/sci/ - Science & Math

15 years

Who fucking knows? Never even been attempted before, therefore no data. I've seen guesstimates from 200 years to tens of thousands of years, would depend how big an effort we made I guess.

Depends on how much you want to spend on it.

http://www.paulbirch.net/TerraformingMarsQuickly.pdf

>>4019801
>>4019816
Pretty different figures.
Assume no budgetary constraints. Just how long would we need.

Assuming a blank cheque was given to Robert Zubrin:
- Manned missions to Mars within 4 years
- Asteroid mining and refining capability developed within 6 years
- Upscale and refinement of said refining capability for slightly photovoltaic lightweight mirrors by 2020
- Mars has 1% extra sunlight redirected on polar caps by 2025
- 5% extra sunlight by 2030
- Outgassing of CO2 and other volatiles leaves Mars with 100 millibar thick atmosphere and an average temperature quickly approaching 0'C by 2040
- 20% extra sunlight by 2050, equatorial melting is now demonstrated across much of the planet
- 250 millibar thick atmosphere by 2075, Hellas Basin becomes Hellas Ocean, Acidalia now has temperatures high enough for oceans to begin appearing even in the northern latitudes
- Bioengineered algae are seeded across the entire planet by 2080
- Asteroid manufacturing is sufficiently advanced by now to allow entire spacecraft to be produced, allowing for CO2 importation from Venus and nitrogen importation from Titan
- Mars now has a 350 millibar thick, largely CO2 atmosphere with an average planetary temperature around 7'C. Habitable with only the need of oxygen masks/CO2 scrubber masks. All by 2100.

>>4019852

>>4019844
Assuming no budgetary constraints?
>inb4 United Aerospace Corporation
The most basic thing we need to happen to the planet is to change it's atmosphere, in other words, thicken it up a bit. This can easily be done by allowing free reign on semi-polluting industries to be set up on Mars.

Given that Mars currently has no way of cycling back and gases into the ground, like Earth's plants and rain tends to do, and it is a bit smaller, I'd say a minimum of 100 years constant effort for a noticeable result.
Think about it, Earth's climate/atmosphere has been under the influence of industry for more than a hundred years, and there is skeptical/plausable proof that we are starting to change or atmosphere for the worst.

>>4019854
It appears my Oh Boy Here We Go was on time delay for months later.

>>4019854
Unecessary.

Cheers Inurdaes - where did you get those figures from?

>>4019844

Well, the technology doesn't exist so that would be a problem. Assuming unlimited funds / global effort, we could colonize Mars now, tho we'd be living underground. Actual terraforming would take an amazingly long time: 200 years of industrial pollution has added less than a few percent of greenhouse gasses to Earths atmosphere, doing enough "damage" to Mars' to make the air thick enough for algae / plants to start making O2 would probably take centuries, and the process of oxygenation could well take millenia. Ultimately, we may decide its simply not worth the effort when we could simply live in space habitats instead.

>>4019863
If you specify which figures I can more appropriately direct you to places I've gotten them from. Range of sources, from Wikipedia to Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

It's habitable by civilians now, as long as they don't have to go outside without a space suit.

But I assume you mean terraforming, in which case it would be tens of thousands of years at a minimum.

>>4019863

He pulled them out of his ass. He's a 16 year old faggot, why do you imagine he has access to any actual data?

>>4019868
But our industrial pollution wasn't intended to fuck up the atmosphere. 200 years without even trying? We could do it in less if we made the effort, surely?

>>4019868
>200 years of industrial pollution has added less than a few percent of greenhouse gasses to Earths atmosphere
- Earth has a lot more surface area than Mars
- Earth has over 70% of its surface covered by water, which is a huge carbon sink.
- Carbon sinks, carbon sinks everywhere
Not to mention we've just been doing it offhandedly, we haven't tried to deliberately warm up our climate. We can produce exceptionally strong greenhouse gases if we feel like it.

>>4019872
I'm curious, have I offended you at any time in the past? If so I'm sorry for any buttfrustratement you may have experienced.

>>4019877

It wasn't intentional, but we also did nothing to prevent it for most of that time. Yes, we could do "better" if we really tried, but it would take a lot more than we've ever done on Earth to make Mars suitable for plantlife. And that's only the start of the problem, you then hav to oxygenate the atmosphere, a process that took possibly millions of years on Earth. Again, we could do better if we really tried, but even 1000x as good would mean thousands of years.

>>4019852
Just for a sec, why would we want to redirect sunlight on polar caps?

>>4019886

And Mars is mostly iron ore, which would lock any o2 we manage to produce. It IS smaller, but its not a small world and building an atmosphere almost from scratch would take a mind-boggling amount of gas, far beyond the combined effects of all of human history on Earth.

>>4019890

Warming, I'd guess. Also, his argument is from a sci-fi novel.

>>4019890
There's likely a whole lot of CO2 we don't see immediately, sequestered deep underground. We gradually warm up the tundra around it, we release lots of volatiles as well as prevent it freezing back there when Mars is at aphelion.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/04/mars-south-pole-holds-nearly-an-atmospheres-worth-of-co2
.ars

>>4019891
I completely agree, which is why automations that can be replicated over and over again is the key to a successful and speedy terraformation process.

>>4019895
Oh shut up, I said some ideas have been taken from the Red/Green/Blue Mars series which is remarkably detailed for a sci-fi novel, not all of it.

>>4019902
>Non-existent magical technology beyond our understanding will make this impossible task easy!

And you wonder why people call you a retarded faggot.

~30,000 years

>>4019904

Other sources cited by you:
>wiki
>Zubrin

So yeah. Any actual REPUTABLE science backing your daydreams?

