/sci/ - Science & Math

Naked Mole Rats can tolerate very high CO2 levels, don't age, live in arid conditions, feel no pain, and are immune it cancer.

Some fur might help with the cold. We shall call them The Not So Naked Mole Rats of Mars!

>>4169238
>Naked Mole Rats can tolerate very high CO2 levels, don't age, live in arid conditions, feel no pain, and are immune it cancer.
Sounds like we could send them up right now and they would do fine. Jesus Christ.

>>4169230
>Nuclear power plants on Mars
What would be used to cool the core? There's no water!

>>4169243
Astounding little bastards aren't they.

>>4169244
I don't know much about the topic, but I believe I've heard about liquid metals doing the job nicely in place of water. It could be pumped under ground where it warms the ground and cools the coolant.

>>4169230
>splice
>colony far from any other form of civilization
Rapture on Mars?

>terraforming Mars
My body is ready.

Pressure is laughably low on Mars. The stuff needs to be tolerant to a lack of atmosphere.

>>4169244
molten rock

>>4169267
Tents yo.

>>4169267
This thread is about the terraformation of Mars. No animal or plant could survive on Mars currently, obviously. I was talking about introducing animals and plants after we have thickened the Martian atmosphere so that air pressure is tolerable in certain valleys in the lower Northern hemisphere.

>high CO2 concentrations
>30 pascal PPCO2
I don't think so.

>>4169294
Yes, most of Mars atmosphere is CO2. What's your problem again?

bump

>>4169283
Yeah, but made out of what? It's got to be clear, flexible, and durable.

>>4169357
Saran wrap.
Transparent aluminum.
Glass.
Bulletproof plastic.
Silicone.
Albino leather.

>>4169363
WAT

>>4169363
It also has to block ionizing radiation. We have no transparent, flexible materials which do that.

>>4169321
I think the problem people have is that Mars has like .001 bar.

So saying it has much of anything in the atmosphere is dumb.

>>4169370
Things that are transparent.

>>4169373
>It also has to block ionizing radiation.
No, it doesn't. Higher cancer rates among the animal and plant species doesn't make life impossible.

Also, how about a layer of ozone in between tent layers?

>>4169357
>clear
Why?
Who fucking needs sunlight?
Live underground in caves bitches!
Light is the enemy!
Darkness is your friend!

>>4169373
>>4169370
>>4169363
Let's shy away from discussing tents to discussing large scale terraformation. Once the dry ice has sublimated, atmospheric pressure should be well above current levels and tolerably so in the lowest elevations. Once algae and some yet determined plants have produced enough oxygen, animals could be introduced.

>>4169394
>implying plants can grow without any sunlight
We are talking about introducing plant and animal life to Mars broseph.

>>4169400
Why?
Are certain types of life inherently superior?
FUCK NO!
CAVES FO LIFE SON!

>>4169395
>"Tents, bitches! Made of Saran wrap!"
>everyone explains why that only works in scifi
>"Let's shy away from discussing tents"

Gee I wonder why.

>>4169404
We are building an ecosystem here, not the solar system's biggest meat locker.

>>4169409
Why do you want an ecosystem on the surface?
What possible benefit do you get that you wouldn't from MOTHERFUCKING CAVE BEASTS?

>>4169405
>mfw you don't understand that more than two people can post on an anonymous board at any one time

>>4169400
LED grow lamps, nuclear powered. Use waste heat to keep the air warm. Sealing and pressurizing lava tubes is the only realistic method for creating large livable enclosures on Mars with existing tech without bankrupting the world. Why bring a tin can when you can have more space for less money? It's free radiation shielding, ample space for farming and you will need mines anyway.

Here's an idea!
>surface covered in self replicating manufacturing and mining plants
>deep excavation tunnels abandoned after the resources dry out are repurposed as habitats run by the excess materials and power produced from the factories and powerplants
POTYAY

>>4169238
But what predator will we introduce to save our precious tubers from the Not So Naked Mole Rat of Mars menace?

The same animals that were in Noah's ark. Pic related.

>>4169321
>Herpderp my brain can't comprehend concentration and partial pressure
Concentration of CO2 on Mars is less than that on Earth. Terraforming advocates like to talk about "thickening" Mars' atmosphere, but they never really propose a credible way to do this, nor do they consider that whatever they "thicken" it with might not be CO2.

