Before anybody can realistically claim that we can radically change the environment and climate on Mars, let’s see them stop climate change on earth.
I think it’d be a lot easier to change Mars. If anything, some of the problems we’re causing here on earth would be desirable for us on Mars.
If anyone thinks they can mix a basic cocktail let’s first see them unmix a Manhatten and make it into a white russian!
Before you claim to be able to write a letter rewrite all of classic literature!
Beside we know how to fix our climate, there are several complex solutions being worked on and implemented- none of the are magic and instant so you probably won’t recognize its happening until it’d almost finished.
Before you claim to be able to build me a new house, let’s see if you can paint my shed.
Yeah the only catch is that it turns out humans are really good at warming planets up, and that’s one of the big stumbling blocks to making Mars habitable. Reversing the process is not something humanity has ever done before. So why not turn one of our biggest bugs and turn it into a feature? Plus if we are going to experiment with intentionally changing the atmosphere of a planet I’d rather we experiment on a place where the entirety of humanity isn’t currently living.
“Yes, we keep setting fires in the attic and flooding the basement. We don’t know how to stop that from happening. However, ignoring that, Carl, we are pretty sure we can figure out how to build a skyscraper across the street. And hey, if we screw it up, it’ll be across the street, not in the attic or the basement, which are still on fire and flooded. We might even figure out how to fix those by working on the skyscraper, maybe, you don’t know.”
Before you claim to be able to build a functional village, lets see you tidy up your damn room for a change. (In response to guy above you)
Some people live in a lovely old rambling mansion with a busted HVAC system stuck on full blast sometimes, fires breaking out in the northwest and west wings all the time, and rising damp from a basement full of water seven feet deep and rising, but they think they should start building a new skyscraper on the empty lot across the street.
You don’t understand the difference between altering a precariously balanced system which involves billions of.moving parts and starting something relatively simple from new?
You don’t understand that I don’t believe these clowns are capable of doing either?
Cool article and the concept is neat, but it focuses almost exclusively on temperature and then reserves a single paragraph for why terraforming to anything even approaching human habitability is still a ridiculous, far-off venture:
Still, “Increasing the temperature of the planet is just one of the things that we would need to do in order to live on Mars without any assistance,” says Juan Alday, a postdoctoral planetary science researcher at the Open University not involved with the work. For one, the amount of oxygen in Mars’s atmosphere is only 0.1%, compared with 21% on Earth. The pressure on Mars is also 150 times lower than on Earth, which would cause human blood to boil. And Mars has no ozone layer, which means there is no protection from the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation. What’s more, even once warmed, martian soils may still be too salty or toxic to grow crops. In other words, McInnes says, upping the temperature “isn’t some kind of magic switch” that would make Mars habitable.
Rant mode engaged.
The Martian atmosphere is about 3% nitrogen. It probably had more once, but currently there is very little nitrogen on the planet. If you were to extract 100% of the nitrogen in the already very thin martian atmosphere and fix it into organics, you could potentially create about 30cm of soil. This is assuming you don’t lock any of that nitrogen into plants, people, or other organic molecules (plastics, glues, etc.). Realistically, the upper limit of martian population is about 300M before 100% of the nitrogen is used up. But this is assuming that you don’t terraform.
If you terraform, you do so by dumping a large quantity of additional gas into the atmosphere. Primarily, this has will be carbon dioxide and water (it is what is available if you add heat), and maybe oxygen if you spend even more energy splitting it from on of the other two. Mars, however, has very low gravity and will lose hydrogen, methane, water and oxygen to space (this is entirely independent of the magnetic field, although the lack of magnetic field may speed this process up) due to thermal escape. Basically, the gravity on Mars is too low to have an atmosphere that warm and thick without shedding it to space over time.
Unfortunately, the 3% nitrogen will also get warmer and easier to shed. If we terraform Mars, we are actually reducing its carrying capacity for life in the long term by dumping it’s rarest resource into space. Sure, this process will take thousands of years, but we could easily populate to 300M by then if we conserve this resource and use it wisely.
