/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.6654925]

Planetary engineering thread?
Planetary engineering thread.
So, /sci/, how should we go about terraforming other planets in our solar system?

[Anonymous No.6654926]

We shouldnt, because if we fuck up, consequences would be on planetary scale

[Anonymous No.6654928]

>>6654926
Arguments?
Assuming that we have the capability to terraform a planet, I think we might have enough technology to reverse our effects to some degree.

[Anonymous No.6654936]

>>6654926
We should, because if we don't fuck up, rewards would be on planetary scale

[Anonymous No.6654949]

>>6654926
We should, if there is no significant life on the planet. And if we would fuck up, it's just a rock, but if we don't, the benefits would be enormous.
And in case of fuckup, if we have the resources to fuck up, who says we can't repair the planet.
(too many ifs)

[Anonymous No.6654958]

>>6654949
We should even if there is a life, especially is there is a life. It is easier to terraform a planet with atmosphere than a rock like mars

[Carbon No.6655052]

>>6654925
We shouldn't
It isn't cost effective and it would be hard to profit from gained materials while such resources exist locally.
>2 dollars to make a lump of african iron
vs
>200 dollars for a lump of martian iron
I wonder..

[Anonymous No.6655061]

>>6655052
If you think that the goal of terraforming planets is gaining resources, then you are pretty retarded.

[Anonymous No.6655074]

>>6655052

Why terraform a planet for resources, you can mine for resources without terraforming, it would be more useful for making some holiday resort and getting money from tourism or something

[Anonymous No.6655088]

Yes. Extinction events are not uncommon in earths history, and we have all of our eggs in one basket.

Cost is hardly a factor when deciding to preserve humanity against existential threats.

[Anonymous No.6655099]

>>6655052
economics majors are so cute.

[Anonymous No.6655230]

>>6655052
Meanwhile, in space...
>1000 dollars for a kg of Earth iron
>5 dollars for a kg of Martian iron because there are nickel-iron asteroids littering the surface

But this has literally nothing to do with terraforming, which isn't to get resources anyway.

[Anonymous No.6655235]

>>6654925
For mars there are tons of options, everything from moholes. to dropping ice asteroids.

[Carbon No.6655238]

>>6655230
Don't forget the massive economic drain that is required for such a project.
So how do you break even?
How do the countries that invested recieve any returns.
>Also
What are the chances of such a colony declaring independence?

[Anonymous No.6655246]

>>6655238
>What are the chances of such a colony declaring independence?

Remember that the Americas were prosperous and profitable colonies for three centuries, and many other colonial holdings remained well into the 19th and 20th centuries.

[Anonymous No.6655251]

>>6655238
You "break even" on future economic gains from the economy of a whole new planet. In the shorter and less abstract term, from extracting taxes from the colonial economy and providing goods and services to colonists.

[Anonymous No.6655253]

>>6654958
But what if the life gets mad. What if they're more aggressive than the aboriginals when the British colonizied North America

[Anonymous No.6655257]

>>6655253
LOL

[Anonymous No.6655260]

>>6655088

This. The primary goal of a species is to survive and propagate. It won't matter who made it lost a profit if an asteroid hits or a pandemic spreads and leads to our collective death. Just like humans spread out from subsaharan Africa millennia ago we should spread across the stars and become an ancient race threatened only by the death of the universe.

However it simply isn't viable at this juncture. The technology is not there nor is the funding. It is a goal that we should work toward generationally, until it is commonly considered an inevitable step in our progress as a race.

[Carbon No.6655271]

>>6655074
>Resort
Come sit in a nice martian nuclear powered hot spring and be irradiated by the thin Martian Atmosphere! How's that for a tan?
Next, have some family fun on Mercury where you can have a good ole'-fashioned campfire roast...without the campfire!
After you've finished that, have a nice breath of fresh, natural Venetian air! Enjoy its health benefits that alternative medicine experts recommend!
The kids will love this, how about being sucked into Juno's storms assisted by its gravity well and solar winds?
You and your tykes can even freeze your ass off sitting on Uranus' extremely cold gases!
Ice skate on Saturn's rings while the radiation eases your bones!
Finally you can explore Neptune's icy caves in its incredibly dense atmosphere!
Pluto? Ha! Its not even a planet!
This tour is sponsored by yours truly, Malaysian Galactic!

[Carbon No.6655273]

>>6655251
Wasn't taxation one of the main reasons for the declaration of independence?
Isn't taxation inefficient as it is without the high cost to collect...i.e. US in massive fucking debt already?

