Scientist Claims Mars Terraformable by Centuries End

ASPEN, Colorado - Mars will be transformed into a shirt-sleeve, habitable world for humanity before century's end, made livable by thawing out the coldish climes of the red planet and altering its now carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. A plan outlined by Lowell Wood, a noted physicist and recent retiree of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a long-time Visiting Fellow of the Hoover Institution.

"I suggest that the near-term outlook is that Mars will be terraformed," Wood said, and seriously underway by the middle of this century and essentially complete by the end of the 21st century.

Wood said that Mars currently is "stuck" in a semi-permanent "thermal depression." But there is a multiplicity of design solutions, he foresees, such as engineering an artificial greenhouse effect at the planet that warms the world and makes it "a more preferred planet."

Overall, Wood said that a workable plan can be scripted to raise the average temperature of Mars, rid the world of excess carbon dioxide, as well as generate soil to support agriculture.

After roughly one to three decades of such warming, Wood continued, the "Great Spring" literally erupts all over Mars. It's all a matter of trimming-and-tailoring a thawed Mars to the "biospheric optimum," he concluded.
"I believe it's roughly a 50/50 chance that young children now alive will walk on martian meadows...will swim in martian lakes," Wood said. It is not technology, nor money, he said, the pacing ingredient is marshaled will.


SOURCE:
Space.com

I have to say, I've never heard of a Mars Terraformation process that was this ambitious.

I'm not sure what to think of it, on one hand I know it would take quite a bit of time to do,
but on the other hand I think a lot of these projections that say it will take thousands
of years are way off to.

Hopefully he can get funding and support from people with the resources to help start
off this project.

I would'nt mind climbing the slopes of Olympus Mons or walking in a meadow in the Valles Marineris,
so I hope that he gets support and that he's right, not that it taking a few hundred more
years will stop me from doing that.


Comments, Opinions?

[edit on 6/23/2007 by iori_komei]

I agree that we know how to create a greenhouse effect here on earth. The question is, are the materials available on Mars to create this effect.

Originally posted by wingman77
I agree that we know how to create a greenhouse effect here on earth. The question is, are the materials available on Mars to create this effect.

Well there is alot of C02 ice on Mars, and the first step would be to use super GHG's,
like the kind that have been banned from use in anything here, which would need
to be imported at first.

Mars will most likely never be a tropical paradise, but it can be made to have an average
temperature in the 50's, that's fahrenheit mind you.

Originally posted by iori_komei
I'm not sure what to think of it, on one hand I know it would take quite a bit of time to do, but on the other hand I think a lot of these projections that say it will take thousands of years are way off to.

I agree that's way off. Since technology increases exponentially, I think if your predictions are telling you it will take close to a thousand years then really you just need to wait a couple more years and revise your prediction.

Hopefully he can get funding and support from people with the resources to help start off this project.

They sounded so confident in the article it seemed to me like they already had funding in mind? Who would fund Mars Terraformation anyways? Would it be a joint effort?

And why is it called terraformation anyways? I thought 'Terra' was synonomous with planet Earth, not a general planetary term?

I would'nt mind climbing the slopes of Olympus Mons or walking in a meadow in the Valles Marineris

Heh, I assume that's Martian geography? I'm still learning about the Moon

I would absolutely love going to another planet. Even walking on the boring ol' Moon would be amazing I think.

Terraformmeans to create Terran conditions on another planetary body. I'll wait, things are still in the planning phase. Maybe find a way to separate C02 into Carbon and O2 (oxygen) Maybe Hydrogen from somewhere to form H20?
Maybe a bore like in Australia where there is the Great Artesian underground freshwater sea.

[edit on 24-6-2007 by DuncanIdahoGholem]

With the rate at which technology is growing, I wouldn't be surprised if they actually accomplish this by then. The only problem I see, is how will the separate governments react to this. There might end up being a war about this too. It seems that for every amazing good thing, there is another terrible bad.

[edit on 24-6-2007 by halfmask]

Originally posted by Cloak and Dagger
They sounded so confident in the article it seemed to me like they already had funding in mind? Who would fund Mars Terraformation anyways? Would it be a joint effort?

Nope. he has'nt said he has funding, I think it's more he's confident in his ideas,
which IMO is better than being confident just because one has funding, not that having
the funding is a bad thing.

And why is it called terraformation anyways? I thought 'Terra' was synonomous with planet Earth, not a general planetary term?

Terra is an old Latin term for Earth, you are correct.

Terraforming means to make like the Earth.

Heh, I assume that's Martian geography? I'm still learning about the Moon

Indeed they are.

Olympus Mons


Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in our Solar System.
It's 27 kilometers (15.5 miles) tall and has a basin that is 550 kilometers (342 miles) in width.
Its caldera is so large that there are six craters overlapping it from past impacts.


Valles Marineris


The Valles Marineris, sometimes called the Grand Canyon of Mars, is a massive valley complex
that is 4,500 km (27,962 miles) in length, 200 km (124 miles) wide and up to 7.7 km (92.4 miles) deep.
It's so large, that if it was on Earth, more precisely in the United States, it would stretch
all the way between New York City to Los Angeles.

