/sci/ - Science & Math

>>4015704
That's like if the US stopped wasting money on defence for 3 years, completely feasible. Start lobbying your government people.

>>4015713
What makes you think $2 trillion is enough to terraform a motherfucking planet?

Two trillion with current technology, no.
But that two trillion can fund a lot of research and development into the technological base we require (i.e. processing asteroids into photovoltaics, wiring and mirrors, bioengineering algae for increased oxygen production, CO2 and Nitrogen importation from Titan and Venus)

So yeah, two trillion would go a long way into starting the terraformation of Mars.

As for the lack of planetary magnetic field, any reasonably thick atmosphere would have a scale height of about 2.5 times higher due to Mars' 0.376Gs, which affords plenty protection from solar and cosmic radiation. The atmosphere will erode until we construct an artificial planetary magnetic field, but that will take millions upon millions of years, giving us ample time to address the problem.

Bump for interesting thread.

where is the business in terraforming mars in the short-term? that wouldnt be habitable for hundreds of years. See the problems our earth had, and you think its as simple as melting the icecaps? And that it wont trigger anything on mars?

Mars is worth more money in resources.

>>4015758
This.
I think the mayor problem to terraform Mars is the lack of magnetic field, that result in the impossibility of making a stable atmosphere.
And I think that, reallistically, with 2 trillion $ we could only make a few human missions.

>>4015878
>I think the mayor problem to terraform Mars is the lack of magnetic field, that result in the impossibility of making a stable atmosphere.
Incorrect, the major problem is complete lack of greenhouse effect. You heat Mars just a little more, then CO2 begins outgassing everywhere, allowing more warming, for more outgassing, until you get equatorial lakes and seas as well as a hydrological cycle. The magnetic field is only a problem in geological timescales, and if we can finish terraforming Mars, we can set up an artificial magnetic field.

>And I think that, reallistically, with 2 trillion $ we could only make a few human missions.
Zubrin/Weaver's Mars Semi-Direct mission plan costs around 60 billion which could be done over 10 years, with a modest increase in NASA's current budget. For 2 trillion the things you can do almost exponentially grows. Apollo program was something on the order of 120 billion I think. With 2 trillion you can have asteroid habitat manufacturing facilities, cheap space-based solar that costs nothing to endlessly replicate and further fund the mission. Billions and billions of dollars funneled into the scientific and engineering establishments of not only the United States, but the entire world.

>>4015909
>>4015901
What the hell? It told me incorrect captcha. Ignore accidental double-post.

>>4015878
>I think the mayor problem to terraform Mars is the lack of magnetic field, that result in the impossibility of making a stable atmosphere.
Incorrect, the major problem is complete lack of greenhouse effect. You heat Mars just a little more, then CO2 begins outgassing everywhere, allowing more warming, for more outgassing, until you get equatorial lakes and seas as well as a hydrological cycle. The magnetic field is only a problem in geological timescales, and if we can finish terraforming Mars, we can set up an artificial magnetic field.

>And I think that, realistically, with 2 trillion $ we could only make a few human missions.
Zubrin/Weaver's Mars Semi-Direct mission plan costs around 60 billion which could be done over 10 years, with a modest increase in NASA's current budget. For 2 trillion the things you can do almost exponentially grows. Apollo program was something on the order of 120 billion I think. With 2 trillion you can have asteroid habitat manufacturing facilities, cheap space-based solar that costs nothing to endlessly replicate and further fund the mission. Billions and billions of dollars funneled into the scientific and engineering establishments of not only the United States, but the entire world.

bump

>>4015758
I think $2 trillion would definitely be a good down payment on a planet.

>>4015878
>I think the mayor problem to terraform Mars is the lack of magnetic field, that result in the impossibility of making a stable atmosphere.
It really, really bugs me to no end when people say this.

What? A few million years isn't stable enough for you?

How much harder would it be to terraform Venus?

remember that it's incredibly hot with a thick toxic atmosphere, but has an almost earthlike gravity.

>>4016934
How would we be able to survive? We'd need to live in glass domes.

>>4016934
Venus doesn't spin at all. Days would be insanely long. Also like Mars there's no magnetosphere. All this coupled with the fact that it's so hot at the surface it's difficult to keep a robotic probe running for more than a few hours let alone a terrformation facility.

>>4016934
It would be more work intensive for sure.
You would need to sequester immense amounts of carbon from the atmosphere to/or cool it down.

Cooling could be achieved with a large solar shade or a cloud of smaller ones. A possibility would be to construct dynamically supported structures that would reach from the surface into space, acting to transport heat from the surface and radiating it into space. These could also be used to transport part of the atmosphere into space for use in whatever project.