>>4019907
>ad hominems
>ad hominems everywhere

I bet you squeal bloody murder whenever a discussion comes up on fusion or LFTRs because it's theoretical. Do you have anything to contribute to the conversation, or are you content at sitting behind your computer annoying a person you have seemingly no shared interests with who lives thousands of kilometers away? I implore you to reconsider your life.

>>4019916
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_mars#References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zubrin#Qualifications_and_professional_experience

>>4019907

I wasn't aware either mirrors or "Pick up stuff here, move to there" were concepts beyond our understanding.

>>4019917

Your "argument" amounts to: Magic will solve this. It's not even worth mocking such a position, merely by expressing it you make it clear to all what a fool you are.

>>4019869
>RGB Mars
>a real source

Man, I'm all for Mars colonization/terraforming but a fiction novel is always a crappy source, especially if you look at the time it was written and all available data at the time.

>>4019923

I'm aware of Zubrin. I'm not sure why you think an aerospace engineer has any professional insight into terraforming, but you've already demonstrated an astounding depth of stupidity so w/e I guess.

>>4019930
If you really feel that way, I suggest that you use your provably larger intellect to post a superior science thread where you call the shots, instead of attempting to derail an existing one.

>>4019929

And I wasn't aware that you lack even the most basic reading comprehension, but I guess you live and learn.

>>4019931
Ideas I have gotten from RGB Mars:
Nitrogen importation from Titan
Bioengineer algae for oxygen instead of using normal Earth algae
And I'm pretty sure that's it.

>>4019935
If there was ever a spokesperson for terraforming Mars, it'd likely be Zubrin.

>>4019935

Who exactly would be an 'expert' on a tachnology that doesn't exist yet?

Really everything anyone can suggest here would be theoretical. And assuming a longer timeframe means you also have to take technological innovations and refinements into account.

I'm not quite as optimistic as Inurdaes about the timeframe, but with advances I've seen projected, I can see a habitable Mars by 2300.

>>4019938

Here's the thing: If we can simply wish any technology we want into existence, then ANYTHING becomes not only possible but easy. But doing so immediately reduces your position to fantasy. That you can't see this is your tragedy, but your desire to see Mars terraformed within your lifetime has made a zealot of you.

>>4019946
>I'm not quite as optimistic as Inurdaes about the timeframe
My version of habitable is more along the lines of 'as habitable as base camp Mt. Everest.'

>>4019946

Chemists, biologists, ecologists, planetary scientists and ecological engineers would all have far more relevant expertise than some guy who designed aircraft. In fact, its hard to think of a LESS relevant specialty.

>>4019943
Naravno ako već pretpostavljaš infinite monies, možeš da vadiš nitrogen iz tla. It's all about efficiency. Alge bi bile neloša ideja, ili neke druge anaerobne bakterije koje bi co2 pretvarale u o2, ali to je već too far fetched.

>>4019947
The entire thread, you still haven't picked at exactly what you find so fantastical about simple automated systems that chew up asteroid rock and spit out reflective lightweight panels, which would be the most 'fantasy' aspect of such a project. Would you prefer we talk about TRANSFORMING AN ENTIRE PLANET'S BIOSPHERE with nuclear reactors over thousands of years? Or just spitting black dust over Mars to reduce its albedo?

>>4019941

Considering his posted 'plan' was more than half involving directing orbital mirrors to reflect sunlight unto the ice caps (which is relatively trivial) and the other parts are bioenginnered algae (which we already have, albeit not on that kind of scale) and an efficient Venus to Mars trasport system for gases (this is the part I'm assuming you're referring to, and the problem is an engineering one rather than 'magic') I'm not seeing anything that is beyond our understanding.

>>4019959
>automations that can be replicated over and over again is the key

Not very good at reading, are you?

>>4019954
His university degree doesn't have to dictate his expertise in the matter, just sayin'.

>>4019955
Ah, kako si gospodnje?

>>4019964

Do.. do you know the definition of automations? Because its pretty straightforward. Its an action repeated over and over. Mine rock, move rock to belt, extract resource, make panel, hurr durr. We can build robots that can do that.

Unless you think he meant "automatons" replicated over and over, which would be self-replicating robots, which is beyond us at this point simple because silicon chips are a high-maintenance process. In that case, I would agree that it would require input of external sources of chips and likely optics as well, with certain other fine-tuned parts.

>>4019970

True, but a big part of posing a credible argument is expertise. If you don't know what you're talking about, even the best argument in the world will fall to pieces under scrutiny.

>>4019955
>>4019970

Reported. Keep your moonspeak in >>>/int/

>>4019974
>Unless you think he meant "automatons" replicated over and over, which would be self-replicating robots, which is beyond us at this point simple because silicon chips are a high-maintenance process. In that case, I would agree that it would require input of external sources of chips and likely optics as well, with certain other fine-tuned parts.
I've never disputed this, even by 2035 we'd likely have to have exceptionally simple robots with extremely simple circuitboards, sensors and radio transmitters designed to be remotely operated by proper computer servers on Mars.

>>4019977

The obvious answer to that is to apply scrutiny and get opinions of people from different disciplines who have actually looked into the problem.

The 'have looked into the problem' thing is key. Just because you are trained ina discipline does not mean you are up to date on every theoretical aspect of it. The average ecological engineer might be less qualified than Zubrin to discuss terraforming if for no other reason than it falls outside his specialization.

>>4019986

Again true, but citing Zubrin as an authority when he is merely an enthusiastic amateur is mendacious.

>>4019991
Peer reviewed amateur.

>>4019997

Peer reviewed in a journal of Earth Science, or as an aerospace engineer?

