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SFReader Forums > SFReader > Ask The Expert > Terraform Mars

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Edward Knight
Jack of all Trades and Master of None

Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1038

Posted 4/16/2008 4:15 PM (GMT -4)

I think Fred has the right idea. If you create more atmosphere then the planet surface will warm. After the surface warms you'd need a supply of water. That too could come from the polar caps. Once you have warmth and water you could introduce some plant life. The plants produce oxygen. Then you could introduce some animal life (probably microscopic first and work your way up). In a few thousand years you might have something.

I seems more likely to me that it would be easier to create some kind of biosphere on the Martian surface. It would be easier to work within a smaller space than terraforming the whole planet.

I'd build a space station orbiting Mars first. Then we could fly materials to the International Space Station by shuttle. Then ship to the Mars Station. Then shuttle it down again. As soon as you have a dome made from all those plexiglas plates then you can start building an atmosphere within. Then the idea of drilling might be helpful to tap into whatever geothermal warmth is available (could also be a source of power.)

Yeah, I like the idea of bubbles on Mars better than terraforming the whole place at once. That way we can colonize like the days of old. All the religious factions could build their own bubble. All the different national and racial groups could have bubbles. Before long it would be just like good old Earth. People killing each other, rockets flying, invasions, abuse, trade agreements, treaties, government collapse, spies, armies, social issues---politics as usual. A whole planet full of bubbles where nobody gets along would make for some great scifi.

Edward Knight
Editor
Journey Books Publishing

Order our newest anthology, Unparalleled Journeys II, now at:
http://www.journeybookspublishing.com

Frank
Adept

Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 627

Posted 4/16/2008 4:26 PM (GMT -4)

Anaconda said...

I’m fascinated that nobody questioned whether mankind has the right to terraform Mars, before we have proven that nothing is already living there.

Mars is mostly likely lifeless now, but that doesn't mean it was always so. There is some mineral evidence supporting the idea of large bodies of water early in Mars' past. Maybe not oceans exactly but large lakes were very possible. Whether or not life evolved in these lakes depends somewhat on how long these water bodies persisted at the surface before evaporating in the thinning atmosphere or taking the form of (very) deep permafrost.

On our own planet the earliest microbial species have long since retreated to places deep inside earth's crust where there is no oxygen, which is toxic to them. (Yes, some of earth's earliest microbes are still beneath us but we can't expose them without killing them because there was no oxygen in the atmosphere of early earth). On mars we may not be able to find any such hidden life (or even evidence that it once existed there) until we actually warm up that planet and see what surfaces along with the melted permafrost. Of course by then the damage may already be done and we could either wipe clean any evidence of such life or revive it just before we kill it with whatever process we use to warm up Mars.

This moral dilemma has been addressed in many science fiction stories and several non-fiction articles and books. Click here:

http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1020.html

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/bak/terraform_debate_040727-2.html

The author Mark Lupisella, in 1997, wrote in an issue of Space Policy, "Could we forgive ourselves if we caused the extinction of the first extraterrestrial species we came into contact with?".

https://aerospacescholars.jsc.nasa.gov/HAS/cirr/em/10/10.cfm

Robert Zubrin, surprisingly, comes off as pretty harsh on any possible LGMs in this interview:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-terraform-04h.html

I could post dozens more links but you get the idea...

Frank
Adept

Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 627

Posted 4/16/2008 4:39 PM (GMT -4)

"Restarting" a planet core (or solar core as in the film Sunshine) is pretty far-fetched stuff. These ideas have only vague and tenuous basis in science as we know it. Battling entropy is about as useful as persuing the invention of a perpetual motion machine. The universe expands, heat and energy are dissipated forever, deal with it. In another 200 billion years or so it's possible that all matter in the universe will be spread so thin, stars and planets will no longer form, and so we are all bound for the eternal void. Cling to your fetishes of Anubis and pray...

...or, smoke em if ya got em.

Frank
Adept

Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 627

Posted 4/16/2008 4:49 PM (GMT -4)

MysticWino said...

I tend to use sorcery.

I needed about ten minutes to stop laughing at this one and nearly regurgitated a half glass of sugar-free lemonade through my nose.

As for the whole bit about the cosmic oven mits, I felt like i was reading the lyrics to a Frank Zappa song. Good times, indeed...

Lyn
Adopt

Date Joined Sep 2007
Total Posts : 1278

Posted 5/13/2008 12:12 PM (GMT -4)

Check out the experimental WIKI on this topic that I started here:

sfreader.com/SFReaderWiki/tabid/91/topic/Second%20Page/Default.aspx

I just tossed a bunch of comments from this thread into a post and will let someone else who likes to edit and organize make sense of it all...

Upate: Oops, my post was already deleted... that's the bad thing about wikis...
:-(

Lyn from ResAliens
Reviewing Zines at The Fix
Reviewing Short Stories at My Blog
And Promoting Strange Worlds of Lunacy

Anaconda
Neophyte

Date Joined Dec 2007
Total Posts : 57

Posted 5/23/2008 3:31 PM (GMT -4)

Thank you for all the information, especially Frank for
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=210
which I found fascinating.

I’m now going to wax Ferengi, and ask: where is the profit?

Alec Anaconda, author of “Slaves of Janice”, “After Janice” and “Extreme Vengeance”.

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