>>4016947
You could build aerostats instead and live high up where the pressure and temperature would be more benign to life.

Such aerostats could also be used to seed the atmosphere with some sort of airborne algae which would act as a carbon sink, helping to thin down the atmosphere.

>>4016950
Using the above-mentioned megastructures, the spin could be gradually increased. Or if large oceans could be formed, they could act to transport heat from the dayside to the nightside.

>>4016986
I don't think you understand the amount of time or energy needed to spin an object the size of venus. It's a billion trillion tonnes, and that kind of mass isn't on the scale you can rotate in a feasible period using all the metal in the solar system, let alone within our reach. It would be easier to build a planet from scratch.

>>4017001
>easier to build a planet
Exaggeration much?

I didn't say it would be easy or fast, I just said it could be done.

Also, to cool the planet down would require quite a lot of these structures, with an accelerator at every groundside point. The most efficient way would be to build these into continuous, planet-circling systems, along the latitude lines, with the dynamic loads traveling counter to the planetary spin.

>>4017027
Not at all. It's quite literally easier to build your environment from scratch than pump trillions of gigawatts into a planet for thousands of years.

>>4017043
Uh-uh. And how are you going to cool down this massive lump of material that's been heated by the release of all that potential energy?

What's more, where are you going to come up with enough mass for a new planet? Not enough asteroids.

Sure, you could use moons for it, but then you need to either steer some moons into a good orbit for a life-bearing planet and collide them, or you need to overcome their own gravity to haul all that rock to an escape trajectory.

>>4017063
At first by mining earth, venus and asteroids, and later presumably by bombarding a planet with asteroids, then collecting debris and building up from there. Far less material would be needed if you were able to engineer one, in any case.

But explain to me how we'd get the resources to put <span class="math">1.6*10^{29}j[/spoiler] into a planet within a hundred lifetimes, even. Your way sounds interesting but completely impossible.

>>4017075
Using one hundred thousand 100-ton masses, the system could do that in about a thousand years. Surprisingly fast.

>>4017139
>1000 years
so, that's at least 40 generations, and 12 lifetimes. And at the end you'd have a planet as habitable as mars, possibly less so.
How would you get 100,000 100 ton masses into orbit tethered to the planet?

>>4017075
Also
>less material would be needed if you were able to engineer one
So I'm guessing gravity isn't one of the things you want in your planet?

I'd understand if you meant to produce hollow habitats with spin-gravity or not for 0g-adapted people, but for a regular planet, mass is pretty much the only way to get that gravity.

Sure, if you managed to bury a small tame black hole in the center of a hollow structure, you could save all that regular matter for other things, but I just don't know how close we are to space-time engineering.

>>4017153
Fucking centripetal force, how does it work?

I'm envisioning a cylinder with a radius of about 30KM, extendable in length. Rotation would be via electrical engines attached to mass outside of the cylinder.

>>4015704
I think 2 trillion would mostly be spent on getting to Mars first

>>4017144
Say what? I think you've misunderstood how the system works. It's construed as kind of continuous Lofstrom Loops that thread from the ground to space, over and over again, all around the planet, in a thousand or more separate rings.

See pic here:>>4017153

And that twelve lifetimes is CONSIDERABLY less than your "more than a hundred lifetimes" estimate.

Furthermore, if the planet atmosphere was already seeded with life like said earlier, the habitability would be a lot easier to establish.

Of course something like this would require immense infrastructure and a lot of time. I already said that here:
>>4016986

Stop trolling on terraforming Venus. It's largely more harder than terraforming Mars. You just have to bring CO2 into the atmosphere of mars to make it capable of supporting human life. Because with CO2 in the atmosphere, Mars will be warmer, if Mars is enough warm, it's core will become once again liquid, if it's core is liquid, the magnetic field will reappear. The result he's a warm world with a protection against solar wind and solar radiation, exactly what we need.

>>4017177
I see, my mistake. In that case, where is the energy and mass coming from to do this?

>And that twelve lifetimes is CONSIDERABLY less than your "more than a hundred lifetimes" estimate.

Agreed, sorry. This is a lot more ambitious than I'd thought. Even so, a millenia? That's the kind of timescale on which we go from invading other theocracies and living in tribes to the beginning of interplanetary travel, and exponentially increasing computational ability. Hell, in the past 50 years we've gone from firing missiles with radio beacons into space, to a permanent station 100m across. I seriously doubt anyone would want to stick around for 1000 years for this, because by the time it will be finished it will be possible to build your own solar system from hydrogen.

