Technocrat

Terraforming Mars in 1000 Years

zogger
Sun Feb 25 17:22:31 -0800 2007
Space+Flight.
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The Mars Society thinks it might be possible to terraform Mars in as little as one thousand years. The technique is a variation of what is occurring on Earth-go way out of your way to encourage global warming by manufacturing greenhouse gasses. And don't forget to target your ammonia heavy asteroids in either..


"The interests of the Mars Society—an organization with the overarching goal of colonizing Mars—tend to elicit snickers from non-space fans. Why talk about building homes on Mars when we have problems on Earth like war, bird flu, AIDS and global warming? To the Mars enthusiast, these scourges simply count among the reasons to ditch this rock and head for the Red Planet."....more, well you better get cracking!, there

Terraforming Mars in 1000 Years
Christopher Culver
Sun Feb 25 17:48:31 -0800 2007
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If you find this subject intriguing but haven't red Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (beginning with Red Mars), I cannot recommend it enough. Sure, Robinson's characterizations are a bit wooden, and the economic points are of varying insightfulness, but Robinson lays out all the problems the human race would confront in terraforming Mars.

It's not just technological problems, although those certainly abound. It's also social issues. There's bound to be conservationist who want to preserve Mars pristine in its desert state. Now, I'd say that they are bound to fail in the end, but who knows what sort of resistence they might put up in the meantime.

As for problems on Earth like global warming, it's interesting to think of Mars as a test bed where one can try out crazy climate changes first, applying them to Earth only if one builds a good enough idea that they will work.
Terraforming Mars in 1000 Years
kanem
Mon Feb 26 13:48:07 -0800 2007
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++ on those books. Such interesting detail in the various science fields of the protagonists. Sax was a role model of mine for at least a year. I sometimes tell people, only half jokingly, that everything I know about Mars I learned from those books. And in fact, I have not yet been contradicted on something I learned from them (not that I've been studying Mars since or anything).

And the politics! I found myself switching sides in the Red vs Green debate. And questioning myself. Am I an environmentalist because I don't like the idea of a planet's 'natural' state of being becoming altered by humans (Red) or am I an environmentalist because I want all life to be able to continue to flourish (Green)?
Terraforming Mars in 1000 Years
Charles E Hill
Sun Feb 25 22:23:55 -0800 2007
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Where does the water come from?

The "article" -- more of a slideshow, really -- simply says that at 37 deg water will appear.  Appear from where?  Are they assuming there is adequate water underneath the surface to justify the ocean-laden image used to represent the final product?

From what I can tell, if you start warming it up and pumping out greenhouse gases you'll get a warmer desert, not necessarily rain forest and oceans.

And what happens to that 1,000 tons/hour of fluoromethane pumped into the atmosphere for 30 years to act as a warming agent?  Does it just go bye-bye when you no longer need it?  Is it converted into something else?
Terraforming Mars in 1000 Years
Thue
Mon Feb 26 03:39:03 -0800 2007
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Mars gets little sunlight compared to Earth. So you will probably always need all the greenhouse gases you can get.

Just add gravity?

bill_mcgonigle
Mon Feb 26 08:07:16 -0800 2007
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I thought Mars didn't have enough mass to hold an Earth-like atmosphere?
 

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