/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.1538725]

Hey /sci/

I was thinking of terraforming planets.
Do you think it's possible to terraform mars?
How would one do it?

Discuss!

[Anonymous No.1538745]

bumping for interest!

[Anonymous No.1538754]

Yes its cool and that, but lets first land on mars and then we discuss terraforming, shall we?

[Anonymous No.1538756]

>notthisshitagain.jpg

[Anonymous No.1538796]

You know what to do.

[Anonymous No.1538802]

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

[Anonymous No.1538805]

Wouldn't it be too fucking cold?

[Inurdaes !lololSGJBw No.1538811]

You guys know what I'm going to suggest to terraform Mars...

[Anonymous No.1538816]

[Inurdaes !lololSGJBw No.1538821]

>>1538816
Spot on.

[Anonymous No.1538839]

I've heard that there exist a group of people who are trying a DIY rocket.

Now that I think about it, why couldn't a bunch of faggot physicist come up with a calculation to launch a DIY rocket to Mars? Kinda like Spirt. BUT FILLED WITH PLANT SEEDS OR SOMETHING

[Inurdaes !lololSGJBw No.1538843]

>>1538839
Probably because it costs 20,000 dollars or some insane amount per pound just to send a rocket up into orbit.

And Phobos won't deflect into Mars from just a lone rocket.

[Boomer !!bcdVCSUmpgT No.1538850]

>>1538843
Crashing phobos is a silly plan and you only want to do it for the awesome crash.

Even if it was done, that would not change the mass of mars, so it would not have the gravity to hold an earth like atmosphere.

[Inurdaes !lololSGJBw No.1538854]

>>1538850
It doesn't need an Earth-like atmosphere. YET.
It needs one thick enough so that a greenhouse effect starts going on. Once liquid water finally shows up humanity will most probably have a plan for REALLY terraforming Mars. It would take decades and decades for there to even have small lakes across Mars' equator.

[Anonymous No.1538857]

>>1538850
Exactly. And even assuming it has enough gravity to support an atmosphere, the absence of a magnetic field would likely cause any substantial atmosphere to be continually stripped off.

[Inurdaes !lololSGJBw No.1538866]

>>1538857
That would take tens of thousands of years, though. Mars does have quite a few localized magnetic fields- though nothing really strong enough.
Humans will develop large-scale artificial magnetic fields sometime in the next millenia so it's no biggie.

[Anonymous No.1538873]

phobos will never be enough, we have to smack Ceres and some asteroids in addition to phobos before mars has sufficient mass.

But all in all... i don't really care about mars, venus is where its at

[Inurdaes !lololSGJBw No.1538879]

>>1538873
I don't even know where to start with Venus. I mean, it doesn't even have any asteroid moons that can be smacked into it!

[снайпер No.1538880]

>>1538866
If you want long term terraforming, you need to increase mass or settle for a thin, cold atmosphere.

There's not really much point to colonizing planets anyways. For a millionth the resources required you can build orbital habitats instead, and they've got the benefit of being at the top of the gravity well, instead of the bottom.

[Boomer !!bcdVCSUmpgT No.1538882]

>>1538873
If you crashed Earth's moon into it that would not be enough, and all of the material in the asteroid belt equals less than the mass of Earth's moon.

Guys, just make O'Neil cylinders...

[Anonymous No.1538885]

Let's first explore Europa and then discuss Mars.

[снайпер No.1538897]

>>1538873
>phobos will never be enough, we have to smack Ceres and some asteroids in addition to phobos before mars has sufficient mass.

If you want it to be like Earth, you need to do a lot better than ceres and some asteroids.

Venus + mars = *almost* Earth's mass.

[Anonymous No.1538900]

>>1538866
>Humans will develop large-scale artificial magnetic fields sometime in the next millenia so it's no biggie.
Earth's magnetic field contains energy on the order of millions of billions of joules. By the time we have the power to sustain that kind of energy production, we won't need planets to live on. Hell, I think the only way to generate an artificial magnetosphere would be to have a) a giant hunk of spinning molten iron or b) use a fucking dyson sphere.