[Anonymous No.6655279]

>>6655273
Yeah. So let's say Mars follows the same pathway as America (north and south), eventually overthrowing their Earthly oppressors. That should give us, oh, 300 years of profitable taxation.

More, if you count Canada, which stayed a colony of Britain under British control until 1867.

[Anonymous No.6655280]

[Anonymous No.6655284]

yeah so

how do you plan on re-activating mars's core?

because without a magnetic field, it's gonna be tricky holding on to that atmosphere

[Anonymous No.6655294]

>>6655284
Start the reactor

[Anonymous No.6655296]

>>6655294
fuck that, i've got 5 kids to feed

[Goodjolly No.6655301]

>>6655260
This is the best argument. Eventually the human population of earth will drive the prices of earths resources up to a level that makes space exploration necessary. In the scope of things, life in the universe will eventually have to regulate the entire universes resources in a way that eliminates the dissipation of useful energy or find a way to access the multiverse or become like God. In the bible there are 2 things the universe is composed of, that which can act and that which can be acted upon, God being that which acts, matter which is acted upon, and Man (intelligence?) which is a cross between the two. I know it's not the chons favorite reference, but it's hard to deny the logic of the duality of existence if you believe in free-will. Humans need to be an intergalactic species, and bring ourselves closer to the form of God. Just my input though.

[Anonymous No.6655302]

>>6655284
People keep saying this and not doing the research.

Atmospheric stripping is really slow. Really, really slow.

A terraformed Mars would lose its atmosphere very quickly on a planetological scale - returning to its uninhabitable state in just a million years or so.

[Anonymous No.6655333]

>>6655302
magnetic fields don't just prevent atmospheric stripping, they also deflect lots of high energy particles from reaching the surface

[Anonymous No.6655335]

>>6655301
Reported.

[Goodjolly No.6655360]

>>6655335
Loser.

[Anonymous No.6655365]

>>6655302

Lets throw rocks at it and comets made of ice and CO2 until the weight is high enough to hold down an atmosphere.

[Anonymous No.6655386]

>>6655333
Yeah. Part of that would be solved by a thicker atmosphere, though, which also provides some shielding.

Really, it's the UV dose on the surface that's the big problem.

[Anonymous No.6655708]

How do you solve gravity? If humans are to live anywhere else but Earth the gravity would have to be pretty much equal to Earth's wouldnt it? How could you possibly increase/decrease an entire planet's gravity?

[Anonymous No.6655717]

>>6655708
We don't actually know how much gravity humans need. All we know is that the minimum is more than 0 g, and probably at least a little less than 1 g.

We have no idea if humans have any serious problems at Martian gravity or not. There's reason to guess that Martian gravity is probably OK, but maybe it's not. If it's not, then yeah, you're screwed, no colonization for you.

[Anonymous No.6655744]

>>6655717
I don't think people think of gravity when they think of terraforming

The sci-fi view of other planets and worlds always have the gravity at an Earth constant

Imagine if humans could adapt to and live with the gravity on Mars for example
Mars only has one third the gravity of Earth. Walking and running would be these ridiculous things where you only had to take big, slow steps to move you forward quite fast, because your muscles would work at literally 200% capacity

After a while living colonists would probably loose most of their recognizable muscles and start to grow freakishly tall and thin because of the low pressure.
Any other animal or plantlife brought with would probably show the same symptom

Two planetary races or even species would form, and the earthling could go on vacation to Mars and live like a superhuman for a week, while if the the martian went to Earth his bones would snap like twigs the second he set foot on the ground

[Anonymous No.6655870]

>>6654936
We should, because even if we fuck up, consequences would be on a planetary scale for a single planet out of uncountably many.

[Anonymous No.6655878]

>>6655271
>Malaysian Galactic
>rocket explodes at the launchpad
>robbed by Space Somalis
>attacked by Red Mars terrorists

[Anonymous No.6655900]

>>6654926
But if we fuck up a planet that isn't ours, what are we going to lose?

[Anonymous No.6656310]

>>6654925
>space colonization
>ever

[Anonymous No.6656543]

>>6654925
Why would you do that?

[Anonymous No.6656544]

>>6655878
oh fucking lold

[Anonymous No.6656552]

>>6654925
Same way it happened on Earth, life. We either use already living organisms or genetically engineered ones to turn an uninhabitable planet's atmosphere and land into one that is habitable. If we seeded sufficiently and did it in the correct order, I would wager that we could take the planet from uninhabitable to habitable within a century.

