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Mars Terraforming Debate
blackhelicopter writes "This Guardian article describes the implications of terraforming Mars - the subject of NASA's forthcoming debate. Quote from Dr Lisa Pratt, a Nasa astrobiologist, concerning life probably already on Mars: 'We simply cannot risk starting a global experiment that would wipe out the precious sensitive evidence we are seeking'."
Given our experiences with Biosphere 2 and my own attempts at gardening, I think Mars is safe for a while.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Oh no! We'll destroy the non-existant yet vibrant ecosytem!
Is this political flamebait story day?
I find it incredible that terraforming of Mars is considered an alternative today. Expect an enviromental discussion that will exceed that of the Kyoto protocol many times over.
It's interesting to me that now that all of Earth now is claimed by some group or another that we would begin moving to other planets. I find it hard to believe that we would form any type of terraforming operation without some political agenda. I'd imagine that being the country to pioneer such an operation (ie: USA) would be the biggest stick policy of them all.
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ultimately providing mankind's teeming ranks with a new home. and That is why it is dreadful. We are mucking up this world at an incredible pace at the same time that we are talking about screwing up another planet.
I agree. Unless humans learn to take care of what they have, we should not even begin to consider "jumping planets" just 'cause we don't want to fix up Earth. It sort of puts us in the position that the aliens from Independence Day held -- we just move from planet to planet raping it for any of its resources and then moving on.
Absolutely and completely scary.
Hey, if we really are in one, I get first dibs on the free jetpacks.
Seriously, these guys seem to be using this as a ploy to get more funding. I.e., if the planet earth gets screwed up, we have a backup planet we can egress to..
I say terraform it as soon as we can.
Human survival, wellbeing, and expansion should trump all other concerns. We are the measure of all things.
Second, a species with only one planet is necessarily at greater risk than a species with two planets. We need the insurance policy.
I love science. But the value of another planet to our species is greater than the cost of losing the odd microbe or two that might be found on Mars.
I say, "Let's Go!"
Next thing you know those crazy Reds are taking down the space elevator and Mars is one moon short!
I stole this Sig
i think we should focus on cleaning this planet up before we decide to punt and basically make a new one.
I think we should make a backup before we start applying patches.
I'm not very concerned with messing the precious barren desert they have going there...not as much as I am about our lush diverse ecosystem anyways.
And if there is life there, well its sure to be better suited to its native environment than what we bring along. At worst we get our first scientific data about how our bacteria interact with xenobacteria.
You can't take the sky from me...
Man, this post made me think of "Total Recall".
It'll never happen. Why? Terraforming is a multigenerational undertaking. So far the only human creation to span many generations has been religions and the wars they involve.
Mammoth tasks like terraforming a planet simply cannot be done given the current state of human psychological development. Who here would work on a project that would only be fulfilled hundreds of years after your death?
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
I must have missed the terraforming in Bush's Mars promises. I think we have some time before the crews are ready to roll in which to look for life. However, in case any Martians object, we'd put the plans on display. (I suggest Grover's Mill, New Jersey, where they're sure to see it.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
How to terraform a planet:
Step 1: Devise a reliable method of getting vehicles to the planet.
Step 2: Terraform the planet.
I think we should work on step 1 before worrying about step 2.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
The issue of terraforming has been argued extensively in science fiction for years. The most notable books on the topic are by Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Red Mars, Blue Mars, and Green Mars (a hard-sci-fi trilogy on the terraforming of Mars and its consequences).
I think what is interesting is that if the earlier article regarding methane emissions being discovered on mars. If it does turn out that it is coming from some lifeform , no matter how advanced or primitive. Is it ethically right to go marching in there and changing the whole ecosystem?
Where does one draw the line?
On earth humans have caused extinctions many times over. It is only in recent years that we try to preserve waning species. If we go to another planet we should take these philosophies with us wherever we call our home; if we do decide to colonize or terraform another planet it should be done in away that doesnt destroy any life that already exists there.
I do have another opinion though; Mankind is life, a very successful form of life. It seems to me that our aging planet is not going to last forever; Man has always looked up into the stars in awe and wonder, I beleive that it is our destiny to be up their in the heavens, that is the ultimate challenge life has to face. Just because we call Earth "Home" , why should it not be the case that the universe is our "Home" ?
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Kim Stanley Robinson wrote the book on this, literally, with his "Red Mars", "Green Mars", "Blue Mars" series several years back. The "Reds" believed the planet, and whatever life was on it, should be preserved. The "Greens" held humans could and should do what was in their best interests as a species. We even have Halliburton, Bechtel, or whatever corporations have bought the White House at the time represented :-/
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
Kyoto treaty is a joke, it allows for many countries to pollute to their hearts content, when countries like cananda, who probley have a negitie effect on CO2 levels due to the HUGE number of trees we have, are penalized and forced to reduce CO2 output so some other 3rd world country can pollute.. wtf is fair or right about that?? I don't care if we did it, we know better and so do they, just because we did in the past doesn't me they have the right to now.
