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Space

Could Mars Be Habitable In 100 Years? 356

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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  • Frankly, I'm a bit put off by your focus on sexual intercourse, since I'll be the first to say sexuality can occur between men and between women without requiring one of each. But with that said, what I am talking about is the necessity of a feminine influence on Nasa's mission in this regard. So many of Nasa's problems with crashing probes and blowing up space shuttles would never have happened if it hadn't been for the influence of testosterone. Women would've handled it differently -- you can be sure of that.
  • by itp ( 6424 )
    I think by climate, they are referring primarily to temperature and weather condition. The reason this would only be enough to sustain lichens and algae is because of the insufficient oxygen level, which is discussed later.

    I think you came down a little hard on /. and the editors here.

    --
    Ian Peters
  • >-40 in what? Farenheit or Celsius? Makes a big difference, you know... =-p

    Actually, no, there is no difference at all. Wrong temperature to pick an SI/imperial fight on. :-)
  • Now if only you would KEEP Celine Dione, and stop her from infesting our airwaves and movie soundtracks...

    Better you than us :)

    Seriously she gets like _NO_ radio play where I live :)
  • Due to some kind of Evil Canadian Conspiracy, both of the programmers at the company where I work (in Seattle) are from Nova Scotia. And they both say 'aboot' with alarming frequency. OTOH they don't say 'eh' and AFAIK neither likes hockey very much.

    To even things up a bit though, I'm from the South, and although I don't have an accent (blame TV and radio for the death of interesting American accents) I do use 'y'all' a lot, and am unashamed of it. ;)
  • Amazing books. thats the first thing i thought of when i saw this article. if you are intrerested in the subject, definitly worth a read. well, maybe not blue. but, the first 2 are great reads, belivable science, and a good take on the political ramifications i belive.

    -------

  • we are crumpling styrafome on an industrial scale to increase global warming

    Wrong global disaster. CFC's cause the depletion of the Ozone, which is almost entirely unrelated to global warming, which is caused by (mainly) CO2 emissions, which cause the greenhouse effect.

  • I also found this [nasa.gov] and this. [ucla.edu] Apperently Venus is losing some of its atmosphere into space because of the solar wind. (Venus doesnt have much of a magnetic field either).

    This is a repost, the first was stuffed up for some reason.
  • Just send a bunch of people up (mixed couples) and let them have kids...the kids that live, will be adapted to the environment and will propagate. Soon we'll have 8' tall space kiddies hackin our linix boxes from orbit......then, they will be the enemy, until then they are are our friends unless they live on europa!
  • No, we won't be generating an atmosphere for Mars in 100 years. Read the article:
    One hundred greenhouse gas factories, each with the power of a nuclear power plant, could transform the Martian climate into something resembling Canada's in 100 years, she estimated.
    So if we fire these gas generating nukes up tomorrow, then maybe in 100 years we'll have some vague chance of having a warmer climate there. I'm not holding my breath, unless I'm forced to live near a PFC belching nuke.
  • Sputtering? that sounds like a personal problem.
  • I was planning on moving to the US but I'll reconsider. It seems like an even better place (just like home but with no federal government, perfect).
  • I'd like to believe that within 100,000 years humans would be exploring the deepest reaches of our solar system, if not our neighboring stars. We will have inevitable learned to survive on Mars, despite the lack of oxygen and abundance of Canadian weather. Rushing to heat up a planet so we can water our gardens on Mars without breathing aids in 100,000 years from now might sound a bit silly. Will terraforming a planet still be a human priority? Maybe. We gotta live somewhere. (Or do we?) We should at least check the place out ourselves before we move in and start rearranging everything. Our feable 20th Century brains shouldn't be planning that far ahead.
    Besides, if it's atmosphere your looking for, we've got lots of it in our drinking establishments here in Canada, eh!



  • He had them setting up windmills to power electric heaters to warm up the planet. Of course, the energy of wind ultimately turns into heat anyway.

    He also had them covering the floor with computer printouts - he didn't say what they used for paper.
  • Oh sure, astronauts live in zero G for a few weeks. A few Russians went for a few months, but they come back to Earth on a stretcher because their muscles have turned to jello.

    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.

    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.

