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.""

Comments

"Will"?

[Phanatic1a]

Seems a bit too declarative, doesn't it?

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.

Mars doesn't have a carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. Mars doesn't have an anything-rich atmosphere. Yes, what atmosphere Mars has is mostly CO2, but what atmosphere Mars has is actually a pretty decent approximation of vacuum; the thickest parts of it are barely 1% of typical atmospheric pressure on earth.

The whole article doesn't actually include any specifics, it's just handwaving of the "and then a miracle occurs" sort:

Overall, Wood said that a workable plan can be scripted to raise the average temperature of Mars, rid the world of excess carbon dioxide, as well as generate soil to support agriculture.

Right. We'll get right on that. We only have 93 years to go, according to this article.

Re:"Will"?

[SetupWeasel]

"The specifics are out there"

What does that mean? Mars doesn't have enough gravity to hold enough gas at its current temperature. If we warm it up, that problem increases. You can't just wish that problem away. Mars doesn't need heat or oxygen to be Earth-like. Mars needs mass.

Altering its now carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere

[Malc]

If that's so easy, then I expect they'll be applying the same principles on Earth. No need to worry about global warming at home then?

Erm...

[rumith]

Why Mars? Why not Antarctic glaciers, Gobi desert, Kazakh wastelands, Belarus swamps and Alaskan tundra? Hey, the good old Earth has places that model the conditions of pretty much every planet you can imagine [hazardous included], except perhaps gas giants. Now, where do I go to have the illusion of being on the ancient Foth of Avalars...

here's an idea

[nanosquid]

Why don't we "terraform" the Sahara desert, the Gobi desert, Antarctica, and the various dust bowls around the world before trying to tackle Mars.

Right now, we can't even keep existing, fertile land from turning into desert right here on earth, with plenty of water and air around.

Re:Go to Mars Quaid...

[Doc Ruby]

Yeah, why wait until we've actually surveyed it for an existing ecosystem or other signs of life, when we can ensure there is life on Mars, if that's all we care about?

I mean, what value could learning about extraterrestrial life have, when it's at the closest planet for several light years likely to have some similar to ours? We'll study the next one, even though that means interstellar travel.

We've proven how carefully we protect environments when we don't understand them, right here on Earth, right?

Re:Terraforming...

[nanosquid]

You really just don't get how hostile Mars actually is. On average, at the summit of Mt. Everest, air pressure is several hundred times what it is on Mars, and it's 60F warmer than on Mars, and nothing grows there. Antarctica is even balmier than Mt. Everest, and still nothing significant grows there. And those places at least have plenty of clean water.

Re:Planting?

[aldousd666]

Are you guys kidding me? You talk about terraforming as if it's just another trick we have in our arsenal, which it isn't. But, the technology aside, there are other issues that will trump that. For example, what about the militant lobby of folks who will undoubtedly make this into 'the evil humans rushing out to screw up another planet after they can't even keep a grip on their own?' You think Eco Terrorism is bad now, wait until someone starts moralizing on the idea of just commandeering a whole planet for experimental purposes. I personally think that it's as good of a laboratory as any, but I really think this would make the alarmist triply so. Think about it, what about property rights, mineral rights, and political philosophy, the interaction of religious idiots, and the mass media distortion... It's all just a huge cluster fsck waiting to happen, which is why I think it will never happen. I'd hope it does, but I don't see anything able to surmount those socio-political issues any time in the next couple of centuries, let alone the next 93 years.

Re:MARS!

[doti]

where monkeys can spell

Re:Go to Mars Quaid...

[MS-06FZ]

And you obviously never read "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" or you'd look at that film differently ;-) "differently" from what? I mean, are you supposing that one cannot hold a positive opinion of the movie after having read the original story? Are you just venting the classic Philip K. Dick pet peeve, that all the movie adaptations butcher the story and miss the point? (If nothing else I enjoyed that the film kept the question of whether "Quaid's" adventure was real or not totally ambiguous...) Or are you just being a title snob? (*ehem* It's called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? thank-you-very-much...)

If the whole point of bringing up "Total Recall" here is just to joke about Martian Terraforming, then might not the movie be a better fit anyway?

Re:Planting?

[Smight]

Water vapor is much better at trapping infrared than CO2 is.

Don't tell the folks making hydrogen fuel cells.