>>4169418
>LED grow lamps, nuclear powered.
>implying the we are going to cover the entire planet with nuclear lit dome
This is terraformation, not us building one hydroponics facility.

>>4169434

Mar's doesn't even have enough gravity to hold a thicker atmosphere. Any thicker and it leaks out to space. We would have to turn it into a greenhouse rather than make it thicker

>Concentration of CO2 on Mars is less than that on Earth
LOL! No, no it isn't. Most of Earth's atmosphere is nitrogen, not CO2.

>>4169438
>Mar's doesn't even have enough gravity to hold a thicker atmosphere.
>Mar's
>planet Mar
Who let the Australians on.

FUCK IT ALL, INVERT THE PLANET!
IT'S GLOBUS CASSUS TIME BITCHES!

>>4169446
AH HELL YEAH!
Alternatively, use it to build a matroska brain around uranus.
Or even a Dyson swarm!

>>4169437
You grossly misunderstood. I proposed no such thing. I was describing a subterranean lava tube, sealed with an airlock entrance, lit by LED, heated to comfortable levels and pressurized to 1 atmosphere. Plants would thrive on the rich CO2, gradually turning it to oxygen. When an appropriate mixture is achieved we add in animals to establish a balance of CO2 production/absorption, likewise with oxygen.

>>4169438
>Any thicker and it leaks out to space.
You do realize every planet loses atmosphere to space, don't you?

And Mars had a thick enough atmosphere for liquid water oceans. How do you figure that happened if Mars atmosphere was blown away overnight?

>>4169455
That is hardly terraformation.

>>4169438
This.

It's commonly known that if you add any air to the martian atmosphere, the martian magic will make it all jump clear off the planet and dissipate in the æther wind.

Also, how can your spaceship even puncure through the crystal domes covering Earth and Mars.

>>4169462
I never claimed otherwise.

>>4169454
>>4169446
Megascale engineering thread?
Megascale engineering thread!

Fuck terraforming, let's just build cities there already. We don't have to go outside. Anyone on 4chan should know that. We don't need to do anything but mostly prevent leakage.

>>4169462
But at least it's viable.

>>4169444
You're pretty retarded, you know that? The "small" amount of CO2 in our atmosphere is still more than Mars' ENTIRE atmosphere.

>>4169471
>implying terraformation isn't viable
I mad

>>4169474
Who is more retarded, the retard, or the man who learns what concentration means from the retard?

>>4169446
>>4169446
>>4169446
>>4169446
>>4169446
>>4169446
>>4169446
>>4169446
This. It's the only practical option.

>>4169470
If Mars isn't terraformed then an economic depression could lead to the death of every human on Mars. Terraformation would allow humans to exist naturally on Mars if the shit ever hit the fan. That is the entire benefit of colonizing other worlds, redundancy.

>>4169454
not how matroshka brains work

>>4169456
Whatever the conditions were, they're different now. the speculation I have heard suggests that the number of cometary impacts and a stronger magnetosphere account for the likely wet/warm phases on mars. Unless you fix the problems that lead to a cold, 'dry' mars, you aren't addressing the real problem.

>>4169475
I'm sorry reality upsets you so.

>>4169482
>inverting an entire planet
>practical
Holy shit what?

>>4169486
>not how matroshka brains work
Jupiter brain foo
Mars would be enough to make it.

Don't use a term if you mean a different one.

>>4169486
The 'real problem' is Mars' lack of a buffer gas, not lost of atmosphere to space. It took MILLIONS if not BILLIONS of years for Mars to go from oceans to vacuum, and that was with the help of collisions blowing portions of the atmosphere into space.

If it takes millions of years to lose any appreciable amount of atmospheric pressure then it is a nonissue considering we would have added most of Mars atmosphere within the span of thousand if not hundreds of years.

>>4169504
I forgot the name and then remembered it after you said the other one.
same difference.

>>4169487
You haven't even given an argument against terraformation. What made you think anyone would believe you?

>>4169479
Concentration is not percentage, dipshit. Concentration is amount per unit volume. One liter of Earth air has more CO2 than one liter of Martian air. Earth's atmosphere has a higher concentration of CO2 than Mars'. Mars' atmosphere does not have a "high" concentration of CO2 by any proper measure.