I would absolutely love going to another planet. Even walking on the boring ol' Moon would be amazing I think.

I concur fully on that.

Has anyone else wondered why mars has become such a hot topic lately?
Mars has gone from a harsh climate to a tropical paradise in less than a month. What the heck is going on here, is anyone as astonished as I am?

Originally posted by AcesInTheHole
Has anyone else wondered why mars has become such a hot topic lately?
Mars has gone from a harsh climate to a tropical paradise in less than a month. What the heck is going on here, is anyone as astonished as I am?

Although I am sure some exaggeration was meant, I understand your point. I have thought of that myself actually. A year ago it was Mars the Red Planet, now I see threads every week about possible forests, lakes...and even animal skulls..

I firmly believe there is intelligent life even within our galaxy (is that Milky Way or SagDEG? hehe) so I am really just checking the Space Forum for that confirmation.

yeah seriously i would love too see mars terraformed.

One thing i think would happen woul dbe is that we'd be so fast forward moving and there would be some unexplored/unexplained phenomena on mars that we hadn't accounted for so that when we start heating the planet, some gas will come out from under the surface somewhere and increase it dramatically and mars might get too hot and with too high an atmosphere pressure, like venus ;-p

anyways yeah.


BUt i'd love to seee it doena nd would love to visit too.

Technology is progressive pretty fast, and with many things in research i hope human kind will progress technologically faster at astounding rates that i may live to see it happen.

Originally posted by AcesInTheHole
Has anyone else wondered why mars has become such a hot topic lately?
Mars has gone from a harsh climate to a tropical paradise in less than a month. What the heck is going on here, is anyone as astonished as I am?

It is merely an end game desperate move by the false prophet to give people hope that science will achieve a greatest victory and create a new world. It is absolute BS. There is not enough elemental material to sustain an earth like terrain on Mars, which is why Mars is the way it is. To make Earth on Mars requires the abundance of ALL the quantitiies of elements that Earth has in the proportions that the environment requires for Mars. But Mars is at its equilibrium right now for its place. Adding elements and seeding will not change anything.

We could not make a successful biosphere in the SW US desert, much less make an entire planet suitable for life that will be sustainable.

Originally posted by ben91069

It is merely an end game desperate move by the false prophet to give people hope

The false prophet? So who are you saying is the false prophet?

that science will achieve a greatest victory and create a new world. It is absolute BS.

Wait? Hasn't science already created a new world?...

There is not enough elemental material to sustain an earth like terrain on Mars, which is why Mars is the way it is.

Well, as was explained to me earlier, terraforming just means to make it like Earth. I don't think they are suggesting to make it exactly like Earth.

To make Earth on Mars requires the abundance of ALL the quantitiies of elements that Earth has in the proportions that the environment requires for Mars.

Well how much does it already have?

Perhaps we can ship the 'elements' over there?

But Mars is at its equilibrium right now for its place. Adding elements and seeding will not change anything.

How is it you're qualified to say that exactly? What are your credentials? Or what research are you basing that off of?

We could not make a successful biosphere in the SW US desert, much less make an entire planet suitable for life that will be sustainable.

It all comes down to funding and motive. Who's to say it would be the same for Mars terraforming?

I'd say we worry about our own planet before we go around "fixing" other planets or making it habitable.

but with all of the rambling I've been hearing aren't there already like trees and plant life on Mars, I know its probably not confirmed by NASA, but there was an ATS thread about this.

I thought the gravity on Mars wasnt strong enough to hold its atmosphere down to the planet...Ive never had much faith on teraforming Mars because of this. But if it can be done it would be a interesting undertaking. maybe we should just drop a few maple trees down and see what happens?

This is soooooo not going to happen in one century, let alone a thousand.

What a good idea... lets ruin our home planet then create and ruin another planet.

Honestly scientists are wasting money and time if they seriously think they can do this.

I have never heard anything as rediculous as this.

Why dont they put all their resources on this planet before they start thinking of going to another planet, i mean whats wrong with researching free energy sources like a tesla coil that can provide free electricity to every city and villiage, would be much more useful than jumping from planet to planet.

Originally posted by skyblueff0
but with all of the rambling I've been hearing aren't there already like trees and plant life on Mars, I know its probably not confirmed by NASA, but there was an ATS thread about this.

There are no trees or plat life on Mars, the only life that most likely exists there is
microbial and possibly mosquito size water animals that could live in any pockets of
liquid water with available nutrients and such.

There are several ATS threads about such things all the time, all of which are shown to
be in error, though several people choose not to believe that what they think on the
matter is wrong.

Originally posted by Pfeil
I thought the gravity on Mars wasnt strong enough to hold its atmosphere down to the planet...Ive never had much faith on teraforming Mars because of this. But if it can be done it would be a interesting undertaking. maybe we should just drop a few maple trees down and see what happens?

Mars atmosphere is about 1/13 that of the Earths, it has an atmosphere as it is,
and could support a habitable atmosphere as well, the real problem is its lack of an
active Geomagnetic field, which if the atmosphere was not replenished would lead to
the eventual loss of the atmosphere from solar wind and stellar radiation.