Though that's only the case for planets that are of the appropriate temperature and atmosphere. Terraforming Venus or Mars would probably require a more physical means of making the planet habitable, like a way to strip the atmosphere or generate a planetary magnetic field, which would be an engineering feat beyond what we could even imagine today.

[Anonymous No.6656556]

>>6656310
>I can't see more that 3 years into the future

As soon as we start harvesting resources from space, solar system colonization will naturally follow. It just takes one small step to kick it off.

[Anonymous No.6656559]

>>6656543
There will come a time (assuming that we'd still be alive) when the Earth may experience an event that requires humans to migrate.
Probably not any time soon.

[Anonymous No.6656616]

>>6656559
Such a catastrophe would surely affect nearby planets as well, right? Say, a nearby supernova or, if we're even in the neighborhood then, when the sun gets all big and angry.

[Anonymous No.6656624]

>>6654925
>terraforming
fuck off already, quit shitposting

>>>/lit/
>>>/x/

[Anonymous No.6656634]

>>6656616
That'll probably be the event. Other than that, there's nothing that we won't really be able to handle. In such a case, there may or may not be another suitable candidate still around. By suitable candidate, I mean one where we can change the environment to a certain degree even if means that humans will still need to live in enclosed 'biodomes' or such. An environment suitable for some sort of life to grow albeit not suitable for humans to walk and roam freely.

[Anonymous No.6656659]

>>6654925
terraforming earth like planets like mars or venus is nearly impossible or just impractical, but the other planets or moons, 100% impossible

[Anonymous No.6656669]

>>6656659
Well, those two mentioned have clear problems.
Other planets and moons? Well, that depends. Terraforming can vary by degrees. A suitable candidate could potentially be terraformed so that it's similar to Earth or could be changed so that resources could be more accessible to humans.
Also, your arguments? I understand the difficulties behind terraforming planets such as Venus or Mars but assuming that we have the technology developed then we could find a theoretically suitable planet and begin changing the environment.

[sweboo !q0qn6sagek No.6656738]

>>6654925

There isn't enough wealth to terraform anything. It costs 10 000 USD to send 1 pound of stuff into space.

I think the next thing we will see in space is minor tourism and maybe some asteroid mining. In a century, after a lot of economic growth, there will probably be enough wealth to start messing around in space.

[Anonymous No.6656765]

>>6654925
I've always been a bit of a fan of venus tbh. The whole planet is so flat the oceans would literally be only a few 100m deep at it's deepest point. On Earth, shallow ocean areas are the most productive- the whole Venusian Ocean would be as fertile as earth's coastal regions. You could feed the entire planet on fish alone.

[Anonymous No.6656770]

We haven't got the resources to sustain life on our planet for the next 1000 years, what makes you believe that we can terraform a whole other planet? Fucking modern scientists.

[Anonymous No.6656813]

>>6656669
Moons are too small or too close to radiation belts, might be possible but highly impractical because the atmosphere would wear off in a couple of decades. Not worth trillions of dollars. It would just be cheaper to create some kind of super suit that can adapt to any environment or genetically modify humans, or both.

[Anonymous No.6657988]

>>6654926
>We shouldnt, because if we fuck up, consequences would be on planetary scale

Meh, we can't really fuck up Mars worse than it already is. Clearly it was bombarded by asteroids and comets and meteors, and the result was the massive Tharsis volcanic uplift region that accelerated loss of atmo and destruction of whatever biosphere it once had.

So I say, fuck it, go to town. Dibs on Valles Marinaris. I like atmo pressure.

Blue-green algae and stromatolites sounds like a plan to me - or just aim some comets and asteroids down onto the shit-hole. Water ones.

[Anonymous No.6657996]

>>6655302
>A terraformed Mars would lose its atmosphere very quickly on a planetological scale - returning to its uninhabitable state in just a million years or so.

A million years to figure out a better strategy? shrug. OK.

Meanwhile we back up Earth, although I'm more partial to Europa and Ganymede myself.

[Anonymous No.6658036]

>>6656770
>thinking resources up and disappear
>inb4 fossil fuel argument

We don't have infinite resources to give you iphones and apple accessories if that's what you mean. We won't be running out of resources required for basic survival. Ever.

