Terraform Mars
"Tomorrow, we will plan how to terraform Mars".
Any ideas, please, on how could this be accomplished, assuming an unlimited supply of money?
[img]/emoticons/smurf.gif[/img]
Alec Anaconda, author of ?Slaves of Janice?, ?After Janice? and ?Toxic Retribution?.
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First we need to send a drill team to tunnel toward the planet's core from 512 precise global angles. We fire 200 Billion megatons worth of nuclear bombs to explode precisely at the same time to re-ignite the planet core, and hope to God the EMP and reactivated core tosses up a workable magnetosphere. Having gotten lucky (or blessed) with this success, we wait fifty years to see what comes of that. Meantime, we transport specimens of every successful and beneficial microbe we can to release in specific areas according to terrain and such. Also, we install monitoring stations and comsats in networked orbits (new ones as the EMP and new magnetosphere likely knocked out the present ones and we have cooler toys now anyway). We send in the self-sustaining and self-duplicating nanobot team to explore and network; seperate but cooperative networks for various terrain and subterrain as the search for water procedes and the planet settles into new life from our little jumpstart.
One alternative to the nuclear jumpstart may be a billiard ball maneuver: we drive a new moon into it with enough momentum to reignite the core and figure out how to fit Mars' newest satellite into a network of magnetic and gravitational harmony (and being very careful in this process not to knock Mars or anything else too big from its current path to one likely to collide with Terra Firma before the sun supernovas).
Then send in Chemlawn! [img]/emoticons/tongue.gif[/img]
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This may not be very helpful, but you might want to check out Kim Stanley Robinson's hard science fiction trilogy Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars.
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i don't think it's a question of money - it's a question of national (or international) will. also, we have to get there first: the Mars Direct mission profile seemed to make a lot more sense than some of the NASA proposals. but at this rate we'll never get there. :-(
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Isn't it premature to think about terraforming Mars before we've paved Earth?
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I think maybe it's safer to terraform Mars before we screw up the Earth in any kind of irreperable way. [img]/emoticons/smilewinkgrin.gif[/img]
What about terraforming the moon? Again, I think the problem is that terraforming is going to require a living planet - one with a molten core capable of producing a viable mangetosphere (largely to protect to some degree against the constant bombardment of solar radiation).
But this pure speculation on my part based on a few episodes of The History Channel's "The Universe" series and books on quantum science, ecology, and a wee bit of reading on cosmology.
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H.P. Lovesauce said...
Isn't it premature to think about terraforming Mars before we've paved Earth?
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Thanks for the ideas.
The suggestion ?Red, Green and Blue Mars? was most helpful, leading to many informative sites.
I?m fascinated that nobody questioned whether mankind has the right to terraform Mars, before we have proven that nothing is already living there.
Perhaps we should start transforming our moon first. [img]/emoticons/rolleyes.gif[/img]
Alec Anaconda, author of ?Slaves of Janice?, ?After Janice? and ?Toxic Retribution?.
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That was weird, I mention the moon and before I finish typing, another moon post has hit the forum before mine.
Alec Anaconda, author of ?Slaves of Janice?, ?After Janice? and ?Toxic Retribution?.
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Better than terraforming Mars: push Venus into Earth orbit (at the other end of the Orbit) and terraform that!
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[img]/emoticons/hop.gif[/img] Venus would still be far too hot.
I hate to ask, but how does one move a planet?
Alec Anaconda, author of ?Slaves of Janice?, ?After Janice? and ?Toxic Retribution?.
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I tend to use sorcery. The Finukili use science and a pi-based mathematics in conjunction with the Law of Attraction and the Law of Intention. Redirecting a moving body is easier than using a relatively stationary one. Also helps to harness solar radiation/magnetism/gravitation.
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Introduce a very large mass somewhere else?
Anaconda said...
[img]/emoticons/hop.gif[/img] Venus would still be far too hot.
I hate to ask, but how does one move a planet?
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Manipulate a solar storm? Use a solar hurricane to flare out enough force to shift things? Take good aim and serious science, but . . . is it possible?