However, if the atmosphere was being replenished at a rate equal to or more than it
was being eaten away it would be fine, though the average dose of radiation a
person would receive unprotected on the planet would be higher than what they would
receive on Earth, not nearly high enough to kill them though.

Originally posted by Cydonian Priest
This is soooooo not going to happen in one century, let alone a thousand.

I agree that without extreme fast tracking of the technology needed that Mars probably wont
be a Second Earth in a century, but given the incentive and staying on course and bringing
things there on a normal schedule it would only take 300-700 years.

Several scientists, who are generally skeptical of colonization think it would take
hundreds of thousands of years, but that's because they're using 20th century
knowledge and techniques to try and solve a 22nd century problem.

Originally posted by markjaxson
What a good idea... lets ruin our home planet then create and ruin another planet.

Just because we've made mistakes on our own planet, and there are some people in
power who do not want to believe we've made them or don't care does not mean that
we as a collective species has ruined the planet, in fact the planet is far from being ruined,
more like it's taken a few hits, but definitely needs some R&R.

Honestly scientists are wasting money and time if they seriously think they can do this.
I have never heard anything as rediculous as this.

It's hardly ridiculous and one of the greatest projects/endeavors we could ever spend
money and resources on.

I'll be more than happy to explain the Martian Terraformation process if you don't believe me.

Why dont they put all their resources on this planet before they start thinking of going to another planet,

Because Earth is not the center of the Universe, and it's incredibly ignorant and
dangerous to not try to create self sustaining off world colonies.

Besides that, you do realize not all scientists work in fields that would be of any real
help to fixing the planet.

Imean whats wrong with researching free energy sources like a Tesla coil that can provide free electricity to every city and villiage, would be much more useful than jumping from planet to planet.

Firstly there is not such thing as free energy, as all energy comes from an already existing source,
it just does'nt pop out of nowhere.

Second of all while Tesla may have been a great scientist, he was hardly this great inventor
who's technology could change the world but was suppressed by the government or
Illuminati or NWO or whoever else people are accusing this week.

Besides that we already have technology that can offer free (as in does'nt cost money after
the building of the system and its initial upkeep) energy to not only Metropolitan areas
like New York but also to poor African villages, that being Solar power, of course that will
never be our single source of power, but it can provide power for both the industrialized and
third world countries without being bad for the environment or costing lots of money and
it will last billions of years.

While I love the concept of Terraforming Mars, I have to question the credibility of this particular claim of doing so in just one century. Overlooking the fact that Mars has no magnetosphere is a huge error. Without it, you simply cannot sustain any environment that would be safe for humans. You could take all the air on Earth and ship it to Mars and you would still not make us a safe home there.

Without a magnetosphere, any atmosphere you create would drift off into space. Cosmic Radiation would bombard us daily with deadly results, enough to cause havoc with our DNA.

I would love to see a livable Mars as a second home for mankind, but it won't happen without first spinning up a workable magnetosphere. (Geo-magnetosphere is an incorrect label BTW)

If it turns out that Mars has an iron core, and you could warm it up enough to melt it, and then impart sufficient spin on it that it creates a strong enough magnetic field, only then would it be possible to truly terraform Mars. Doing so is significantly harder than the extremely difficult task of building up a sufficient atmosphere.

Rather than spending the effort to turn Mars habitable, we should be using every available resource to fix the global warming threatening our own planet. We may NEED to turn Mars into a habitable world if we continue to destroy ours.

Originally posted by Terapin
Without a magnetosphere, any atmosphere you create would drift off into space. Cosmic Radiation would bombard us daily with deadly results, enough to cause havoc with our DNA.

I think stripped away is a better description than floating away, but you're right without a
Geomagnetic field (which is easier to spell) solar wind and radiation would strip and eat
the atmosphere away, and a massive CME hitting the planet would probably destroy it pretty fast.

I've heard different things about how fast that would happen though and how much
damage it would do to the Human body, since the atmosphere would prevent some of it,
not as much as the Magnetic field, but some.

I would love to see a livable Mars as a second home for mankind, but it won't happen without first spinning up a workable magnetosphere. (Geo-magnetosphere is an incorrect label BTW)

I'm not sure how long it will be, since the article did'nt say, but I suspect it's probably
measured in geologic time rather than Human scales, but I've read that Mars may actually
regenerate a Magnetic field due to it's inner core solidifying completely and the outer
core than being able to spin on it, actually that may not be exactly right, but that's the basic idea.

Originally posted by jupiter869
Rather than spending the effort to turn Mars habitable, we should be using every available resource to fix the global warming threatening our own planet. We may NEED to turn Mars into a habitable world if we continue to destroy ours.

AICC (Artificially Induced Climate Change) is only one danger the Earth faces,
and is really something that we can't put all the world's resources towards stopping since two
of the largest producers of C02 and GHG's (the United States and PRChina) deny it
to different degrees and are'nt willing to endanger there economies, which is incredibly
ignorant since the economy is a sole subsidiary and owned by the environment,
but anyways trying to Terraform Mars is much easier when it comes to global politics.