And if you want to drop CO2 levels just fucking rise the price of oil, if the price per barrle goes up a dollar a year minimum expect alternitives to be found fast. But of course that will never happen as USA has the oil lobbiest and the world has OPEC or however you spell it.
Kyoto treaty won't do anything to help global warming (if such a thing exists, it can't be proven 100%..)
I say we shouldn't attempt to terraform Mars during the first 50 years of human habitation of the planet, during which time we can scour the planet for evidence of life or past life as well as recording the entire planet's condition with the cameras attached to our spacesuits' helmets. Well, I guess most of the exploring would be better accomplished by wheeled robots.
Phillip
Well what if WE [Earth] are the successful terraformation of life that once debated this same concept on Mars?
The reason they are not predominant to day is...
Their wildly inaccurate predictions of how long it would take for them to be able to convert our atmosphere. We are claiming decades but the realization was probably billions of years. And life on Mars slowly gave way before their world collapsed. Perhaps by a cataclysmic event or by way of nature [entropy].
austintsmith.com
This will not work. The reason Mars has no atmosphere is it lost its magnetic field. That was one of the reasons. With no magnetic field the solar winds are able to slowly strip away the atmosphere. Also with out a magnetic feild to to delect the solar winds the surface is also bombarded by solar radiation wich the magnetic feild normaly delects. Earth would become like mars if are magnetic feid every entirely shut down.
every thing I need to know I learned from Star Trek
Long-term, humans will have to leave this planet at one time or another. While I agree we could be using this one more efficiently, and that terraforming is a bit too far off to worry about just now, debating the morality of terraforming is just silly. Survival of the fittest!
Kim Stanley Robinson has written an excellent science fiction trilogy on just this subject that I highly recommend. See this link for description and reviews: Red Mars
Isn't this just a tad premature? I mean, we haven't managed to get people to Mars yet. We're probably not going to find life there until we do, and since we've landed craft there already, there's a good chance that any life that is there has been infected already by terrestrial strains of whatever. Let's revisit this debate in about ten years when we've got some evidence and when we have some sort of space capacity that will allow us to get people back and forth to Mars. Until then, this and other articles like it are more than useless wanking that reminds me of the homegrown human-apologist "earth first" eco-wackos.
--
Vote for your hopes, not for your fears - Vote Third Party
In the latest issue of New Scientist:
"Schuerger says that of all the space probes sent to Mars, only the two Viking craft in 1976 were adequately heat sterilized. The procedures used for all missions since then, including NASA's two rovers and Europe's Beagele 2, would have left some microbes aboard. After studying whether terrestrial organisms can survive the procedures used to sterilize a spacecraft, he reckons there is a good chance some made it to Mars and might still be living there."
Life will find a way
So the question is, how can it be done in the least destructive way? That's what they should be asking. I'm guessing that the best thing would be to do as much exobiology research on it as possible before anyone starts thinking about terraforming. We may not be able to stop terraforming but at least we could learn as much as possible before the Mars environment is thoroughly corrupted with Earth biology.
Also, terraforming may be a long and slow process. Earth and Mars organisms could coexist for a long time during this process. In fact, if Mars organisms are related to Earth organisms, they might play a role in terraforming.
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Not to mention [a]ny life we haven't found *yet*.
I may be "jumping to conclusions" on this one, but do you possibly thing that's what she meant by 'We simply cannot risk starting a global experiment that would wipe out the precious sensitive evidence we are seeking'
Not only was that in the article, it was in the freakin' post. Anyone who modded you insightful should have the backs of their hands tapped hard with a spoon.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
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?
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.
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).
Seastead this.
Long ago scientists knew that the planet has a cold core. How much lower would our oceans be if we had a cold core allowing water to seep under ground. Mars may have had less water and other starting materials becuase earth and venus got most of them.
Jupiter in the same manner sucked up more gasses and is larger than Neptune or Uranus.
It's possible that mars when it's core was warm enough had some shallow seas but then again it also had a thin aphmosphere from the beginning without enough gasses emitted from the time the crust cooled and volcanoes adding to the mix before plate tectonics on the planet shut down which it did so long ago there's no mention of any existance of faults on the surface of mars.
It's my belief that mars by the time it became tectonically stable and then dead not enough gasses were emitted into the aphmosphere to keep things thick enough for water vapor to exist on the surface in large amounts and much of it possibly has been blown into space. The rest is liquid deep below and frozen into the surface.
For any useful terraforming on the planet once we were able to pollute the aphmosphere to thaw things out a bit we'd still be faced with bringing water to the planet. One way would to have robots digest asteroids and free hydrogen to build giant ice blocks and hurl them to the planets surface or bring ice from europa and send it down to the surface of mars.
But first even the thought of terraforming another planet to live on would involve a huge change in the econmic forces driving the world economy. So I doubt it'll even begin during my lifetime.
Global warming is probably happening on some scale. The question is whether the cause is pollution or not, and whether the supposed warming is permanent or as bad as some claim.
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Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
Wow...the amount of anti-human hate going on in this discussion is mind-bending.