[Inurdaes !lololSGJBw No.1538903]

Just an interesting thought, how would we go by getting Mars slightly closer to the sun, but then moving Venus where Mars is now?
Gravity gun from HL2 x 1,000,000 pops into mind

[Anonymous No.1538906]

>>1538885
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE, YOU MUTHAFUCKERS

[Inurdaes !lololSGJBw No.1538907]

>>1538900
Ehh I'd rather live on a terraformed Mars than a terraformed Dyson sphere or something.

[Anonymous No.1538908]

>>1538906
I chuckled a bit.

[Inurdaes !lololSGJBw No.1538912]

>>1538906
I watched that movie a week ago. Great stuff. Can't believe I didn't watch it earlier

[Anonymous No.1538913]

Fuck Mars. You're thinking way too far head. Terraform earth back to more earthy like before BP fucking shat in the ocean.

[Anonymous No.1538914]

Take a Venus, 0.815 earth masses
Add one Mars, 0.107 earth masses
Add water (Ganymede 0.025 earth masses, half water.
Stir, serve.

It's easy, you just have to steal Ganymede from Jupiter's gravity well. Easy peasy. And, of course, NOTHING could go wrong, It would only involve making Mars and Ganymede cross Earth's orbit at some point.

[Anonymous No.1538921]

>>1538879
Smack mercury on to venus.

>its not like we have any use for that rock

[Boomer !!bcdVCSUmpgT No.1538922]

>>1538906
The movie made you guys seem like dicks. The book made more sense. As long as there are fish bushes on europa we will not land there.

[снайпер No.1538927]

>>1538879
Venus is fantastically easier to colonize than Mars. Tru fact.

First of all, the atmosphere is so dense that we can use bouyancy to our advantage and float cloud cities [yes, I'm serious] on Venus at 50-60km altitude.

Not only that, but by design, any cloud cities on Venus are going to be large and spacious in order to maximize the amount of atmosphere to structure.

At the given altitude we're talking about, the temperature, gravity, and pressure ranges are very very similar to Earth.

Hell, we could even "terraform" Venus, not by turning it into a carbon copy of Earth, but rather by simply changing its atmospheric composition at the habitable latitudes to something earth-like and breathable.

[Anonymous No.1538929]

>>1538922
>inb4 alien hippies claim we are killing the indigenous europeans on europa

[Boomer !!bcdVCSUmpgT No.1538930]

>>1538927
BESPIN! Woohoo!

[Inurdaes !lololSGJBw No.1538933]

>>1538927
>At the given altitude we're talking about, the temperature, gravity, and pressure ranges are very very similar to Earth.

Source?

[снайпер No.1538937]

>>1538933
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus

[Anonymous No.1538947]

Hey /sci/

>I was thinking of terraforming planets.

Okay

>Do you think it's possible to terraform mars?

possible? Yes.

>How would one do it?

You pressurize the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. As the green house effect gets underway oceans should begin to form then introduce extremeophile (sp?) bacteria similar to the ones found in Earth's ancient oceans. millions of years later they will have consumed the CO2 and replaced it with Oxygen. After that as the Sun gets hotter Mars will become the new Earth.

Signifigant challenges:

Does mars have any fossil fuels? The atmosphere of Mars is thin and primarily CO2 so to get a proper greenhouse reaction going you will need to introduce more CO2 and as the planet warms water vapor (this should show up naturally). If Mars has fossil fuels you can solve the CO2 input and electricity problems in one fell swoop.

Mars has no magnetosphere and as such the Sun slowly strips away its atmosphere. You will either need to add more gasses say from Venus or create an artificial magnetosphere i would say they are equally difficult projects.

Make sure the human species survives for millions of years. Good luck on this one, you'll need it.