    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.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by scotch ( 102596 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:04PM (#713074) Homepage
    They could just put their hand on that goofy looking silver switch and the planet would be habitable a few minutes later

  • by xtal ( 49134 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @07:30PM (#713077)

    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!

  • Well, I live in Canada. (Winnipeg, MB to be exact.) And, let me tell you, if they are talking about the -WINTER- atmosphere, then, quite frankly, I'd pick a polluted ol' planet any day.

    I woke up this morning, and, while I was waiting for the bus, I could see my breath. Now, for all you Americans, that means it's pretty dam cold. And it only gets worse. (Last year, the mercury dipped to -34c, which is.. uh.. almost 0f.)

    On the other hand, Canadian beer rules.. now where did I put my hockey stick and parka? Oh, here they are, in my Igloo. =)


    ------------
    CitizenC
  • on the other hand.. it's probably easier to stand up again when you fall down in a drunken stupor..

    //rdj
  • a whole PLANET devoted towards the production of Canadian Dry ginger ale.

    Where do you think those fizzy bubbles come from? That's CO2 from the martian atmosphere!

    BTW, while you yanks were aiming for the moon, we canucks were already setting up shop on mars, or yellowknife or something.

  • 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.

    We are not above it, either. If we screw up Mars we screw up our own future.

    If we're going to do it (and I think we should, someday) we need to get it right, or at least be able to weigh the risks. Right now we don't even know for certain what effect our civilization has had on Earth's atmosphere. And we know a hell of a lot less about Mars than we know about Earth. If we did do something to the atmosphere of Mars it is unlikely that we'd be able to figure out what the effect was.

    So no, we don't have the right to mess with the martian atmosphere. Rights come with responsibilities, and if we can't accept those responsibilities we don't have the right.

  • Interesting article. Too bad the first sentence is just wrong: "It took billions of years before Earth could support life." Sorry, nice try. Age of the earth is estimated [usgs.gov] at 4.5 gigayears. There's evidence of life [brookes.ac.uk] from at least 3.5-3.8 GYA. Hundreds of millions, sure, but not billions.

    Second, this is an old idea. As others have pointed out, it was used to great effect in Kim Stanley Robinson's phenomenal Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars trilogy (great science fiction not only because of the science but because of the social, political, interpersonal, and cultural questions it raises).

    Third, I find it unconscionable that the scientists (or the writer) didn't consider the possibility that life already exists, or did once exist, on Mars. That final quote -- "we have the chance to spread life beyond its origin" -- is arrogant beyond belief. I suspect that in another century or two (and sooner if we're lucky) the assumption that Earth must be the single "origin" of life will appear as misguided as the belief that Earth was the center of the universe. Yet another example of us stupid humans assuming that the universe exists for our benefit.

    This is not to say I'm opposed to extraplanetary colonization or terraforming -- in fact, I think it's critical that, as a species, we ultimately extend ourselves beyond our tiny blue planet. But it would be unconscionable for us to even consider intentionally messing with the climate on Mars until we've determined conclusively that there is no indigineous life. That's not just an ecological argument, it's a scientific one -- if indeed there is life (or evidence of past life) on Mars, the research value would be incalculable. Just think what we could learn about genetics, biology, and evolution if we had access to life that evolved entirely independent of that on our planet. (Or perhaps it didn't evolve independently, giving weight to "panspermia" theories that life can actually be propagated between individual planets and whatnot.)

    Considering how long it took us to realize that life survives in some pretty surprising niches on earth -- miles down on the ocean floor, deep inside solid rock, at all kinds of temperature ranges -- I suspect it'll be a long time before we can conclusively declare Mars sterile and even contemplate manipulating the environment. (And that's without even worrying about nonliving attributes of the environment worthy of research, such as geological features.)

    Of course, there is some interesting potential here as well. If we do someday terraform Mars, by the time the environment is suitable for higher life we'll probably be pretty good at cloning extinct species and fun stuff like that, so we could turn it into a big nature preserve, Jurassic Park-style. Wouldn't a Canada-like environment be just perfect for those baby woolly mammoth?

    Also, this leads me to wonder if we could develop some anti-greenhouse gases that we could use to cool Venus down to habitable levels. If we figured that out, we might also be able to keep ourselves out of trouble if global warming turns out to be the destructive force some have predicted.

