Terraforming Mars

I imagine that the planet would be used to house excess population. The country that would probably fund it would be China or India since they definitely need the space for the billions within their borders.

 

it's a pipe dream i'm afraid. It would take hundreds (and probably many hundreds) of years, and unfortunately there would be absolutely no way to artificially adjust mars's magnetic flux density to sufficiently protect from cosmic radiation. As far as i recall though, when you look at a magnetic map of the planet there are certain areas that are more magnetically protected than others simply because of the underlying ferromagnetic materials in those areas, much like certain areas on the moon. Because of this, there are areas on the surface that humans could comfortably inhabit without major fear of damage from radiation. However, even these areas would be significantly threatened by solar magnetic storms. Earth is remarkably magnetic which makes it a perfect haven. None of the other rocky planets have anywhere near as strong a magnetic field.

As far as everything else goes, there are ethical questions you must first answer. Life could very well already exist on mars. Even considering terraforming the planet raises the ethical dilemma of whether or not you are destroying an already biologically balanced environment, which we humans have done quite enough of already so far as i am concerned. It's quite possible that the ruining process has already begun, it has been shown that space probes sent from earth definitely do harbour viable life forms which could conceivably have already begun fouling the martian environment.

Even if it turned out that mars is completely barren and devoid of life, it wouldn't be a simple matter of planting a few seeds. We would probably have to genetically engineer certain types of algae to slowly slowly slowly alter the atmospheric conditions. Also, it would be physically impossible to create an atmosphere as thick as the earth's. Mars is just too small and too light. Its natural atmosphere is less than one hundredth of the pressure of earth's.

Complete terraforming of the planet would be a mammoth undertaking and i really couldn't see it happening within the next thousand years.

 

omg they were just talking about this on the History channel

 

You should mention that, because of the lower mass of Mars compared to the Earth, the gravitational force will not be as strong. As such, anyone born on Mars will most likely not develop as strong a skeleton as us here on Earth, and would probably never be able to come here, lest they be crushed!

 

oooo, I love science. i'll get back to you on this since a detailed reply would take a while. so i'll try to give a few short notes:

-Earth has an solid inner iron core, Mars' core is molten, so it would not generate enough magnetism to effectively create an Earth like magnetic field (at least not at Earth strength). This might be remedied if artificial gravity generation. Mars' distance from the sun however should put it out of solar flares' reach for any serious radiation spike, or any flare that might engulf Earth.

-Such an undertaking is prohibitively expensive if you are going to use a nation that has a moneyed economy. Since the reality exists that money=power in any money economy, too many people are trying to pick up whatever scraps that are leftover, or not in circulation from a few more better off people that hoard it w/ seemingly no purpose other than bragging rights (if you get the meaning). In short, the only reason people w/ lots of money from a money economy would want extra-planetary of anything, it would be for more money. And since only the richest would benefit monetarily from their 'investments', plus whatever they bring back would be so far priced out of everyone else's price range, there's really very little reason to get off this rock since nearly everyone wants money. Money, or any money-ish type motive would have to be trashed. (i'm not trying to 'rage against rich people' since there are indeed some very nice rich people out there, but if anyone could do it, they might, but they'd have to pool (& actually share) resources, which i highly doubt many rich people would be willing to do.).

-thirdly, is the placement of outposts. Any permanent 'colony' outposts established would need to be placed by the ice caps since humans currently cannot survive without water. heating facilities to melt solid water into liquid, then purified, is a basic necessity.

-fourth is the ecosystem. at current, Mars has a largely carbon dioxide, thin atmosphere. The first colonists would need what's called a 'biosphere' to survive while atmospheric transformation went underway. Invasively introducing new flora would be a start (assuming the ground is actually suitable for plant life to be allowed to grow).

that's all i've got for the moment. it was short, but at the top of my head.

---------- Post added 29th Sep 2012 at 04:17 PM ----------

and there's not much to Mars' tourism qualities. There's not much to 'tour' at the moment. even getting into space for space tourism is also very, very expensive. Virgin Galactic is the only company i know of that offers it.

 

I love you for creating this thread.

I think terraforming planets is a very cool concept, but it's still science fiction. Realistic estimates, combined with a generous outlook on technological progress, still show that it would take thousands of years to make the air on Mars breathable for humans. The change would be incredibly slow. I once saw a timeline for a theoretical terraforming of Mars, from 100 to 100,000 years. Compared to how long anatomically modern humans have been on Earth (~200,000 years), that is a very long time. It's hard for our species to make plans that span over a century alone.

In terms of who would be allowed to go there, I would imagine it would be limited to scientists and select individuals needed to maintain a small society and laboratory. The capital, energy, and technology needed to make space tourism profitable is something we cannot even fathom right now. That's why mining asteroids is still an outlandish idea. A space agency could make billions from mining an asteroid, but that means nothing if they have to spend trillions to do so.

 

Although it is highly unlikely that mars will soon be colonised, it is still interesting to look at. The Russians have made the most progress in creating artificial biospheres and as far as I know they plan on building the first one in space. There is a lot of info about biosphere 2 that was built in the nevada desert that you could look into as an alternative for terra forming. I did a similar study when I was in school, but our focus was on building sustainable cities in space and not on mars. We actually built our own biosphere to see if plants and small animals would survive in a closed system. We had a few plants, insects and snails that we sealed in a old fish tank for about a month. Everything survived accept the insects and the size of new leaves on some of the plants decreased (we thought it was kind of cool). As to what kind of people would be living there, I do not think it would be outcasts nor do I think it would be the elites (life on mars will not be as comfortable as on earth). It costs way too much money to send someone into space if they aren't going to be worth it. I would think that the type of people who would be sent to mars would be determined by the needs. In my opinion they would send specialists, experts and of course a labour force that they know will do their job. But then again, it would all depend on the state of the earth at the time they colonise mars.

That's all I got for now. Good luck and let us know how it went!