>>4019970
Dali vi koristite gugl translejt ili vi, kako i ja, znate srpski?

>>4019991

He is also an engineer who has designed and tested devices which could be used in the initial setup of a Mars-based colony, which is more expertise on the topic than most ecological engineers, I'd wager.

But I'll agree that he is not an expert on the topic, because there are no experts on the topic. That is not a reason to dismiss his advice offhand however.

>>4019991
If you know of certain scientists that would have an even more in-depth knowledge of terraforming Mars than Zubrin, I'd love to hear it. So far terraforming IS science fiction simply because we don't yet have the technologies required to even start, so experts in the subject are pretty hard to come by. We still don't have complete readings of how much water ice is on Mars, nor the amount of volatiles that would come out in outgassing.

>>4020004
>kao i ja
selffix

>>4020004
Slab ti b/s/h kad ne razdvajaš 'da' i 'li'.

>>4020004
Ja znam Bosanski od mater, neznam kako da picem dobro, ali mogu precati bez puno difficulty.

>>4020016
Ja nisam dugo ziveo u srbiji, samo ot 5 do ~9 godina, zato ga se lose secam.
>>4020017
Ja sam u istoj situacii - absolutno ne secam se kako da ga pravilno pisem, samo otprilike znam kako da govorim na njemu.

>>4020017
>mater

Let's not derail the thread further.

What we need to have in order to stop speculating and start modelling are accurate information about the surface and air, which means a fucking landing and checking the soil and air in a lab. Until that has been done, all the terraforming talk is in face sci-fi.

>mfw anyone takes inurdaes' pseudo intellectual babble seriously

>>4020029
>
What we need to have in order to stop speculating and start modelling are accurate information about the surface and air, which means a fucking landing and checking the soil and air in a lab. Until that has been done, all the terraforming talk is in face sci-fi.

Agree 100%.

>Inurdaes
>16 years old
>apparent rocket scientist, astronomer, and astrobiologist

>>4020033
He might be 17 by now.

>>4020035
I am. I'd appreciate them calling me out on it if they actually contributed to the discussion worth a damn.

>>4020038
>inb4 b&

Delete your post.

>>4019854
Wait... Inurdaes is a unionist Yugo?!

Brofist from Greece.

So anyway, I've heard that in the beginning when the first waters begin running on Mars that any initial seas formed will be highly acidic/alkaline, anyone have anything to say on that?

>>4020029
>fact
Damnit.

>>4020022
>>4020017
Inurdaes je iz Melbourne (?), a ti serbian guy?
Vi ste sretni, ja sam još u ovoj shithole, ali se sljedeće godine nadam upisati na MIT Physics, imam dosta dobre šanse tamo.

>>4019886
Indeed. Most greenhouse gases are bound into the biological carbon circle.

Just expect the CO2 levels drop dramatically after the introduction of algae.

The pre-cambrian oxygen catastrophe and the cryogenian frostball earth give an indication of how radical effects on the climate photosynthesizing bacteria may cause.

>>4020070
I wish I lived in Melbourne.

Are we sure that mars has the capability of sustaining a 350 mBar atmosphere without continuously needing to pump CO2 into the planet?

The planet's gravity is rather weak compared to earth's, and the fact that it lacks a magnetic field capable of stopping solar winds from knocking gasses out of the atmosphere is a bit of a bugger.

>>4020027
>>4020033
You are trying too hard, anon.

>>4020076
Nah! English speaking countries are for national traitors and defectors.

>>4020029
> What we need to have in order to stop speculating and start modeling are accurate information about the surface and air, which means a fucking landing and checking the soil and air in a lab. Until that has been done, all the terraforming talk is in face sci-fi.

You're in the wrong intelligent species for that, guy. Violent simians, after all. We are backing away from space in order to conduct the Resource Wars. No real investment in manned interplanetary spaceflight is being made.

The choice is certainly yours, of course. You could ignore other social forces and just move towards those who are doing anything that you perceive as "advancement". Get ahold of SpaceX and other such organizations and pledge your support. Naturally, since you're not rich (no rich people waste their time on 4chan, much less /sci/), your support means you'll work for them, cheaply.

Of course, labor can only do so much. As long as these orgs depend on the huge resource costs of rocketry, they will always be highly dependent on the resource allocation system (i.e. national economy), therefore dependent on what the biases of the R.A.S. For example, the R.A.S. heavily biased towards short-term monetary profits. That's a huge barrier against resource allocation to benefit spaceflight.

>>4020072
>Snowball Mars
I can dig it.

>Are we sure that mars has the capability of sustaining a 350 mBar atmosphere without continuously needing to pump CO2 into the planet?
We're not sure of that at all, even with an artificial magnetic field we'd likely still have to generate extra gas as a constant low-level process due to Mars being volcanically dead. That is unless we maneuver Ceres into orbit around Mars to add some tidal flexing in the far, far future.

>The planet's gravity is rather weak compared to earth's, and the fact that it lacks a magnetic field capable of stopping solar winds from knocking gasses out of the atmosphere is a bit of a bugger.
It would still take millions of years before the loss in atmosphere becomes a problem, giving us ample time to address the problem.

>>4020077

Who cares? Keep smacking Mars with re-directed comets until the atmospheric pressure and heat capacity rises enough to be useful. If you want Mars, you're gonna have to bring it up to at least Arctic conditions with a light oxygen supplement, i.e. the conditions experienced by Himalayan mountain climbers.

>>4020085
Is your trolling still working here RedCream?
I can't exactly disagree with "No real investment in manned interplanetary spaceflight is being made" however.

