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Warming Up Mars With Greenhouse Gases
fembots writes "Scientists are thinking of using the same toxic stuff (Octafluoropropane) already blamed for global warming here to put some life back on Mars. It would take hundreds of years but eventually ice sheets would melt, grass would grow here, and temperatures would hit 50 degrees along the equator of the planet. Martian organisms might be revived too - if there are any."
Exactly. If you melt the ice you won't have lakes, you'll have water vapor slipping into space. At least ice can be harvested by any future human colonists.
So, what took our planet (loosely theoretically) a couple billion of years to do, could be (again loosely theoretically) done there in a matter of hundereds? (I realize that theoretically the larger portion of the time it took for life to develop here had more to do with variable chances than it did with the atmosphere, although atmosphere is included in those variables)
It just seems to me that the world of science has recently turned more into a smorgishboard of unfulfilled promises and reluctance to realize that we cannot even figure out 90% of the problems with our own people, on our own planet, so why should we be trying to conquer others?
Good point.
But it is not just the low(er) gravity on mars that lets its atmosphere deplete faster. It is a lack of volcanos. Without a continuous replenishment of gasses from within the core into the atmosphere, no planet can sustain an atmosphere. No matter how much gravity is holding it down. There will always be a stastically significant number of particle to reach escape velocity in the correct direction in the upper atmosphere.
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
ok, mars has one third the gravity of earth, and no magnetic field to protect it from the solar wind. exactly how thick of an atmosphere or air pressure at ground level can mars support?
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
How are we going to protect Mars form that? Until we figure out a way to do that, the rest is rather useless (on Mars). How are we going to increase the gravity of Mars to prevent the Atmosphere from leaking off very fast? True, it will take a long time in our standards, but how much can be leaked off before it is not useable again?
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
Do we really want to wake up the Martian Organisms?
In all likelyhood, if Mars has microscopic life, the Earth has probably already been infected with it. Calculations show that spores can survive certain meteor impacts and be transported to Earth in the process. Our life may have even originated on Mars. Earth was too valcanic for stable life formation early on, but due to its smaller size Mars may have been mild and wet at that time. Thus, life may have formed on Mars while Earth was still bubbling, but the roles switched later on and Earth did "more" with the stolen life when Mars cooled and dried out.
Table-ized A.I.
Maybe the key to making that story seem plausible lies in using quite a different kind of "grass"? ;-)
Inexorably, Mars' atmosphere is being lapped away by the constant barraging of the solar wind. If we thicken it up, by whatever means, it will simply thin down again because the gravity on the planet isn't strong enough to compensate for it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I don't mean this to be shameless advertising(, because we don't make money off of this, the pennies we make from cafepress is put towards server expenses).
http://www.redcolony.com/ We accept articles from people and have a active forum with 16yros up discussing this very topic on scientific grounds. The site is about sharing ideas and getting the public excited about colonizing and sxploring (and terraforming) the Red Planet. I hope any visitors enjoy their stay.
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette
if Mars is tectonically dead, then this would be an advantage for building bases INSIDE the planet.
Put large fields of solar panels and wind turbines on the surface for power, and bring everything you need for indoor hydroponics.
It would be feasible (although not cheap) and faster than terraforming.
I bet that if you look around Mount Olympus, you could find large cave systems that can be used as a starting point.
Earth didn't have an ozone layer until plant life started to produce mass amounts of oxygen. There might be some way of speeding up that process. I see the big problem as being- not enough water. Underwater life doesn't need an ozone layer to thrive. Humans would still have to carry around breathable oxygen, but that would be a minor inconvenience.
Bracken, for example, would likely be a good thing to send. The Wollemi Pine and other trees that predate flowers (and therefore don't rely on insects) would also be good candidates. As the atmosphere would likely remain thin, flying insects probably wouldn't work too well, but there are flowering plants that pollenate by beetle - those would seem to stand a better chance.
It would likely remain extremely cold and rocky - ideal conditions for the Bristlecone Pine which actually thrives under near-unendurable conditions. Just about any plant (or algae) that can handle a cold desert on Earth will likely do well on the fringes of a terraformed Mars and may well help to maintain the boundaries.
Once a basic ecology is in place, you can add to it (slowly!) to build up to something that can sustain large animals, but I don't think you can really attempt to do this in one go. Part of the problem with Biosphere 2 was that it was too small to be self-sustaining, but the other part was that they tried to run through the necessary steps far too fast, thus introducing unwanted organisms and also not allowing what was there to properly adjust.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
>> when the time comes to terraform Earth
Some would suggest that we're already doing that, just not very efficiently or accurately.
Ther earth has too musch water, 2 thirds of the earths surface is covered by it, and if global warming continues that will increase. If we could find an energy efficient way of moving water out of the earths gravity well (space elvator perhaps ?) then we could drench the martian surface.
Every problem has a solution.
Seems easy enough... slam phobos into it to add mass & get it's core melted and spinning. Then you just have to wait for the surface to cool again.
Gravity has little to do with how thick an atmosphere is. Look at Venus: gravity is at 98% of Earths yet has an atmosphere 90 times denser. All this at an even closer distance to the sun where the solar wind is magnitudes stronger. Magnetic fields, seismic activity, and the presence of water have far more influence than just the strength of gravity.
A lot of this was all covered in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. It seems like there was lots of good science in those books.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Here is a page with thorough refutations: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/
This attack from Gentry is amusing in its unconscious self-reference: "What is most revealing about Wise's attempts to cast doubt on the primordial nature of these halos is that he repeatedly ignores the published scientific evidence which contradicts what he is attempting to establish."
Te simple fact is, Gentry starts with what he "knows" must be true and bends all facts to support his cranky thesis. If you read his explanation of the cosmic microwave backround as being due to a supposed shell of hot Hydrogen over 3 billion light-years away with the Earth at the precise center, his discredibility should be obvious.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
"Mining the Oort" by Poul Anderson
Deflect comets and crash them into Mars. He even goes into a fair amount of detail about the orbital herding needed, and how to make the crashes as "non-catastrophic" as possible. In the book there were already settlements on Mars that had to be avoided, as well as keeping the crashes from ejecting much of the freshly delivered comet.
In another similar book, they allowed the comet crashes to create a fairly large, deep valley. Easier to get a usably dense atmosphere much sooner in a limited space than on an entire planet.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.