>>4017194
What the fuck am I reading?
>Because with CO2 in the atmosphere, Mars will be warmer, if Mars is enough warm, it's core will become once again liquid
I think the temperature of a viable atmosphere is a few thousand kelvins too cold for that.
>if it's core is liquid, the magnetic field will reappear
Not until convection starts. And that won't happen just automatically.

>>4017226
You got trolled.

>>4017211
Well, any terraforming project is a matter of centuries or millenia. And yes, for the project to stay on course for such an extended time, the leadership would have to be extremely dedicated and single minded.

I'm thinking an AI or an enhanced human that was was sufficiently obsessive would be needed.

In case something like post-scarcity never comes around, human expansion into space would have to be done the hard way, in which case the terraforming of Mars and Venus and perhaps partial stellation of Jupiter would be important as exercising for the future.

>>4017194
>It's largely more harder than terraforming Mars.
I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Venus is about as hard to terraform as Mars, as they require similar technologies, (i.e. orbital mirrors constructed out of asteroid regolith.) Mars will likely need CO2 importation at some point, and will definitely need additional nitrogen.

I feel like we're thinking too primitively here..

wouldn't it be easier to engineer humans that live on mars rather than terraform the entire planet?

or am i thinking too sci-fi?

>>4017261
Technologies that allow us to change Mars will likely be available before we have technologies to change ourselves. Besides, who wants to live on a permanently dry and dead planet? If life has a purpose, it's to make other environments more habitable.

>>4017261
far easier. do that math for how much energy would need to be pumped into Mars for it to be livable. Far more than we have access to.

It would also be easier to wait a billion years for the sun to get hotter.

>>4017266
>do that math for how much energy would need to be pumped into Mars for it to be livable. Far more than we have access to.
Really?
REALLY?

So I heard you were trying to terraform Mars.

>>4017278
Courtesy of Patachu
I wonder why he no longer posts on /sci/?

>>4017278
Question: if you put phobos on the surface with no relative velocity, would it fall through to the core?

>>4017284
Probably not, see: Olympus Mons

It would sink a fair bit.

why would we terraform mars? with the money you've suggested, a company could put a mining station on phobos or demos and turn 2 trillion dollars into 100 trillion dollars in, say, 100 years.

with those rare resources, and the technology driven by such a (mind you, private) venture. would make the need to live on a planet (AKA farming and oxygen supplies) non critical for the human species.

the goal of humans right now should be to figure out how to harvest near earth asteroids, sell that shit, and continue to develop such technology, mark my words that is the most progress we will see in you or my lifetime.

>>4017287
Coolio. What about if you put the moon on earth, or mars on earth?

I want to know how tough the crust is.

he only feasible method for creating lrge volumes of livable space on Mars within current techological constraints is to seal and pressurize lava tubes. Don't try to sennd habitats; the habitat is already there, waiting for us to move in. Seal with martian regolith concrete, add led grow lamps every 20 feet along the cieling, use a nuclear reactor lander to supply heat and power, fertilize the soil inside, plant crops, and wait. Eventually the plants will have consumed enough co2 and made enough oxygen that you can add insects, small animals, then humans. Once a balance is struck between animals and plants, you have a stable ecosystem. Want more crops without adding more people? Pipe in more CO2. Want free fertilizer? Start an underground aquaponic lake and harvest the fish waste.

This is entirely feasible with modern tech, materials and even funding. The extreme in-situ resource utilization approach is how we'll colonize Mars because sustaining that many on the surface isn't feasible until we have a space elevator for sending the needed hab space.

>>4017291
>2 trillion dollars into 100 trillion dollars in, say, 100 years.

You can also do this by putting it in a low risk savings account and then burning a trillion dollars every year after about the 40th year.

>>4017282
Probably because of all the rabid hate for furries. Which was kinda funny, since he never did anything furry-like except post those pics.

I miss that guy.

>>4017291
Rapid terraformation of Mars/Venus cannot be completed without in depth knowledge of asteroid mining and in-situ resource utilization for superstructures required in space. And if we get to a point where we can build tens of thousands of O'Neill cylinders, why not do both space habitats AND terraform existing planets? Spacer and planet-dweller working together for a new and glorious dawn.

>>4017291
Economies work on the principle that supply is limited, meaning prices are driven up. at current market value a meteor might contain $40Bn of silver; when mined, it could be an order of magnitude lower, meaning the miner nets a loss. This is pretty much why I dislike private space exploration, it will never provide us with a significant metal haul.

>>4017278
Why are they do they care so much about a small asteroid orbiting mars?

Why don't the russians explore parts of mars that may have life?