>>4020086
>>Snowball Mars
>I can dig it.

What would be the point? That would be just like moving ice from the poles and substrata and the algae would into ded.

>>4020086
> We're not sure of that at all, even with an artificial magnetic field we'd likely still have to generate extra gas as a constant low-level process due to Mars being volcanically dead. That is unless we maneuver Ceres into orbit around Mars to add some tidal flexing in the far, far future.

Then go the distance and take a sizeable asteroid and smack it into Mars, driving significant volcanism from the massive impact caldera thus formed.

>>4020072
This. As far as I can see now, we'll first try to raise air pressure and temperature using CO2, which will both plummet after we introduce bacteria into environment . It'll take some careful planning to balance it all out to get to a human acceptable levels. Actually scratch that, it's a fucking nightmare to balance it all out. We need CO2 for temperature and pressure but eventually we want CO2 of <1%, temperatures bigger than -40C and fucking oxygen. COmputer modeling it is, but we don't even have the starting conditions.

>>4020077
Unfortunately, I'm aware of that and worse, I have no fucking idea. Magnetic field is what we need to establish there and that, right now, is completely impossible.

>>4020085
tl;dr we are screwed.
Inurdaes has a good idea what we should do; make it economically viable (god damnit) to go there. After first cheap LEO launch will come asteroid mining with profits and Mars colonization should follow.

Or yeah, I could get Bill-Gates rich and do all of it myself.

>talking about terraforming mars as a solution to environmental destruction on earth
>thinking that transforming a completely inhospitable planet is easier than reversing the slight damage we've done to the balance of our own atmospheric system
>MFW

>>4020096
Well, it's a step up from 'dust-everywhere' Mars.

>>4020100
Smacking Phobos into one of Mars' polar caps was an idea i held until quite recently. I don't think we could start volcanism without smacking something that would ruin most of the planet's allure for terraforming.

>>4020112
Wrong, we want to do both. Make every world into a healthy, stable garden world if we can.

>>4020113
How about shitloads of nukes deep into it?

>>4020125
>Fallout: Mars

>>4019961
I agree. Decreasing albedo is good.

But what options do we have from Mars' local minerals?

>>4020123
talk to me when you've read something beyond a 10th grade public school atmospheric science coursebook. I know it sounds good on the SciFi channel, but no serious adults are talking about this right now. Not trying to be a dick, just trying to get you to wise up. Part of growing up is learning how to prioritize your fantasies against things that actually matter.

Thank you.

>>4020125
I don't think anything short of a large quanitity of antimatter would start any meaningful volcanic processes on Mars.

I have heard from another anon a few weeks back that Mars' mantle and core are actually TOO HOT for a planetary magnetic field due to extra sulfur deep in the planet's interior, acting similarly how salt reduces the freezing point of water. Not sure if he's right though, but then again we know quite little about any planet's deep interior.

>>4020113
> I don't think we could start volcanism without smacking something that would ruin most of the planet's allure for terraforming.

That's the point. You have to break open the crust. This will take significant time scales, either way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Mars#Possible_plate_tectonics

Break the crust open and you'll get gaseous venting. It's at least worth modeling.

>>4020127
Even if we dig like really deep? : \

>>4020129
I would imagine all the options that Earth has, seeing as they have a fairly similar mix of elements. There are some deficiencies, such as lack of nitrogen in the soil though.

>>4020130
I have never said 'Let's drop all our problems facing us on Earth and go terraform Mars immediately.' And being condescending without proposing alternative topics to talk about would come off as 'being a dick' to quite a few people.

>>4020135
I was joking, nukes are better than antimatter that my colleague suggested - they are radioactive, which is what runs our own core, if I'm not mistaken. It's just that you'd need billions and billions of tons of uranium or plutonium to make it works. Seriously, the amount is ridiculous, not to mention getting it 3k kilometers into planet's core.

>>4020135
I'm sure if you had a large enough stockpile you could get a temporary volcano spewing out slightly-radioactive lava, but what we really need is the Tharsis volcanoes spewing out gas in vast quantities nearly every day. Something which thermonuclear detonation likely wouldn't accomplish for long.

>>4020134
>Break the crust open and you'll get gaseous venting. It's at least worth modeling.
If more studies are done on it and it's shown that it has a great chance of helping, I'm all for it.

>>4020137
question:
Why would somebody discuss other topics of discussion in a discussion dedicated to one topic of discussion?

Discuss.

>>4020143
Someone who hates the current topic and wishes to derail it.

>>4020070
Ja sam također još u ovom shitholeu od Balkana (iako, ja sam Hrvat). Inače, što se tiče tog upisivanja na MIT Physics, to misliš preddiplomski ili diplomski?

>>4020146
Jesmo se našli na 4chanu u pm. Diplomski, malko ambiciozno jeste, al imam dobre preporuke, rezultate s takmičenja, sve te pizdarije. Vrijedi pokušati, ako ništa, uvijek ima grad school.

>>4020148
what if discussing the current topic of discussion is as disgustingly retarded as the those who are discussing it? Could we discuss the shifting of the discussion to a better discussion topic, or should we end this discussion and discuss a better topic in a new thread deemed worthy of actual discussion?

>>4020156
If you feel that way, or if anyone else feels that way, I'd love for more science-related threads to be made.

HEY GUYS QUESTION
WHERE WOULD WE GET THE WATER FROM??? EARTH HAS SO MUCH WATER AND IF WE TAKE THE WATER FROM THE EARTH THAN EARTH WONT HAVE ANYMORE WATER AND AFRICANS WILL DIE.