  • This looks like a case where the fastest way to make Mars' atmosphere breathable to humans is to wait until our technological knowledge increases. If I remember correctly, the quickest way to crack RSA encryption (40 bits?) was to wait 10 years for a better algorithm.
  • by erotus ( 209727 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @07:37PM (#713096)
    Actually, I'm American and I have watched Canadian Bacon - probably one of the stupidest movies I've ever seen. However, The part where John Candy looks across the river at Canada and sees a beautiful landscape is kind of humorous. The part when he gets back on his boat and crosses back over to the US and sees nasty smog producing factories is even more humorous. I saw this movie about a month before I went from Texas to Detroit, Michigan to visit a friend. When we were on the bridge, crossing the river that separates the two countries, I finally realized that the Canadian Bacon movie was no joke. On the Canadian side, I saw a beautiful boardwark alongside the river, nice landscaped flowers and trees, and people strolling. Looking back at the American side, I saw smokestacks, factories, nasty railyards and general ugliness. Mind you, I have been to Montreal and Vancouver before so this was really no surprise to me. However, seeing the stark contrast on the two sides of the river was a surprise. It was at that point I convinced myself that I was a Canadian trapped in an American body! Well, maybe, but, I have really enjoyed every trip I have taken to Canada. The country is beautiful, the people friendly, and damn that maple syrup sure tastes great. It sure beats the corn syrup imitation crap we have here. At any rate, I will definately be going back to Canada for another visit someday. I can definately see why Canada has been voted the best country in the world to live by the UN. Oh, and another thing, If you see some fat guy coming across the river in a motorboat, it's not me!
  • by SEE ( 7681 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @07:37PM (#713097) Homepage
    Setting aside the scientific value of Mars unaltered for a moment, why exactly shouldn't we do this?

    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
  • Even if we could make this happen, do you think the future generations would take the steps necessary to complete the process?

    If there's money in it, without a doubt. And there's every possibility there will be money in it.

  • The question I have is this.... Are they proposing that it would take 100 years to allow the temperature to rise enough for lichen to live on Mars, then 100,000 years for those lichen to create enough Oxygen for humans to live on?

    Why not continue the influx of PFCs for another century, which would probably raise the temperature again by quite a bit so that more substantial plants, even so far as temporate or fairly tropical level forests could be raised. That would surely cause much more oxygen to be created then via millions of small lichen.

    Besides, if they heated again for another century or two, we would be able to walk around Mars without a jacket on while we breath the fresh air :).


    -Julius X
  • It is not about screwing up the environment that is already there. We know that there isn't any life there worth saving. I think the point was that there needs to be a lot more research that needs to be done before we start terraforming Mars.

    I am no expert on planetary biology or atmospheric science (is there such a field?), but it seems like there is a chance that we might make Mars more hostile to human life if we aren't careful. If we screw up Mars, where else are we going to go?

  • by SEE ( 7681 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @07:43PM (#713115) Homepage
    What, exactly, is it you think there is on Mars to screw up? The thinly-disguised religion of nature called aesthetic environmentalism strikes again.

    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
  • Maybe it's just what future generations need. A completely galvanizing, international effort to begin to explore and colonize Mars. Not for the sake of money, but for the sake of humanity. When was the last time humanity felt a unified interest in a human endeavour that surpassed all ideas of nationalism? Probably when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

    And ultimately, Mars represents a chance not to mess up another planet, but perhaps in a bout of completely head up my ass hopeful idealism to get it right. A chance to start all over again, and this time, with such a precarious and concerted effort to terraform the planet, maybe we'll even begin to understand how precious, rare, and difficult sustainable environments are.

    Someday that lovely Sol is gonna go. Mars is the first and perhaps one of the most essential steps to readying mankind to continue. And I, for one, think we ought to. So hands up who thinks our new information driven economy is a more lofty goal than mankind exploring alien worlds and bringing life to where it is not.

    I, for one, long for the day when news is reporting about humans walking on the surface of Mars as opposed to blather about Metallica and MP3s. Don't the rest of you?