>>4017297
>THAT FUCKING CREATURE
>IT BOILS MY BLOOD WITH IT'S VEINS

>>4017293
Olympus Mons is the limit to how much Mars' crust holds before the lithosphere begins to sag under its own weight, and it'd be similar. On Earth, Phobos would sink most of the way through. The moon? Probably barely.

>>4017295
I still don't like the idea of using lava tubes for the main habitat type past the first few Mars missions.

Hypothetically, almost all of these theories could work given enough resources.

humans just dont give a shit right now. niggers in detroit care more about their wellfare check from the government than outer space

>>4017307
I see. Thanks, Inurdaes.

>>4017313
That's because people need security, which they certainly don't have right now. I've said it many times and I'll say it again, we would've have this problem if people just did what space-oriented people and scientists suggested decades ago. LFTRs, single-payer healthcare, subsidized university, and Wall Street on a leash.

Welp. It's been a stimulating thread and it seems /sci/ kept me up well past 3am again.

See you guys tomorrow.

>>4017307
>I still don't like the idea of using lava tubes for the main habitat type past the first few Mars missions.
Why not? I see it as explaining those little domed cities that pop up out of the ground in the old sci-fi magazines.

>>4017319
we wouldn't have this problem*

>>4017323
I'm fine with hybrid-type habitats, with a portion underground and another part domed. In early missions this would likey be impractical, necessitating only a lava-tube base.

>>4017303
we would want tech metals, which are arguable more valuable than, say, silver or gold, smaller quantities are much more valuable considering how rare they are on earth

WHY WOULD WE TRY THIS? IS THERE A COMMERCIAL INDUSTRY FOR INTERPLANETARY TRAVEL/HABITATION? THE PAYOFF WOULD BE SOOOO LONG. WTF: ONLY A GOVERNMENT WOULD PULL SOME SHIT LIKE GO TO THE MOON

>>4017306

It sorta annoys me too.

>>4017307

The most feasible plans are rrely the most elegant or inspiring. Living in caves isn't glamorous but if you're serious about colonizing Mars...

>>4017337
>only create AN ENTIRE HABITABLE PLANET if profit is involved
I hate you so much.

>>4017306
>>4017338
Why?

I remember people saying that before, but I never understood the why of it.

>>4017335
Silver is a tech metal. It has lower resistance at room temperature than any other. And the problem still stands, even if you're digging up technetium and chunks of gallium

>>4017346
Neither do I, it's pretty tame by furry standards.

>>4017346
I think it's proportioned weirdly. I don't like the ovular head, and the tail wouldn't fit in the suit.

>>4017335

Those metals are plentiful in the ocean. Pic related.

>>4017356

>That picture

>>4017363
>Thread about space
>no Mad Sci
>someone mentions metals
>Mad Sci: OCEAN!
Fucking mad sci.

>>4017367

>>4017362
>the tail wouldn't fit in the suit
Spacesuit?

How much was Appolo 1? like 20 billion?

>>4017346
Rager here, I'll elaborate:
There is a specific style unique to sexual drawings, a way the lines are curves and the curves are shaded and the poses of the figures, and so on. It all adds up to implying sexuality, with the actual explicitness of the image being secondary.

Unfortunately, a large majority of furry artists have decided that this style is ideal for their own, everyday uses. So I rage when I see a perversion of the sexual style for the purposes of fetishistic bestiality.
It's really just the fact that they USE IT IN EVERY FUCKING THING THEY DRAW that pisses me off over time.
It's like that one song in the store, that they play in EVERY store, and it just starts to offend you more and more as it grates on every sensibility you have until it just becomes too fucking much.

>pic related, it's what furries look like to non-furries.

>>4017394
Your image naming discipline is exemplary.


>>4017400
That's the badger.

>>4017405
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+much+did+apollo+11+cost

>>4017409
>I'm commander Shepard, and this is my favourite store on the citadel
> nn tish nn tish nn tish nn tish nn tish nn tish nn tish nn tish

>>4017419
>>4017409
>LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR

>>4017425
>OOH WHATCHA SAY
>IT'S ALL OF THE BEST
>OF COURSE IT IS

>>4017409
So, basically it's some weird psychological thing for you?
Okay, let's get back to making non-habitable places more habitable.

>>4017439
>So, basically it's some weird psychological thing for you?
Not just me, but yeah. Good anthro art is pretty much anything that doesn't use that style, it's only that it's sheer ubiquity reeks of the true fursuiting-faggots we all hate with good reason.

>Okay, let's get back to making non-habitable places more habitable.
I promote that we need to put more money into researching ways to make micro-gravity research useful.