>>4169517
>dipshit
pic related

It's already been discussed itt but I'll go over it again for your sake. The topic of the thread is the step at which animal and planet life is introduced to Mars in its terraformation process. That means the atmospheric pressure would have already have been increased to near Earth levels in the lowest Martian elevations. Most of that gained atmosphere would of course be from the dry ice of the Martian ice caps, ergo high CO2 concentration.

>>4169514
Why should anyone believe it's possible to TRANSFORM A WHOLE FUCKING PLANET when mankind quite literally has no viable means of doing so?

>>4169487
See OP's pic.

>>4169539
>That means the atmospheric pressure would have already have been increased to near Earth levels in the lowest Martian elevations.
How? You gonna rub a lamp and wish for the genie to make Mars' atmosphere thicker?

Tardigrades up in this bitch.

Also lichen, d. radiodurans, some of the halophiles. We already have a starter biology kit for Mars.

No animals only algae and tumor grown meat forever until we get robot bodies.

God sex will be amazing with robot bodies.

>>4169540
There are a number of methods to terraform Mars.

Solar mirrors
Covering ice caps in black powder
Super greenhouse gas production
Moholes in place of volcanic activity
Meteoroid redirection into Martian atmosphere
NUKES

Simply melting the ice caps would cause a runaway warming that we would ride for a few centuries while helping it along.

>>4169551
What exactly do tardrigrades do ecologically? What role would they fill aside from standing in the corner, wearing sunglasses, and looking awesome?

>>4169545
See
>>4169559

>>4169551
Your name within the confines of this thread is henceforth Awesome Poster.

First Insect On Mars: Grylloblattidae

>>4169559
The good news is that just heating the atmosphere a little would cause a lot of out gassing in the regolith. Set up some bacterium that will eat up ammonia deposits and release nitrogen once you have anything like a hydrological cycle going FTW.

A mix of solar mirrors, lichen, CFC factories and bacterium are the way to go. It's a long term project, but a worthy one.

>>4169585
>Set up some bacterium that will eat up ammonia deposits
Ammonia deposits? Those don't exist. At least I don't think they exist.

How long would we have to wait to introduce cyanobacteria? Would the increasing water vapor in the atmosphere make up for the loss of some CO2 as a greenhouse gas?

>>4169559
>Solar mirrors
Tell you what, when there are enough mirrors on EARTH to cover all of Eurasia, THEN we can start talking about putting all those in space.
>Covering ice caps in black powder
>Super greenhouse gas production
>Moholes in place of volcanic activity
Plausible. Not today, but if further investigation checks out, the technology could potentially exist within our lifetimes.
>Meteoroid redirection into Martian atmosphere
>NUKES
A pointless drop in the bucket. Both are actually more likely to push things in the wrong direction.

In any case, how much volatiles are there on the ice caps? This is a simple reality check that is very much needed before any further efforts are wasted on the notion.

>>4169599
Bad idea. Instead of an oxygen crisis, the planet would simply run out of atmosphere as the remaining oxygen was absorbed into the crust. Then you'd have nothing.
NOTHING

Much better to just thicken the CO2 and be happy with being able to walk around in nothing but an oxygen mask.

>>4169598
We haven't found them yet, but haven't really been looking. What we know of planetary formation says that they almost certainly exist however, as Mars would have had a large amount of nitrogen before the hydrological cycle shut down. The nitrogen would probably end up in ammonia deposes in areas that used to be wet. It's worth noting that small amounts of ammonia has been detected in the Martian atmosphere, so we know there is at least some being released by some process. (Ammonia, like Methane, doesn't stick around in the air long.)

>>4169603
Superscale mirrors are much, much easier to build in space. I'm.. kind of surprised someone needs to tell you that. But you can build a mirror in space out of micron-thick Mylar suspended by a skeletal frame. On earth, natural forces and gravity would shred it.

>>4169607
At some point there has to be a tipping point where oxygen can be added to the atmosphere. I'm not saying it's in the first 100 years, but with a sufficiently thick atmosphere to drive most of the soil-bound CO2 free it seems like a shift could be made to an oxygenated atmosphere. Otherwise we can't release animals and conventional plants to the surface anyway.

>>4169603
>Solar Mirrors
They would be microscopically thick sheets of aluminum produced en masse via vapor deposition. Supplies from Earth to Mars would be sent with solar sails which would then be converted into solar mirrors in the Lagrange points.

