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Could Mars Be Habitable In 100 Years?
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Oct 11, 2000 10:01 PM
from the we-could-send-back-my-sister dept.
from the we-could-send-back-my-sister dept.
ChazeFroy writes: "About 150 physicists gathered to discuss how Mars could become habitable. They suggested that by introducing PFCs (a cousin of CFCs) into the Martian atmosphere, they could transform the climate of Mars into something resembling Canada's climate (this would be enough to sustain lichens and algae). This process would take only 100 years, but they estimate it would take nearly 100,000 years for the oxygen levels to increase to a suitable level to sustain human life." Heh -- or you could say, "Soon, Canada could be almost like Mars."
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Mars To Become Habitable In 100 Years?
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Re:How will humans adapt to long term 0.33G gravit (Score:4)
True, but apparently the story is a little more complex than that. Russian cosmonauts on Mir were supposed to do intensive exercise regimes to preserve muscle tone, but these exercise regimes failed to work. What instead happened was that the cosmonauts weren' actually *doing* their exercise routines - Shannen Lucid, the American astronaut who was up on Mir for ages, actually bothered to do her routines and was able to walk around virtually immediately after returning to Earth.
It's equally possible that human lifespan will be substantially *lengthened*. Until we actually go and live there for a while, we won't know.
If I recall (totally) ... (Score:3)
Why did I find myself waiting for this? (Score:5)
Oh, come ON people. It's EXTEREMELY unlikely there's life on mars right now. If we find it, we'll find it long before or maybe even BECAUSE of these efforts making exploration of mars _possible_. You're smoking moon rocks if you think that a couple robot probes that can MAYBE test a few dozen or hundred individual samples will be able to make ANY conclusive decision. You'd need a research base there and a LOT of money and effort to determine if life is there, but the MUCH more interesting question in my mind is WAS there ever life there, WAS it ever intelligent, and DID it fertilize a once inhospitable earth?
Rant mode on; Donning flame retardant jacket:
That said; Jesus H. Christ, what do you think terraforming mars is about? Worrying about stepping on some freaking bacteria? You kill bazillions of life forms when you step in the shower, or sneeze on a wall. Terraforming mars is about making it hosipitable for the Human Race to move someplace else and make another home; To help guarantee we won't be extincted in case something happens to earth - Have people forgotten - especially you americans - that your own citizens, under the employ of the US Department of Defense, EVERY DAY, practice the procedures that are in place for the exinction of ALL life on this planet? And that their counterparts in Russia and China do the SAME THING? And you can tell me with a straight face you're worried about fucking up a dead planet, because you MIGHT step on something? Oh my _GOD_.
Are you going to cry when we set up a moon base, too? We're ruining a static environment! There might be moon creater fuzzy creatures!
If we're going to survive, we need to realize a concequence of their being 6 BILLION people on this planet is that people are EXTRAORDINARILY good at F*CKING SHIT UP. Unless you're going to exterminate a LOT of people REAL fast, we're INEVITABLY going to COMPLETELY ruin earth if we haven't already and their isn't JACK that ANYONE can do about it. Are you going to give up driving? Electricity? Are you not going to have any children? Are you going to stop eating anything but gruel until you die? HELL no. Neither is ANYONE else, and the 5.5 billion people on the planet that DON'T live a privilged existance like us in the west are SURE AS HELL going to go throught THEIR industrial revolutions. Then comes THEIR contribution to global warming. Not so fun when you're the one that's going to be sucking in CO2 from China, eh?
It's time we wake up and realize what human civilization means; We need to wake up and accept that there's little we can do about environmental impacts; We can slow the damage, but it's not going to be stopped anytime soon; And that YES, MAYBE, it's a damn good idea to start looking for a new place to live and expand to, and that YES, OF COURSE, we're going to COMPLETELY ruin whereever we move, and that's a natural course of human development, unless of course you're a hypocrite who doesn't think that the 90% of the earth's population has the same right to drive a SUV or Sports Car that YOU and I do.
Give me a break. I want my offspring and their offspring to a) have freedom of choice and b) have some quality of life. That means we're going to need to start looking for more resources. And I didn't even TALK about the extreme likelyhood that man himself will obliterate earth - remember, you practice it every day, and the United States of America and Russia both have enough nuclear weapons to exterminate ALL life on earth. My own country, Canada, is a leading researcher into Biological and Chemical weapons research, as is the USA - and these things are the nastiest inventions that you will ever hear about. Go read what a dose of a modern nerve gas agent will do to a child. Hitler invented that technology with Vx gas. We perfected it.
Damn, that felt good. I needed to vent after watching the puppets dance on that debate. They never talked about any of that; Or the billions and billions they spend on the War on Drugs. Why not build universities instead of prisions, shmucks. Do you know what percentage of the prision population has a college degree? Hint: Your initial hunch is right.