[Anonymous No.6658378]

>>6656765
> Venus
> Fish

Not unless you move all the "greenhouse gases" over to mars.

Which brings me to a question. Would it be easier to terraform a planet like Mars (low atmosphere) or Venus (toxic/thick atmosphere not suited for humans).

Creating or cleaning?

[Anonymous No.6658560]

>>6655744

>terraforming
>not centuries into the future
>humans are still made of flesh and bones

kekek

[Anonymous No.6658569]

>>6658378
Any atmosphere you managed to produce on Mars would be blasted off by the sun. No magnetic field, no sustainable atmosphere. No way around it.

[Anonymous No.6658590]

>>6654925
we will destory ourselves before we reach that far

[Anonymous No.6658597]

>>6654925
I think a better idea would be to send robots to do the terraforming for us.

[Anonymous No.6658599]

>>6658569
>Any atmosphere you managed to produce on Mars would be blasted off by the sun

Yeah, in like 2 million years. I think we can live with that.

[Anonymous No.6658644]

>>6658378

Terraforming Venus is next to impossible. The amount of effort it would take to get it's rotation up to something sensible is immense. There's little point in trying. Besides, if you clear away all the CO2, you've removed the main thing protecting you from the Sun.

It's a good candidate for colonisation though, if you absolutely must get yourself stuck down another gravity well once you've made it into space.

[Anonymous No.6658776]

>>6654928
>I think we might have enough technology to reverse our effects to some degree.

Bombs and explosives are technological products.

As they say "just sayin'..." :-)

[Anonymous No.6658789]

>>6655284
>without a magnetic field, it's gonna be tricky holding on to that atmosphere

WTF??????

Atmospheres are held in place by gravity, not magnetic fields.

The major plus for a planet having a magnetic field is to deflect solar radiation.

[Anonymous No.6658799]

>>6658789
And solar radiation slowly strips atmosphere. It's specifically why Mars' is nearly nonexistent now. Or do you think it was lost because Mars lost it's gravity somehow?

[Anonymous No.6658803]

>>6654928
because at this point, warp drive is just as feasible as planetary engineering. why go through the hassle of making an earth like planet when we can just go to an earth like planet.

[Anonymous No.6658806]

>>6658803
>warp drive is just as feasible as planetary engineering

Wat? Warp drive has to find a way around one of the most fundamental aspects of physics. Planetary engineering is just a gigantic pain in the ass. They aren't anywhere near the same level of plausibility.

[Not that guy No.6658907]

>>6658799
Keyword: slowly. Mars lost that water and atmosphere over a period of a few billion years.

[Anonymous No.6659641]

>>6655052
>cost effective

go back to /biz/, merchant

[Anonymous No.6659645]

>>6656310
>crossing the atlantic
>ever

and here we are. on the internet.

[Anonymous No.6660269]

>>6656556
the most well known space company doesn't even have enough funding to send rockets into space now without getting a patent to satisfy the wealthy's retarded jobs.

[Anonymous No.6660351]

Why not find habitable planets in other systems? Closest stars are only 5 light years away.

[Anonymous No.6660355]

>>6655284
detonating hydrogen bombs at the ice caps, releasing water vapor and co2 in the atmosphere in hopes of starting a small cycle of global warming

[Anonymous No.6660357]

>>6655284
detonating hydrogen bombs at the ice caps, releasing water vapor and co2 in the atmosphere in hopes of starting a small cycle of global warming

[Anonymous No.6660575]

>>6655717
Put the nursery in a centrifuge

Problem solved

[Anonymous No.6660577]

>>6658644
I heard its quite nice high up in the atmosphere; minus the horrifying radiation levels and acidic sulfur.

[Anonymous No.6660587]

>>6660577
Venus doesn't have horrifying radiation levels. Turns out that miles and miles of thick atmosphere are great radiation shielding!

[Anonymous No.6661454]

How about the Ice Giants?

How long would it take to prepare Uranus?

[Anonymous No.6661831]

>>6658590
this

[Anonymous No.6661837]

ITT: Armchair planetary scientists think playing through Mass Effect twice makes them qualified to speak on how easy terraforming *really* is.

[Anonymous No.6661846]

>>6659641

Even /biz/ wants dogecoin to go to the moon

Tell him to go back to /pol/

[Anonymous No.6661872]

I want to become an agricultural/biological scientist in order to make it possible.