> Meteoroid impacts
Meteroids carry a lot of energy and a lot of important compounds. Burning them up in the atmosphere would spread those compounds across mars and introduce a lot of needed thermal energy, and all that is required is a nudge in the right direction.

>>4169622
Mars has too much dirt and too little oxygen. The fact is that a sustainable oxygenated atmosphere could never be achieved like we have on Earth. Earth had a LOT of CO2 to start out with (like, almost Venus-tier); Mars doesn't have that luxury. The atmosphere would be gone before the crust became oxygen-saturated.

>>4169626
>Reads too much sci-fi
Reality called. Said it hasn't heard from you in a long time and would like to get caught up.

>>4169634
Moholes could be dug to release gasses into the atmosphere in place of geothermic activity.

I think I heard something about covering large swathes of Mars in a permafrost and then covering that with Martian regolith to hinder the Martian regolith's oxygen absorption. Only the regolith above the permafrost would be oxygenated. The rest would be cut off by the permafrost layer. And it wouldn't have to be done with giant dump trucks hauling regolith and ice around. We could just pump water to the required depth... just an idea mind you.

>>4169635
I would have respected you more if you had simply said you were still skeptical but lacking a counterargument.

>>4169475
it isn't

>>4169658
Then argue against all the methods mentioned in this thread else be damned to a state of minority opinion.

>>4169658
See OP's pic.

>>4169658
Imagine the extent to which we could alter Earth's environment if we actually tried. We could plunge this planet into an ice age or melt the ice caps if we actually tried. Now realize that the same could be done to Mars.

>>4169650
Every single step of arranging a fucking planet-sized space mirror (even if it's broken into an array) is going to be a complete fucking nightmare - from production, to launch, to maneuvering and stationkeeping. You'd have to be delusional not to see that. It's also a case of the Kessler syndrome just waiting to happen.

As for the impacts, that's just a case of extremely poor perspective on your part. If you compare the amount of energy of an impact event with the solar energy to fall on Mars in, say... a week, you'll quickly see that the heat directly produced by an asteroidal impact is not going to have any long-term effects (other matters, however, such as global dimming due to aerosols churned up by the impact, will - but in the WRONG DIRECTION).

>>4169672
>We could plunge this planet into an ice age or melt the ice caps if we actually tried.
>Dat massive, blind leap of faith

>>4169704
>he's never heard of AGW or Nuclear Winter

>>4169738
>2011
>Still believing in nuclear winter

Terraforming...

How do 1000 billion tons of gaseous atmosphere?

>>4169738
>10 days before 2012
>still believing in AGW

>>4169697
>launch
Well THERE'S your problem. It will be made in space from space materials. There will be nothing to launch. Huge mirrors could be made with relative ease in Earth's Lagrange points using vapor deposition. The number of solar sail driven shipments to Mars would build up a substantial array of mirrors over the centuries.

>Kessler syndrome
This project wouldn't be any different than one of the countless other things happening in space once space based industrial infrastructure has become self-sufficient. To argue a project is impossible due to Kessler syndrome is to argue colonizing space is impossible.

>the heat directly produced by an asteroidal impact is not going to have any long-term effects
1) As you know, it will be one of many techniques used to terraform Mars.
2) It's not just about the energy, as I said. It's about the compounds within the meteoroids.
3) The objects would not be impacting the surface of Mars. They would be burnt up in the Martian atmosphere, using several incremental passes if need be. If the meteoroid couldn't be burnt up given its composition then it simply wouldn't be used in this manner.

>>4169761
What decade are you from broseph?

climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockToonSciAmJan2010.pdf

>>4169766
Sure is troll in here all of a sudden.

>>4169778
>Space manufacturing fixes everything
Uh, NO, it doesn't. Sure, you've eliminated one of the more difficult steps, but you've just made another step (manufacturing) about 10000 times harder. And the issues of navigating into a suitable position, stationkeeping, and orienting and focusing these planet-sized mirrors all remain.
> To argue a project is impossible due to Kessler syndrome is to argue colonizing space is impossible.
Not even close, because the common spacecraft doesn't have the cross-section OF A FUCKING PLANET.

