/sci/ - Science & Math

I have two questions:
Is there something burnable in Mars so we can harvest energy?
If so, is it practical to carry a machine or will solar panels (that far from the sun) and nuclear batteries always be king there?
I know nuclear batteries would be the answer but it's still expensive and relatively unsafe to be sending one after the other in the future.

1. Establish outpost.
2. Supply outpost with solar sail shipments.
3. Turn every solar sail into a solar reflector to heat planet.
4. Use solar sails to distant objects to redirect comets to burn up in Martian atmosphere to deposit volaties.
5. As martian industry grows, great supergreenhouse gas factories.

Done. Once you can walk around with nothing but a heavy jacket and an oxygen mask then it's terraformed enough, or as much as you are going to get it. Sure, you could introduce an oxygen atmosphere with photosynthetic life, but the oxygen would just get absorbed by the surface of Mars, undoing all your effort of creating a thick atmosphere.

If you DID create an oxygen atmosphere then eventually you could walk around in nothing but a heavy jacket and a CO2 scrubber. I don't know where you would get enough buffer gas to make Mars' atmosphere truly breathable.

We need to understand how Mars lost its atmosphere. Did ijt take millions of years or did happen over a few hundred years after Mars's internal magnetic dynamo shut down?

Second major issue to figure out, how quickly would Martian regolith sequester free O2? If it happens quickly then any photosynthetic life we introduce will just as quickly rarify the atmosphere. But at least this has a costly workaround. Giant moholes into the crust deep enough to get down where it's still hot will release CO2 into the atmosphere. Or we just remove the CO2 from the Martian crust ourselves by melting Martian rock in huge forges (very energy intensive) or maybe use a solar mirror to focus into a death ray that can turn whatever Martian rocks we point it at into lava.