To Terraform Mars will be harder than thought

a reply to: All Seeing Eye

There are ways, if scaled up, that could do the work. It's a bit...exciting if you screw up. Take a look at the gravity tractor papers.

originally posted by: anzha
a reply to: All Seeing Eye

There are ways, if scaled up, that could do the work. It's a bit...exciting if you screw up. Take a look at the gravity tractor papers.

Yea, Tiamat.

So, how do you propose to separate the planet from its core? Think Ceres. Might take a lot of Vaseline lol lol lol

Then you would have the issue of the planet being able to keep itself together once separated. Far easier to create your own planet. Think, the moon.

a reply to: All Seeing Eye

Psyche appears to be a planet's core, separated from the planet. Bit messy of a process though.

Moving the planet would be...separate.

Text0 MORE Sorry Elon Musk, But It's Now Clear That Colonizing Mars Is Unlikely — And A Bad Idea Pie in the sky? Mars Ice Home concept. Credit: NASA/Clouds AO/SEArch This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Space X and Tesla founder Elon Musk has a vision for colonising Mars, based on a big rocket, nuclear explosions and an infrastructure to transport millions of people there. This was seen as highly ambitious but technically challenging in several ways. Planetary protection rules and the difficulties of terraforming (making the planet hospitable by, for example, warming it up) and dealing with the harsh radiation were quoted as severe obstacles. Undeterred, Musk took a first step towards his aim in February this year with the launch of a Tesla roadster car into an orbit travelling beyond Mars on the first Falcon Heavy rocket. This dramatically illustrated the increasing launch capability for future missions made available by partnerships between commercial and government agencies. But six months later, the plans have started to look more like fantasy. We have since learned that there could be life beneath Mars’ surface and that it may be impossible to terraform its surface. The possibility that there currently could be life on the red planet was raised last week as scientists reported the discovery of a salt water lake beneath Mars’ surface. The lake would be 1.5km below the south polar cap and at least 20km in diameter. This was found from analysis of subsurface radar data from the Mars Express spacecraft. The water is thought to be briny, with the likely magnesium, calcium, and sodium perchlorate salts acting as an antifreeze down to temperatures of perhaps 200K (-73.15°C). Mars' south polar cap, hiding the lake. Mars' south polar cap, hiding the lake. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS This is exciting as it is the first definitive detection of liquid water on Mars, and it is possible that there may be further deep lakes elsewhere on the planet. This means there is a real possibility of current life on Mars. We already knew life could have existed on Mars in the past. There are several pieces of evidence indicating that Mars was habitable 3.8-4 billion years ago. Data from recent missions – including Mars Global Surveyor, Odyssey, Opportunity, Curiosity and Mars Express – have provided mounting evidence that water was present on the surface in streams and lakes with reasonable acidity and that the right chemistry for life to evolve existed there around the time that life was evolving on Earth. But Mars lost its magnetic field, which would have protected life from harsh radiation from space, 3.8 billion years ago. This also meant its atmosphere started leaking into space, making it increasingly inhospitable. So living organisms may not have survived. But while the new discovery may fuel aspiring colonisers’ dreams that the water in the subsurface lake might be usable to sustain a human presence, the reality is very different. The risk of contamination means we shouldn’t send humans there until we know for sure whether there is naturally evolved life – something that could take years to decades. We will need to drill under the surface and to analyse samples, either in-situ or from material returned to Earth, and find suitable biomarkers to be sure. Terraforming plans crushed? Perhaps even more damning, the long-suggested idea of terraforming Mars is now firmly locked in the realm of science fiction. Musk has previously indicated that he wants to terraform the planet to make it more Earth-like, so you can “eventually walk around outside without anything on.” This would most easily be done by producing an atmosphere made of heat-trapping greenhouse gases locked in the planet’s ice in order to raise its temperature and pressure. Musk has suggested that we could drop thermonuclear bombs on the ice at its poles in order to heat it up to release the carbon dioxide. But according to a new study, published in Nature Astronomy, Mars has lost so much of its potential greenhouse gases to space over billions of years that there is now no possibility of transforming the remaining atmosphere into a breathable one with available technology. The study is based on measurements of the recent escape rate of gases to space measured over the last 15 years by Mars Express and the last four years by MAVEN. This can tell us how much effective greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and water are available at Mars. The measurements, combined with knowledge of the inventories of carbon dioxide and water on Mars from recent space missions, show that greenhouses gases locked in the ice caps are not enough to provide the necessary heating.

From here.

www.space.com...

a reply to: anzha

Love this thread … thanks!

I had wondered about some of these issues, but certainly not all … and think Mars just 'is what it is', and if humans move there, they will need to live in artificial - possibly mostly subterranean - environments for the long haul to colonize it.

a reply to: Fowlerstoad

Well, to live on Mars as it is will require underground shelters and some serious caution when it comes to surface contaminants: .5% of the Martian regolith ("soil") is perchlorates. That stuff is pretty toxic.

Mars is a megafund site.

Truthfully, you need to grab a Kuiper Belt Object, something like Pluto or Quoaor, and drop it in chunks on Mars. Then do atmospheric cleanup once you have the pressure you need.

Need to thruster coralle the right, massive water asteroid/comet to crash into Mars to get things rolling. It'll come along in good time.

a reply to: tkwasny

Asteroid or comet is way, way, waaaaaay too small.

The amount of volatiles (water, air, etc) on Earth would freeze into something around Pluto's size. Even though Mars is much, much smaller than earth, it would lose a lot during the impact, with the subsequent reactions and engineering.

Something the size of Pluto it is.

And that requires fusion rockets. Which are not exactly close to.