  • 3.2% isn't a beer, that's barley juice.
  • I'd hardly call the moldy Mir free of pests. WWII Japanese submarines, infamous for rats and roaches, are another artificial environment that could change your perceptions of such things. Yummmy, a fart in a space suit. Hell, there are some buildings I don't like being in and fresh air is right outside.

    There are a few other nice things about a planet with a large, regenerating atmosphere. Gravity can be your friend in lots of ways, and it never breaks. Some mirco meteor is not going to ruin your day with body piercing and sucking out that atmosphere. Nor will solar storms send you running for cover.

    Continuous sunlight is not what enables alternate day lengths. Sure, it's nice to see the sun durring the "day", but alternate day times were pionereed here on earth by tunring out the lights on submarines.

    Colonizing free space and exploiting resources there is very important, but let's not try to glamorize it too much or let it get in the way of spreading to other planets. Ateroid smelting is going to be about as much fun but more seperated from the rest of humanity as oil drilling is today. The goal of points beyond will have to be the surface of other planets. The long time it will take to make it happen should not delay the start.

    Bravo to the people considering this seriously!

  • The country is beautiful, the people friendly, and damn that maple syrup sure tastes great.
    You underappreciate your own nation, erotus -- that sounds like Vermont. Not all of the United States is California, Detroit, Harlem, and Bad Ass TX, you know.

    (On-topic: Among some of my associates, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books are known as "Marx Goes to Mars". Spread the meme.)

  • Actually, you don't get turtled, you get jerseyed. When you turtle (you have to do it yourself), you basically curl up in a ball, allowing the punches to rain down upon your back. When you get jerseyed (someone does it to you, like in the commercial), your jersey (or your business jacket) gets pulled over your head, so you get forced into having punches rain down upon your back.

    There's a difference.
  • Actually, you don't get turtled, you get jerseyed. When you turtle (you have to do it yourself), you basically curl up in a ball, allowing the punches to rain down upon your back. When you get jerseyed (someone does it to you, like in the commercial), your jersey (or your business jacket) gets pulled over your head, so you get forced into having punches rain down upon your back.

    There's a difference.

    (woo! massive duplicate posting!)
  • Won't the Bene Gesserit or the Bene Tleilax get upset that we're ruining THEIR plans for this planet?

    -Chris
  • ..how are we going to get there to begin the process? Crash another satellite/probe into the surface?

    {insert something about poor /. quality/hot grits/goatse.cx here}

  • Umm parts of Canada are farther south than Detroit (.01%). So are we talking this part of Canada or are we talking the part above the arctic circle. Just commenting on the /. story blurb.....
  • by j1mmy ( 43634 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:08PM (#713150) Journal
    "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson. Science fiction, yes, but very scientific in how the author describes the terraforming of Mars. A good read.
  • Actually, you are right... I need to get out of TX!!!!!
  • Heh -- or you could say, "Soon, Canada could be almost like Mars.

    At the rate we are going Canada will probably be more like Venus.

    Before we can start Mars on the same road.

  • I do know the magnetic field is not strong enough to provide the protection that we are used to having here on earth.

    The rover that landed a few years back was tested for exposure to radiation that would be similiar to that of Mars.

    The electronics involved were designed to reboot every so often. This was due to solar radiation effecting the way it preformed.

    I would guess that would be too much for us as well.

    Some people have talked about putting dust in the amosphere to help shield Mars.
  • Why all this Mars stuff lately?

    Some people at NASA from a generation raised on planetary sci-fi just doesn't get it. Colonizing the surface of the Moon would create a habitable area equal to Africa. Colonizing Mars would produce a habitable area with a surface area equal to Earth's land masses (not including ocean surface). Sure, do it someday for fun, but not first.

    NASA should instead invest the bulk of its R&D in creating one self-replicating space habitat that could duplicate itself using only sunlight and asteroidal ore. If duplicating once per year in a hundred years such a habitat and its offspring would produce thousands of times the habitable surface of the Earth, enough to support trillions of humans and large populations of other species.

    Remember: a planet is a very wasteful way to use mass. It is much more efficient to use shells to contain atmosphere. If you wan't gravity, just spin it. If you don't want gravity, live in bubbles.