WHERE WE GET WATER TO MAKE MARS EARTH? IF WE PUT ALL THE WATER FROM EARTH ON MARS THEN EARTH WOULDNT HAVE ANY WATER AND WE WOULD CALL MARS EARTH BECAUSE IT HAS WATER AND WE WOULD HAVE TO CALL EARTH MARS BECAUSE THERE ISNT ANY MORE WATER.

check mate.

>>4020167
You really cared enough to troll people you took 5 minutes to write that?

I used to too play the devil's advocate but goddamn everything regarding Mars and space exploration in general is so goddamn glorious

>>4020173
NO I ACTUALLY CARE ITS SERIOUS BUSINESS.

>>4020167
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars#Polar_caps

>>4020167
Uranus and Neptune have water in them. If we're going all the way to Mars, we might as well go extract their water while we're at it.

>>4020155
Ja namjeravam upisati preddiplomski za computer science, ali po onome što sam istraživao neće ići. Proklet bio ja i prokleta natjecanja iz matematike/informatike/etc, nisam išao na niti jedno pošto mi se nije dalo. A sada koliko sam skužio, ako nemam 1,2,3 mjesto u olimpijadi iz nekog od takvih predmeta praktički nema šanse da upadnem. Ista situacija za skoro pa bilo koji bolji fakultet u SAD-u ili UK-u-

Molim boga da nekako uspijem izvući iz Hrvatske i upisati na neki pristojan fakultet. Plače mi se sada.

>>4020190

WHAT IF MARS WATER HAS SPACE GERMS????
OR LIKE, WHAT IF IT TASTES LIKE TANG?
(I hear that if you become an astronaut, you become addicted to tang so it probably wouldn't be all bad)

>>4020196
Huh, do astronauts still regularly drink Tang?

did mars had plants at one time? if it had, and they died nearly all at once, would that mean theres a shitton of oil and coal on the mars?

>>4019790
> realistically, ...
> science fiction
get out

>>4020200
YEAH,
AND IF YOUR AN ASTRONAUT WHEN YOU GET BACK TO EARTH YOU HAVE TO PUT ALL YOUR FOOD IN A BLENDER BEFORE YOU CAN EAT IT FOREVER BECAUSE YOUR BODY MESTABLISMS CANT DIGEST SOLID FOOD ANYMORE UNLESS ITS SUPER FREEZE DRIED.

i know this becasue my dad was an astronaut then he went to space and it ruined my parents marraige because.

>>4020201
There is no knowledge of whether life once existed on Mars, but we're pretty sure there were no plants as Mars had habitable conditions for a maximum of about 2 billion years. There are some unaccounted outgassings of methane, suggesting microbial life may still exist in warm, humid volcanic vents.

>>4020210
I smiled.

mankind will destroy itself before inventing capable technology

>>4020252
Now, how many times has that been said in the past 100 years?

I'm pretty sure we're gonna stick around for a while longer.

>>4020252
NU-UH
THERE ARE REPTILIANS WITH THE POWER TO TRAVEL THROUGH THE EIGHTH DIMENSION TO GET TO MARS IN A BLINK OF YOUR EYE

ASK THE BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY OR PETER SELLERS

pic: related - its a documentary on the subject.

>>4020265
is that a cowboy jeff goldblum?

>>4020138
>billions and billions of tons of uranium or plutonium
can we mine it? is there suffient ammounts of them on Mars/asteroid belt?

I'm asking if it's even possible given that we have the technology for regular interplanitary travels.

>>4020285
We could, it's just fairly pointless.

>>4020259
>we
you misspelled Americans

We all know that when the American economy collapses the U.S. will deny to pay its debts to China and initiate the WW3 by nuking every nation not having a direct puppet government of the U.S.

Only Australia may survive because they suck their cock in a regular base.

>>4020299
Good to know our cocksucking with lead to Australian dominance over a radioactive planet.

>>4020285
How about a comparison - imagine all amount of iron ever mined in human history. Yeah, couple hundred times more. I mean, sure, we could theoretically find an asteroid with a large % of uranium ore, somehow slam it into a huge hole in mars and expect it to work. I have no fucking idea if it would, in any amount of time. Again, I'm by no means qualified, this is purely my own speculation, AFAIK it's completely impossible.

>>4020303
>implying Australia will not be rendered uninhabitable by man due to Fallout-like mutations in its already homocidal fauna

>>4020303
Sorry but slavs will be exterminated with extreme prejudice by the established Aryan Imperium.

You know it to be true.

>>4020193
Fora je što imaš šanse da upadneš sve dok imaš scores preko minimuma (gledaju ti TOEFL i SAT više nego srednju). Jebiga, ako i ja ne upadnem, u još sam goroj situaciji nego ti. Ima i ovdje dobrih profesora, meni inače predaje profesor fizike koji je prije par godina otkrio neke potpuno nove formule u području magnetizma, zvali ga u USA da odradi neku prezentaciju + nagradu da dobije, on ih poslo u PM i reko im da dođu oni njemu ako ih šta interesuje. Nećeš ostat' glup, al nećeš baš ni proslavit se kao prvi čovjek na marsu. Takav grah pao.

>>4020328
>implying slavs arent white as fuck
>implying majority of slavs aren't with fair hair and blue eyes
Nigga wat.

>>4020299
Considering that the US government itself is a puppet government for american corporate interests, they'll probably nuke themselves too, leaving the chinese and iranian nuclear forces with the dilemma of what to do with a lot of nukes that suddenly have no targets.

>>4020343
>>4020343
Sorry. Not my rules.

>>4020343
>Nigga wat.
>implying Nazi eugenics theories have to make sense.