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Anaconda said...
[img]/emoticons/hop.gif[/img] Venus would still be far too hot.
I hate to ask, but how does one move a planet?
- Really-really big kitchen mitts.[/quote]
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I?m tempted to ask how to move gargantuan mitts, but I suspect the answer will be with leviathan hands.
[img]/emoticons/turn.gif[/img]
Alec Anaconda, author of ?Slaves of Janice?, ?After Janice? and ?Toxic Retribution?.
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Yeah. You have to start from the lotus position and puff up your aura on a cosmic scale before donning them . . .
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I was thinking of mounting a big rocket onto a big asteroid and bashing the planet with it. But, of course, the kitchen mitts are much more practical...
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Does anybody know of a case where two celestial masses share an orbit?
It seems to me that, as planets and moons are prone to change slightly in mass, they must eventually collide. [img]/emoticons/roll.gif[/img] [img]/emoticons/roll.gif[/img]
Alec Anaconda, author of ?Slaves of Janice?, ?After Janice? and ?Extreme Vengeance?.
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Nope. Sorry. But I think it's more complicated than simply mass-flux. Vulcanism and magnetic fields play into the equation - as well as any other massive bodies near enough to interact in those fields (gravitational and radiational). Why collide? A massive moon with a fairly weak attraction and on an eliptical orbit might eventually shoot off into space. Then a number of posibilities arise from that. Especially considering all the posibilities of where that occurs in relation to the center of the solar system, other planets, stroid fields, etc. And the particular make-up of the moon - living core? dead? ice? plasma? Iron? gas? etc. . . . I love History Channel's "Universe" series!
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Anaconda said...
Does anybody know of a case where two celestial masses share an orbit?
It seems to me that, as planets and moons are prone to change slightly in mass, they must eventually collide. [img]/emoticons/roll.gif[/img] [img]/emoticons/roll.gif[/img]
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The CO2 approach has been used before and is a real theory. Nuke the polar ice caps (mostly CO2) to create a greenhouse environment. That heats the planet and creates more atmosphere. Then go for the algea and mold and so forth. That, of course, takes years and years and years.
Fred
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A gravity tractor would do it.
Anaconda said...
I hate to ask, but how does one move a planet?
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
Every Day Fiction
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[quote]
MysticWino said...
We fire 200 Billion megatons worth of nuclear bombs to explode precisely at the same time to re-ignite the planet core, Where did you get that we need to restart the planet's core? Mars has a magnetic field, and therefore has a molten core.
As far as I know, the idea of detonating nukes under the surface is a) to melt the regolith and thicken the atmosphere and b) to help warm the planet through radioactive heat.
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
Every Day Fiction
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Yes! There are at least two examples in our very own solar system. Click the link below to read a brief article about them:
Anaconda said...
Does anybody know of a case where two celestial masses share an orbit?
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/que...php?number=210
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Mars' magnetic field is very weak. The easiest answer to this is that Mars' core is mostly cold, if not completely so. Mars was more geologocally active in it's distant past, made obvious by the numerous (and very large) volcanos that dot its face. A few of these vocanos still occasionally sighvery thin clouds of gas. Clearly there is some latent heat trapped beneath the Martian surface, but probably not enough heat to truely revive any of the volcanos so far observed. As far as we can tell right now there are no plate techtonics happening on Mars either, signifying a geologically dead planet.
Jordan Lapp said...
Where did you get that we need to restart the planet's core? Mars has a magnetic field, and therefore has a molten core.
That means the solar wind is eroding what little is left of Mars' atmosphere, making long term habitation there impractical for life as we know it. But don't take my word for it. Click the links below:
http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/personn...pers/mars_mag/
http://mgs-mager.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://mgs-mager.gsfc.nasa.gov/Kids/magfield.html
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast31jan_1.htm
These are all brief articles and I found all of them helpful.
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I get that. I just didn't see how it was possible to 'restart' the core with a controlled nuclear explosion.
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
Every Day Fiction
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