What is Digg?112 Comments
- MCA2142, on 06/24/2008, -1/+20"Mars is too far from the Sun to be terraformed"
That is why if the interest is there, we should terraform it. The last I heard, warming the Mars climate is part of the proposed terraforming methods. It is widely excepted that the most efficient way to heat up a planet like Mars would be to... I'm not making this up - "Pollute it."
And any cost to create a phase 2 planet for earth would be worth spending. A new planet would come with new industries, new trade routes, Aerospace Boom, Communications industry boom, not to mention new possible resources from the new planet itself.
It would be but a small step to take in order to reach "Type 1" status. - sanman, on 06/23/2008, -0/+17Take a look at the last photo in this set:
http://areo.info/mer/opportunity/101/
Does that last one look like a Rainbow to anyone?
Anyway, we need to drop an ammonia comet on Mars, to give it some nitrogen, which is also necessary for life. Or else if we can find enough local nitrogen on the surface, then just start pumping CFCs into the atmosphere, to start some global warming there.
At the very least, they ought to put these new petaflop supercomputers to better use, and have them model the climate on Mars in great detail, so we can see how to best influence it for terraforming purposes. - wonderchemist, on 06/24/2008, -1/+16Is there oil on Mars?
- LucasVB, on 06/24/2008, -0/+12"Quaid... Start the reactor. Free Mars..."
- BossKey, on 06/24/2008, -3/+15Can't we just activate the big alien device under the surface of the planet?
- cubbiesx, on 06/24/2008, -2/+13Sorry, i'm not much of an expert. But to me, the fact that there was ice sitting under the lander thing means that there's ice all over the planet right? the odds that it happened to land on just the right two ice cubes...
- wishninja, on 06/24/2008, -2/+11I think mars' size is THE problem. The mass of the planet is not great enough to keep a life sustaining atmosphere. Mars mass = 0.11M
So part of the terraforming we would need to add about .39M(earth mass) to the planet. Venus is .85M but is to close to the front of the habital zone.
Check out this power point presentation about the Kelper project. It has some good information in it.
http://www.stsci.edu/ts/webcasting/ppt/JaniceVoss0 ... - Pssdoff, on 06/24/2008, -0/+8I've heard many plausible explanations on how to terraform Mars. I believe it can be achieved with 21 century technology - we just have to dedicate the resources to accomplish it.
We could increase the temperature of Mars by constructing a large space mirror to reflect sunlight onto the patches of frozen CO2 at the south pole.
It is estimated that there is a large amount of frozen water under the surface of mars and trapped at the northern pole, possibly enough to cover most of the planet with an average depth of 12 meters.
The construction of halocarbon factories could create a warmer, habitable atmosphere for some types of plant life in as little as 50 years.
If the planet can be warmed enough to release the ice trapped CO2 and H20, anaerobic microbes can then be introduced. After a few decades lichens may be able to survive on their own outside of human built greenhouses.
Even if these fail, we can actually smash a comet or asteroid rich in essential elements (ammonia, water, carbon, chlorine and fluorine especially) into the surface of Mars in 10 year increments. By boosting Mars' atmosphere with super-greenhouse gases, it will both thicken and heat the planet's atmospheric blanket.
Mars will probably never be just like a second Earth, but it can be transformed into a habitable planet using 21st century technology. It is important to begin the first steps of this process as soon as possible because it is a significant task that will take generations of effort, but it is not outside the grasp of human achievement.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/zubrin.htm - BertEatsDirt, on 06/24/2008, -1/+9"Venus is too close to the front of the habital zone" [to be terraformed]
The fact that Venus's atmosphere consists almost entirely of sulphur dioxide and greenhouse gasses making it 850 degrees farenheit on a cool day also has something to do with it :-P - akshay626, on 06/24/2008, -0/+8That's what the unbelieving aliens said about earth, now look where we are.
- MariaEspanol, on 06/24/2008, -0/+6didn't you see 'total recall'? all you have to do is flip a switch, which melts the ice? and it's insta-atmosphere.
- wonderchemist, on 06/24/2008, -2/+8That's an easy one to solve, just change the gravitational constant (around just Mars of course).