On earth, it was living things that shaped the planet's development. Photosynthesis led to the existence of the iron ore we use as a resource. Bacteria have led to the oxygenation of the atmosphere and the glaciation of the planet. Living things shape the content of the very soil we stand upon.

We shouldn't stop with engineering unliving machines. We should engineer life forms that act as tools for us to terraform other planets. And we can begin by researching ways to use GMO's for geoengineering on Earth.

I want to develop GMO's that can reverse pollution and desertification, in addition to developing GMO's that can support human communities in extreme and barren environments. I want to develop GMO's that serve industrial and pharmaceutical purposes. I want to research and resurrect the ancient organisms that shaped and thrived in alien and bizarre environments of prehistoric Earth and harvest their genetic resources in order to engineer organisms capable of causing oxygenation, glaciation, and the fertilization of soil on planets we seek to develop.

A thousand ethics courses could not stop me from wanting to create these things.

[Anonymous No.6662112]

When we become a type 1 civilization we can talk about fucking with other planets, that is if we don't make ourselves go extinct. I really hope that in the next 500 years we become immortal or as close as we can get, a life expectancy of 300+ years would give us enough time to really do something large scale ie. colonizing planets, extracting energy directly from the sun and so on. We very well could be the civilization that is going to rule the galaxies but I don't think it can be done with humans of today.

It's such a fucking shame our life expectancy is so low. I vote for creating robotic bodies in which we'll pluck are brains in.

[Anonymous No.6662386]

>>6654925
Oh no! We could render those planets uninhabita- wait what's the problem?

That way we just use it for strip mining or something.

[Anonymous No.6662403]

>>6656738
>Send robots with 3D printer tech to assemble necessary equipment from planet's own resources
>Send any equipment that cannot be produced on that planet easily
>Begin process
>????
>Colonisation

[Anonymous No.6662404]

>>6662112
>when

Heh.

[Anonymous No.6662409]

>>6655099
lel

[Anonymous No.6662413]

>>6661837
As opposed to 'hands-on" planetary scientists.

[Anonymous No.6662417]

>>6661872
Amen to that.

[Anonymous No.6662477]

>>6658590
>we will destroy ourselves before we reach that far
With THAT attitude we will.

[Anonymous No.6662502]

>>6661837
It is easy in the same sense than programming is is hard but moving 10 tons of sand by hand is easy
On of them requires special knowledge and is impossible for majority of current humans, meanwhile almost everyone is capable of moving sand around.

The same thing more or less applies to terraforming too. It's not "difficult", especially the first crude steps like increasing temperature or water/atmosphere. The hard part is the amount of work you need to do, not the difficulty of the task itself.
Once you have the capabilities to travel to other planets on a scale where terraforming could be started it's more or less trivial to start it.
Literally solid plans on what should be done and how it could be done already exist to turn mars into Antarctica/Mt Everest levels of terraforming, where moving outside is possible without space suits with good clothes and oxygen mask for limited time.
Same thing could be done on Venus relatively easy too.

The theory isn't difficult, the work load is just gigantic, most people who refer to terraforming being easy are indeed referring to the technical knowledge and the theory, not to the amount of physical labor.

[Anonymous No.6662634]

>>6661872
I love you.

[Anonymous No.6663177]

>>6662477
You and I both know that humans are fucking violent apes. Once we get used to a colony and it becomes a regular thing, we will start fighting over them.

[Anonymous No.6663873]

>>6660351
And how do you propose we get there?

[Anonymous No.6663875]

>>6661454
Kek

[Anonymous No.6663970]

>>6655052
>cost effective

We are discussing leaving the 4.5 billion history of our planet as the solitary planet with life and ascending towards the possibly first ever multiplanetary organism and you are thinking of money? Money is nothing. Money is an illusion, a tool towards achieving more.
Cost effective are two words that should not appear anywhere in a project like this.

[Anonymous No.6664034]

What gets me up in the morning is knowing we're becoming interstellar. We must become interstellar.... there is no other choice. It's the only reason for me to stay alive to see the coming extraordinary events we'll bare witness. It's sad how most people don't even have an ounce of passion towards it, everyone would rather distract themselves with their phones and mindless social networking. I just with people would realize the potential humanity has to colonize other worlds, to quite literally spread the consciousness of one spherical orb to another. No one I know personally is excited, it's a lonely passion to have, i'm just glad you here share the same feelings.

[Anonymous No.6664054]

why dont we just build a giant tube to jupiter and siphon off the gas. Will last is forever practically. No more energy problems