>>4169785
>Completely ignores the observations which debunked nuclear winter
Unlike volcanic ash, combustion-produced ash has been found to be hydroscopic, and tends to precipitate in the form of "black rain" after any major firestorm rather than rise to the stratosphere as predicted. This was observed in Hiroshima, and in the Gulf War oil fires. The fires resulting from the Nagasaki bombing and from post-war atmospheric testing weren't enough to produce substantial ash at all. Significant cooling, even at a local scale, has NEVER been observed as a result of a nuclear explosion, and is only theorized by analogous relation to volcanic events - events which they appear to share quite little in common with actually, as it would appear.

>>4169820
>living in space will always be impossible
So what, humanity should crawl into a collective fetal position and die? Either space manufacturing is doable and therefore spreads across this solar system's ample resources or it isn't doable. Within a thousand years either humanity will number in the hundreds of billions across the solar system or the hundreds of millions across an agrarian Earth.

And why does surface area make something impossible? Wouldn't MASS be the better indicator for the general difficulty of a project? If anything, these mirrors would be immune to Kessler syndrome because they would be so thin that high speed debris would simply tear right through them, not creating any additional debris. The only components that would create debris if hit would be the bits that hold all the edges of each mirror taught and those would make up a fraction of the mass.

>focus
wat?

>station keeping
That's why it wold be at a Lagrange point.

>orientation
Remind me why this would be difficult for such light objects?

Honestly, of all things to get held up on, why chose the proven technology? Why chose the project that involves moving so little mass as opposed to digging moholes or redirecting comets? Is it simply because mirrors would be the most visual change to the solar system and therefore the hardest to comprehend?

>>4169864
>Unlike volcanic ash, combustion-produced ash has been found to be hydroscopic
1) Sauce.
2) There is relatively no moisture in the upper atmosphere and that is where the ash would remain due to its opacity.

>atmospheric testing
You should know that is completely irrelevant.

>Significant cooling, even at a local scale, has NEVER been observed as a result of a nuclear explosion
AH! I see. You think that the nuclear winter theory proposes cooling would directly follow nuclear explosions.

The source of the cooling would not be nuclear explosions. It would the ash kicked up by the hundreds of incinerated mega cities. The ash produced by the bombing of Hiroshima would pale in comparison to the use of hydrogen bombs against the world's largest cities.

bump

http://nukelies.com/forum/

So apparently nuclear bombs are a hoax. The nuclear test footage was all faked, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were firebombed instead of A-bombed, and nuclear power plants are actually dumploads for electric power plants. What say you, /sci/?

bump

BUMP

Look at this beautiful untamed globe.

>>4171515
Nice Space Engine screenshots, how do you get rid of all the information on the sides so I can make decent Wallies?

Valles Marineris

Or should I say the Marineris Sea?

Valles Marineris

Or should I say the Marineris Sea?

>>4171580
These are actually images made by the person who created the texture. I've never used Space Engine.

well obviously we need to genetically modify life to survive on mars, giant space mirrors and an enormous industrial effort to release water vapour, nitrogen and CO2 into the atmosphere just aren't going to cut it

Also we should focus on single celled organisms and plants first. They would have to have a very low metabolism and be able to withstand freezing temperatures, possibly by using some other solution for chemical reactions to take place in place of water if the space mirrors aren't good enough.

The multi-tiered approach to tasks like this is always best, we must abandon Inurdaes-like pipedreams.

As for human colonies complete with hydroponic farms for earth-life, why no genetically modify them as well? Biologically immortal highly intelligent humans living off a variety of plants modified to grow quickly in economical hydroponic farms, also various technologies allowing the humans to accumulate enough energy and industrial resources to expand their little civilization, build more hydroponic farms, more industries, more solar panels, breed.

>>4171643
>we must abandon Inurdaes-like pipedreams
What do you mean?

>>4171643
You do realize that the "Inurdaes-like pipe-dreams" are just a small but necessary part of the whole terraforming process? And some of the first ones that would be implemented?

And gengineered lifeforms have also always been a part of the plan.

Inurdaes dead or something?

>>4171802
He and madsci seem to have left. Last few threads they made were derailed by violent simians guy. He seems to be driving off our only good tripfags.

>>4171630

Well damn, thanks for the response anyway, But as a fellow space head, I do suggest you take a look at it. It's like Celestia (if you've heard of it) but in my opinion, better. You can go to a planets surface, and even the center of galaxies and zoom in to see black holes, even though realistically you can't see them.

http://en.spaceengine.org/

>>4171816
>only good tripfags

CCM is still here, that's something. So is Nuka Cola.

