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> Mars can be terraformed. Two questions: 1) How exactly does this work, when the mean surface temperature on Mars is below freezing? [0] I don't know a lot o

> Mars can be terraformed. Two questions: 1) How exactly does this work, when the mean surface temperature on Mars is below freezing? [0] I don't know a lot of plants that can grow very well in below freezing temperatures with a ton of CO2. Evergreen trees come to mind, but you won't find too many of them above the arctic circle. 2) If we cannot even properly manage the atmosphere on our own planet, why do you think we'd fare any better on another planet? To put it another way: why aren't we aggressively working to terraform Earth back into a usable state than talking about doing this on another planet where resources are much more limited and everything needs to be built locally or shipped in from another planet? [0] https://www.space.com/16907-what-is-the-temperature-of-mars.html https://www.space.com/16907-what-is-the-temperature-of-mars....

Robotbeat 9y ago
It will likely take centuries to terraform Mars. We ARE, um, Cythereaforming Earth currently (i.e. making more like the planet Venus). And we're doing it for political reasons (fossil fuel interests). Mars is a barren desert almost a vacuum. But no one lives there, so political opposition is less of a problem in principle. Besides, I think we'll solve the Earth's problems, too. Hopefully doesn't require extreme geoengineering like Mars does, but that's possible. The idea is you start a self-sustaining civilization on Mars /first/ that has sufficient industry to do terraforming on its own. It will have a strong cultural and political interest in doing so. The hard part is getting a self-sustaining civilization (a city of at least a million people). Terraforming Mars would involve pumping super greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, warming the surface by reflecting sunlight from massive (but extremely thin) mirrors in orbit, modifying the surface albedo by placing dark colored dust on the poles, and perhaps more directly by continuous sequence of fusion pulses (think inertial confinement fusion) over the poles as Musk has previously suggested. This all would cause the regolith to outgas and increase the atmosphere's pressure which should lead to more warming. Might need to beef up its atmosphere further with external source of volatiles, like icy asteroids or comets. The impact would also liberate a lot of heat itself.
pacificmint 9y ago
The idea would be to thicken the atmosphere of Mars, ideally with CO2, so that the greenhouse effect will warm up the temperature. Obviously this is engineering on an extreme scale and long timeframes.

Robotbeat 9y ago

It will likely take centuries to terraform Mars. We ARE, um, Cythereaforming Earth currently (i.e. making more like the planet Venus). And we're doing it for political reasons (fossil fuel interests). Mars is a barren desert almost a vacuum. But no one lives there, so political opposition is less of a problem in principle. Besides, I think we'll solve the Earth's problems, too. Hopefully doesn't require extreme geoengineering like Mars does, but that's possible. The idea is you start a self-sustaining civilization on Mars /first/ that has sufficient industry to do terraforming on its own. It will have a strong cultural and political interest in doing so. The hard part is getting a self-sustaining civilization (a city of at least a million people). Terraforming Mars would involve pumping super greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, warming the surface by reflecting sunlight from massive (but extremely thin) mirrors in orbit, modifying the surface albedo by placing dark colored dust on the poles, and perhaps more directly by continuous sequence of fusion pulses (think inertial confinement fusion) over the poles as Musk has previously suggested. This all would cause the regolith to outgas and increase the atmosphere's pressure which should lead to more warming. Might need to beef up its atmosphere further with external source of volatiles, like icy asteroids or comets. The impact would also liberate a lot of heat itself.

pacificmint 9y ago

The idea would be to thicken the atmosphere of Mars, ideally with CO2, so that the greenhouse effect will warm up the temperature. Obviously this is engineering on an extreme scale and long timeframes.