First of all, it's not as if we're about to start terraforming tomorrow. Even the most zealous of the Mars exploration types (i.e. Robert Zubrin of The Mars Society) don't think it should be done until the planet has been explored in depth.
Secondly, keep in mind that we'd really be *fixing* a planet that nature has let die here. All of our new data shows that Mars was once a very life-friendly planet, with oceans, etc.; now it's a cold, nasty place that's only getting more inhospitable as time goes on. Doesn't it make sense to reverse that process and expand the realm where life is viable?
Third, it's not like doing this would necessarily kill any life forms on Mars anyway. The process would be extremely gradual -- we're talking hundreds of years or more here -- giving microbes, etc. plenty of time to adapt. Heck, we might be giving a boost to what life there might be on Mars.
Fourth, it's not as if we've even ruined Earth anyway. People tend to forget that one solid volcanic eruption puts out more CFCs than all of human industry ever has. Environmentalists greatly overstate humanity's impact on the planet in their effort to take down industrialized society. We're not doing that poorly here, and what we've learned on Earth would certainly be applied to terraforming of Mars. Heck, the Red Planet might end up being less polluted/more natural than Earth!
So just calm down a bit and take a moment to consider some of the positives that might come with terraforming Mars. It could be a Really Good Thing.
How To Get Humans To Mars
Wired article
"Maybe there are spores in the Atacama after all.
That doesn't mean that we'll find them on Mars. But it sure does suggest that we might want to look. "
"One day we will all move to mars, and use Earth as a big garbage dump..."
Well, strike that 'all' and replace with 'some select few'.
The logistics of evacuating a planet are simply near impossible. At our current population level you'd have to transport more than 1.7 million people per day, every day, for a decade. As we're rather unlikely to reach that orbital boost capacity in a very long time, if ever, the vast majority is stuck, no matter how many planets we have.
So, while your plan is nice, I suspect the massive majority of stragglers will object to the trashdumps and corpse pollution.
Though the scientific potential of finding alien life is staggering, and one should do everything first to detect it, when push comes to shove, it's a matter of balancing things.
This implies that, when reasonable efforts are done to detect it, and none are found, I think one should go through with human colonisation. Anything else would amount to a moratorium: you are NEVER completely sure that there is no niche somewhere on a planet where life (as we know it or not, jim!) exists. Infact, those planets that have the most potential to sustain (alien) life, will often be those that have the most potential to be fterraformed.
And, while some may dispute it, human life (or at least intelligent life) comes first, period. We can see that in the reality on earth as well. While I'm all for procedures and inventions that reduce the medical experimenting on animals, for example, I do not subscribe to the idea of the ultra-greens that evrything in this regard should be forbidden and abolished. It's doubtfull that animal experiments can be totally abolished, and I have no problem with the necessary experiments, to ensure medicines are as safe as possible for human use. I think most would agree. This established one thing clearly: ultimately, humans come first (at least over non-sentient other beings).
In practical terms, what does this imply? Well, science certainly must have it's shot, and the discovery of alien life would be wonderfull and potentially very important, even in our daily lives. But, if, say, in 20 years of searching, nothing is found, and one can be reasonably sure that there is no life (or it's in such remote niches that it will not rapidely be contaminated anyway), I think one should start terraforming the planet, so that humans (and the earth ecology to sustain them) may thrive on another planet, thereby augmenting our survival (and that of the earth ecology).
If life IS found, however, things become more difficult. Certainly the timeframe in which to colonise/terraform would be much longer (if ever), depending on the level of alien ecological presence on the planet (small niches or not). Certainly, one could not let that alien life die, so, even if one did decide to terraform, then only after an artificial, viable surroundings is developped (sort of closed zoo, thus), where the alien ecology may be sustained indefinately.
I'm not going into safety-concerns here, since that's another topic.
But let's face it: when/if there are other alternatives in keeping alien (non-sentient) life in existence, then one should do that and go on with what is of most use to the human race anyway.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Then, of course, there will be all those mars patents to file.
I'm allready getting ready to a couple. The first relates to the use of circular device mounted on a central pivot to ease the problem of transport over the martian surface, whilst the second one is all about the application of temperature elevated hydrogen hydoxide in space colonization.
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
well, I think she might be right. but I wonder, when was the last time that ethics ever made a difference?? they'll do it anyway...
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
Plus smashing stuff into a planet could be sort of fun.
Basically the only way to ensure the long time survival of the Human Race (or some mutated form thereof) is to get onto a few other planets.
If the sole bastion of humanity is Earth then we will get wiped out sooner or later.
So, keep your balls and eat more pizza!
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
Absolutely. We have already made that decision, billions of times. We do it every single day, every time you put a piece of meat in your mouth you make that decision.
