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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."
Before anyone writes a cheque for this plan, I say they should have to terraform the moon first as a proof of concept.
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.
ou don't need that many kids
We interrupt this silly post to point out that this is slashdot, these people REALLY aren't part of the problem. Thank you.
I can see you don't work anywhere near end-users. You'd think they were joking, too. But they still break their cupholders.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.