Terraforming of Mars

[Hattai]

It will be sooner or later, Games Workshop hals already told us this.

[jishdefish]

There'd have to be reason for said colonization in the first place, though. Antarctic research stations and ISS both serve genuine scientific purposes. A martian colony would, at best, be a testing site for colonization technology and a base for properly prospecting martian resources. If there was no massive space program going on and there wasn't a cost-efficient way to retrieve resources from space, there would be no reason for resource colonies, and as such, no reason for the first experimental colony.
Solving overpopulation by shooting people into space certainly won't ever be a solution either, cost-efficient or otherwise. Humanity would not start colonization just for the sake of colonization. Even the space race wasn't about getting ot teh moon, it was about a struggle between two major superpowers.

Cost efficient? Hell no, but it is a genuinely humane way to lower the population. And yes, in the book they're all scientists, studying practically everything, in addition to gathering the materials to ensure their future survival). In their eyes they say it was the next logical step of humanity, and haven't gone into the politics behind it much yet, though it does seem rather space-race-ish since it talks about America and Russia being the two main superpowers in the ship.

Also, I imagine Phobos (the relay moon base they're building in the book) and Mars have a lot of geologic secrets to tell.

[nyc81991]

Mars will never have non-domed permanent habitation. Lack of magnetic field and especially the low escape velocity (Mars has 10.7% of earths mass) mean that it'll be incapable to hold a meaninfunglly thick atmosphere, especially a breathable one, even in its current state. if we heated it up to habitable levels, it would even lose msot of its current atmosphere. You got to choose between a thin, breathable atmosphere that comes with arctic temperatures countign as heat waves, and above-zero temperatures with need of oxygen supply and space suits once you leave the domed premises. Once we had technology capable of making Mars actually habitable, we'd be morel ikely to be building our own planets.

I wouldn't say never. Technology in the future could allow us to create an artificial magnetic field / Ozone layer and stable weather conditions. Obviously that kind of thing is far off into the future though.

[kivipää]

Also, I imagine Phobos (the relay moon base they're building in the book) and Mars have a lot of geologic secrets to tell.

I don't think there's much in the way of "geological secrets" in a typical D-type asteroid. Silicates, save for maybe negligible amounts of tourmalines, aren't exactly uncommon or useful.

---------- Post added 2013-02-24 at 06:03 AM ----------

I wouldn't say never. Technology in the future could allow us to create an artificial magnetic field / Ozone layer and stable weather conditions. Obviously that kind of thing is far off into the future though.

I'm saying once we have the technology to do so, we'll be so advanced we'll be unlikely to want to. Maybe as an experiment.

[Littshepkid]

I don't think there's much in the way of "geological secrets" in a typical D-type asteroid. Silicates, save for maybe negligible amounts of tourmalines, aren't exactly uncommon or useful.

---------- Post added 2013-02-24 at 06:03 AM ----------



I'm saying once we have the technology to do so, we'll be so advanced we'll be unlikely to want to. Maybe as an experiment.

Still I do not see how making an ENTIRE planet is possible.
Closest thing I can see is something like halo.


I mean all that water a core and everything inside of it??

[kivipää]

Still I do not see how making an ENTIRE planet is possible.
Closest thing I can see is something like halo.

Still missing the point. Properly terraforming Mars is exactly as unfathomable. I am still talking about artificial planets, which would be basically planet-sized space station imitating planetary conditions. Think halos, dysons spheres and the likes. Creating an actually working planets from space debris would be at least a magnitude beyond that, and that's not what I've been talking about.

[Tuor]

Found this on the Futuretimeline forums, very interesting indeed. This shows the terraforming of Mars and approximately the price of the whole process. Of course this would take a long time, or at east 300 years to undertake the whole process (but who knows, it's too early to tell).

What is Terraforming?



[Full Size]

[Full Size]

Little-bit more about Terraforming of Mars @ Futuretimeline.net.

http://www.futuretimeline.net/22ndce...-2149.htm#mars
http://www.futuretimeline.net/the-fa...rs-terraformed

I'm sorry for the necro, but last post was only 2 month's ago, .

I don't think we can achiv this in just 300 years, and i'm sure, unlike many people say, that we might not even have the required technology to do this in the next 500 years...

There area so many problems related to the terraformation of Mars, i will adress the most common.

Magnethosphere

Mars has no magnethosphere that could deflect solar wind and maintain a significative atmosphere like here on Earth. The easiest way to try to replicate (or reactivate it) is the tidal wave model, which can see on Mercury and Ganymedes (Jupiter Moon), and some people even say that the tidal wave model is also aplyable to Earth.

If we could put an object with the same relative size of our Moon on Mars orbit (an object with around 1/8 of Mars mass) we would being replicating a Earth-Moon like symbiosis wich could (no one knows if it will) reactivate Mars lost magnethosphere.

Atmosphere

After reactivating the Atmosphere the next step would creating a massive local atmosphere. For that, we would need a neutral gas such as Nitrogen. We can't have an Atmosphere formed with just O2 and CO2 because living animals can not breath air with concentration of co2 higher then 15%, and having the remain filled with just O2 its the next best thing after being completly brainless (O2 is a volatile gas, a single spark would just ignite the entire atmosphere). This means we need a neutral gas, Nitrogen is the most comon neutral gas in our solar sistem, and Nitrogen its also essential for the photosysntesis process. Since Mars has only traces of Nitrogen on its atmosphere (2% of its Atmosphere is Nitrogen, and Martian atmosphere is just 1% of the one we have here on Earth) this means we would need to import it from somewhere else... Remember that 70% of Earth atmosphere is in fact Nitrogen.

The problem of lack of mass on the Martian atmosphere is the biggest issue, we could sublime frozen CO2 but that would be only enought the replicate and atmosphereric pressure equivalent to the one that exists here at 9500 metres of altitude here on Earth. Being Nitrogen a base element (created inside stars) this would mean we could no use chemestry process to release it into the atmosphere, unless some kind of nitrates source, such has amonia, is already present in the soil.

Nitrogen would need to be imported, most comets are rich in amonia, this means we would need to splash some comets or amonia rich asteroids into Mars.

Conclusion

Changing an asteroid or comet orbit is far beyond our current technology, the same way that puting an object with 1/8 of Mars size in its orbit might never be possible. Unlike most people say, no we don't have technology to terraform Mars at this time. I think that a better solution would be the construction of domes.

Another problem would be temperatures at the surface of Mars, modern simulations predict tha Mars with a earth like Atmosphere would be a Ice cube, with temperatures around -30ºC in summer and up to -140ºC in winther...

[Grummgug]

I don't feel the need to terraform Mars because I'd rather have a Matrix-like world where I just plug in my brain and can have godlike powers. With a Matrix I can have an endless world all to myself, and then have other worlds I share with other people. Sure its all in my head, but I cannot tell the difference anyway.