosphere interacts with our water and our earth, and where we fit in with all of this.
The idea of inflicting ourselves on the whole of Mars is a little unsettling. We may have the best intentions, but do we really know what we're doing?
-Waldo
Hey, I LIVE at 2 G's.
.5g of Chrondroitin sulfate daily. My joint pain has ended. Oh yeah, I also wear nothing but New Balance running shoes, 11 and a half quadrouple D's.
I weigh 330 lbs. About 150 lbs is fat. If I can walk, run, jump and do martial arts, someone in good shape should have absolutely no problem.
Not only am I disabled by the excess weight, but my arteries are no doubt heavily clogged, I have high blood pressure and look forward to lots of health problems as I get older.
The structural load is no problem, I take 1.2 grams of glucosamine sulfate and about
In short, 2 G's is no problemo for humans.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
Radiation. There is strong radiation from both the sun an cosmic rays. For a short mission like a two year mission to Mars you can probably survive the dose with only a slightly increased chance for cancer later in your life (still much less than smoking). For permanent settlement, though, you need to do something about it. There is no way to protect against cosmic rays except mass. Lots of it.
On any planet or moon you get a 50% reduction in cosmic rays for free because the bottom half is protected by an enormous mass. On a planet with an atmosphere (practically, only Mars) you also get significant radiation protection from the atmosphere.
On a floating space habitat you will need to cover it with a thick layer of rocks and any kind of junk you can find to get any kind of meaningful radiation protection. Mass is expensive in space because of the delta Vs required to get it where you want it, but it is very cheap on a planet.
Getting direct sunlight for agriculture is more diffcult because you want your protective mass to be transparent. The window panes of agricultural areas will need to be over a foot thick.
Except for radiation protection you will need mass for everything you build, eat or breathe and all of it requires significant delta Vs. Oh, I almost forgot: you also need lots of reaction mass as fuel for generating these delta Vs.
I find the point about absence of pests to be particularly ironic considering the fungus problem on Mir. If you start to do agriculture it is likely to get worse. Perfect quarantine is impossible and once a pest gets there it can get pretty nasty. If you decide that your agriculture areas do not need as much radiation protection as the habitable areas you will get very interesting mutations, too.
Eventually we will probably see both free space and planetary settlements filling different niches in the economic ecology of space.
----
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
In fact, during the 17 years I grew up in Newfoundland I cannot ever recall hearing the word about or aboot. Perhaps I lived a sheltered life. But my own Newfie accent (apparent available only when fueled with alcohol) it's closer to abut than aboot or about. (::sigh:: I'm sitting here saying "about" in a rich Newfie accent, and getting wierd looks ... go figure )
Most of the martian atmosphere is in the form of frozen CO2. All you need to do is keep the CFC production long enough to start the evaporation of this CO2 into the atmosphere. Since CO2 is a greenhouse gas itself the process will be self-sustaining until in about a century most of the CO2 goes back into the atmosphere.
----
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
they could transform the climate of Mars into something resembling Canada's climate (this would be enough to sustain lichens and algae). This process would take only 100 years, but they estimate it would take nearly 100,000 years for the oxygen levels to increase to a suitable level to sustain human life.
Wow -- I wonder how many Canadians the canadians have managed to survive so long in an environment suitable only for lichens and algae?
Good god, if they have a hundred years before human habitation, they'd better start working fast because they're not gonna be able to hold their breath that long!
But seriously, didn't Slashdot hire RobLimo to be a professional editor? I mean, is it possible, however unlikely, that they would actually read some of the sentences they write to make sure they contain some semblance of logic and meaning?
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Something that the open source community is sure to appreciate is the fact that the Mars community in the books throughs out much of the traditional wisdom on how systems such as the economy should work, and produces somewhat convincing alternatives. In fact, many of the protagonists exhibit the "hacker ethic" of just doing things that work without getting bogged down in rules.
~=Keelor
Magnetosphere?
:o)
Isn't that the place where Professor X's nemesis hangs out?
PERHAPS you should check to make sure that FOUR PEOPLE haven't said the same thing already.
Slashdotters are really good at 1) missing jokes; 2) making semantic corrections; 3) priding themselves on unimportant scientific distinctions. Slashdotters are not really good at 1) READING BEFORE THEY POST; 2) picking up chicks; 3) READING BEFORE THEY POST.
Depending on which moderator gets here first, this post will either be -1, Flamebait, or +3, Funny.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Actually, one of the more ingenious ideas I've read was to sprinkle black particulate matter on the icecaps, thereby increasing their heat absorption. Since one of the caps is supposedly predominantly carbon dioxide one can presume that melting it would chain-reaction (once a "critical mass" is met, if we cannot find a catalyst) of greenhouse effect
No.
lol, some would actually say it's probably CPAN that he meant... not that it doesn't get updated frequently or anything. ;-)
Free music from Jack Merlot.
One of the most critical questions that we should be asking ourselves is this: Once we get there, is it a good idea to immediately start terraforming the red planet?
One of the most interesting things about Mars is that understanding how Mars formed and its weather systems will help us to understand how things work here on Earth, through what Ames and the Mars Society crew like to call "comparative planetology." However, if humans dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the planet gets hotter, that changes the weather patterns, so Mars would be less useful for understanding Earth.
And, of course, there is the ever-present debate about life on Mars. If the atmosphere gets thicker and the planet gets warmer, Earth-born fungi and bacteria will flourish, "contaminating" the planet and making it very difficult to conclusively prove (or disprove) whether there is or was life on Mars.
That's a silly idea. The French would all explosively decompress in a shower of obnoxious, sticky goo.
Oh. I'm beginning to see the charm of your plan.
But then who would sue Echelon?
My mom is not a Karma whore!