>>4171822
> I do suggest you take a look at it.
Unpacking as we speak.

> It's like Celestia but in my opinion, better.
You had me at Celestia.

>>4171823
>>4171816
I'll try harder. :\

>>4171842
Me too.

More beautiful images of a terraformed Mars! Muhaha!

>>4171836
>Unpacking as we speak.

Good good. My friendly advice - go inside a globular cluster.

>>4171874

Mars has terrible acne

>>4171875
Starting the application brought me here. When I scroll (which zooms you in and out in Celestia) it indicates your velocity has changed. I got up to several Mpc/sec and yet when I move my the camera around I still see these two planets/moons.

What's going on here? Is it probably my shitty integrated video card?

>>4171898
You need to learn the controls. You're currently centered on those planets.

Controls:
http://spaceengine.org/index/manual/0-11

>>4171898
>>4171911
Yea sorry aboutt he ate reply, and he's right. It's WASD to move forward back left right, mouse hweel to change velocity. If you press Esc, go to Navigation, and you click on "find Object" then type in Earth, and Bazam, earth in all it's beauty. there's a fair bit of graphics options too, but they're quite heavy on computers. You can even look at specific locations such as as the center of the Milky Way.

>>4171879
And now a bad infection it seems.

>>4171935
Same guy, I also realised that the latest update for this takes screenshots without the HUD showing up, which is amazing since I can now make pretty space wallies.

>>4171665
>>4171777
William Easterly is an economist who looked at how succesful aids agencies were and came to the conclusion there are "searchers" and "planners", planners attempt to impose a grand plan while searchers search for problems to solve. Inurdaes is a planner, he is kind of like the futurists in the 60s who thought supersonic jet travel and giant machines would be the next big thing not noticing the field of computing crawling out of the primordial ooze. Ideally we should be more like the searchers, looking for those technologies to develop and open up more options instead of fixating on only those options we are presently aware of.

>>4171998
Except searches can't see the forest through the trees. Searchers are the experts who focus on the minuscule albeit complex details of such large endeavors. The planners would be the ones who use all the details provided by the searchers to create a plan.

William Easterly aside, we can only predict the future using what we know CURRENTLY. Nanotechnology or Artificial Intelligence may flip the world upside down, making terraforming far easier than this thread's proposed Herculean projects would suggest, but we can't make use such revolutionary developments in our predictions/plans until they have occurred.

This is the Moon...

The pink processes line keeps jumping from process this to process that. Does this quit once the surrounding textures have loaded or have I seriously F'd up my graphical settings? Earth isn't any better. I'm leaning towards F'd up settings because I've left it to load for several minutes and nothing has changed.

>>4172054
If you're the guy who had the integrated graphics card, you might be outta luck. Any higher settings require quite a lot of memory and graphics memory.

>>4172054
Hm, it might just be entirely possible your computer can't handle it. It's a pretty hardware heavy program unlike Celestia which is a shame, there's a "required hardware" list on the site, check if your computer is upto it.

Would it be possible to toss a large kuiper belt object at the damn place? All the air and water you need + the impact mite be large enough to restart the core.

>>4172102
The core has been frozen for many millions of years due to its place in the solar system, and that made it lose it's atmosphere and magnetic field, which are the very things that kept the core hot in the first place, Catch.22.

>>4169230
We won't there's a good chance mars might have life.

Besides living in a gravity well is overrated.

>>4172119
The whole core might not be solid yet. Even Luna is now suspected to have a partially liquid outer core.

>>4172132
>Besides living in a gravity well is overrated.
But not everyone wants to, or should, live in space.

Diversify, my boy. Diversify!

>>4172152

I find that hard to believe, but space is full of that, and a lot of things are still theories, so I can't so that can't be possible.

And besides, living in space without some way to make artificial gravity means we cannot reproduce.

>>4172168
>I find that hard to believe, but space is full of that, and a lot of things are still theories, so I can't so that can't be possible.
But have you really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

Also, either spinning habitats, centrifuges within habitats, or gengineered zero-g tolerance.

>>4172037
Searchers can plan, they're just planners who realize their limitations and act accordingly. I suppose planners can search as well, maybe Easterly's distinction is due to psychology and politics rather than some inherent difference in logic.