Where do you draw the line? You draw the line with the greatest force. If they have the greater force you die and they live.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Not with masses of plant and equipment. The costs of getting them there are pretty trivial, we already have plenty of probes on the planet. They just have to be able to carry an aerosol canister to disperse them. The hard part is designing microbes which will thrive and multiply in the environment.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
If mars has life and that life has the same genetic makeup as what we have here on Earth, it does not necessarily mean that one has contaminated the other (that is a possible conclusion, even a probable one, but not the only option). Another conclusion that could be reached is that the genetic makeup we have here happens to be a particularly successful one (evolutionarily speaking), so most living organisms anywhere in the galaxy are likely to be similar to the ones we have here for that reason.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
So what happens if we find some small microbes living on Mars? Should we then forego any plans that might disrupt their environment? Even if it might save our species in the long run?
Yes - the planet appears to be warming up. That much I don't dispute. But here's a newsflash for you: the planet is many billions of years old and we've been monitoring it for, what, 200-300 years? How the hell can we be 100% certain that the warming isn't a cyclic thing that the planet does every so often?
There is evidence to suggest that Ice Ages are a cyclic event in Earth's histroy (every 10,000 years or so, and we're due for one any time now), and that the planet warms up for a number of years, just before going into an Ice Age.
How arrogant can we possibly get as to think that we have even and inkling of understanding into how the planet works on an astronomical scale?
I'd say so.
And if we can terraform an entire planet to save our species, I'd imagine we could save ourselves on our own planet without having to jump to another.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. -Thomas Cardinal Wolsey
There is one major problem with Terraforming Mars. Mars has a virtually non-existant magnetoshere. the Magnetosphere deflects the solar wind arround earth. This means prevents large ammounts of hard radiation from reaching the surface (which would kill basically all life as we know it) as well as preventing the solar wind from blowing away the atmosphere. This is the leading theory about why Mars atmoshpere no longer exists to the degree it once did.
The Kyoto protocol was controversial because it was attempting to balance man's need to survive financially with man's need to survive ecologically. Nobody wants to destroy the planet, but everybody needs to eat. Plus it came to symbolize a much larger conflict between the Bush administration's self-interested unilateral actions and much of the rest of the world's eglatarian compromising.
Terraforming Mars has none of the risk of the Kyoto protocol. Whether or not we terraform Mars is basically irrelevant to the ecology of Earth. Likewise, as there isn't a strong industrial base on Mars it is pretty financially irrelevant in the short term. Essentially, the two groups debating this will be hardcore scifi geeks (like me) who want to colonize the universe and hardcore environment geeks who feel that everything is better untouched by human hands.
Personally, I feel that terraforming Mars will give Earth agencies experience in the vital area of fixing ecological nightmares. As for "screwing up" Mars, people generally point to Earth turning into Mars if we mess up this planet sufficiently. Mars is just about the worst-case scenario. Personally I'd rather have the fallback position that if global thermonuclear war were to wipe out our planet, at least life from Earth would continue somewhere. That, and the ample room such a planet would provide plus the enduring environmental investment sounds quite worthy of the loss of pristine, untouched land berift of much beyond sterilized soil and historical rocks. Much of the research into that could take place LONG before we are in a position to actually terraform the planet. After all, two out of three landers agree that the planet is a pain to get to, with one abstention.
Now, where the heavy debate is going to lie years down the road is whether or not terraforming a planet gives ownership rights to that planet, and if, for example, the people living on that planet have the right to cede from an offworld government that made life on that planet possible. That's going to be a huge, sticky debate mixing fundamental beliefs about freedom and democracy with entrenched and represented commercial interests and unspoken debts to powerful entities.
The ______ Agenda
Terraforming other planets is fun, but first we really need to terraform Earth. Between desertification, global warming, overfishing, pollution, habitat destruction, slash&burn traditional farming, chemically-enhanced modern farming, genetic engineering of plants, moving species between ecological niches, sooting up the polar regions in ways that reduce the planet's albedo, and a lot of other things those pesky primates have been up to, this planet is becoming significantly less Earth-like. It's time to look at changing that. There have been a range of proposals to do things about it, from the Kyoto politics to Giant solar reflector shields in space to Bruce Sterling's Viridian Manifesto.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Personally, I'd like to see us gain the ability to create human-friendly environments away from Earth. But discussing the issue seems to me to be a pointless exercise, best left to university classrooms and NASA cafeterias during lunch hour.
Why? Because we're not even remotely capable of actually doing any terraforming, for several reasons:
1: We don't have the technological ability. We have some marginal sense of what might work, and lots of good ideas, but we're decades away from having the technological means to terraform.
2: We don't have the economic ability to terraform. This is the real kicker. Assume that even a modest, trial attempt to terraform would cost $100 billion dollars; since we don't have even $1 billion to spend on it, we're at least a hundred orders of magnitude away from having the financial means to engage in even the most limited terraforming.
3: We lack the political & social drive to engage in terraforming. Assuming (1) and (2) from above were no longer problems, there would need to be a strong, global, urgent demand that we engage in terraforming. There are many ways we might conceive of this happening, but none of them are apparently in the works, as of yet. This may change, but if it did, then we could spend time then debating the ethics of terraforming Mars, which, by then, will have been investigated to a much greater degree than it currently is.
I figure we ought to be spending our money, time, and effort doing that investigation, rather than getting worked up over ethical debates that, ultimately, don't matter one whit.