Kudos!
Re:Climat du Canada - I like it! (Score:3)
Re:Do we have the right to do this? (Score:4)
Guess what! Humans are a part of nature. We are not below it, despite what the religious fundamnentalists of the aesthetic-environmental movement/religion would have you believe. Mars posesses no right to not be modified by humans any more than it has a right to not be modified by asteroid strikes.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Re:We'd Just Screw It Up (Score:4)
Look, we are part of Nature. What we do is inherently natural. Nature changes things all the time. It is prudent to avoid actions that risk our existence, and it is nice to preserve as much biological diversity as possible. But there is nothing wrong with changing an environment per se, whether Earth's or Mars's or Pluto's or any other.
Steven E. Ehrbar
suggested reading (Score:4)
Free Space Habitats Make Terraforming Moot (Score:4)
Aren't we going to terraform Mars or Venus?
Terraforming is a long-term project requiring technology significantly advanced over what we have today. Even terraforming advocates admit it would take a minimum of 200 years to modify Mars to the stage where even simple anaerobic microorganisms and algae can survive. [Ref: Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments, Martyn J. Fogg, SAE Press 1995.] Space habitats, on the other hand, can be built with today's technology, and would be homes in space which people initiating the program could move into within their lifetimes.
Interstellar travel may someday become possible, but we have no guarantee that Earth-like planets will be as plentiful in the Milky Way galaxy as they have been in Hollywood, CA.
What advantages would orbital settlements have over a colony built on another planet?
Access to 24-hour-a-day sunlight. This makes solar power a consistent, economical energy source. Photovoltaic panels can convert sunlight into electrical current, and solar mirrors can concentrate it for process heat in industrial operations (such as the smelting of ore). A space-based solar concentrator the size of a football field (which could still weigh less than a car) could provide process heat equivalent to the burning of 1 million barrels of oil over 30 years.
Sunlight also drives the life-support system of the habitat, so the day/night cycle can be set to whatever is convenient. Compare this to the moon, where there is 14 days of continuous daylight, and then a 14-day-long night. Here, some alternate energy source would probably have to be used half the time.
Access to zero gravity. This may have a number of industrial and entertainment possibilities. Structures (such as the above-mentioned solar mirrors) could be built many times larger and flimsier in space than on a planet.
Zero G would be a liability if there were no alternative to it. Astronauts experience loss of bone mass and muscle tone after prolonged exposure to weightlessness. But most of a space habitat would be under Earth-normal gravity, although there would be easy access to regions of reduced gravity and zero G (perhaps for personal flight). With planets, on the other hand, you have to take the gravity that's there, and it's often the wrong kind of gravity to keep us healthy. Lunarians or Martians would probably not be able to visit the Earth (nor accelerate at 1 G).
Long-term expansion of the land area available to the human race. Let's be optimistic and assume that Mars could be made totally Earth-like in the near-term. This would basically double the land area available to humanity, meaning problem solved...until the population doubles again. Right now, that is happening roughly every 40 years. By contrast, if we were to conservatively limit ourselves to using only the resources of the asteroid belt, we could build, in the form of space habitats, 3,000 times the livable surface area of the Earth. This makes space settlement a long-term solution.
Location near the top of Earth's gravity well. We here on Earth are the "gravitationally disadvantaged". We are at the bottom of a pit 6,400 km (4,000 miles) deep. This is what makes space launches from the surface so difficult and expensive. Settlers near the top of the gravity well would be ideally situated for departures to points beyond.
Control of the environment. The weather and other aspects of the surroundings would be those of the inhabitants' choosing. Agriculture in space will benefit from weather control (fresh fruits and vegetables year-round!) and the absence of pests.
Disperse Life [geocities.com]
Enough to sustain (Score:5)
At least Canada will serve some purpose in the mission to Mars. ("Wanna know what Mars is like?? Go to Canada") What a great tourist attraction, eh?
We'd Just Screw It Up (Score:3)
The idea of inflicting ourselves on the whole of Mars is a little unsettling. We may have the best intentions, but do we really know what we're doing?
-Waldo
Some points in favour of planetary settlement (Score:5)
On any planet or moon you get a 50% reduction in cosmic rays for free because the bottom half is protected by an enormous mass. On a planet with an atmosphere (practically, only Mars) you also get significant radiation protection from the atmosphere.
On a floating space habitat you will need to cover it with a thick layer of rocks and any kind of junk you can find to get any kind of meaningful radiation protection. Mass is expensive in space because of the delta Vs required to get it where you want it, but it is very cheap on a planet.
Getting direct sunlight for agriculture is more diffcult because you want your protective mass to be transparent. The window panes of agricultural areas will need to be over a foot thick.
