Terraforming Other Planets?

[modest]

All this is fascinating, air bursts of comets, melting the frozen gasses of Mars but.... what are you going to do with all the water in the comets? Most of the mass is water, for every pound of CO2 in the comet you have several pounds of water

 

A good portion of the water would surely aggregate on the surface and hopefully quite a bit would add to the atmosphere as water vapor. Both those things are necessary steps in terraforming, so as far as I can figure—the water in the comets would be an all-around good thing.

 

then there is the Carbon monoxide (more than CO2 BTW) and the ammonia and methane.

 

Carbon monoxide is converted to carbon dioxide in the presence of water vapor,

 

The comparatively large amount of carbon dioxide in the martian atmosphere – 9 times more overall than is contained in Earth's much thicker atmosphere – led astronomers to conclude more than three decades ago that the martian atmosphere should contain small amounts of water vapor and hydrogen. Why? Because the carbon dioxide would be split by solar radiation into carbon monoxide and oxygen; water vapor must be present, the theory went, to trigger chemical reactions that recombine the carbon monoxide and oxygen to make carbon dioxide and thus complete the cycle. As part of this process, hydrogen molecules would be created. Water vapor was found on Mars by Viking in the 1970s, but the molecular hydrogen was only detected as recently as 2001 by Vladimir A. Krasnopolsky of the Catholic University of America and Paul D. Feldman of Johns Hopkins University, using NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) spacecraft.

Mars, atmosphere

 

I wouldn't worry about methane as I'm sure earth's proto-atmosphere had lots of methane. If anything, it would be an asset to the initial terraforming process because it's such a good greenhouse gas. Once free oxygen is introduced to the atmosphere via photosynthesizing algae, or whatever other method, the methane will be chemically decomposed.

 

I'm less sure about ammonia.

 

Sounds like a very long term project to me, hundreds of thousands of years possibly? Even after the comet bombardment has ended :(

 

That certainly seems possible to me. It's also possible that we could find more suitable planets for terraforming around other suns. Or, that we will simply biologically engineer ourselves to survive any planetary environment making the concept of terraforming obsolete.

 

~modest

[belovelife]

Since we are tecnically in the sun's thermosphere,

could that be the reason for

1-dense atmoshere on Venus

2-our atmoshere

3-mars's thin atmosphere

 

in which case how could we potentially increase the atmoshere density

on mars by using this assumption

[Eclipse Now]

I think Moontanman's main point was that it would take hundreds of thousands of years to get enough water from the asteroids to truly terraform Mars.

 

Or, that we will simply biologically engineer ourselves to survive any planetary environment making the concept of terraforming obsolete.

Biological or cybernetic enhancement? I'm not sure how good biology would do on Mars, but maybe if we're in one of Ray Kurzweil's enhanced super-android bodies we'll be fine and dandy. (SCIAM is very dubious about this though... see there article, Ray Kurzweil, you're going to die!)

 

They're also talking about mining Ceres for water, Titan for hydrocarbons (like vast quantities of methane), etc. So with requirements like these, it's not a choice of either space colonies or terraforming, it's both.

 

This is how I see Mars complementing and adding pressure to O'Neil colonies. Humanity is greedy. We might be prepared to live in vast underground cities on Mars for a few generations at least. But eventually as Martian numbers increase they'll want to grow and make a life of their own on the surface again.

 

So pressure builds for a truly vast fleet of shuttles and rockets to work the asteroid fields and mine Titan and Ceres for hydrocarbons and water.*** This will require a whole economy on and around those moons. The mining and transport jobs are already there, but they'll need nutritional, medical, recreational, educational, community, health, and even spiritual services and facilities. In short, they'll need a home. And now we're full circle back to Varley again!

 

I'd be happy either way. I'd love to see a Varley / O'Neil colony head out there. I'd love it to have its own fleet of shuttles and a big enough population to start self-seeding other colonies, to the point where one might attract enough Mars enthusiasts to go park around Mars.

 

 

***Any ideas on mining planets on this scale? It would probably require a space elevator that could pump liquids up into huge space cruisers that had vast inflatable 'space balloons' on their backsides. When the elevator swung the now filled ship onto the right trajectory, launch and off it goes with most of the momentum it needs to get back to Mars. At Mars it just dumps the balloon which is eventually detonated in the upper atmosphere, or it docks and the whole cargo is 'sucked' down the middle of the space elevator. The crew can have shore leave, or maybe the ship is running on AI by then? Or is partially alive? :( Hey, good Sci-Fi is like doing acid but without ripping up your neural network. It's my trip, so :confused:.

[Moontanman]

I think Moontanman's main point was that it would take hundreds of thousands of years to get enough water from the asteroids to truly terraform Mars.

 

No, what I mean is that after you deliver enough atmosphere with comets you also get quite a bit more water than you will need, quite possibly enough to cover the entire planet quite deeply....