While the prospect of terraforming Mars excites me, I wonder whether we should do it. Considering how we've messed up earth, what right do we have to mess with the climate of another planet.
HEY! I resemble that comment. Canada sustains a whole lot more than just algae and lichen!
Now, granted, it's *WAY* too cold for amerikans up here, but we did that on *purpose*!!!
CanaMars: Bringing multiculturalism to a whole new level.
mindslip
I'm sure that if this were to happen, the fungi would be specially bred and sent there, The scientists wouldn't want to wait for some fungi to show up through natural means.
They would probably (at least if I were them) choose a fungus that had oxygen-creating properties.
BTW the engineer doesn't care if it's half-empty or half-full; it's only water and there's no cafeine in that.
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
2.54 cm.
And while Mars is not zero G. It is roughly 1/3 G. Long term residence on Mars will weaken people, possibly to the point to where they can never return to Earth. Human lifespan on Mars may also be severely shortened.
And what happens when children are born on Mars? They will grow up in that light gravity environment and certainly be bound to Mars forever. Lesser gravity may cause them to physically develop oddly too. They will *look* alien!
On the other hand, if low G is detrimental... it'd be interesting to see what happens to people living in a high gravity environment for long periods of time, say 2-3 G. Would children born in that enviroment develop super strength? The IOC will have to ban athletes from high G environments from participating in the Olympics. Life in high G could be achieved on Earth. Anyone tried puting humans in a low speed centrifuge chambre for long periods of time (months or longer)?
After the article I read on fungus dwelling on the space station and slowly eating it away, it made me consider something:
Are those probes and rovers we're sending to Mars sterile? I would bet not. Granted there's not much living material that'd hitch a ride with the rover, but what if a sensor picks up a piece of recently-dead fungus and suddenly decides that it originated on Mars, when in fact, it originally came from Earth.
Ok, enough of my thinking out loud. I'm sure you get my point.
The better than 3 orders of magnitude greater potential population of space habitats demands some rationality be applied to this argument.
Even assuming both space habitation and planetary terraforming habitation would take comparable amounts of time, the planetary option just isn't important at .1% of carrying capacity.
Seastead this.
No doot aboot it!
Um no! The scrapped the project and destroyed all the prototypes and blueprints (most of them)
It is very rare to find actual intact blueprints and parts from the planes. The one in the movie (206) that flys off at the end, is complete fake. And the commercials about the farmer having a "secret" in his barn is complete BS too.
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
To me it would make more sense to use plant protists. They photosynthesize, creating energy, in some cases nitrates which are needed to live, food for animals, and Oxygen through their cellular breathing. Most of you would know that plants consume CO2 and produce O2.
This would terraform Mars, slowly like what happend to earth, making it habitable for humans.God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
>I think you mean the Arctic. Not all of Canada is snow.
:)
>Vancouver routinely enjoys better weather than Seattle which is south of it.
OK, Canada has other weather fine, but so would Mars. It would have a variety of climates across the planets surface. It would have areas that resembled the tropical oasis known as Vancouver, and some parts that are more like the frozen tundras of Seattle.
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
There will be more than one strian of Human, eventually. Evolution dictates that humans will have to change. Some babies will be born adapted to high-G, and prosper, while babies not adapted will perish. Natural Selection. The strong will survive. The earth-humans will survive on earth, and probably not be able to interbreed with alien humans. This will of course take a VERY long time.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
And while Mars is not zero G. It is roughly 1/3 G.
On the other hand, people can drink 2/3 more beer, to weigh them down.
-40 in what? Farenheit or Celsius? Makes a big difference, you know... =-p
What is the purpose of this article? It's almost as bad as the polls, thousands of ameteur commedians trying to one-up each other. I'll have to admit that some of the posts have been funny, but wasn't there another purpose than insulting Canada?
Why worry about seeding the atmosphere of Mars with pollutants when it _still_ won't result in a human breathable atmosphere? We'd still have to live underground (or should, to keep away from the ultraviolet and cosmic radiation). Mars doesn't have a big moon, so the crust may not be as radioactive as Earth's (ref: Asimov's Robots and Empire). Living underground is about the only viable option, so who needs an atmosphere?
Then again, why don't we just put up a set of big mirrors in the Mercury-Venus trojan points and have them reflect sunlight at Mars? We could warm up the planet pretty quickly that way. Once the planet gets warmer, the fossil water and ice caps should melt and form a better atmosphere, making it warmer still through the greenouse effect. Sounds simpler than sending billions of tons of chemicals around the solar system.
Heck, we could even warm up Canada the same way! Or at least melt the Prime Minister's igloo...
Do we have the right to do this? To purposfully alter the entire landscape of a foreign planet? True, we could get rid of pollution here and use it for a purpose there. True, we could see what different types of mold grows there (Hey, a new breed of penicillan that won't become resisted against until 50 more years of doctor abuse is up), but by what right to we have to mess with a perfectly normal system?
To write a haiku - all you need is the correct - number of syli...
Jeez, Canada is being taken for Mars more all the time. We had that crappy Mars movie shot around Vancouver, and they spray painted an entire valley red. The Mars society is using the North to see how humans will survive up there. And now we have scientists telling us that the CLIMATE of Mars will be like north of the 49th?
I hereby propose that we Canucks grap about 750Ml (that's Mega-litres, or about 4.5 million gallons) of PFC producing white paint, 3 or 4 thousand beers, take the Avro Arrow out of mothballs, fly to Mars and lay down an enormous Canadian Flag on the surface. Should seem like home in a real short time.
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
They have already started this process
The last mission to scatter dark scrap metal on the icecap was succesful
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
a whole PLANET devoted towards the production of Canadian Dry ginger ale.
1. The South Park episode this will inspire.
2. The outcry and street marches organised by the conservation group 'RedPeace'.
-----
:wq