But anyway, using your analogy searchers are planners who have already climbed the mountan, realized visibility is at 20 kilometers and all they can see is forest, the only way they're going to get out is to get moving and go in a straight line because this is the only way to obtain more information.

While the planners are off climbing that mountain the searchers happen across a small stream they couldn't see from the mountain, not much but they can follow it downstream to see where it leads it, it leads to a river, which they follow and come across a bridge, they follow the road and come to a diner. While they sip hot chocolate and enjoy freshly baked donuts waiting for the cops to arrive so they can provide information as to the whereabouts of the planners, the planners are huddling up for warmth in a cave.

pic related, something this complex can't be planned

we're way closer to destroying the earth than to make mars habitable.

>>4172181

That actually made me laugh.

>I find that hard to believe, but space is full of that, and a lot of things are still theories, so I can't so that can't be possible.

Ok, lets try that again. I find that hard to believe, but space is full of things that are hard to believe, and a lot of those things are still theories, so I can't say* that can't be possible.

>>4169872
>living in space will always be impossible
I NEVER SAID THAT, YOU FUCKING IMBECILE.
There's a long stretch between living in space and TRANSFORMING AN ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET.
>Within a thousand years either humanity will number in the hundreds of billions across the solar system or the hundreds of millions across an agrarian Earth.
Woah woah now... first off, there are already billions on Earth. Secondly, to think that extraterrestrial environments could support SEVERAL HUNDRED TIMES MORE humans than Earth itself is just plain naive.
>And why does surface area make something impossible? Wouldn't MASS be the better indicator for the general difficulty of a project?
You're fucking stupid if you think that a planet-sized mirror array (film-thin or not) wouldn't be extremely massive.
>focus - wat?
Your mirrors won't do shit if 99% of the light they reflect doesn't even hit the planet, bro. At the 1+ AU distances you're proposing, you need to maintain a VERY narrow reflected beam - we're talking mere arcseconds here at the ranges you're proposing. That's a hard thing to achieve and maintain even with a large HARD mirror, let alone your flimsy sheet of foil.

>>4172525
>>4169872
>That's why it wold be at a Lagrange point.
STATIONKEEPING IS STILL REQUIRED AT LAGRANGE POINTS.
>orientation - Remind me why this would be difficult for such light objects?
Because a) they WOULDN'T be fucking lightweight objects, and b) you'd have to maintain attitude with fucking sub-arcsecond resolution.
>Honestly, of all things to get held up on, why chose the proven technology?
Vaporware piled on top of vaporware does NOT constitute proven technology, you delusional little fuck.
>Why chose the project that involves moving so little mass as opposed to digging moholes or redirecting comets?
I actually take even MORE issue with redirecting comets, but moholes seem FAAAAAAAR more realistic and proven than either. NOT ONLY is moving dirt around on a planetary surface COMPLETELY different from flinging mass around the fucking solar system, but I also doubt that your notion of a FORTY-MILLION SQUARE KILOMETER MIRROR being lighter than the burden from a meter-wide mohole some 40 km deep is entirely valid.

>>4172525
>to think that extraterrestrial environments could support SEVERAL HUNDRED TIMES MORE humans than Earth itself is just plain naive.
I don't even know how to respond to that. Why would you think otherwise? There are enough resources in this solar system to sustain TRILLIONS of humans. Populations grow according to what their environment provides.

>You're fucking stupid if you think that a planet-sized mirror array (film-thin or not) wouldn't be extremely massive.
1) Calm down.
2) Relative to what? The mirrors would be micron thick aluminum.

> At the 1+ AU distances you're proposing...
L1 and L2 are a lot closer than that.

>STATIONKEEPING IS STILL REQUIRED AT LAGRANGE POINTS.
And not difficult because it is a Lagrange point.

>Vaporware piled on top of vaporware does NOT constitute proven technology, you delusional little fuck.
1) I say again, calm down friend. lol
2) Vaporware? Solar sails have been tested in space with no problems.

>moholes seem FAAAAAAAR more realistic and proven than either. NOT ONLY is moving dirt around on a planetary surface COMPLETELY different
You've dug a hole before, so you figure moving a lot more mass on a planet's surface is a lot easier than something you personally have never done before like moving a little mass through space... Tell you what, let's just agree to disagree on all of this stuff because I can't fix a broken imagination and I'm not about to spend my time explaining how moving meteoroids is as simple as Newton's laws or any similarly simple operation that you just happened to have never heard about.