[Moontanman]

Since we are tecnically in the sun's thermosphere,

could that be the reason for

1-dense atmoshere on Venus

2-our atmoshere

3-mars's thin atmosphere

 

in which case how could we potentially increase the atmoshere density

on mars by using this assumption

 

What about Mercury? Shouldn't it have a dense atmosphere by your idea?

[modest]

No, what I mean is that after you deliver enough atmosphere with comets you also get quite a bit more water than you will need, quite possibly enough to cover the entire planet quite deeply....

 

I see.

 

On earth, i believe the atmosphere is .3% of the mass of all the water. Unless comets have less than that ratio, I don't think it would be a problem.

 

~modest

[Moontanman]

I see.

 

On earth, i believe the atmosphere is .3% of the mass of all the water. Unless comets have less than that ratio, I don't think it would be a problem.

 

~modest

 

The comet is 50% ices of that 80% is water ice, sounds like far too much water per pound of other frozen gasses...

[belovelife]

What about Mercury? Shouldn't it have a dense atmosphere by your idea?

 

Mercury does have an atmoshere from the readings at the current mission

but it has so little gravity and the exit velocity of gasses would easily

be achieved by the intensity of the energy per square foot at that distance from the sun

[modest]

I see.

 

On earth, i believe the atmosphere is .3% of the mass of all the water. Unless comets have less than that ratio, I don't think it would be a problem.

 

~modest

 

The comet is 50% ices of that 80% is water ice, sounds like far too much water per pound of other frozen gasses...

 

But, earth is 0.3% atmosphere and 99.7% water (by mass). If a comet is roughly 20% that will go to atmosphere and roughly 80% that will go to water then we'd have too little water if anything.

 

~modest

[Eclipse Now]

Isn't there enough water on Mars just locked up under the permafrost?

[TheBigDog]

The oceans of Mars did not turn to permafrost, they evaporated and blew away into space. Some remnant of the ancient water supply remains as permafrost. Remember that Mars has been dry for most of 3 billions years. It was not geologically inactive during that time, so underground water had ample opportunity to make its way to the surface and evaporate. Even ice evaporates (or sublimates) when exposed to atmosphere. 3 billion years is an awful long time for any substantial supply of water to have remained in such a dry atmosphere.

 

Bill

[Boerseun]

From another tangent - Mars has loads of carbon in its atmosphere. Mars has plenty oxygen too, but it's trapped as oxides on the surface. Mars apparently has water. So what we need to do is to engineer some sort of a extremophile super-lichen that can grow in the conditions on Mars with the express intent to release the oxygen from the rocks, using sunlight and atmospheric carbon, like plants do.

 

Then massively seed the planet with said super-duper extremophile lichen, sit back and relax for about a million years.

 

Then groan as you find out that all your hard work has blown off into space, and go off looking for a more massive planet - or give up on the whole scheme and join the rest of humanity who've shed the ungainly and impractical meat-bags the species have been stuck in since the dawn of time. It's only the primitive demands of our animal metabolism that requires us to terraform planets, in any case. Intelligent machines are the future, and require none of this terraformation business.

[Moontanman]

Orbiting space colonies is the only way to go, made of Carbon nano tube fibers and dreams, it is our destiny, we might as well get on with it!

[TheBigDog]

Orbiting space colonies is the only way to go, made of Carbon nano tube fibers and dreams, it is our destiny, we might as well get on with it!

This could be a stepping stone (regardless of the construction) but ultimately we need to settle planets healthy for our survival. This means generation ships branching out in all directions. There is an evolutionary step in life aboard those ships. Then there is another in the settlement of the new planets. That is the ultimate challenge, and the ultimate way for mankind to survive.

 

Bill

[Moontanman]

but ultimately we need to settle planets healthy for our survival.

Bill

 

What do you mean by this?

[Eclipse Now]

Our sun's super-red giant phase will wipe out the earth? He's talking extra-solar systems as a back up. I'm not thinking that far ahead, but hey? Makes for an interesting project. I have heard that an extra-solar system generation arkship would cost so much money some wonder if this entire solar system could ever fund such a venture, but they're probably the same sort of people that would have said a trip to the moon was impossible: before it was actually done.

[Moontanman]

I still see no reason for planets, a huge torus would have open spaces and be big enough for a mostly closed ecosystem, magnetic sails could be used to travel to other stars but until we use up the solar system no real necessity for star travel. of course there will always be people who want to explore and possibly separatist groups who want to leave the bad influences behind.

 

Our star will never go nova and in the red giant phase we could just move further away, i think Saturn would be far enough away and there's always the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud. Torus type habitats both small and large could support quadrillions of humans and our captive ecosystems for billions of years and many of these torus habitats would be good slow boats to the galaxy, a few million years is enough time to occupy the entire galaxy.... which of course begs the question.... Where are they ? :)