    Related links:
    http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs /sp acsetl.htm [aol.com]
    http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/s ett le.htm [aol.com]
    http://www.permanent.com/ [permanent.com]
    http://science.n as. nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/ [nasa.gov]
    http://www.luf.org/ [luf.org]

  • by Baldrson ( 78598 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @10:06PM (#713159) Homepage Journal
    From the space settlement FAQ by Mike Combs. [aol.com]

    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]

  • I may be wrong, but doesn't a planet need a magnetic field to stop the atmosphere from being blasted away by solar radiation?
  • Even if we could make this happen, do you think the future generations would take the steps necessary to complete the process? I'm sure that generating the PFCs is just one in a chain of events that would have to take place. Sooner or later, future generations will either lost interest, move on to something more exciting, or decide that maybe making this planet more habitable is a more lofty goal.
  • So which am I -- lichen or algae? ;)

    -TBHiX-
    ...currently enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee-flavoured moss, apparently.

  • by debrain ( 29228 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:10PM (#713172) Journal
    Moose and Caribou and Polar Bears. We even have grain (for beer)! Imagine! Grain! In the mean time, we are crumpling styrafome on an industrial scale to increase global warming (the global Canadian conspiracy). At some point we expect to be able to grow flowers and maybe even grow grass on our lawns (astroturf is getting boring).

    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?

  • by waldoj ( 8229 ) <waldo@jaqu i t h.org> on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:10PM (#713173) Homepage Journal
    I really don't know about this. We've damaged our own environment pretty badly, not always threw neglect, but often through ignorance. Surely we remain largely in the dark in our knowledge of how our atmosphere interacts with our water and our earth, and where we fit in with all of this.

    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
  • Hey, I LIVE at 2 G's.

    I weigh 330 lbs. About 150 lbs is fat. If I can walk, run, jump and do martial arts, someone in good shape should have absolutely no problem.

    Not only am I disabled by the excess weight, but my arteries are no doubt heavily clogged, I have high blood pressure and look forward to lots of health problems as I get older.

    The structural load is no problem, I take 1.2 grams of glucosamine sulfate and about .5g of Chrondroitin sulfate daily. My joint pain has ended. Oh yeah, I also wear nothing but New Balance running shoes, 11 and a half quadrouple D's.

    In short, 2 G's is no problemo for humans.

  • by XNormal ( 8617 ) on Thursday October 12, 2000 @04:10AM (#713177) Homepage
    Radiation. There is strong radiation from both the sun an cosmic rays. For a short mission like a two year mission to Mars you can probably survive the dose with only a slightly increased chance for cancer later in your life (still much less than smoking). For permanent settlement, though, you need to do something about it. There is no way to protect against cosmic rays except mass. Lots of it.

    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.

    ----
  • Speaking as a Newfie, I've never heard aboot. Probably because it's never been said in any natural Newfie context. It's not "What about such-and-such", it's "Wha? Bye, dere's sumthin' up with that thar chummy'".

    In fact, during the 17 years I grew up in Newfoundland I cannot ever recall hearing the word about or aboot. Perhaps I lived a sheltered life. But my own Newfie accent (apparent available only when fueled with alcohol) it's closer to abut than aboot or about. (::sigh:: I'm sitting here saying "about" in a rich Newfie accent, and getting wierd looks ... go figure )

  • Most of the martian atmosphere is in the form of frozen CO2. All you need to do is keep the CFC production long enough to start the evaporation of this CO2 into the atmosphere. Since CO2 is a greenhouse gas itself the process will be self-sustaining until in about a century most of the CO2 goes back into the 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.

    Wow -- I wonder how many Canadians the canadians have managed to survive so long in an environment suitable only for lichens and algae?

    Good god, if they have a hundred years before human habitation, they'd better start working fast because they're not gonna be able to hold their breath that long!

    But seriously, didn't Slashdot hire RobLimo to be a professional editor? I mean, is it possible, however unlikely, that they would actually read some of the sentences they write to make sure they contain some semblance of logic and meaning?

    I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
    Q.Tell me what the trail was.
  • by Keelor ( 95571 )
    Kim Stanley Robinson wrote an excellent series of fiction books on the colonization, terraforming, and evolution of Mars. They were, interestingly enough, named Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars. I would strongly recommend them to anyone interested in the subject, as they take a look at some of the basic tennets of thought that arise from the idea of people living on Mars.