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
Yes, terraforming Mars is clearly the solution to all our problems.
After all, if you have exceeded the credit limit on one credit card, it's not that your spending habits are out of line with your income, it's that you need another one, right?
Folks, if we can't live well and sustainably on a planet as nice as Earth, adding Mars into the mix won't help.
I hear a lot of people saying we should fix up this planet first, but even if this planet was in perfect condition our population would eventually grow to numbers the Earth can't support.
We are intelligent beings who (in my opinion) should be able to expand into space. I'm not saying we recklessly terraform planets and suck up all of the resources. We need to realize what we've done to Earth and not do it again.
On top of our species very survival, Mars can also be used as a pad for further space exploration in our never ending quest to find extraterrestrial life, specifically intelligent beings like ourselves.
and we're going to go bring a dead planet back to life?
Damn, we're destroying Earth at a faster pace than it can repair itself and we won't accept responsiblity to care for it, how the hell are we going to take care of TWO planets?
Not to mention, what if there is some dormant life there? Do we destroy it to replace it with life as we see fit?
And what about the soil? Are there nutrients there to support growing plant life? I doubt it. How will we fertilize the soil? Who will pay for all this pie in the sky BS..
We better take care of what we have here first.
Fix Earth first. Once it's gone, it's gone.
Extinction is forever..
I think too many people read too much science fiction. Science fiction is escapism from reality.
I have had this idea since long, was a bit reluctant to share it, but hey, it's doubtfull I'll get a patent on it anyway (?):
;-).
"However, both goals - heating and thickening - could be achieved together, say researchers. One idea is to build a large mirror, many miles in diameter, and place it orbit above Mars...."
"The alternative would be to construct plants for generating super-greenhouse gases - made of complex combinations of carbon, chlorine and fluorine, and which are thousands of times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat."
Giant mirrors? Plants? I'm amazed at the lack of reality that those scientists have with comming up ways to terraform. Am I the only one to see this? Apart from the question if and when one should terraform (see other post), it is ludicrous to propose these sorts of things. A giant mirror would take ages to build, and years untill accomplishement...plants would take centuries to have any real impact.
There is a MUCH more efficient and cheap way of terraforming, wich, strangely enough, never seems to come to the mind of those terraforming-experts: use gentically modified bacteria.
On earth, we already have bacteria who produce methane. We also have extremophiles which can endure extremely harsh conditions (as are found on Mars). Combine the two points in a gentically modified bacteria, which thrives in the martian atmosphere, and produce methane.
Since no predators, nor food shortage (at least untill the atmosphere is satured) would be present, the amount of bacteria (and thus, the producing of methane) would grow in an exponetial rate. Within 15 years, the atmosphere would contain enough methane to augment the average temperature with 3-4 degrees, enough to melt the dry-ice of the polarcaps in a permanent way.
This in turn, would augment the pressure of the atmosphere, and, combined with steadely augmenting temperature, would lead to running surface water within 50 years. (At which time, one should note, an additional large amount of gases would be released, through the reaction of the surface water (and possible rain) with the elements of the corrosive ground of Mars. The chemical reaction would lead, once again, to a considerable extra input of gases, which in turn would make the atmosphere even more thicker.
Instead of billions and hundreds of years, with this sheme, one would only need millions and decennia at most.
The additional terraforming to make it habital for open *human* life would take more time, but even here are possible shortcuts with genetically modified bacteria (for instance, if one could establish a simple biological balance between oxygen-producing bacteria and co2-producing ones in the same amount as on Earth). In any case, the use of genetically modified bacteria, that have the survival-characteristics of extremophiles, could fasten the terraforming a thousandfold, with minimal costs, compared to any other sheme I have ever seen from the so-called scientific experts.
I hereby take a patent on it
Seriously though; the concept of terraforming being extremely expensive and long-term is only true when limiting oneself to giant mirrors, putting black dust on the poles, creating massive co2-producing factory-plants on Mars and a lot of other totally unrealistic stuff that I have seen mentionned as possible ways for terraforming.
My way would be vastly cheaper and vastly more effcient/rapid.
As more and more data is showing, it appears Mars once had a much denser atmosphere that probably supported liquid water. There is also evidence that Mars once had an Earth-like dipole magnetic field and magnetosphere which protected the ancient Martian atmosphere from the radiation of the solar winds. Many researches now believe that without a magnetic field the Martian atmosphere was simply eroded away by the solar wind.
1 .htm n etic.html /
I am merely a layman on this subject, but it seems to me that without somehow restarting the Martian dynamo to generate a global magnetic field, the idea of terraforming Mars will always remain science fiction.
With this information, it seems to me that the idea of terraforming Mars is a joke. Am I missing something?
References:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast31jan_
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3016_mag
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/17marsmagnet
Negative, I am a meat popsicle.
I vote for expanding outwards; however that doesn't solve the Malthusian problem. If the earth's population was going to double in, say, 40 years, then we'd have 40 years to get 6 billion people set up in self-sustaining habitats in space. There's just not time.