>>4017439
I would really like to see some soil samples from Mercury to better determine the soil composition to see if there's any hope for a rapid terraformation process to it. It does have 0.38Gs, slightly higher than Mars' gravity.

Geodesic domes made from an aluminum skeleton and inflated efte 'pillow' panels would be ideal for surface enclosures. Pic related, The Eden Project; Tropical, rainforest and desert biomes recreated in frigid northern England by the use of efte insulated domes and imported plant/animal species.

Such enclosures would be good for psychological health, but because they do not shield against radiation we could not spend very much time in them per day. That's one of the big reasons it makes more sense to live underground than on the surface.

Oh yeah, and ITT.

>>4017456
That image makes me warm and fuzzy inside.
>MFW

>>4017451
>terraform Mercury
Well okay then, at least you didn't pick something difficult as the next objective.

>>4017453
>dat eden project
that's a seriously cool place, the rainforest biome is large enough to actually have a hot air balloon, that's used for maintenance. I think it'd be possible to augment them to give decent protection as well, given that the insulating bubbles are already several feet wide. A think layer of leaded glass panels on the outside would work great.
>>4017456
><3

This is my favourite place on the webosphere.

>>4017466
Same technologies that allow us to terraform Mars and Venus allow us to terraform Mercury and Luna.

>>4017472
But but but WHY WOULD WE TERRAFORM MERCURY?
WE MIGHT AS WELL TERRAFORM OUR OWN MOON!

>>4017472

Lets not get ahead of ourselves. Lets terraform mars or venus before we refer to this technology like it has a concrete existence.

>>4017451
Mercury? Isn't it a little close to the sun?

>>4017469

You sure you don't mean the Tropical Islands resort in Germany? They use a hot air balloon for dome inspection and repair. I don't think the Eden Project does. I may be wrong though.

>>4017490
>WE MIGHT AS WELL TERRAFORM OUR OWN MOON!
Yes, we will.

>Lets terraform mars or venus before we refer to this technology like it has a concrete existence.
Because the technology for terraforming Mars/Venus totally exists now, doesn't it? Discussing especially alien places for terraforming brings up interesting questions and can better influence how we deal with Mars/Venus.

LET US TERRAFORM THE SUN
NAY, LET US TERRAFORM SPACETIME ITSELF
HUMANS WILL SWARM THROUGH ALL OF REALITY

>>4017497
So is Venus. As long as you have semi-transparent orbital mirrors encompassing the planet and they're kept in good order, it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

>>4017456
Yep. I love to see a positive terraforming thread once in a while.

>>4017469
>decent protection
I've read something about using a cell-based geodesic dome as utilitarian protection by filling the space between with water and algae to filter out radiation and produce oxygen.

>>4017472
Uh... I think the mercurian soil has pretty well been baked clean of any and all volatiles to a significant depth.

The martian and venusian projects would mainly rely on volatiles and organics found in situ, while they would almost certainly have to be imported for the mercurian project.

Notice that I'm not saying it's impossible, but it would raise the required expenditure.

Not to mention that the mercurian magshield would have to be quite a lot stronger than the martian one.

>>4017502

>Because the technology for terraforming Mars/Venus totally exists now, doesn't it?

What do you mean it exists today?

Im guessing you are referring
to giant mirrors and magnetic field generators or something. I guess mirror and magnet fields are modern technology. But thats different from giant space mirrors or giant space generators.

>>4017512
>Notice that I'm not saying it's impossible, but it would raise the required expenditure.

>Not to mention that the mercurian magshield would have to be quite a lot stronger than the martian one.

WE'LL DO IT ALL

>>4017501
No, they do. I went there last year, they hold a prize draw once a week and whoever wins gets to go up in it briefly. The rainforest dome also has a few steel walkways, but they don't reach everywhere. The Mediterranean dome was too small for one.
It's not a full blown balloon or anything, I get the impression it's for two people to set up ropes so they can do more stable repairs.

>>4017512
>I've read something about using a cell-based geodesic dome as utilitarian protection by filling the space between with water and algae to filter out radiation and produce oxygen.

Sounds a bit heavy :s

>>4017521
Sarcasm man.

>>4017528

Oh oops.

Well anyway, yeah, we should be colonizing mars and stuff.

>>4017527
>Sounds a bit heavy
Yes, it does. But you can put several layers or use comparably stronger materials to build it.

Actually, the thing was originally proposed as a part of a low-acceleration interplanetary spaceship, but I wouldn't think modifying it to survive low-g environment would be out of the question.

>>4017546
yeah, it sounds pretty good. My only worry is that there's a significant variation in thickness in the bubles, and some points are support only.

>>4017546
Perhaps you could pump water through it to mimic a launch loop if the stresses are a little too high?

