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Yea, also, maybe we should try to make Sahara green before attempting to terraform Mars? :)
by miika 4y ago
Yea, also, maybe we should try to make Sahara green before attempting to terraform Mars? :)
- CottonMcKnight 4y agoNeil DeGrasse Tyson made the point quite a while ago that if we had the ability to terraform another planet, we'd have the ability to fix our own.
- ceejayoz 4y agoThat's not necessarily true, though. There are things you can do with a fresh slate, empty planet that aren't feasible on Earth. It also misses the redundancy aspect of colonizing another planet. Short-term Mars plans aren't "terraform it so you can live outside"; it's stuff we can already likely accomplish in the Sahara or Antarctica if we really felt like it. Oases already exist in the Sahara; humans have permanent inhabitation in the Antarctic.
- undersuit 4y agoYeah, but slamming ice asteroids into Mars is also wholly impractical on current timescales.
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoAnother comment mentioned turning the Sahara green. This is] within our capacity. But the Sahara, as presently composited, is home to myriad life. It is a cultural edifice for bordering civilizations. And its modification would have repercussions for every other person on the planet. This baggage doesn't exist on Mars. (To the degree it does, it's de minimus compared with Earth's.) We can close off a canyon, pressurize it and call it a city. Try doing a tenth of that here without going bankrupt on the back of CEQUA challenges.
- btilly 4y agoAnd that is intellectually dishonest. If, as we are finding, it is easier to heat up a planet, then we can both terraform Mars and not fix Earth.
- nyokodo 4y ago> it is easier to heat up a planet, then we can both terraform Mars and not fix Earth That's not the only challenge with terraforming Mars, e.g. you also have to remove perchlorates and install a healthy soil microbiome etc. Those are fertile ground (pun not intended) for earthly applications.
- xupybd 4y agoPerhaps developing that technology on another planet is a good idea? I don't know about you but I hate developing on the production system. It's just too high stress.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- elevaet 4y agoOr master a self-sustaining community on Antarctica, which would be a lot less challenging than Mars.
- gerad 4y agoOr on, in or under the oceans.
- ceejayoz 4y agoWhy? "Don't do the hard thing, easier things exist" is always true. Why not do the harder thing? Marathon runners don't typically go "man, it'd be better if I just did a 5K", right?
- elevaet 4y agoThat's actually a great analogy because being able to run 5km is actually a prerequisite for being able to run 42km.
- ceejayoz 4y agoSure, but that doesn't mean you have to complete a 5K race before you're allowed to do a marathon. A marathon can be your first competitive race. We can similarly go to Mars before we grow crops in Antarctica, even if the resulting tech would also have the side benefit of being useful there. They needn't even be mutually exclusive; some prospective techs for a Mars or Moon base already get tested in places like Antarctica.
- Sevii 4y agoI'd expect to see people living in Antarctica before large numbers of people move to the Moon/Mars. Living conditions are a lot easier if you don't have to worry about pressure or oxygen.
- junofan 4y agoWhy? It’s much easier to leave Antarctica than it is to leave Mars.
- ceejayoz 4y agoWe're entirely capable of that already, and have done so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafilalt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafilalt
- antisthenes 4y agoWhat are we supposed to be seeing here? It's still a barren desert on Google Satellite imagery. And even if it wasn't, this town's area is minuscule compared to the area of the Sahara.
- ceejayoz 4y ago> What are we supposed to be seeing here? Life thriving in an inhospitable place. > And even if it wasn't, this town's area is minuscule compared to the area of the Sahara. As will the first couple hundred/thousand years worth of Mars bases. We'll be building oases first.
- antisthenes 4y ago> Life thriving in an inhospitable place. It's an oasis. Far from an inhospitable place. Certainly an order of magnitude more hospitable than Mars. > As will the first couple hundred/thousand years worth of Mars bases. Do you also intend to live forever to see the exponential leaps in technology required for this?
- ceejayoz 4y ago> It's an oasis. Far from an inhospitable place. The presence of water makes an otherwise inhospitable place attractive. The same is likely to be true on Mars - colonies will be sited near ice for the same reason. Do I intend to live forever? No. I think humans should make plans that benefit future generations, not just our own.
- onion2k 4y agoWe didn't make that hospitable though. We found a hospitable place in an otherwise barren landscape. That's very different to Mars. Mars is more like the rest of the desert, but with the addition of deadly levels of radiation and no breathable atmosphere.
- verdverm 4y agoNature does that every 5000 or 20000 years, iirc or maybe they haven't fully determined the cycle times yet. But there is evidence that it has been grassland and grazed upon
- newpavlov 4y agoOn Earth there are numerous second and third order effects to consider. For example, Sahara is considered a very important source of phosphorus for the Amazon rainforest [0] and making Sahara green could have a huge negative impact on it. Meanwhile on Mars impact of terraforming mistakes on population is much smaller because it would be already shielded heavily from external environment. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saharan_dust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saharan_dust
- adrianN 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_Sea But as sibling comments said, this will likely have devastating effects on other ecosystems.