Population expansion will happen among the few people who go off to settle Sedna or whatever, but we really can't rely on colonization to solve population pressure on Earth. Rockets are 'way more expensive than rubbers.
Sometimes it's easier to build something than to fix something. There's also this little thing called the population explosion which really hasn't stopped.
I'm very environmentalist. I'm also extremely pro-terraforming, pro-colonization of space, and in favor of pushing out the boundaries of humanity both spatially and structurally (I'm a lefty green post-humanist). It hasn't come to this yet, but I do see a day in which the people willing to leave the planet as well as pursue self-enhancement and eschew mortality are simply going to leave the rest of the species behind, like someone going to the city and leaving the old folks on the farm. It's not a matter of if Mars is going to be colonized and settled, it's a question of who does it, in whose interest, and how. Those who balk are welcome to stay behind.
And if we can terraform an entire planet to save our species, I'd imagine we could save ourselves on our own planet without having to jump to another.
Most all of the money we dump into this crap is a waste. And I'm not trying to be a troll. But seriously, we want to make Mars inhabitable. Why not start a little smaller there pancho. Like Africa.
The problem with this.. besides it being probably completely impossible, is that before we ever started reaping any potential benefits of this experiment, we will immediately start taking this planet for granted. I don't know, that probably sounds like hippy stuff, but I think it's true.
Being that I am not a physicist nor a cosmologist I am sure there has already been answer for this question. However, if I am correct in my understanding, standard theory tells us that gravity defines orbit, correct? So if we changed the gravity of a planet by importing materials, hence making it heavier, would this not affect the orbit? Perhaps the amount of material is non-consequential at this time, however if future projects take hold, this may have a dramatic effect on the planets wieght. Does anyone have a text book answer to this question?
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
The terraforming of Mars seems to be, in my opinion, unfortunately quite unavoidable, to say the very least, and that is because of all of us who are "marsaforming" Earth so well that soon we sadly will be unable to live here any more. That's very sad. It might not be a problem for us, but for our children or grandchildren.
I am sure one day someone will remember the timeless implications of our today's Slashdot discussion looking at the Mars University and will say: "Very impressive. Back in the 20th century we had no idea there was a university on Mars," to which his professor will answer: "Well in those days Mars was just a dreary uninhabitable wasteland... much like Utah. But unlike Utah, it was eventually made livable, when the university was founded in 2636." That will be a great day in our history.
I am very excited. I dream of being able to ski on Mars one day. That would be amazing. We definitely have to bring some water there and lower the temperature somehow to freeze it (we could use the process of so caled desublimacion to change the steam---a product of hydrogen and oxygen synthesis---directly into snow). That would be great. I am so excited. I haven't read such an exciting article for a long time.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I would think that building a few underground bases there should be a priority, because topside settlements would require a good amount of protection against solar radiation.
If we could find massive cave systems around volcanic areas, it would be even easier to build a huge contained ecosystem, since:
a) there is very little tectonic activity on Mars, if at all; and
b) whatever geothermal activity left on that planet could be used as a power source, on top of solar panels installed on the surface.
Add some nuclear power plants to the mix and you've got yourself a permanent settlement.
See you, space cowboy...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I am really surprised in some ways, and not at all in others that there are groups of people who want to leave the rest of the universe in pristine condition as it currently is.
Of course, I also believe that those same people would prefer a mass genocide of all of mankind (excepting themselves and a very small group of like-minded people). Some even plan for it and hope the rest of us kill each other.
I would have to agree that ownership of the territory is going to be a huge issue. There are folks that I consider to be on par with the name-a-star-after-your-loved-ones who are selling square mile parcels on planetary bodies throughout the solar system. That is at least the first wave of ownership that is currently happening.
Ownership of any rock that is outside of the earth is still up for debate. I think D. Delos Harriman (from Heinlein's "The Man Who Sold the Moon") probabally has the best approach if it really needs to come down to it, by trying to buy the property rights for celestial bodies from all nations that lie below the orbit of the planets (or the moon) but this is something that is going to get ugly before it gets better. Try to park a geosync satellite above Equador and find out just how valuable celestial real estate really is. Equador claims that spot directly above their country as soverign territory (really, look it up).
A pro-active approach from the UN might help in trying to distribute celestial territory, but their current efforts are more along the lines of the Moon Treaty and the Outer Space Treaty are, IMHO examples of those UN member nations who don't have spaceflight capability from legally keeping those who have it from doing anything with spaceflight. That and they are also diplomats and lobbiest who endorse mass genocide of most of mankind at heart. They really don't want anybody to go anywhere else beside staying on the earth. Oh, maybe send a few robots to check out some cool places, and keep the scientist in their ivory towers to keep writing cool proposals and professional research publications. Keep the teeming hoards of ordinary people from ever getting to the rest of those places.