Except for radiation protection you will need mass for everything you build, eat or breathe and all of it requires significant delta Vs. Oh, I almost forgot: you also need lots of reaction mass as fuel for generating these delta Vs.
I find the point about absence of pests to be particularly ironic considering the fungus problem on Mir. If you start to do agriculture it is likely to get worse. Perfect quarantine is impossible and once a pest gets there it can get pretty nasty. If you decide that your agriculture areas do not need as much radiation protection as the habitable areas you will get very interesting mutations, too.
Eventually we will probably see both free space and planetary settlements filling different niches in the economic ecology of space.
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Re:A Much Cheaper Method: (Score:3)
Re:I doubt this (Score:5)
But should we? (Score:5)
One of the most critical questions that we should be asking ourselves is this: Once we get there, is it a good idea to immediately start terraforming the red planet?
One of the most interesting things about Mars is that understanding how Mars formed and its weather systems will help us to understand how things work here on Earth, through what Ames and the Mars Society [marssociety.com] crew like to call "comparative planetology." However, if humans dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the planet gets hotter, that changes the weather patterns, so Mars would be less useful for understanding Earth.
And, of course, there is the ever-present debate about life on Mars. If the atmosphere gets thicker and the planet gets warmer, Earth-born fungi and bacteria will flourish, "contaminating" the planet and making it very difficult to conclusively prove (or disprove) whether there is or was life on Mars.
Re:If we *really* want Mars to be like Canada (Score:3)
That's a silly idea. The French would all explosively decompress in a shower of obnoxious, sticky goo.
Oh. I'm beginning to see the charm of your plan.
But then who would sue Echelon?
My mom is not a Karma whore!
How will humans adapt to long term 0.33G gravity? (Score:5)
And while Mars is not zero G. It is roughly 1/3 G. Long term residence on Mars will weaken people, possibly to the point to where they can never return to Earth. Human lifespan on Mars may also be severely shortened.
And what happens when children are born on Mars? They will grow up in that light gravity environment and certainly be bound to Mars forever. Lesser gravity may cause them to physically develop oddly too. They will *look* alien!
On the other hand, if low G is detrimental... it'd be interesting to see what happens to people living in a high gravity environment for long periods of time, say 2-3 G. Would children born in that enviroment develop super strength? The IOC will have to ban athletes from high G environments from participating in the Olympics. Life in high G could be achieved on Earth. Anyone tried puting humans in a low speed centrifuge chambre for long periods of time (months or longer)?
Re:But.. (Score:5)
Then take all of those bottles to anywhere in L.A. (on or near a freeway preferred) and close the caps on them, trapping that wonderful air.
Put all of the newly filled bottles in a giant probe.
Tell NASA that the probe is delicate.
When the probe crashes into the surface of Mars all of the bottles will spill open letting loose enough CFCs (and who knows what else) to create an atmosphere on Jupiter, let alone Mars.
Devil Ducky
eh? (Score:3)
No doot aboot it!
Re:How will humans adapt to long term 0.33G gravit (Score:5)
On the other hand, people can drink 2/3 more beer, to weigh them down.
Re:Mars like Canada? (Score:3)
What is the purpose of this article? It's almost as bad as the polls, thousands of ameteur commedians trying to one-up each other. I'll have to admit that some of the posts have been funny, but wasn't there another purpose than insulting Canada?
Why worry about seeding the atmosphere of Mars with pollutants when it _still_ won't result in a human breathable atmosphere? We'd still have to live underground (or should, to keep away from the ultraviolet and cosmic radiation). Mars doesn't have a big moon, so the crust may not be as radioactive as Earth's (ref: Asimov's Robots and Empire). Living underground is about the only viable option, so who needs an atmosphere?
Then again, why don't we just put up a set of big mirrors in the Mercury-Venus trojan points and have them reflect sunlight at Mars? We could warm up the planet pretty quickly that way. Once the planet gets warmer, the fossil water and ice caps should melt and form a better atmosphere, making it warmer still through the greenouse effect. Sounds simpler than sending billions of tons of chemicals around the solar system.
Heck, we could even warm up Canada the same way! Or at least melt the Prime Minister's igloo...
OK, so now we're REALLY 3rd World... (Score:3)
I hereby propose that we Canucks grap about 750Ml (that's Mega-litres, or about 4.5 million gallons) of PFC producing white paint, 3 or 4 thousand beers, take the Avro Arrow out of mothballs, fly to Mars and lay down an enormous Canadian Flag on the surface. Should seem like home in a real short time.
Re:A Much Cheaper Method: (Score:3)
They have already started this process
The last mission to scatter dark scrap metal on the icecap was succesful
Great, that's all we need, (Score:3)
I'm Looking Forward to Two Things (Score:3)
2. The outcry and street marches organised by the conservation group 'RedPeace'.
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