>>4020345
>they'll probably nuke themselves too

Why would they do that when the majority of the American population has proven that are easily bent to their will and when they can even exterminate entire groups that opposse them?

Why should they dig their own holes when they have an ever-ready reserve of cheap slaves to do their chores?

>>4020358
>implying I implied that
Sorry bro but it's just that anglo-saxons perceive only themselves and germanics as true "white" while the rest are considered subhumans.

If the American society was to accept a global genocide of non-americans the best way to enforce a power core would be a traditional nationalistic pseudo-democratic regimee based on the racial identity of the majority/ruling class.

>>4020366
If the population becomes redundant, why keep it around.

>>4020399
More people + more education = intelligent, creative, inventive populace.

>>4020213
> There are some unaccounted outgassings of methane, suggesting microbial life may still exist in warm, humid volcanic vents.

If we'd attempt to terraform, then it would be necessary in several moral and technical dimensions to first sample those microbial populations.

>>4020429
It's likely they'd be exceptionally well adapted to their environment, so even if we terraformed Mars they'd likely stay where they are quite unaffected by terrestrial life. Even if we find microbial life, I reckon a section of the planet should be sealed off and kept at a pre-terraformed stage, ensuring we have a sanctuary while we use the rest of Mars. Are we seriously going to go hands off because of a few bacteria?

>>4020409
Did I say that that was my opinion?
I know that's how many of the elite think.

>>4020447
>I know that's how many of the elite think.
Maybe...maybe we should replace the elite?

>>4020358
Yeah, it's just that one could distinguish a person as a slav just based on looks. You could nuke poland or russia, but you couldn't kill all the slavs in other countries if they are smart enough not to raise hand if a nazi asks 'are there any slavs here'.

>>4020471
Slavs are not white. They are part Mongol. You can easily tell them apart.

>>4020457
Yes, well, that is the problem. The elite tend to have clear goals that they aim towards, and the economical muscle to make little problems like people and opinions go away.

Why would anyone want to terraform Mars? If we have the technology to do that we have the technology to live on Mars indefinitely. Also if they ever find life on Mars its almost guaranteed to be a refuge for protected life.

>The images in this thread.

Inurdaes and me should write a science fiction novel.

>>4020486
Life has always terraformed worlds. Earth's blue sky was formed by early bacteria and algae. And a blue garden Mars is preferable to a red dead Mars.

Also, terraforming is nice and all, but being a posthuman-level intelligence distributed over Moon-sized computing cores all over the galaxy and occasionally sending pressure-proof, heat-proof, water-proof, time-proof robots to some worlds is better.

>>4020490
nonfiction or go away and never come back!

>>4020497
Yep.

>>4020520
I remember reading this, it's fantastic.

>>4020526

That Ringworld looks natural. And therefore unstable as shit.

Ökay, well, it's actually a Banks.

>>4020532
It's more of a O'Neill ring.

Where's that picture snapped from? Looks boss as fuck.

>>4020475
ihavenoreactionimageforastatementlikethat.jpg

To be fair to Inurdaes with the whole sources thing; sure you shouldn't really quote fiction as a scientific source, but Arthur C Clarke's science fiction writings (see Profiles of the Future, published in PlayBoy in the 60s, back when it was actually a magazine with words) inspired many great real-world technological advances. Cryogenic freezing for one. And the doors to modern NASA pods. He also predicted the Internet as a "library of every book ever written on your televsion set". This was in about 1969.

The most realistic estimates I have heard are that terraforming Mars, to sustain the diversity of life of the Earth, is impossible because it is too far from the Sun. If we terraformed Mars it would most likely look like the highlands in the western half of South America or some of the highlands of Africa. Definitely not a garden.

Cold, thin atmosphere, and low gravity are a given at it's current orbit and mass.

>>4020490
> Inurdaes and me should write a science fiction novel.

Oh, just fuck already.

>>4020538

>It's more of a O'Neill ring.

... What?

>Where's that picture snapped from? Looks boss as fuck.

Pretty sure I took it from you.

>>4020548
If you add sunlight, it becomes less of a problem. Suuure, you could take the less complicated, far longer route of using what energy input you've gotten to change Mars into Northern Siberia, but that's no fun.

>>4020548

Terraformation engineering implies the ability to setup solar mirrors to enhance insolation.

>>4020548
Depends on the kind of garden you want. I personally prefer the taiga to any jungle or savannah.

>>4020553

>Not furry

Eeewwww 3:

>>4020559
Ringworld implies huge as fuck terraformed ring, this is more of a large thin O'Neill cylinder, hence O'Neill ring. I don't know if there's a particular name for that type of rotating space habitat so I made up O'Neill ring.

>Pretty sure I took it from you.
Nope. Never seen it before.

>>4020553
Oh you.

>>4020573

>>4020597

Why has this thread turned into Colonel Coffee Mug and Inurdaes licking each others' assholes?
I'm one of the few anons who actually like you guys, no problem with namefags in principle, and you both seem to have interesting imput most of the time (same can't be said for people like EK) but this is just sad. Go add each other on facebook if you want to do this.

>>4020693
I've been waiting for more terraforming-related posts to respond to. Circlejerking helps bump the thread.

>>4020693
>licking each others' assholes?
You sound mad. U jelly?

>>4020703
I aint even mad. Just upset.

An idea just occurred to me.
How much copper and/or aluminum is there in the martian crust?

In case we never get our space shit together enough to build solettas or solar mirrors around Mars, the only sufficiently powerful energy source would be the relatively abundant thorium.

Dot the landscape with thousands of thorium reactors, built on the more stable ground and with copper heatpipes leading from them to the most promising permafrost layers.