If the UN get into the business of realistically dealing with outer space, it would have to be more along the lines of the Homestead Act and the Northwest Territories Ordinance passed by the United States congress, which specifically acknowledged that the new territories are going to be settled, provided a way for individuals to get involved in the process, and established governing principles for the creation of new governments for the people going into those territories. It would be cool to see the UN coming up with a plan that would allow sections of the Moon, for instance, be able to achieve the status as a UN member nation in the General Assembly.
(BTW, the Northwest of the Northwest Ordinance was the northwestern portion of the USA after the Revolution: Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota. This was one of the only comprehensive pieces of legislation passed under the U.S. Articles of Confederation before the current U.S. Constitution. This also established the pattern for making most of the western USA as well, in addition to current governing principles for American territory that is not currently in a state. I'm sure this would apply to soverign American territory in space as well.)
I seriously doubt that will ever happen.
Instead, I think what is probabally going to happen is a reenactment of the territory grab for the Americas (and most of the rest of the world as well) that happened between the 15th and 18th Centuries. That the players are going to be a little bit different (Europe will be a united voice, but India, China, and Japan w
No need to go inflicting our half-assed terraforming technologies on poor lil' Mars for a few millennia yet. As well as the immense amount of time it'd take (can't just go steering hunks of Saturnian rings into the Arean deserts and throw some seeds after them - or put a hand into a slot in a big alien machine and have instant atmosphere - yes, even if you are Arnie), the amount of useable surface area that resulted wouldn't be that spectacular anyway.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
New worlds are not opened and settled by ethicists, moralists, or other contemplative types.
Columbus, Pizzaro, Cortez, and others were interested in wealth, property and prestige.
And they weren't worried about who or what was destroyed while they were acquiring those things.
Exactly like those planning sessions, what you said here sounds eminently reasonable but it isn't.
The earlier you start thinking about something, the less data you have to work with, the more likely you are to paint yourself into a bizarre political corner long before real information surfaces. Once trapped there, it can be surprisingly difficult to reaim things in the light of reality as it arrives.
I vote for writing more scifi stories about it. That way the people that matter can read them and think, "Wow, what an imagination this dude has... hmm..." and start thinking about it without making any formal political commitment to a particular approach, and without establishing the foundations for a sea of red tape like that hobbling NASA and the US public space effort as you read this.
Think about Arthur Clarke or better yet Robert Forward. I can't see us running into a RocheWorld or Dragon's Egg anytime soon, but Forward's laid out some "harmless" thought experiments well in advance, realistic in that they don't posit any serendipitous breakthroughs in physics (barrinjg catastrophe, we could probably build his whacking great frequency multiplier a decade or to from now), and we seem to be surprisingly close to having his "Christmas Tree" avatars in real life.
When real data rolls up, untenable positions can be quickly and quietly dropped, and public positions can be established and worked from which bear at least a passing resemblance to Real Life(tm).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Why bother wasting time with science stuff? The decision will be made by this administration based on whether it is supported by Scripture.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Inside "Total Recall" Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking a space journey to Mars, where the Martians are a people living under repression, maybe somewhat like the Palestines today.
Arnold, "Douglas Quaid" inside the movie, is actually a former martian who was also a spy on earth. However he got busted and certain parts of his memory was erased. Coming back to Mars Quaid starts to remember things.
The best part of that movie is the last 5 minutes, where Quaid suddenly remembers how to free the Martian people living in closed controlled environments, also with suers underground. He remembers there is a thousands of years old installation underground, which needs to be activated, Quaid also remembers suddenly how that is done, and what we see happen is actually Terraforming performed in a couple of minutes! A semi gas-explosion-release is activated and the atmosphere fills up, and a blue sky and clouds are formed.
Robert
'It is very depressing. Before we have even discovered if there is life on Mars - which I am increasingly confident we will find - we are talking about undertaking massive projects that would wipe out all these indigenous lifeforms, all the strange microbes that we hope to find buried in the Martian soil. It is simply ethically wrong.'
OK.... but pumping your kids full of antibiotics and blasting the kitchen counter with bleach is A-OK... RIGHT?
So, let's look at this: some subzero Martian Microbes are worth much more than some random sample of salmonella from the blue fuzzy biology experiment in the fridge that used to be a pizza a few months ago, correct?
OK. so some Martian people should get all the money and good education and fun toys. And the Earthlings? Send 'em off to extermination camps.
People:microbes - we have more in common with flatworm parasites than we do with viruses, so it's OK to kill viruses, but not flatworms?
My opinion: get over it.
1. by the time we're in ANY position to terraform Mars, we'll probably have been there several times with live human-type people and Bog knows how many R2D2 units scouring the planet for every bit of info we can get. We'll be well informed of what is actually (if anything) there.
2. Terraforming Mars is going to take centuries, and it will take trillions of dollars over that time. In the mean time here on the little green planet of clocks, we will likely be in the middle of our depopulation cycle (through war, disease, environmetal degradation, or some terrorist asshats develolping an airbourne version of HIV or who knows what...) and as the population shrinks, so will the tax base for space exploration. This will only serve to delay the terraforming further.
3. Assuming we gradually depopulate, and we don't have a glaciation in the process, (i.e. all things being roughly the same, but improving) Terraforming Mars will not be a central activity of the species, and we wll be able to monitor the progress of its development closely.