No point starting now, it will only get cheaper as it goes along, but I think when it does become feasible we should fire on all cylinders because this is obviously an investment with a massive return.

hey guys, venus, too much gases, mars not enough, idea here? We also could form our own planet, the asteroid belt was a planet that never was.

>>4017550
you and your damn launch loops, inurdaes

but seriously, that would be extremely power hungry. Might as well go all the way and just build solid concrete structures.

>>4017552
NASA needs to start with the groundwork for such a project, namely asteroid mining. It seems like the 2025 manned mission to an asteroid will be prospecting, so I can't wait.

>>4017556
Import CO2 from Venus. And the asteroid belt doesn't have nearly enough mass for an entirely new planet.

>>4017555
LFTRs if power is your concern. Just as well, they're the only practical off-world power source for a proper colony.

Mercury terraforming seems absurd, but temporary martian terraforming seems possible. Seel a few rockets of CFC's are enough to warm up mars enough to sublime the massive dry ice seas at the poles. The idea goes Mars once went through a really deep ice age and it's entire atmosphere froze at its poles. To melt that would warm enough to melt all of it, and replenish the bulk of the atmosphere. It wouldn't be breathable, warm enough or free from radiation, but it could be enough for some GM plants to start making some O2, then water, then blah blah.

The atmosphere would erode pretty slowly until the next ice age froze it all again, but hopefully bringing some oxygen back in would prevent that (martian atmosphere was mostly Co2, so proper carbon cycles didn't happen. With oxygen it would be more stable)

>>4017550
Wouldn't work. Liquids have a bad habit of getting turbulent, which would waste most of the lifting power. If you're going with dynamically propped structures, better to use ferrous masses.

>>4017555
There's not enough mass in the asteroid belt to make a planet. Overwhelming majority of the mass of the asteroid belt is taken up by Ceres, which has a measly 1000km diameter.

>>4017556
Not his launch loops. My launch loops. As far as I remember, I've been the foremost advocate of using mass-stream supports for any number of megaprojects ever since /sci/ was made.

>>4017581
>There's not enough mass in the asteroid belt to make a planet.
Maybe if we could borrow a few sattelites from these gas giants...

>>4017575
>Mercury terraforming seems absurd, but temporary martian terraforming seems possible.
May I just comment on how wonderful it is that we're discussing transforming an entire planet to become habitable with everyone taking it quite seriously in this day and age?

>Seel a few rockets of CFC's are enough to warm up mars enough to sublime the massive dry ice seas at the poles.
I'm pretty sure it'll take far more than a few rockets.

I also fear that unless you add extra sunlight to Mars, even if only a few percentage points, that the atmosphere will soon begin freezing out again.

How possible is it to smash mars into venus?

>>4017598
Not very.

>>4017598

as possible as it is to smash it into jupiter

Without knowing the mechanism that froze the atmosphere, we can't really say what would refreeze it again. It's an idea at least, and the method of warming would seem more crucial than the amount. The prevention of ozone would last a lot longer on mars as there is no polar vortex to break up the cycles as on earth. Potentially it could have a massive effect, or, slightly less. That's the problem with ozone, it's kind of nonlinear

>>4017612
>Without knowing the mechanism that froze the atmosphere, we can't really say what would refreeze it again.
Mars lost much of its atmosphere through billions of years of solar wind and no replenishing sources from the great Tharsis volcanoes, causing a loss of greenhouse effect.

>>4017598

0% possible

>>4017612

I thought the theory was that mars lacked a magnetic field, which allowed cosmic radiation to strip the atmosphere away gradually. The Atmosphere being what was keeping the planet warm.

>>4017598
If you have the means to build immense solar shades, you could probably also make huge solar sails, so make an orbital ring connected to Mars by space elevator-cables, attach a solar sail to the ring and then use several solar mirrors to slow it down, ie. pulling it down to a lower orbit. Continue until it's in the same orbit with Venus and... BAM!

Now I would like to point out that that was a very simplified description.

You would probably want to first take Mars under or over the ecliptic and steer it well clear of the orbit of Earth.

>>4017581
>Not his launch loops. My launch loops. As far as I remember, I've been the foremost advocate of using mass-stream supports for any number of megaprojects ever since /sci/ was made.
Now since we know the higherups of USA are too shortsighted to make this happen, what about China? I blieve the classic comparison is:
>American CEO's think in terms, Chinese CEO's think in decades.

>>4017636
would this be a dozen year.. hundred.. hundred thousand year process though? i mean... if we could majik an atmosphere onto mars would it be the type of thing that would take twenty million years to dissipate? cause that aint bad. and for all intents and purposes would be infinite . could wu use our chemtrailing techniques to seed the martian stratosphere with magnetically charged particles and create a faux magnetic shield?