- hamadaNY, on 06/23/2008, -0/+6Here are more photos
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/photos/photopage.js ...
Did anyone find any other photos? - Myztry, on 06/24/2008, -0/+6They know. They'll be back to harvest their organic garden when it matures. (War Of The Worlds style)
- Gavron, on 06/24/2008, -2/+8I don't see how some 80's adult contemporary rock band would help to terra-form anything.
- Jonsey, on 06/24/2008, -0/+5Reticulating Splines.
Somewhat unrelated but terraforming made me think of sim city. - steelersfan7roe, on 06/24/2008, -0/+5No. All it requires is that the surface warm to a temperature where the H20 becomes liquid, so that plant life may grow. Once plant life can grow, oxygen can be put into the air, and the atmosphere will become breathable to humans.
- flossdaily, on 06/24/2008, -0/+5lets just build a moon base first, 'k?
- Gavron, on 06/24/2008, -2/+7Is anyone else alarmed by the fact that this multi-million dollar lander doesn't have the brains to figure out the diff between water and salt? Considering that one the aims of this mission was to figure out whether there was water on mars, is "white stuff" the best they can do?
- Zaneris, on 06/24/2008, -0/+5It's not?
Earth = 5.9742 × 10^24 kg
Mars = 6.4191 × 10^23 kg
Looks like it to me. - airmann90, on 06/24/2008, -1/+5Colonize Mars.
- KaiUno, on 06/24/2008, -3/+7Isn't mars out of the "habitable" zone of our sun?
- mkriss5681, on 06/24/2008, -2/+6KKKKHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHNN!!!
- Nidy1, on 06/24/2008, -0/+4Woosh!
- barc0de, on 06/24/2008, -0/+4As I understood it, the problem isnt the mass, pile enough gas on the surface and you will get habitable pressure. The problem is lack of a magnetic field. Without that layer of protection, high energy particles from the sun will chip the atmosphere away in a couple of million years.
- RogerTourbiner, on 06/24/2008, -2/+6The Genesis Project!
- rabidbob, on 06/24/2008, -2/+5IANAP, but as I understand it Mars lacks the magnetic fields that Earth and Venus have and is thus exposed to solar radiation; this means that the surface of Mars will never be habitable unless some way is found to shield the planet from radiation. Subsurface settlements would be possible and the presence of water makes it a lot easier to sustain such a settlements. Venus of course has totally different problems given the huge presence of greenhouse gas and no easy way to bleed heat from the atmosphere.
- blankoboy, on 06/24/2008, -2/+5Are you kidding?? We are too busy spending money killing our own species to be bothered with Terraforming and expanding our presence throughout the universe. Give us several more centuries before we either go extinct or get our wits about us and start progressing off of this rock and beyond.
- desertDenizen, on 06/24/2008, -0/+3It would be much easier to compress Mars using a planet-encompassing web of anti-matter explosions.
I'm currently reading "Year Million," which says that compressing the Moon to 60% of its current diameter would give it Earth-like gravity. Not just the experience of walking around, but the ability to hold an atmosphere, including water vapor. - Aesculapius, on 06/24/2008, -0/+3It can figure out the difference. They have yet to get the "white stuff" into the TEGA (Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer) or the WECA(Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer). The point was that it looks pretty conclusive that they found ice without using either instrument.
When both of these instruments are used, that will absolutely confirm what has already been concluded. - garreh, on 06/24/2008, -0/+3just stick john pinette on mars, he'll surely add enough weight
- krnldmp, on 06/24/2008, -1/+3Sure, sometime after scientists figure out how to stabilize the climate on Earth. Lemme know when that happens.
- webkami, on 06/24/2008, -1/+3For those who do not want to RTFA...
"The terraforming (literally, "Earth-shaping") of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth in order to make it habitable by humans."
- wikipedia - pauliusuza, on 06/24/2008, -0/+2Worldwide would get a whole new meaning
- ambrosious, on 06/24/2008, -0/+2Arny: ALIENS BUILT IT
- 3leggedHorse, on 06/24/2008, -0/+2Ever heard of bio-domes etc. Cheap compared to terraforming.
