Fiction? Terra-Forming Mars

When The Comet Ran

L'an mil neuf cens nonante neuf sept mois,
Du ciel viendra un gran Roy d'effrayeur.
Resusciter le grand Roy d'Angolmois.
Avant apres Mars regner par bon heur.

The year 1999, seventh month
From the sky will come a great King of Terror.
To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols,
Before and after Mars to reign by good luck.

OR...

In the year 1999 and seven months
A great King of Terror will come from the sky.
He will bring back the great King Genghis Khan.
Before and after Mars rules happily.


How do you begin Terra-Forming another planet? There is an ancient, but educational game that hopes to answer this question though simulation called SimEarth. . I can tell you that the secret to crash comets into the planets, and many things will happen including liberating elements, and compounds stored under the ground such as WATER. So lets crash a comet into Mars.

Unforutunately there is no remote-control for comets.

The solution would be to find a comet that orbits near Mars, and nudge it into a collision path with a nuclear explosion. You can look at the orbits of various astronomical objects at NASA's NEO: Near Earth Orbit program and find that , among others, Comet 76P/West-Kohoutek-Ikemura comes near Mars.

Might it be possible to slingshot a nuke off another planet and intercept the comet before it approached Mars and divert it into a collision path?

I think it is, but the trick would be to do it without anyone knowing.

[Edited on 17-2-2004 by ArchAngel]

The mission begins in [Aprox]December 1998 when the first payload is launched. It will carry at least two independent warheads, and control systems linked with high speed communication. They will slingshot off of Mars in September of 1999 and intercept 76P in March of 2000, and impact Mars in June of 2000.


[Edited on 17-2-2004 by ArchAngel]

I doubt a nuke would do anything to divert the path of a comet.

Originally posted by MrJingles
I doubt a nuke would do anything to divert the path of a comet.

The comet in question is not very large, and if you look at the applet linked above you will notice that 76P comes VERY close to Mars in 2000. It would not have to move it much starting from so far out.

I believe it is possible.

Hiding it from everyone would be the problem. But the impact happened just after the Great Conjuction so Mars was still in the Halo of the sun and there would not have been any large earth based telescopes looking at Mars...

But some satellites 'look' at the sun like SOHO. Instrument EIT 195 could see Mars in the left side of its field of vision..

Now you see it



Now you don't



Now you do again



Is this when the impact occured?

If the commet isn't very large, then why bother.

Frankly I think that you would have better success terreforming Venus. much more raw material to work with.

both planets have their challenges.

www.users.globalnet.co.uk...

This would have been a violent event. There would be evidence of it as a Planet Wide Duststorm



in data from Mars Global Surveyor

i dont approve of the idea of nuking mars, thats just terrible.
it needs to be done in phases, obviously. we need to get a source of water on the planet, a comet or whatever, but, more importantly, we need more of an atmosphere, with some sort of pressure. u cud have a number of processing plants, unmanned, on mars, that cud do a number of things, such as making energy, producing water, growing plants, anything. the point of these is less in what they will be doing, but more in what they cud emit. water vapor, carbon dioxide. maybe nitrogen, but wud have to be worked out with the plants. these gases do a great job of keeping in heat and keeping the place a little more hospitable. then we can bring in the water.
venus has its own problem. the atmosphere is too dense, theres too much, and its the hottest planet in the solar system, way too hot for us. its much easier to make something denser and hotter than to remove gas from venus and cool it down. on the gases, theres just too plain out much, and itd be impossible to start, everything wud get trashed. as to the heat, well, even if we made it earthlike, itd be hotter, much, since its closer, and it wud also get more deadly uv rays, making it need more of an atmosphere, which gets u back to the beginning.

Frankly I think that you would have better success terreforming Venus. much more raw material to work with.

The only problem with that is Venus day is longer than its year which means that the same side stays toward the sun.......... mostly

It would be hard to live on a world like that about the only place you could live would be the temperate zone which in this case would slowly move. The weather would be hell.

"If the commet isn't very large, then why bother. "

Because it is available at a time when it is possible. You don't need to aim to hit, only to enter the gravity well, and there are other things to do to increase your chances...

"Frankly I think that you would have better success terreforming Venus. much more raw material to work with."

It is possible, but much more work must be done compared with Mars. Maybe another thread?

"both planets have their challenges."

To meet the challenge you need catastrophe. The closest we could come to that would be nuclear weapons, but nuking Mars would defeat the purpose. Instead use the nukes carefully and allow mother nature to provide...

"http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/book.htm"

Very interesting, and I may reference it later.

i dont approve of the idea of nuking mars, thats just terrible.
it needs to be done in phases, obviously.

Not nuking Mars. Using a nuke to divert a comet.

What are comets? Dirty snowballs?

[Edited on 17-2-2004 by ArchAngel]

Originally posted by Amuk
The only problem with that is Venus day is longer than its year which means that the same side stays toward the sun.......... mostly

easy, jsut change the orbit
yeah, really, venus and earth are similar in size and mass. nothin else really, im pretty sure it even revolves the other way.
mars is our best bet. only bet really, after that we're sorta screwed for the time being. best not # this up.

So was anything else 'looking' at Mars around the time of the supposed impact? Something like this would create many energetic reactions. Lets look at proton flux from GOES at about the time the particles would be reaching earth.

Originally posted by ArchAngel
Not nuking Mars. Using a nuke to divert a comet.
[Edited on 17-2-2004 by ArchAngel]

i was referring to a widely thrown around idea for terraforming mars, where we use weapons-grade plutonium to make it more hospitable.
that was what was absurd and moronic.

The second mission would carry the second wave of smaller nukes and another device that would land on Mars and monitor the impact with a few simple sensors..

The funny thing is not only could this work there were missions that were sent at the proper time to do it, and supposedly failed....

Originally posted by ArchAngel
The second mission would carry the second wave of smaller nukes and another device that would land on Mars and monitor the impact with a few simple sensors..

it seems to me u jsut posted three sites that all said the same thing, the first two in exact same words. i dont see how any of this relates to terraforming. we tried to see the temperature of the poles, and we #ed up.

The next mission would begin in April of 2001. It would be tasked with seeding the comet impact area with genetically engineered single celled plants dropped during aero-braking in airbag landers that would begin to convert the CO2 in the atmosphere into oxygen, and establishing orbit with a satellite carrying a set of camera's and instruments.

Originally posted by Amorymeltzer

Originally posted by ArchAngel
The second mission would carry the second wave of smaller nukes and another device that would land on Mars and monitor the impact with a few simple sensors..

it seems to me u jsut posted three sites that all said the same thing, the first two in exact same words. i dont see how any of this relates to terraforming. we tried to see the temperature of the poles, and we #ed up.

What if the Mars Polar Lander was not really on that rocket? What if it did not fail, but went on to do a different mission?

Originally posted by ArchAngel
What if the Mars Polar Lander was not really on that rocket? What if it did not fail, but went on to do a different mission?

k. thats all i was askin for, i thought u meant the literal, public image of odyssey
cud be, i dunno, if it worked wud we be seein the effects by now?