    Something that the open source community is sure to appreciate is the fact that the Mars community in the books throughs out much of the traditional wisdom on how systems such as the economy should work, and produces somewhat convincing alternatives. In fact, many of the protagonists exhibit the "hacker ethic" of just doing things that work without getting bogged down in rules.

    ~=Keelor

  • You Fool! You blow my cover! I kill you all!
  • For a short mission like a two year mission to Mars you can probably survive the dose with only a slightly increased chance for cancer later in your life (still much less than smoking). For permanent settlement, though, you need to do something about it. There is no way to protect against cosmic rays except mass. Lots of it.

    But on the plus side you might get really cool powers, like bursting into flame, turning invisible, stretching really far, or being all rocky and really strong.

    -jimbo

  • Magnetosphere?

    Isn't that the place where Professor X's nemesis hangs out? :o)
  • PERHAPS you should check to make sure that FOUR PEOPLE haven't said the same thing already.

    Slashdotters are really good at 1) missing jokes; 2) making semantic corrections; 3) priding themselves on unimportant scientific distinctions. Slashdotters are not really good at 1) READING BEFORE THEY POST; 2) picking up chicks; 3) READING BEFORE THEY POST.

    Depending on which moderator gets here first, this post will either be -1, Flamebait, or +3, Funny.
  • by debrain ( 29228 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:15PM (#713210) Journal
    Actually, one of the more ingenious ideas I've read was to sprinkle black particulate matter on the icecaps, thereby increasing their heat absorption. Since one of the caps is supposedly predominantly carbon dioxide one can presume that melting it would chain-reaction (once a "critical mass" is met, if we cannot find a catalyst) of greenhouse effect
  • by CNPOS ( 97252 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:16PM (#713218)
    I would have to say that Canada more closely resembles Uranus.
  • A completely galvanizing, international effort to begin to explore and colonize Mars.

    There is a group called The Mars Society [marssociety.org] which is doing just that. Current work includes running a simulation of what life would be like on Mars in the Canadian Arctic called The Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station.

  • lol, some would actually say it's probably CPAN that he meant... not that it doesn't get updated frequently or anything. ;-)
  • CPAN will be necessary in creating the Environmental Impact Statement for the project.
    • Effect on environment:
    • An environment will be created.
    • Naturally-occurring ice will be destroyed.
    • Pristine rocks will get turned into mere dirt.
    • Evil humans will despoil the barren terrain.
    • Bacteria, fungus, and bureaucrats will quickly flourish across the landscape.
  • by fnordboy ( 206021 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:19PM (#713245)

    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.

  • You kill bazillions of life forms when you step in the shower

    Yeah, especially in my shower.

    Pete

  • by gunner800 ( 142959 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:20PM (#713249) Homepage
    I suggest sending a probe full of French people over there.

    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!

  • but last time I checked, *air* wasn't attracted to magnets

    You really checked to see if air was attracted to magnets?

    Pete

  • I take your position the vast majority of the time. I'm usually the one screaming at crazy eco-freaks "Hey, what do you think *we* are, if not natural?"

    In this case, we just don't know enough about what we've done here yet. And we also don't know what the status of life on Mars is. Neither point has been proven to the point of satisfaction of the general scientific community.

    Before you say that nothing has been to that degree, consider that we can agree on some basic facts now that we couldn't just a couple of hundred years ago. The solar system has 8-9 planets, depending on whether you count Pluto. We orbit the sun, a medium-sized star. We're in a galaxy. Humans can see a small amount of the spectrum. We understand the basic manner in which the brain works. We can grasp our central nervous system's methodolgy of function. And so on. These are largely undisputed facts.

    We do not know such things about the issues at hand. Let's wait until we know more about the Martian ecosystem, if there is one, and until we know more about our own ecosystem. I'm inclined to believe that the hole in the ozone is perfectly normal, and that global warming is a hoax. But I don't know that, and I'm probably wrong. But until most of the scientific community can come to some sort of a consensus on this, I hardly think that we're fit to terraform Mars.

