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Terraform Mars Using Oasis Greenhouses
An anonymous reader writes "The Director of the Mex-Areohab project, Omar Diaz, is interviewed today on the feasibility of modifying the Martian climate and terraforming with mini-greenhouses. At higher than 5,000 meters above sea level, on the volcano Pico de Orizaba, the Mexican model can be compared to many oases in the desert and contrasts with industrial-scale terraforming by Zubrin and McKay, among others, who use fluorocarbons, orbital mirrors, polar melting and pollution machines. One planet's pollution is another planet's rain machine, but the thrust of the interview seems to maintain that micro-terraforming is just faster and more efficient."
The moon would be orders of magnitude more difficult than mars for some basic reasons.
You need to have something to work with before you can start terraforming. The moon has a lot of rock. So does Mars, but Mars has different kinds of rock, and it also has ice and CO2.
A planetoid needs a reasonable amount of gravity to retain a gaseous atmosphere before it bleeds off into space. Mars has a very thin atmosphere, the moon has none.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
I think a critical thing here is that Mars is much easier due to having enough gravity to actually hold a terraformed atmosphere in place - something the moon is lacking.
When the first humans start living on mars, i assume they will need all the resources availiable, and wont be interested in venting precious oxygen into the atmosphere.
However, as we get a decent foot hold established there, this will become more feasable. The article doesnt mention how many of the 'units' will be needed, but i would guess it will be a very large number. So we are probably talking about factories produceing the units from local materials.
It also seems that it would be a waste of resources to have CO2 factories (humans) tending the O2 factories ('units'), so the units would probably need to be fully automated.
Even if this terraforming method isnt used on mars, research into it could greatly benefit us here on earth. I hope we hear about more about this.
A manned mission to Mars is estimated to be 55 million. Even with the inevitable over-spending it's a pittance in comparison.
And just to make my self sound cool: The mission to mars could probably be paid for with the profits the USians make from the production of land mines they have covered southeast Asia with.
The point is money is obviously not a problem, the prioritization is!
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
You don't need so much mass to keep a thick atmosphere that far out in the solar system.
Paul
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate
What people are missing is that no small chunk of that spending is really DARPA research spending. DARPA research spending constitutes MOST of all spending on advanced research in all areas of science. Although it's slotted to the military, the money isn't just being used for guns, it's being used to help perfect fusion technologies that could provide the world with plentiful cheap energy for example.
Yes the military has a combat use in mind or believes all the research could potentially benefit them, but the fact is that a VERY significant piece of all technologies being worked on and developed in the US for other areas like use in homes started with some of that military cash that no corporate entity would give.
The military looks for a return in technology, and they aren't concerned if they have to basically entirely fund the establishment of an entire branch of new science all the way through it's infancy before that science could potentially give them some new weapon or a way to keep soldiers alive longer or healthier. Corporate sponsorship just plain isn't interested unless it will give them a product in the near future and only interested if it's profitable.
Portable free plentiful energy makes sense for military investment, they want that shit for their soldiers. Big buisness doesn't see a benefit in much of anything becoming cheap or free.