>>4017618
I'm sorry? I said _know_. This is a speculative theory and there are plenty of holes

How can the sputtering mechanism reduce an entire planetary atmosphere? It takes a slight change in pressure to bring about some chemical reaction that will balance it again. Even over a billion years the rates don't add up unless the planet is completely chemically inert before the atmosphere started being stripped. Add on the time for the magnetic field to magically go and you have more than the age of the solar system. Mars certainly had plate teconics until at least a billion years ago, to assume that it didn't then have volcanoes is kind of bizarre..

I go to a university that is extremely well renowned for physics. My physics professor had been ranting about how human spaceflight is a joke and how there will never be an alternative to chemical rockets. At least not in the near future. I brought up launch loops. He laughed in my face.

>>4017667
>Mars certainly had plate teconics until at least a billion years ago, to assume that it didn't then have volcanoes is kind of bizarre..
We're unsure if Mars ever had plate tectonics, and the volcanoes stopped emitting copious amounts of CO2 around 3.8Mya ago.

>>4017673
Scratch a cynic and you'll find a disappointed optimist.

>>4017678

He's actually quite a cool guy.
He said that they might work on the moon but that any effect they would have on Earth would be negligible considering the massive amounts of energy that it would take to haul a chemical rocket up to that height, which, already, isn't all that high.

>>4017676
Well, aniostropic bubbles of magnetic field, locked into geological formations imply it.. But then that's just what my lecturer told me 2 years ago so maybe that was disproved.

Also are you referring to that image? In which case it has bya[sic] not Mya. Also it doesn't seem to think the surface of mars would change with 2 billion years of liquid water on it.. huh. Seems like a diagram from Scientific American

>>4017692
>in which case it has bya[sic] not Mya
Yeah probably, I fucked up.

Question for everyone ITT with ideas for terraforming.

What do we do about ecosystems? Do we replicate Earth's ecosystems or "engineer" ones more to our liking?

>>4017701
Are mosquitoes absolutely necessary to many ecosystems?

Because if not, they're the first thing to go.

I propose the moons of the gas giants - if only to get a view of spellbinding celestial magnificence.

Some of them have water too.

No
It would take a lot more than 2 trillion to even start the terraforming process

Although you could crash like 10 comets into Mars for that amount, if they're big enough it could be worth it

>>4017720
Sounds cold.

IIRC Mars gravity is stronger than earth and any human trying to live on it without artificial gravity would die after a decade or so. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I think we're about 100-150 years from being able to terraform mars.Take in to consideration that we have to have a huge improvement in our space crafts to even be able to carryout said mission. That is if you want the people on the mission to return alive. Also wouldn't the radiation that contaminates the water last for at least 2000 years? It sucks but I think what >>4017291 pretty much nailed it on the head. In truth, we all know that Area-51 and the underground base in Ohio (it's about half the size of the state extending for 150 miles underground) contains ancient aliens and they secretly hold new tech for space crafts. Wait for disclosure then you will have mars. I need some more weed.

>>4017701
I think we should just create single-cells in the beginning and eventually bring in some basic multicellular organisms and see where evolution takes it

sometimes you loathe me, /sci/
125 replies.
Not a single one about phobos-grunt, a fucking sample return craft to phobos, one of the moons of mars.

Which launched today. In real life. Fuck your terraforming.

Also, it had a big computer error, and is still in it's parking LEO orbit. I fucking hope they can fix it, it'd be such a shame if the mars curse got it...

more like all the money on Earth for the next thousand years.

>>4017689
Sounds like he, like many others, just hasn't understood the point of the concept.

The launch loop is at the same time a track and an accelerator. The main points of it are that you can accelerate the payload above the atmosphere, and that the payload doesn't need to carry the fuel needed for the initial acceleration.

And the energy can be produced in any which way, be it nuclear, solar, hydro etc. instead of having to pack your precious payload in with a bunch of explosives.

In addition, the beautiful thing about it is that you don't need to go into space to build it like if it was a space elevator. No, you build it on the ground and when you start punching the masses through the tube, the thing raises itself up out of the atmosphere.

>>4017720
They receive pitiful sunlight, and I'm unsure if orbital mirrors could reflect enough sunlight without being pulled off by the interfering gravity of their planet and other satellites. If they can be moved, I'm all for it. Otherwise, we'll likely have to stick to LFTR-heated paraterraformed cities.

>>4017730
Mars gravity is stronger? How is that, if Mars is less massive?