4. There is another possibility: that by terraforming mars we kick off an accelerated evolution of (whatever life there might be) on Mars. Perhaps Martian life will help in the terraforming process.
In anycase, the person who spoke the quoted line needs to get their tinfoil hat loosened. And think a bit more about what they dump on their kitchen counter.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Not to troll...but we can't spare that 100 billion because then we wouldn't have so many cool shinny things that go boom. ;-)
If we try to screw around with earth and screw up we're all dead. You've got billions of lives at stake over things that you assume are bad. I don't see how one can believe in evolution and object to a changing world.
"this planet is becoming significantly less Earth-like"
Earth changes. According to evolution it used to be a big giant block of ice. Earth has alledgedly been through a lot worse than anything man has managed to throw at it.
On the other hand, if Mars is dead, there's no harm in trying to liven it up a bit. Worst case we just make it more difficult on ourselves to make it livable. And we can learn from our mistakes so if we decide to go mucking around with Earth we aren't taking uneducated guesses about what might do what.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Folks have touted the possibility of self assembling nano technology...
Why wait for nanotech to arrive? Here is the perfect opportunity to send robotic machinery, capable of building more robotic machinery. Machines whch can mine mars for raw materials. Then take those raw materials and build new robots, build human habitats, build greenhouses, build fuel manufacturing facilities, and build structure for concentrating precious commodities like water and methanol.
Because this can be done with only a couple moderately large payloads, it has tremendous feasibility advantages over trying to send spaceship after spaceship full of human operated equipment. We've already seen self assmebling robotic prototypes here on slashdot. Designing modular machines that can move/excavate/mine soil, smelt, produce glass and silicon products, and make bricks or concretes (using liquid CO2 for the liquid for the slurry), would make possible, the building of a fully operational base on Mars before we ever arrive.
This is exactly the kind of technology that could make living spaces on the moon and near earth asteroids possible. This is the best, and most economic means to begin harvesting the wealth available to us in the inner solar system.
Marie
Yeah, I can't think of a reason either. Which is why I as an environmentalist don't want to destroy industrialized society. I only want to sacrifice a little economic efficiency for the sake of long-term viability. And it's why I don't go making up evils as my dissenter's motivations when there are other, more rational explanations.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
There is already water on mars... just look at this picture.
Let's go for Venus instead. Lots of raw materials to play with, and it'll be fun to design micro-organisms that have a lifecycle floating in the clouds. The bacteria from terrestrial black smokers will be really surprised to find themselves in their new location....
How arrogant can we possibly get as to think that we have even and inkling of understanding into how the planet works on an astronomical scale?
My bio professor made a short convincing argument supporting some form of regulation of fossil fuel consumption back in '83. It boils down to this: Soon, the third world will be hopping onto the industrialization bandwagon (and that included the 1+ billion Chinese). At some point billions of tons of carbon will be added into the atmosphere. How can there NOT be climatic changes when that much chemical material is inserted into the atmosphere? (You can't be a scientist with any understanding of chemistry, physics, or ecology and not realize that.) If you live in the Gobi desert, sure, any change would be an improvement. Do you really think the US is going to improve or even retain its living conditions with global environmental change?
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Are you sure about that? Do you have any references, or are you just guessing? What kind of timespan are you talking about (100's of years or millions of years)? I'm sure there would be differences (maybe lower pressure at "sealevel" or whatever), but why should Mars be uncapable of holding an atmosphere with a thickness coresponding to its gravity, provided that it recieves enough heat (say from orbital mirrors or super-greenhouse gases)? While it is smaller than the earth, it still pulls something like 0.39g on the surface.
Well, it's obvious that we should terraform Mars cause like a billion years ago, it was the then present Martians that terraformed Earth. The least we could do is return the favour and continue the cycle. Its well known fact that the Martians nuked themselves in one of their many World Wars and the legacy of life continues on in us. Maybe they some sent small rover here and attached was a bacteria hidden in the airbag somewhere and it was the actual start of life on this planet.
Whoops, my tinfoil hat fell off... let me get that before anything happens...
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
Despite this being /. I decided to perform a bit of research, so here are a few links to pages that I think support my point, that terraforming as far as a more hospitable atmosphere on Mars is possible:
They may be wrong, I may be wrong, but simply claiming the fact that the current Martian atmosphere is very thin as proof that no sustainable atmosphere is possible on Mars, that does not cut it. I will grant you that a 99% earth-like biosphere is unlikely, but a lot less is needed for it to be of use to a colony. Even a slight increase in temperature and pressure would make it easier to live on Mars, some plants might be able to grow (genetically modified mountain plants), the domes (or whatever it might be) needed for habitation might have to handle a smaller difference in pressure, or the time an astronaut might survive in an accident might increase.
And besides, even if it only lasts a few thousand years, an atmosphere might still prove useful. Not that I think we should do something like this without considering the consequenses, but once we have the technology, the trade-offs and risks might prove to be small enough for us to attempt terraforming Mars.