    -Waldo
  • While the prospect of terraforming Mars excites me, I wonder whether we should do it. Considering how we've messed up earth, what right do we have to mess with the climate of another planet.
  • Do you have a resume? You could be a /. editor.
  • HEY! I resemble that comment. Canada sustains a whole lot more than just algae and lichen!

    Now, granted, it's *WAY* too cold for amerikans up here, but we did that on *purpose*!!!

    CanaMars: Bringing multiculturalism to a whole new level.

    mindslip
  • I'm sure that if this were to happen, the fungi would be specially bred and sent there, The scientists wouldn't want to wait for some fungi to show up through natural means.

    They would probably (at least if I were them) choose a fungus that had oxygen-creating properties.

    BTW the engineer doesn't care if it's half-empty or half-full; it's only water and there's no cafeine in that.

    Devil Ducky
  • Hell, the moon mission, as some historical jokes have it, might have been about Kennedy having a secretary who told him she'd sleep with him when he put a man on the moon. Hence...

    Obviously there was an enormous amount of nationalism and cold war paranoia that led to the moon missions. But I think that moment that Armstrong set foot on the planet, the majority of common people with no overriding interest in such matters completely forgot what was going on and were enchanted that a human was standing on another planet. Read some accounts of the time and you'll see. For maybe a microsecond I don't think anyone thought "they're going to build a missle base up there". I think they thought what The Onion [theonion.com] describes as a headline from 1969 "HOLY SHIT. MAN WALKS ON FUCKING MOON."

    In fact, one of the most interesting things to me is that NASA have never made the majority of psychological research they've done on astronauts public. One concept was that many astronauts suffered from "The Overview Effect", overwhelmed by seeing the planet without any boundaries. The Cold War had put them up there, but being up there they saw what a joke it was. Several astronauts, especially moon mission ones, sought spiritual answers after their voyage.

    So anyways, as this planet gets more and more cynical, I'm more eager to get off it.

  • I think it's going to be harder than they realize. In my AstroPhysics class (the instructor was on the Nobel prize winning team for discovering neutrinos), we spent a week discussing the terraforming of Mars. Currently, the planets rotational speed and temperature are in a combination that will not hold water vapor - any trace gets 'flung' out into space.

    Before an atmosphere can be sustained on Mars, it either needs to warm up (ie, move closer to the Sun) (I think, I always get that part confused - maybe I should just bring my AstroPhysics book to work) or slow down. Where's Superman when you need him?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:23PM (#713282)
    Oh sure, astronauts live in zero G for a few weeks. A few Russians went for a few months, but they come back to Earth on a stretcher because their muscles have turned to jello.

    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)?

  • Probably not. But, our skin will get nicely fried though.

    It's gravity that keeps the atmospher intact, not the magnetic field.
  • After the article I read on fungus dwelling on the space station and slowly eating it away, it made me consider something:

    Are those probes and rovers we're sending to Mars sterile? I would bet not. Granted there's not much living material that'd hitch a ride with the rover, but what if a sensor picks up a piece of recently-dead fungus and suddenly decides that it originated on Mars, when in fact, it originally came from Earth.

    Ok, enough of my thinking out loud. I'm sure you get my point.
  • by Devil Ducky ( 48672 ) <slashdot@devilducky.org> on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:28PM (#713302) Homepage
    It's simple, take all of the discarded bottles of water from all over California.

    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
  • Eventually we will probably see both free space and planetary settlements filling different niches in the economic ecology of space.

    The better than 3 orders of magnitude greater potential population of space habitats demands some rationality be applied to this argument.

    Even assuming both space habitation and planetary terraforming habitation would take comparable amounts of time, the planetary option just isn't important at .1% of carrying capacity.

  • by Frac ( 27516 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:28PM (#713310)
    "Soon, Canada could be almost like Mars."

    No doot aboot it!

  • Um no! The scrapped the project and destroyed all the prototypes and blueprints (most of them)
    It is very rare to find actual intact blueprints and parts from the planes. The one in the movie (206) that flys off at the end, is complete fake. And the commercials about the farmer having a "secret" in his barn is complete BS too.
  • To me it would make more sense to use plant protists. They photosynthesize, creating energy, in some cases nitrates which are needed to live, food for animals, and Oxygen through their cellular breathing. Most of you would know that plants consume CO2 and produce O2.

