/sci/ - Science & Math

Is solving our problems here on earth so hard that we have to entirely change another world?
And why go through the effort of terraforming when you can have biodomes?

>humans in 100 years
lolwut

>earth is going bad
>better terraform mars
if we have the technology to terraform we'll just do a little bit of terraforming to make earth habitable again, why the fuck would we start terraforming a dead brown rock instead?

Why the hell would you pick Mars?

The universe is expanding, Mars is moving away from the son and will just get colder and colder.

Venus is much closer to how the Earth used to be long ago, we should work to terraform that planet instead of a lost cause.

>>3566712

Holy shit, I'm watching that Documentary right now.

The head scientist is swole.

>>3566719
This. I've been saying this for years its much easier to "terraform" Earth back into better shape than to try to make a frozen dirtball like Mars into anything semi habitable.

>>3566719
All eggs in one basket is why. Mars is just the start eventually we will spread throughout the universe devouring entire stars in our unsaleable thrust for energy.

>>3566712

ok

>>3566716

Problems won't be solved fast enough, modern countries are just starting to understand the impact of the human race to the planet, even if all those countries stopped their polluting activities, emerging countries as india and china won't give a shit for decades.

>>3566719

So you believe mankind future is to stay on earth, forever, being vulnerable to a random space rock.

>>3566716
Yeah because most people don't believe that fucking up one planet is enough and it'd be far easier to swap planets rather than live more eco-friendly lives.
inb4 fuck you hippie, I know.... I know...

In any case the next step of manking growth is on other planets, mars being a perfect candidate.

Also, biodomes would be a start, but certainly not for long

>>3566716
>reducing escape velocity to a fraction
>magically creating more area to handle overpopulation without
Yeah, it's kinda hard.

I look forward to a mars colony mission. If it happened, they wouldn't send christfag retards and fats, they'd send our best and brightest. Perhaps the Martians would be able to secede and start their own planetary government. A sane and rational one unlike all of those here on Earth. I won't live to see it, and they'd never have picked me anyhow, but it's good to know humanity has hope.

>>3566716
not even a question of problems, eventually the Earth will be uninhabitable or ruined in some freak accident
It merely makes sense to increase our chances by spreading

>>3566767

If you really like the subject, read those

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Mars_trilogy

The author is really a brilliant dude

Mankind will never leave the solar system.

Nearest star alone is 4 light years away, and we all know going the speed of light isn't possible.

>>3566789
PROTIP #1: What makes you think I haven't/am not planning to already?

PROTIP #2: Bad punctuation, "dude", obviously baseless claim with no substance. You made me want to read them LESS.

Teleportation.

>>3566789
I'll second this. excellent books.

Why the hell would biological humans go into space? That's just fucking dumb. Space is not for monkeys.

>>3566792
Multi-generational starships.

The moon is a much better candidate its relatively close by and loaded with energy reserves in the form of helium-3 as well other mineral resources that could be exploited to bootstrap the space industry into full swing. Once we have an established moon colony with at least some industrial capacity then we can start thinking about expanding further.

Why the fuck do mods have to be such gay tight wads? >>3566712 was not a bad post, I thought it witty and appropriate. As a reward that guy now gets a two week ban! I hope the mods get leukemia and the retrovirus treatment is not available in time to save them.

If >>3566712 deleted his own post then I'm sorry.

>>3566792
Mankind will never be able to fly.

Flying is hard and we all know that growing wings is impossible.

>>3566825
You know we can make He3 form Li at a much cheaper price than going to the moon and sifting out a few ppm right?

>>3566721

Lol, trolling right ?

Do you have any idea how much time it will take for mars to go that far away ?

>>3566792

The solar system itself could be populated with maybe a hundred billion people, it would take millenias to grow to a point where we would need to go to another solar system.

>>3566795

Arrogant prick spotted, sorry if i'm not english and for linking books I enjoyed.

>>3566834
It's a good thing you're sorry. FYI: English is my third language.

>>3566831
Yeah good thing we have unlimited supply of Lithium that will never run out...

Also its not like lithium is an incredibly useful material for electronics, medicine and a myriad of other uses lets turn it all into helium.

Mars sucks. We should start with Venus.

I doubt that we'll even touch Mars within 100 years, and I would say that it would take at least 100,000 years to make Mars habitable by people, and even then it'll probably require a type of human that can tolerate extremely low atmospheric pressures and who live in igloos.

I'm still 100% in support of Mars colonization regardless, and am 100% receptive to facts which prove the above wrong if you can present them.

>>3566857

What's so great about Venus?

>>3566838
You best be trollen, the amount of lithium it would take to power the world by fusion is minuscule, we would have a billion+ year supply.

>>3566710
err, why would you go to the planet before you terraform it? Why would you even have people land on it?

This kind of terraforming is infeasible as it is ineffecient.

If you're oging to terraform, it will be with probes, which will release various chemicals and bacteria and provide the initial energy to start the process.

Would it be possible to pump the CO2 out of most of Venus's atmosphere and send it over to Mars? If the planet heats up enough then liquid water will be possible to form on the surface. At the same time, we will be cooling down Venus. Eventually we can plant photosynthetic bacteria and other extremophiles on both planets to allow them to thrive and change the atmosphere to one of oxygen and nitrogen. Basically, we kill two birds with one stone.