>>4017730
>IIRC Mars gravity is stronger than earth
Stopped reading there.

>launch loop
>economically viable

Do you know how much electricity you need to keep that fucker running? You can build the thing with present-day materials but the energy costs will be astounding. Worth doing, but not in a recession.

>>4017703
>>4017733
I was thinking that it all depends on the climate.

If we could collect, focus, reflect, and disseminate light from the sun, we could theoretically create some very nice warm zones. Like, tropical climates.

This is all just my personal tastes, but still:

>Fill the oceans with life. Martian oceans are likely to be pretty shallow, so we fill them with coral reefs built atop salt domes.
>There has to be some way to make non-offensive insects to form the animal basis of a food chain.
>Colorful and pleasing flora too
>As few mammals as possible, I want Mars to be mostly reptilian.

>>4017743
>>4017752
Well it might not be stronger, that's why I said IIRC. I do remember there being a problem with the gravity on the planet and the human body structure. Something about causing a strain on the bone structure.

>>4017767
>As few mammals as possible, I want Mars to be mostly reptilian.
>planet is cooler and receives less sunlight
>lolcoldblooded
Maybe Venus?

>>4017774
Observed effects of microgravity on the human skeleton include loss in bone density and related afflictions. 0.376Gs should be ample to allow for a relatively strong skeleton. However any children born on Mars that are unaugmented on a trip to Earth will experience difficulty with the almost 3x stronger gravity.

>>4017786
>>4017786
thanks

Bump for our future home.

>>4017767
I propose that lizards be the most prevalent form of animal life on Mars.

If we actually can engineer animals, freshwater fish should be largely bioluminescent, macroalgae too.

I also want to bring the African Grey parrot closer to its evolutionary origin. Parrots are closely related to falcons, perhaps they can be made into a highly intelligent bird of prey that's capable of communicating with its master. Falconry on a planet with low gravity would rawk.

>>4017786
Hey, I mentioned that climate would be an issue.

>>4017846
>Hey, I mentioned that climate would be an issue.
Oh, alright.

arent we all forgetting the fact that mars will never have enough magnetic field to keep all those greenhouse gasses locked to the planet? dont we need to get the core moving first before we try importing or creating CO2 in the atmosphere there?

as it is now, whatever greenhouse gasses we put or make there will just be blown away (again) by the solar wind.

>>4017881
I hate to sound annoyed, but I am. This question has been asked well over 100 times in all the Mars terraforming threads, even when it was previously explained in the same thread if you had bothered to read it all.

>>4015758
See? Right at the beginning.

>>4017752

It could be if it's core was at a denser state.

>>4017895

explain it again plz. i want to see where we went off on a tangent and started discussing teraforming mercury (lol)

>>4017910
Not sure what you want me to explain.

>>4017895

i dont see where >>4015758 explains how we are going to jumpstart the core.

what are some good ideas for doing such? is adding mass via crashing a moon into mars really doable? how about detonating 100+ nukes at the core? you know, restart that core engine?

>>4017918
An active inner NiFe core isn't the only thing that can produce a planetary magnetic field. We'll likely have some kind of superconducting rings in orbit or embedded in the crust.

>>4017930
>We'll likely have some kind of superconducting rings in orbit or embedded in the crust.
You can do that? And it makes a big enough field?!

areoform earth

>>4017958
With enough energy and a big enough lever, humanity can do anything.

>>4017979
I wasn't asking for euphemisms and pop sci quotes, I was asking for SCIENCE!

>>4017930

its a pity we cannot utilize the martian volcanic action of 3 billion years ago to power those rings.

>>4017982
http://www.universetoday.com/12593/scientists-design-ion-shield-to-protect-astronauts-from-solar-win
d-radiation/

Take concept, develop something similar, upscale it by a factor a few million.

THIS THREAD, IT SHALL NOT DIE

>>4018076
sage

u mad

>>4018079
Sage just doesn't bump, you know that right?

>>4018081
Yes, but it encourages others not to post without saging.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwagon_effect

>>4018093
You'd have more luck if this was a religion-related thread. How likely do you think people will go 'That guy saged a terraforming thread, better boycott the thread!'

>>4018100

>>4018102
forgot my sage

How much money would it take to terraform the sun?

>>4018359
You might as well...

burn your money.

>>4018423

give me 5 bucks and ill plant some beans there

not quite
i'm a huge fan of automated systems that self-replicate and grow exponentially, but we're not quite there yet.

two trillion ten years from now? that's more like it. Technically, with a self replicating system, all you need to build is one or two, and you just wait for exponential growth to kick in.
as Einstein once said, the most powerful force in the universe is Compound Interest