Terraforming Mars - Page 2

On March 15 2007 23:19 Bill307 wrote:


"A much simpler process"? If you want to talk about terraforming Mars, you should start by figuring out how we're going to give it a proper, denser atmosphere and a warmer surface temperature. Then the ice would melt on its own, anyway (and stay melted, for that matter).

Then we'd have to find a way to stop all life from getting irradiated to death by the solar wind, since Mars isn't protected by a magnetic field like the Earth is.

I guess it's nice to know for sure that there's water there already so that we don't need to import it ourselves. But we still have a lot to figure out.

On March 16 2007 06:45 EmS.Radagast wrote:
I think "lasers" is supposed to mean "masers" (in other words, the machine inside a microwave oven). And how is that energy inefficient? Last time I checked, microwave ovens were quite economical at heating stuff. Though since most methods of generating electricity involve something heating water in a boiler, we better use that heat directly rather than produce electricity and spend it on heating, which is ought to lose some energy along the way.

but none of these methods really work, because even if you use nukes for heating (barring atmospheric effects), the increase in temperature will be only temporary. planets dissipate heat very rapidly; consider how much cooler it is on earth at night to see how fast the heat dissipation works. To make a permenant change you have to use a constant source of energy for heating. The sun, for instance.

Therefore the only plausable approach, IMO, increase the amount of greenhouse gases on mars (using engineered life forms or nanotechnology), in a controlled manner, until average temperature reaches something reasonable, then somehow work towards making the atmosphere breathable without lowering the temperature too much. I'm not sure any of this is even possible with our current technology. It should probably be feasible to start it with 22nd century tech


There's also a problem with the atmosphere of mars, because it has smaller mass, and thus gravitational pull, its atmosphere is thinner than earth's. It isn't going to be as effective at blocking radiation as the earth's atmosphere.

On March 15 2007 22:26 MannerGent wrote:

What a loser {88}iNcontroL is. What conversational skills he has.

Imagine you are at a party having a good time watching something fun, then some fat guy who wasn't invited wedges in behind everyone and says, in what is most likely a very pretentious voice, "Optimus Prime wont like this." Everyone would look at him and then at each other, then shrug and pretend like they didn't hear.

On March 16 2007 05:33 Liquid`Drone wrote:
mars doesnt have crazy extreme temperatures as far as I know.. it's cold though, but not cold cold cold

and I always think of the mars university episode where the professor is like "in your age mars was just a dreary uninhabitable wasteland, much like utah. but unlike utah, it was eventually made liveable"

:D

On March 15 2007 23:14 rpf wrote:
I'm pretty sure we'd need the giant laser before we could even try to colonize Mars.

On March 16 2007 07:48 Haemonculus wrote:
Is Mars large enough (gravity and such) to actually hold an atmosphere? I thought I heard somewhere that it was impossible or something, and that any air created would sorta fly away.

I also heard about plans to send bacteria of sorts to go teraforming and such.

On March 16 2007 07:40 .kaz wrote:



What a geek you are. What social skills you have.

Imagine you are on teamliquid.net, and you see a thread about mars, so you click it and OMG, some nubcake just put some random witty comment about Optimus. OMFG NO HE DIDNT NOT ON MY INTERWEBZ. So this said geek starts a flamewar and contributes his dumb opinion to the thread only causing more spam and shit we don't care about. gG sir.
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On March 15 2007 23:14 {88}iNcontroL wrote:
Dunno how I can not make a "lame" joke when the OP started a thread saying we need to focus a lazer cannon on Mars or nuclear bomb the icecaps. It currently takes us 30 years to get to the damn planet, what makes anyone think we are anywhere near the kind of things you discuss anyways?

I think at some point terraforming might be possible, but for now it certainly is not. Posing the question "should we lazer cannon or nuke the ice" wont get a thread anywhere imo. I could be wrong but I would think it to be more realistic that we first develop a way of getting there adequately. Best to "cross that bridge" when we get to it kinda thing.

On March 16 2007 08:33 FrozenArbiter wrote:

Hum, it would take us like 6 months to get there I think? I forget.

Currently reading "The Case for Mars" (thanks to, I think, HnR)HT for suggesting it in some thread ages ago, really interesting book) and yeah, we could definitely go there.

On March 16 2007 08:33 FrozenArbiter wrote:

Hum, it would take us like 6 months to get there I think? I forget.

Currently reading "The Case for Mars" (thanks to, I think, HnR)HT for suggesting it in some thread ages ago, really interesting book) and yeah, we could definitely go there.