    This would terraform Mars, slowly like what happend to earth, making it habitable for humans.
  • so who cares if we screw up Mars? There are billions of other planets out there that we can't screw up yet.
  • In fact, the southernmost point in Canada (Pelee Island IIRC) is as far south as northern California. I think it would be just as fair to say that Mars would resemble the US's climate (referring to Alaska). If you're gonna make fun of Canada, don't bring up Igloos. Bring up Stockwell Day... damn Jetskin' lumberjack.
  • >I think you mean the Arctic. Not all of Canada is snow.
    >Vancouver routinely enjoys better weather than Seattle which is south of it.

    OK, Canada has other weather fine, but so would Mars. It would have a variety of climates across the planets surface. It would have areas that resembled the tropical oasis known as Vancouver, and some parts that are more like the frozen tundras of Seattle. :)

    Devil Ducky
  • There will be more than one strian of Human, eventually. Evolution dictates that humans will have to change. Some babies will be born adapted to high-G, and prosper, while babies not adapted will perish. Natural Selection. The strong will survive. The earth-humans will survive on earth, and probably not be able to interbreed with alien humans. This will of course take a VERY long time.
  • by empesey ( 207806 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:53PM (#713352) Homepage
    And while Mars is not zero G. It is roughly 1/3 G.

    On the other hand, people can drink 2/3 more beer, to weigh them down.
  • Actually, much more than my feet feel the extra weight. My center of gravity is up a little higher, so I'm confident that a fit person could walk around at 2G's with little training.

    Though my organs don't feel double weight, they do have double duty to support my double weight. I'd guess that the arterial clogging would simulate the additional stress of 2G's.

    By the way, for one brief shining moment, at 19, I lost all the excess weight, and was in extremely good shape. 1/2 G felt very good for that year.

    I'll volunteer for mars, I think it's about 1/3G.

    Of course, I'll have far too many similarities to Baron Harkonnen to even think about...

  • by Tony Hammitt ( 73675 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:56PM (#713369)
    -40 in what? Farenheit or Celsius? Makes a big difference, you know... =-p

    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...
  • I'm wondering, I mean, exploring space and all is really cool, but:

    Do we have the right to do this? To purposfully alter the entire landscape of a foreign planet? True, we could get rid of pollution here and use it for a purpose there. True, we could see what different types of mold grows there (Hey, a new breed of penicillan that won't become resisted against until 50 more years of doctor abuse is up), but by what right to we have to mess with a perfectly normal system?

  • by Soko ( 17987 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:44PM (#713374) Homepage
    Jeez, Canada is being taken for Mars more all the time. We had that crappy Mars movie shot around Vancouver, and they spray painted an entire valley red. The Mars society is using the North to see how humans will survive up there. And now we have scientists telling us that the CLIMATE of Mars will be like north of the 49th?

    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.
  • by the_other_one ( 178565 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @06:58PM (#713377) Homepage

    They have already started this process

    The last mission to scatter dark scrap metal on the icecap was succesful

  • by kb9vcr ( 127764 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @07:01PM (#713381)
    a whole PLANET devoted towards the production of Canadian Dry ginger ale.
  • by nihilogos ( 87025 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2000 @08:15PM (#713393)
    1. The South Park episode this will inspire.
    2. The outcry and street marches organised by the conservation group 'RedPeace'.
    -----
  • Your opening was weak, but beyond J.H.C. you are spot on. It is in the nature of humanity to exploit every opportunity whether good or bad. Curiosity killed the cat...but have you heard..Cats have nine lives...have you met Schroedingers cat? Same dilemma. Humanity will expand until natural forces impose the will OF nature and starve us. Expansion to other planets is the only hope for the long term survival of the species. Your chemical weapons research bit was a bit far fetched but I'll forgive your inconsistancies cause the basic message is correct.

    "All these worlds are yours--
    except EUROPA.
    Attempt no landings there."

    -- 2010: Odyssey Two
    Sir Arthur C. Clarke

    nuff said

The ideal voice for radio may be defined as showing no substance, no sex, no owner, and a message of importance for every housewife. -- Harry V. Wade

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