>>4020748
People are constantly underestimating the amount of joules required to warm up trilions of tons of permafrost by just one degree kelvin.

>>4020763
This. You would require MILLIONS of LFTRs, which would likely use up Thorium available on Mars within a century while barely denting the problem.

>>4020763
giant terawatt space lasers and ion cannons

>>4020763
> People are constantly underestimating the amount of joules required to warm up trilions of tons of permafrost by just one degree kelvin.

That's why giant space mirrors and time, are the only rational (i.e. economic) solution. These mirrors would OF COURSE need to be constructed by an asteroidal mining civilization.

>>4020763
Take ten trillion tonnes of ice, heat one kelvin. Takes 41.8EJ.
The fissioning of every atom in a kilogram of Pu239 gives you 77TJ (non-neutronic).
So that would be 543 tonnes of plutonium.

So to raise ten trillion tonnes of ice from 149K up to 273K would take approximately 67 kilotonnes of Pu239.

Mind, that's calculated with no losses, but then, I'm no engineer.

>>4020847
I would hazard a guess that we would need to heat up far more than ten trillion tonnes of ice. That sounds like it would barely fill the bottom of Valles Marineris.

>>4020813
Lemme just calculate this shit for y'all. If we take that we'd like to heat mars up to 5km deep (which is realistic enough), we'd need to heat up 4.213×10^8 km^3 of soil. According to [1], let's use 1.1 MJ/m^3. That amounts up to 4.634×10^17 MJ. Now, that's a fuckton of energy.

2.816×10^10 watts is how much mars receives erry second. Wanna calculate further?

>>4020867
>every atom
E=mc^2
Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Hence the trollpic.

>>4020874
This. I just got interested to see the reaction. Especially as I've been asked (non-trollingly) how Mars could be heated up since there's no oil. (check-mate, terraformers!)

>>4020896
It does work that way. You give me 65 kilotons of plutonium, I'll add 65 kilotons of antiplutonium.
Checkmate trolls.

>>4020904
6/10 I laughed.

Maybe we should leave Mars alone
best not to wake the Demons

>>4020520
Anny more realistic scifi? Preferably books? That was brilliant.

>>4020978
Ontopic: RGB Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

>>4020978
That and more in here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?jwk3pqfl0vqsq7v

And then some others:
http://www.mediafire.com/?216aaf8djqozy5z
http://www.mediafire.com/?rjp1uhmtb97w9b2
http://www.mediafire.com/?fe9zpxhpy5h8ehr
http://www.mediafire.com/?b1zzelt87s79m57
http://www.mediafire.com/?lnfx5wof3na5b2n
http://www.mediafire.com/?20e0oskgv4c7obb
http://www.mediafire.com/?t4eqe5nfc2m9nu9

Ask if Colonel is still here, he's got links to more.

>>4021014
Oops, left out one of the more (partially-)realistic ones.
http://www.mediafire.com/?wpn11d4rvojzdj0

>>4021014
>All those links
Is there a Firefox extension for downloading multiple Mediafire links at once? I will break whoever suggests Downthemall.

>>4021150
I dunno, I have a macro on mouse that does it for me.

>>4021193
> 2011
> not using vimperator

are people just ignoring that fact that the planet did have an atmosphere once but lost it due to an inactive core?

first make the planet spin faster or move it closer to the sun, then worry about giving it an atmosphere

>>4021199
>make the planet spin faster
I lol'd. Mars has a 24 hour, 39 minute day.
By reflecting extra sunlight onto Mars with orbital mirrors, outgassing of CO2 from permafrost areas would create a greenhouse effect, warming up the planet further and causing more outgassing. This has already been covered in the thread if you bothered to read it.

>>4021014

>www.mediafire.com/?t4eqe5nfc2m9nu9
>Cordwainer Smith

SCI FIVE BRO!

Recommended reading:

The Diamond Age: Machine phase nanotechnology.
House of Suns: Awesome galactic-scale space opera.
Permanence: Colonization of worlds around brown dwarf stars
Flowers for Algernon: Cognitive enhancement of a retard
Permutation City: Theory of Computation taken to it's craziest logical conclusion.
The Rediscovery of Man: One of the few books I cared enough to order.
The Wreck of the River of Stars: Magnetic sail in distress.
And: Blindsight, Diaspora, Engines of Creation (lol scifi), etc.

>>4021150
Flashgot + Jdownloader = win

>>4021150
might as well try this:
http://godownloadsongs.com/skipscreen/

>>4021199
If you're going to be saying that it's useless to terraform Mars because the atmosphere would be lost over time, then gtfo.

>>4021205
I was going to argue until i saw
>>4021212
>If you're going to be saying that it's useless to terraform Mars because the atmosphere would be lost over time, then gtfo.
and realized you're all a bunch of pipe dreaming retards

this is almost as bad as the realistic gundam threads on /m/

>>4021206

Oh, and how could I forget!

The entire Requiem for Homo Sapiens series by David Zindell.

>>4021229

You do realize the atmosphere will be lost over millions of years, yes?

>>4021229
I'd prefer Mars' atmosphere not be lost after we replenish it, and if we can do fantastical things such as entire orbital mirror arrays, it's not much of a stretch to conceive of an artificial planetary magnetic field.

>>4021239
>if we can do fantastical things such as entire orbital mirror arrays
Hint: we can't.

>>4021229
Yes, to you it must be useless to get the planet into a habitable state for a few million years.

Or are you one of those people who think the atmosphere will just whoooosh! disappear as soon as the first airwell starts producing?

>>4021236
you do realize creating an atmosphere would just as long?

you're trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom, it's fucking retarded, fix the hole, then fill the bucket

>>4021250
Hint: Not yet.