Mars one day will have nitrogen quotas. Like: “Sorry, you can’t have a baby because we don’t have enough nitrogen to make their body.” And the only source will be importing it from other places in the solar system, or through ridiculous things like transmutation of oxygen in particle accelerators… If we terraform, we hit this cap earlier.
Mars under domes and in tunnels should be the goal.
Extended rant: the total load bearing capacity of the solar system will also likely hinge upon nitrogen. But we’d be in Dyson swarm territory before it becomes problematic.
So… can we import nitrogen from somewhere else? Are there types of asteroids which are high in nitrogen? What about the gas giants and ice giants, and their moons? Any nitrogen there we could just… yoink?
Yes, but again, if we are doing this only to shed it into space (on a terraformed mars), then we are importing it to Mars to reduce the total load bearing capacity of the solar system in the future.
Furthermore, you have to spend the colossal amounts of energy to move atmospheres worth of nitrogen around the solar system.
There is a small irony that nitrogen is currently used as gas thrusters for rockets. We’re dumping earth’s nitrogen into space already, granted in very very small amounts. But harvesting the earth’s atmosphere for nitrogen would be very bad in the longer term if done in bulk.
Pure N2? Probably rare. The solar system does have a shit ton of ammonia though, so thats a great source of nitrogen that can be broken down to get what we need.
I’d argue phosphorus is an even more limiting compound.
It is a regular enough mineralogical component in martian regolith. If we use the soil to grow things, we should be fine as is. Furthermore, we aren’t worried about losing it into space if we terraform.
On the scale of the solar system, phosphorus may indeed end up being rare and might be one of the limiting factors for total load bearing capacity of the solar system.
So what you’re saying is we need to move under water so we can replace our nitrogen with helium. /s
I think helium would be lost to space even quicker than nitrogen. We should probably figure out how to prevent its release in the first place.
As a layman I still think floating stations in Venus’ atmosphere are a much better avenue for inhabiting another planet over trying to terraform mars with magic non-existent tech. Gravity is almost that of earth’s as opposed to like 1/4th or whatever mars’ is. Id say trying to change its atmosphere would also be a worthwhile endeavor if its rotational period wasn’t so freakin long—dont think anyone wants a year long day.
Anyway. I don’t know what I’m talking about so take it with all the grains of salt.
You may not know what you’re talking about, but floating cities in Venus would be baller. ;)
A future interplanetary war with the Venusian Free Coalition will be the stuff of legends.
It’s not a complicated board game all things considered. Good on the scientists for giving it a shot.
One thing known to help create a habitable planet is piles of decomposing conservative billionaire carcasses. The real question here is how quickly can we get them there.
To be fair, this may not make Mars more habitable, but it would absolutely make earth more habitable.
Wouldn’t new billionaires simply take their place? I suspect your suggestion may have been slightly facetious, but I feel like the underlying problem might not be the billionaires themselves, but the system which creates them.
Excellent points.
We can’t even reliably get a couple astronauts out of orbit – maybe next year? Why the hell do you think we could sustain life on Mars reliably?
Do you think this is something they plan to do today? Do you not have any concept of what science is and how it works?
Homeboy can’t even run a livestream correctly with modern technology, why tf you think he’ll make anything work on Mars?
“It’ll happen in the future with future technology” is a cop out. I’ll believe it when fusion and self driving cars become mainstream.
Sorry I didn’t realize you thought Elon is the only person involved in space travel, that would explain why your opinion is so myopic j guess.
And yes this is science, that’s what science is - studying and learning about how things work so that we know what the effect of our actions will be and what options we have available.
Temperature, atmosphere, hydration, foliage. Solve 1 and 2 so 3 can exist., then introduce 4.
Solve it in 1 step. Just detonate one of those genesis devices.
Ferengi Basics Genesis Device. Half price compared to the original!
