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Scientist Calls Mars a Terraforming Target
Raver32 writes "Mars will be transformed into a shirt-sleeve, habitable world for humanity before century's end, made livable by thawing out the coldish climes of the red planet and altering its now carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere.
How best to carry out a fast-paced, decade by decade planetary face lift of Mars — a technique called "terraforming" — has been outlined by Lowell Wood, a noted physicist and recent retiree of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a long-time Visiting Fellow of the Hoover Institution.
Lowell presented his eye-opening Mars manifesto at Flight School, held here June 20-22 at the Aspen Institute, laying out a scientific plan to "experiment on a planet we're not living on.""
First, Mars does not have a magnetosphere. This helps fend off the worst of the cosmic radiation here on Earth. What does he propose to replace it? The article is light on the details. Second, isn't the understanding still that Mars has insufficient gravity to preserve its atmosphere and so the solar wind strips the atoms and molecules right off the top, thus explaining the low pressure we see today? How do you counter that?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Only when the political will to do so is required, say population explosion is causing massive food/energy shortages will something like this possibly be considered.
It costs huge amounts of money to send every kilogram to orbit let alone Mars. If they do get Mars to a colonizable state anytime soon they won't be sending millions of Average Joe's to live there anytime soon.
Trolling is a art,
Mars will NEVER be habitable.
We'd have to find a way to get its dead core molten and spinning again. Otherwise solar radiation will just flay off any atmosphere we try to put there.
Maybe we could live on Mars in domes or sealed caves but I doubt we'll ever be walking about in the open on its surface.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I believe the real problem isn't the climate, or the high carbon dioxide atmosphere; the real problem is that Mars's atmosphere is very low density. The air pressure in Mars (less than 1% of that on Earth according to Wikipedia) won't be sufficient for us earthlings to breathe comfortably if at all.
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
then we'll have to build enclosures that contain their own atmosphere
Like Biosphere 2?
It didn't work that well (at least for the humans involved)... And it was built right here, where material, financial and human resources are easily available.
Have these scientists forgot that Mars has almost no magnetic field and atmosphere?
The magnetic field of a planet protects the atmosphere and surface from radiation sent off by the sun. Without this, tremendous amounts of radiation reach the planet's atmosphere and surface. If we were to rebuild the atmosphere, we would find that we just wasted our time, because there is no magnetic field to deflect any incoming radiation. The effects of the sun would essentially knock the new atmosphere off the planet and into space.
http://www.allometry.com
If only you'd learned the first rule of empire--never piss off a group of colonists with a shorter supply line than your own :)
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
I'm only a lay-man, and I only know what I read in textbooks. If any of this is wrong, please correct me.
Some problems with this whole scheme.
1) Rich in carbon-dioxide, but only relatively. The atmosphere is so thin that even if the CO2 were converted to a more human-friendly mix, it's still too thin, and too cold.
2) The atmosphere can't be enriched with more material because Mars can't hold it. Too gravity, and not a strong enough magnetosphere (which is how Venus holds it atmosphere).
3) No internal dynamo. Mars has a cold core, leading the aforementioned problems.
Problem with KSR's plan is that it involves rerouting comets and sending them through Mars' atmosphere. Basically the whole thing is based on technologies that don't yet exist. Great books (I own/read them all) but not that practical in the short time scale. I like the soletta mirror a lot, though, I think that was the best thing in there (short of the space elevator, whose relevance is widely known already.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The point behind Biosphere was to create a naturally self-sustaining system, so they weren't supposed to use CO2 scrubbers or any such similar technology. Additionally, it was determined that the concrete foundations were binding CO2 as they cured (concrete cures for years and years), causing still more problems.
Blah blah blah. It was a total screwup, not just in management, but in pure conception. They needed to start with a working system and then figure out how to make it self sufficient, instead of starting with a system that they thought would work, and trying to live in it indefinitely. Does anyone really think we'd start off with a system that needed no outside inputs? It's not realistic. Basically the only thing they proved is that they didn't do very well at making a self-sustaining system.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
The major problem with no internal dynamo is that the planet does not generate a magnetic field and would allow a far greater amount of harmful radiation to reach the surface, even if an atmosphere is present it could not shield life from invading charged particles which would lead to rapid genetic mutation and cancerous cells.
Here's a "kids" page, that addresses the magnetic field of Mars (and Venus). As Venus also has very little magnetic field, perhaps I'm wrong about that whole stripping thing. This site seems to be saying that it's a combination of Mars' low gravity and weak magnetic field. Keep in mind that Titan (with its weak gravity) also has an atmosphere. OTOH, Mercury with a very strong magnetic field does not have an atmosphere. Just some rambling thoughts.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
We don't need it to breathe, no. But we need fixed nitrogen in soil for the plants we depend on to grow. The atmospheric nitrogen (inert N2) is fixed by microorganisms into usable forms. Without fixed nitrogen, you can't have DNA or proteins.
Someday, hopefully we'll have the resources to get nitrogen compounds like ammonia from the outer solar system to Mars.
Actually, although terraforming is not really feasable, venus is actually a very attractive place to build a colony. Although the surface of the planet is quite inhospitable, at cloud top level conditions are extremely well suited for earth life. In addition, breathable air is a lifting gas, so your colony naturally floats on the cloudtops and solar energy is very abundant.
e nus/VenusColony_STAIF03.pdf
http://powerweb.grc.nasa.gov/pvsee/publications/v
http://notanumber.net/