/sci/ - Science & Math

is it possible to convert mars regolith into CO2 or O2 using just electricity?

HOW TO TERRAFORM MARS ON A REASONABLE TIME SCALE

1) send autonomous robots to the base of valles marinaris, they process mars regolith into CO2, let them keep on pumping until the base of the canyon has something approaching earth pressures (since it's so low down, the air column will be easy to maintain). Then use it as an on-surface base of operations. saturate the air with some water vapor to keep dust particles on the ground.

2) while 1 is going on, find a big ol' asteroid (maybe one that was on the way to earth) strap some rockets to it, and position it at the Lagrange point between mars and the sun. mine it into a large disc with a hole in the center to allow sunlight in. make it into a gigantic magnetic field generator, and place a UV screen in the central hole. the EM field blocks nasty solar flares, and the UV screen makes martian UV exposure earth-like.

3) seed the base of the canyon with algae to begin the atmospheric conversion process from CO2 to O2. make some automated factories to make more of those CO2 conversion robots.

4) keep this up until the atmospheric pressure is high enough to sustain basic plants. lots of weeds should do fine, accelerating the production of an O2 atmosphere. At this point you should make some orbital mirrors to melt the polar ice caps and add some much needed water vapor to the infant atmosphere

5) HOPEFULLY heat will build at this point, and frozen ground water will start to melt and bubble to the surface, covering respectable portions of the planet in water.

6) plant larger plants like large pine trees near rivers and lakes to finalize the atmospheric conversion

7) ?????

8) REAL ESTATE SALES


and hopefully all of this can be done within 100 years.