We might have some bases on Mars in the next 50 years, at best. I highly doubt we'll be terraforming it, as much as I think it is an awesome idea.

Let's stop being pussies and let's go to one of Jupiter's moons, FUCK YEARRR.

Don't worry, I'm sure in a 100 years humans will also be able to alter the severe temperature fluctuations on Mars.

> Would it be possible to pump the CO2 out of most of Venus's atmosphere and send it over to Mars?

How? One ridiculously tiny shipload at a time?

That would take trillions of years. Better to just create CO2 on Mars by burning lots of shit.

>>3567710
Why don't we just make a really really long vacuum tube and have it lead from venus to mars?

>>3567718
reality doesnt work that way

The one thing I don't get about many Mars terraforming scenarios is how we could be in a scenario where we could render the red planet habitable but not fix Earth.

>>3567710
>by burning lots of shit
sure, we'll just use the planet's natural oxygen reserves to do so.

>>3567727
I think the plan is more about adapting our stuff to the planet at the moment than adapting the planet. I know Nasa has been using tomatos that grow at high altitude to make plants more UV resistant.

>>3567727
>terraforming
>logic
Try not to think to hard about sci-fi bullshit.

>>3566721

Really, /sci/?

This is what we've come to?

>>3567731

>sci-fi

>>3567727

The difference is that one just makes a planet habitable enough that you don't die instantly on its surface, while the other attempts to make a planet perfect.

>>3567710
Answer me this. How do you burn things when there's no oxygen? Mars's atmosphere is mostly CO2, just not enough for a thick atmosphere. In the future we could harvest CO2 from Venus, freeze it so it turns to dry ice, then dump that dry ice into the Martian atmosphere. It will take a while, but terraforming an entire world isn't a job that can be completed in a single lifetime, friend. Not only do we have the task of thickening the Martian atmosphere, but we also need to restart its dormant core to give off a magnetic field to protect that atmosphere from the solar wind so it doesn't blast the atmosphere off the planet.

Sound like something that can be done in a few months? It's not. Even if we use technology from 200 years in the future, terraforming Mars will be a feat unlike any the human race has attempted before. Everything we need is in the solar system, it's just a matter of getting it to the planet and working on the priorities.

> I don't see what would stop us after that.
I know what would stop us (way!) before that. Simple economics. Colonization of Mars? Never gonna happen.

>>3566710
>In 50 or 100 years, people will walk outside of a ship that just landed and see this.
>Their job will be to start terraforming the planet.

Let's make it 39 years.

Also, I'm happy to field any questions people might have about Martian terraforming.

>>3567790
crash venus into mars.
wait 1000 years
terraforming done.

>>3568690
More like irregular mass of magma and no pre-existing incentive for terraformation as all the water ice fucked off into the Oort Cloud

>>3568694
crash gently?

>>3567790

>but we also need to restart its dormant core to give off a magnetic field to protect that atmosphere from the solar wind so it doesn't blast the atmosphere off the planet.

Not that important. Radiation blasting off the atmosphere is a very slow process of many thousands of years. It would just be easier to periodically do "maintenance" of the atmosphere if the thinning even becomes a problem, if we last this long on Mars.

>>3568709
>crash gently
>crash two planets gently
>dat Δ v

Thanks a lot a-hole. You just bankrupted the whole solar system with the propellant-bill.

why mars? why not titan? its a much better candidate

>>3566792

Fuck the speed of light.
Teleportation yall, it's what's for breakfast.
FUTURE BREAKFAST

>>3568711
Many MILLIONS of years.

>>3568730
Ethane lakes. Motherfucking *ethane* lakes.

>>3567790
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network

GUYS IT'S OK TO FUCK THE PLANET UP WE'LL JUST THROW IT AWAY LIKE ALL OTHER TRASH AND GO LIVE SOMEPLACE ELSE LOL

keep dreaming the dream, scifitards

>>3569110
Let's do both. Let's bring as many worlds as possible to a state of paradise.

>>3566721
Whoa.

>>3566721
>Mars is moving away from the son and will just get colder and colder.
MASSIVE [citation needed]

>>3569261
I'd guess he means how the solar mass-loss and tidal effects are slowly driving all planets outwards. If that's what he means, the extremely long timescale means he's talking out his ass.

If not, he might mean the growing eccentricity of the martian orbit. But if that's what he means, he's talking out his ass.

>>3569315
Earth sucks, the sun will stop shining permanently. And then this will be a cold rock!

Clearly, we should disregard this planet.

>>3569340
Why?
Should a baby be sent out of it's parent's home just because it's going to (hopefully) move out in eighteen years?

Enjoy it while it lasts. Bask in the warm glow of the universe's youth while you're making plans for the long dark.

mars isn't massive enough. It loses it's atmosphere to space too much faster than the earth for terraforming to ever be viable.

>>3569432
http://bigthink.com/ideas/24011
>Answer: You are absolutely correct. Mars is a small planet, and hence it's gravitational field is not strong enough to permanently hold onto a dense atmosphere, but it is sufficient to hold onto an atmosphere for thousands to millions of years, which is enough for us. Once we terraform Mars, there will be enough of an atmosphere to take of all our needs for generations to come.