[Anonymous No.1538955]

>>1538927
AND THEN WE'LL START MINING BAKTA FROM THE ATMOSPHERE

[Anonymous No.1538960]

>>1538955
It's tibanna, not bakta.

learn your botany.

[Anonymous No.1538973]

>>1538960
It's marijuana not tibanna

learn your botany.

[Anonymous No.1539013]

>>1538973
it's skooma not marijuana

learn your botany.

[снайпер No.1539029]

>>1539013
Alchemy

[Anonymous No.1539034]

>Do you think it's possible to terraform mars?
No, I don't think that it's possible. Why do you think that it would be?

Protip: wanting something to be possible has absolutely no influence on whether or not it actually is possible. If you think that anything is possible given enough willpower, /a/ is over there <--

[Anonymous No.1539041]

>>1539034
It IS possile to terraform Mars.
It is NOT possible for a normal human being to shoot plasma bursts from his eyes.

There is a difference.

[Anonymous No.1539081]

Actually i was recently reading about sending a barrage of cfc's to mars and within a decade it would be enough to cause a significant rise in temperature.

Also, all this shit you talk about mass is unessecary to the teraforming process

[Anonymous No.1539086]

I think if its possible, it will take thousands of years. I think we would have to introduce a whole ecosystem and give it time to transform the planet.

However, sense mars has virtually no magnetic field it might be necessary to turn that on first, which might be impossible.

[Anonymous No.1539092]

>>1539081
Mars' atmosphere is incredibly thin and is regularly removed by the sun due to mars not having a magnetosphere. If you want to actually terraform it then it needs enough mass to allow it to hold an atmosphere. Also adding lead or iron to the core would help but I doubt that is going to be practical.

[Anonymous No.1539106]

I'd guess mars' gravity isn't strong enough to maintain an atmosphere, the molecules would just disperse into space.

[Anonymous No.1539124]

The best way is to wrap a cable a few times around the equator of Mars, and run a small current through it. This would give it an artificial magnetosphere, deflect the solar wind, and allow the atmosphere to naturally build up again from the natural outgassing processes of the planet. Eventually, you'll have enough pressure to support liquid water on the surface, and temps will rise.

[Anonymous No.1539142]

I say we snatch Ganymede from Jupiter and smash it into Venus. That way we give it water AND some angular momentum to make it rotate. Who's with me?

[Anonymous No.1539146]

>>1539106
>the molecules would just disperse into space.
yes, ALL AT ONCE, IN A BLINK OF AN EYE

fuck you and everyone else that says this as the reason not to terraform Mars.
Fuck you with a gnarled treebranch covered with bullet ants.

[Anonymous No.1539157]

I am really not sure why people think Mars does not have enough MASS and therefore GRAVITY to maintain an atmosphere. It clearly does have enough gravity as evidenced by the fact that it HAS an atmosphere just a lower pressure one than Earth because of millennia of loss due to solar wind. The problem is that Mars has no magnetosphere. Without a magnetosphere solar wind strips Mars of its atmosphere slowly as well as adding radiation to the surface.

Not having a magnetosphere is a pretty fatal flaw to long term terraforming as gasses will constantly have to be added. However there are gas giants in the solar system with plenty of mass to spare, not to mention Venus which will need to be stripped of some of its gas in order to be habitable.

All this means that long term terraforming of Mars is cost prohibitive but not impossible.

On the thousands of years scale terraforming would involve pressurizing the atmosphere and adding a biosphere. In other words burning fossil fuels and adapting trees to the irradiated Martian soil. All the while encouraging bacteria in the emerging proto-oceans. All of that is doable if very expensive. Future generations would need to work on the more monumental task of stabilizing the Martian atmosphere.

[Anonymous No.1539189]

With the not-impossible investment of the equivalent of 300-400 billion dollars a year, we could see some tangible results in about a century, I think.

also, i'll fukken lol when we decide to terraform and later find out that all the earth lifeforms we've brought over have killed the native Martian lifeforms.