>>4021262

>you do realize creating an atmosphere would just as long?

What? What are you talking about? Do you think the terraformation of Mars would consist of me and Inurdaes sitting at a scanning tunneling microscope, manually changing the composition of the atmosphere?

"Millions of years"? Yeah, not when you have an exponential manufacturing capability, the construction of the terraformers is shortened hugely, and then it's just a simple matter of energy. And we have the energy, it's out there, and our reach of it is only determined by our ingenuity and the political/economic climate.

But there's enough energy for just about anything. Yes, we can terraform Mars within a century employing chemistry aggressive enough to kill down to the last human living on its surface before the projecti s complete.

You realize that nature suprisingly fast steps up with new mutations who outgun humanity?

Allready the continent humanity inhabitated the longest is crawling with highly adaptive diseases, and species who adapted theselves to the hostile conditions human setlements represent.

Why would you make your escape to space (you need a space elevator to get the cargo for multiple mars missions into orbit) just to get yourself dumped again in some mudhole, soon to be crawling with hostile bioweaponized semi-intelligent creatures?

Ambrosia growing at your doorstep, toxic algea in your river, ravens at your dumpster, your dog clever enough to distinct between object classes, and you worry about getting into a new run on the same shitty situation?
I envy you for your ilusions.

>>4021264
Won't even bother pointing out the shit we'd need to to to engineer an artificial magnetic field. It'd be easier to just restart the core, which was shown next to impossible ITT.

>>4021258
Hint: We won't press a button and suddenly pressure has increased 15 times. It'll take long ass time, during which it will deteriorate further.

ITT: Kids doing science using theoretical devices.

We might as well call Gordon Freeman, zero point energy gun is just as relevant as nanobot self replicating organisms.

>>4021300
OR WE CAN JUST BUILD SPACE COLONIES USING MOBILE SUITS

>>4021292
>thinks restarting a moon-sized FeNi core thousands of kilometers down is easier than superconducitng rings embedded in the crust

>>4021300
>zero point energy gun is just as relevant as nanobot self replicating organisms.
It's gravity gun and I believe the latter already exists in a form. It's usually called 'life.'

>>4021285
Are you this guy?

>>4021307
>superconducitng rings embedded in the crust
Yeah, no.

>It's gravity gun and I believe the latter already exists in a form. It's usually called 'life.'
Deep shit bro, you should write a poem. We usually don't call microbes 'nanobots' where I'm at.

Oh yeah, it's zero point energy field manipulator, if you wish to be precise.

>>4021325
I was stating that one is easier than the other. If we can change the biosphere of an entire planet to suit us, it's not much of a stretch to suggest that similar replicating automated systems be used for construction of such an artificial magnetic field generator.

Another thing, we weren't talking about nanobots, but macro-scale robots.

you need mass to have an atmosphere, there's a reason asteroids and most moons don't have atmospheres, they don't have enough mass

terraforming the planet mars is just as ridiculous as terraforming our own moon

>>4019790
However long it takes for us to build enclosed 'bio-domes', which would be a minimum of... I think 5-8 years to build all the parts, give or take about a year to get all of it in space if you send it as you build, followed by 8 months travel time, then about a year or 2 to construct, not counting that you couldn't build for the full year or 2 non stop due to resource management IE workers having sufficient food and air, THEN to get the oxygen and pressure levels internally balanced, AND oxygen PRODUCTION for the intended population size, Plus the 8-month to 2-years to get that population to said bio-dome...

That's a while, but it could happen before we're to old to survive the trip. the current 15-30 year old generation could be the first people to live, and eventually die of old age, on mars.

>>4021359
Mars has 0.376Gs, enough to hold an atmosphere for millions of years even without a magnetic field.
Venus has 0.88Gs, yet is at 90 atmospheres of pressure, gets hit by far more solar wind and has no magnetic field. It doesn't mean that Earth can hold less atmosphere.

And what's wrong with terraforming the moon?

So...after its been done, what will the geography be like? Will there be islands? Will the be nations, do you think? I'm more interested in the anthropological side of it.

>>4021359
It would have been easier and faster to truncate that to just
>I have no idea about the topic.
Or just, you know, not post anything.

>>4021366
>doesn't consider the mass of the atmosphere he wants to contain
>doesn't take into consideration that venus has much more mass and has a different kind of atmosphere than what we need
>thinks terraforming the moon is plausible


gb2fantasyland

>>4021375
One Mars. No nations, but rather states which have their own way of doing things. A federalist planet if you will.

>>4021382
the topic is REALISTICALLY how long would it take to be habitable

and realistically speaking, it will never happen

>>4021386
We want a CO2 atmosphere. Mars receives less than 47% the sunlight Earth does, about the same percentage of solar wind. It's not an intractable problem, stop pretending it is.

>>4021408
>realistically speaking, people will never go to the moon
>- Some anon pre-1960

It's impossible.
It's just a wet dream of scientists who are too optimistic.
This rock is all we'll ever have.

>>4021433

>>4021420
>baww he won't let me wank to my retarded child fantasy

>>4021435
What a well thought-out point.

>>4021443
no better than yours

now go watch red planet for 112th time loser

>>4021449
I watched that once, pretty good, besides that somehow there's no water on Mars yet a completely breathable atmosphere by 2050.

>>4021449
>no better than yours
>not "no worse than yours"
freudian slip?

colonizing mars is silly
.

>>4021547
COLONIZING AMERICA IS SILLY

Reviving.

we should voice the sci comic and take it to youtube

I think it's better to colonize objects like Ceres with attaching them to O'Neill habitats.
Less Gravity Well, easy access to water etc.