>>4172266
>something this complex can't be planned...
>without a really smart individual, a lot of people, or a lot of time.
FTFY

Oh and where did you get that image and what is that stuff apparently floating around the twin towers in the background?

>>4169230

I'd like to inform /sci/ that there are people working on this type of stuff.

I once took a course with this professor (she was one of the only professors doing really interesting things in the department).

http://www.abe.ufl.edu/people/directory/faculty-profiles/correll-melanie.shtml

If you skim her bio page you'll see that she's working on plants in space (low gravity, hard vacuum stuff).

I even remember her saying something about attempting to breed plants hardly enough to help terraform Mars.

Some of her publications maybe of interest to /sci/ space cadets.

>>4172931
Tenure is a hell of a drug.

>>4172931

Sorry, hardy* enough

Also she sort of looks like Amanda Tapping (Sam Carter) if you squint a bit.

"What we need: Plants an animals with high tolerances to the cold and/or high CO2 concentrations to genetically splice with one another."

better use those flashy keyword without having any idea what they mean.

>>4172944
Such as?

>>4172525

"Planet sized" mirrors? What the fuck are you talking about? The mirrors needed for Martian terrforming would be dozens of kilometers across, far too small to be considered planetary scale.

The Corporations will own and stripmine any planets as soon as they can.
I mad.

first organisms will be archaea and some bacteria who can already live in extreme environments. they would have to lead the way for cyanobacteria to join the fray and input oxygen into the environment and hopefully over millions of years create enough gas to give Mars atmosphere.

>>4171802
>>4171816

Inurdaes asked me to tell you he's not dead and he still browses /sci/ occasionally from a proxy from his self-inflicted year-ban.

>>4173011
What, focused on one particular area? I don't think a few hundred square kilometers of extra sunlight would have that great of an effect. Mirrors the size of Texas or England sound more reasonable.

>>4173102
The corporations can't do shit if their planet-born employees don't think it is in their best interests. Terrorism is extra effective in space.

>>4173106
But wouldn't the oxygen be absorbed by the Martian regolith? The cyanobacteria would deplete Mars' already thin atmosphere and put it right back into the ground.

>>4173259
>focused on one area?

YES.

What is hard to understand about this? You don't need to increase the amount of solar energy hitting the planet, you need to melt the south polar cap's CO2, then you need to direct your solar beam across areas of the regolth rich in CO2 in order to induce outgassing, or use the beam to zap other useful shit.

Heating the south polar region is the goal, not a major general increase on solar radiation.

>>4173275
Nope. Mars's dirt is already saturated with oxygen from when it had a reducing atmosphere. If you get it wet it outgasses O2 right now. Martian dirt is holding pretty much as much oxygen as it can.

>>4173102
quit Occupying our thread, hippy

>>4173295
I thought most of the ice is in the north and that the Sourthern hemisphere is too elevated to maintain lots of ice.

>>4173305
>Mars's dirt is already saturated with oxygen from when it had a reducing atmosphere.
We don't know that it is saturated. It stopped because there was no more oxygen to take out, not because it was saturated.

>>4173337

Except that soil on Earth has the same percentage of oxygen in it, and we know it's because of saturation here.

>>4173336

Both poles have water ice in large amounts. The northern hemisphere of Mars has much milder seasons, while the southern polar cap has large amounts of frozen CO2 from the air.

The southern pole has enough water ice to, if melted, cover the surface of the planet to 11 meters in water, meaning only the high land areas would be exposed.

>>4173337

It's saturated to the point that if exposed to water or heated, it out gasses CO2 and O2. We know this from experiments conducted on the regolith in the search for life.

>>4173148
Well that's good to hear.

>>4172346
Thanks, that made a lot more sense.

What I meant by diversity is that humans even on Earth occupy a lot of different niches, with different cultures and ways to do things after adapting to local conditions.

So it would stand to reason that during expansion into space, humans would still seek to fill as many niches as possible, from everything planet-dwellers are, through asteroid miners and all the way to frigging space gypsies exploring the farther reaches of the system.

You can't do everything easily in space nor on a planetary surface. But if you have people in both places, they can trade the products of their respective specialities.

>>4173424

This female was bread to procreate, holy shit