[Anonymous No.1539204]

>>1539189

It would probably be the other way around actually. If there is anything alive on Mars it would be perfectly adapted to that habitat while anything we bring will need to be painstakingly bred to survive the inhospitable conditions. Think of the ending to the War of the Words except we are the Martians. That said once we begin changing the habitat on a global scale there might be just such a mass extinction, although life is likely to be very simple on Mars today so, like bacteria becoming drug resistant, it might just adapt faster than our life.

[231 v6 !!U3VRVNcDPoU No.1539217]

mars lacks a big ass moon like earth
oceans would stagnate

[снайпер No.1539228]

>>1539157
>I am really not sure why people think Mars does not have enough MASS and therefore GRAVITY to maintain an atmosphere. It clearly does have enough gravity as evidenced by the fact that it HAS an atmosphere just a lower pressure one than Earth

Different elements have different atomic masses. Carbon Dioxide is heavier than Oxygen [duh, it's carbon and two oxygen atoms], it's easier for a planet with low gravity to hold onto more massive chemical compounds.

In addition to this, is the fact that atoms/molecules in a gas are constantly vibrating, often fast enough to reach escape velocity. [There's a reason Earth and the other small rocky planets don't have atmospheres of hydrogen.]

When you increase the temperature, you also increase the speed of the atmosphere, which in turn speeds up any atmospheric loss to space.

The problem with Mars is that it doesn't have much gravity, and probably cannot hold onto an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere like Earth has, at the same temperature range as Earth.

[Anonymous No.1539255]

Wait, serious here.. we need carbon dioxide on mars to start a green house effect like снайпер said somewhere, right?

Why don't we send some american factories onto mars? and if theres no carbon based fuels (or whatever oil is), build some kind of inter planatory pipe line?

[Anonymous No.1539262]

>>1539255

>> build some kind of inter planatory pipe line?

What the fuck am I reading

[Anonymous No.1539294]

>>1539262
an excellent idea, thats what. When it leaks in space, who the fuck cares? its not like theres space seagulls to complain

[Anonymous No.1539295]

>>1539255
That atmosphere of mars is already 95% co2.

[Anonymous No.1539296]

>>1539294

Dear god. Trolls everywhere.

[Anonymous No.1539297]

>>1539255
>build some kind of inter planatory pipe line?

fuck you and your illogical bullshit

[Anonymous No.1539300]

>>1539262
just use the Martian space elevator to haul shit up and then use
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network
to get it where you want it

[Anonymous No.1539301]

>>1539228

Okay i can buy that, Mars has a gravity roughly one third that of Earth thus it would loose oxygen faster. Lacking a magnetosphere means that Mars is also loosing total atmosphere due to the solar wind. There is still oxygen in the Martian atmosphere less than one percent but it is still there after possibly hundreds of millions of years of loss. Therefore if carbon dioxide can be converted via photosynthesis into oxygen then it will stay for a long time in human if not geological terms. That gives humans a long time to work with, maybe enough to get Mars through the period where it is in the prime habitable zone and Earth is not.

>>1539217
>mars lacks a big ass moon like earth

That just means that the seasons will be highly erratic. Actually does Mars wobble? By Wobble i mean does the Axial tilt vary?

[Anonymous No.1539305]

>>1539297
Why not? just slap it on the side of a space elevator or some shit

[Anonymous No.1539306]

CAN HAS MAGNETIC FIELD?

[Anonymous No.1539333]

>>1539295

Well, yes but the pressure is too low, the solar heat which reaches Mars is lost into space. Carbon dioxide and water vapor are powerful green house gasses so if the atmosphere becomes pressurized with more CO2 eventually the icecaps will melt and add water vapor to the atmosphere.

[Anonymous No.1539436]

>>1539305

The orbits of Earth and Mars are not parallel, the pipe line would squash and stretch huge distances as the planets came closer and further away from one another

[Anonymous No.1540022]

Cool.