- krnldmp, on 06/24/2008, -0/+2Terraforming involves shoving a planet into a new state of stability that can support life as we know it. Done properly there is no reversion without something going horribly wrong for a long period of time, like jacking up the CO2 levels on Earth.
- laughandsing, on 06/24/2008, -0/+2Why?
- Exbzurq, on 06/24/2008, -0/+2Well on one of the Sim Cities during loading it said Teraforming sector, and then an audio file played with reticulating splines and then the text would appear a second later saying reticulating splines.
- inefekt, on 06/24/2008, -1/+3That's the most idiotic supposition I've read in a long time..........no offence ;)
You think that in the year 1008 that anyone could of predicted the technology available to us in 2008?
Absolutely no chance, which is exactly the same probability we have of accurately predicting the technology of the year 3008, if humanity makes it that far. Especially considering the technology curve is exponential. - steelersfan7roe, on 06/24/2008, -0/+2If we've proven our expertise in anything, we humans have proven we can warm planets.
We can terraform mars without lifting a finger. - Pusod, on 06/24/2008, -1/+3For a split second there I thought the headline said something about water leading to Transformers on Mars. But it was only for a split second!
- aaron4, on 06/24/2008, -0/+1the most important and hardest part would be restarting its core. we have nothing close to the technology that would enable us to do that.
- tushyd, on 06/24/2008, -0/+1Agreed. I think we need to figure out our own ecosystems before attempting to create others. And that will be a LONG time.
- starmanjones, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1i wonder why others find this so difficult. its almost like the thought just overloads their processor or something. i think the costs are way over blown as well as the length of time it would take... and they don't consider that we'd gain any thing of value which would offset most if not all the expense. if we draw a line and say.... mars in 10 years we can do it. its not like we are just wishing. the same thing happened when we wen to the moon. its hard to get out of bed without running into a result of that/those programs.
i find crashing some big chunks of ice from the vacinity of saturn a no down side attempt that could yeild quick results. - XZanatos, on 06/25/2008, -0/+1It doesn't have enough mass to hold an atmosphere "permanently". If we did manage to put enough gasses around the rock-ball to have a habitable atmosphere it would hold for at least a million years. Long enough.
- ElectroBot, on 06/24/2008, -0/+1Mars is the perfect place to terraform. It lets us experiment ways to save our planet and advance our terraforming knowledge.
Actually to make Mars livable, the first thing we'd want to do is heat it up. Using greenhouse gases would probably be fastest. Then we'd want to strike it with a few comets to give it more ice/water. During the greenhouse gas warming phase we'd also want to seed it with genetically engineered algae that would create oxygen. Later on we'd want to seed it with genetically altered trees and animals. If we were to make this a international priority, we could probably have a warmer Mars (mean temperature of a few degrees Celsius) in around 50-100 years, which would still require an oxygen tank for air. Within 150-300 years we probably could have a planet similar in weather conditions to our own (without a working magnetosphere so solar storms would require an artificial ionosphere of some kind). - esperoboy, on 06/25/2008, -0/+1
•Mars does not presently have a global magnetic field but had one early in its life, similar to that of Earth. However, Mars does have very strong crustal magnetic fields, more than 30 times stronger than those of Earth.
•The absence of magnetization in large impact basins allowed for the first time to establish the time of cessation of the Martian dynamo, more than 3.5 billion years ago.
•The absence of a global magnetic field for billions of years has contributed to the erosion of Mars atmosphere by the solar wind and the loss of water.
•Established a correlation of the horizontal component of the magnetic field with upstream solar wind dynamic pressure.
http://mgs-mager.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/mars/images/mgs_magnet ...
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content ...
Building a permanent settlement underground = Yes
Trraforming Mars itself = No - BugZ, on 06/24/2008, -0/+1Eventually, but expect Nasa will dream up many more reasons to send probes to Mars. I like many marvel at the ingenuity it takes to pull off these unmanned missions. I wonder though how many much money we are willing to spend to confirm if water or life exists on Mars?
- hendrixiloveyou, on 06/24/2008, -1/+2BECAUSE WE'AR HAVE NO RAGHT TO POOLOOT IT!!1
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