Terraforming Mars

On March 15 2007 22:17 {88}iNcontroL wrote:
Optimus Prime wont like this.

Not one bit.

On March 15 2007 22:17 {88}iNcontroL wrote:
Optimus Prime wont like this.

Not one bit.

On March 15 2007 22:26 Scorpion 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. Not one bit." Everyone would look at him and then at each other, then shrug and pretend like they didn't hear.




LAWL I'M SORRY ><

EDIT: Omg... you beat me to it ><

Sounds good in theory, but finding the brave souls who would go out there for a year or so (was it a year to get to Mars? Or 3 years? I forgot) is going to be the hardest obstacle.

On March 15 2007 22:15 zdd wrote:
If we could focus a laser beam or some controlled explosion on this chunk of ice, terraforming Mars would be an much simpler process.

On March 15 2007 22:15 zdd wrote:
With the recent announcements of water being discovered on Mars, people began to question whether it could easily be converted into a suitable human habitat. Now, according to MARSIS, the south pole of the planet Mars contains an enormous amount of ice, enough to engulf the whole planet in 10 meters of water. If we could focus a laser beam or some controlled explosion on this chunk of ice, terraforming Mars would be an much simpler process.

On March 15 2007 23:25 xM(Z wrote:
i'll go to mars, pull out my force and start cutting through the ice

On March 16 2007 00:21 Wysp wrote:


Yeah, it must be better than Romania.


Sorry about the geopolitical joke, I couldn't resist.

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 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.
+ Show Spoiler +

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.

On March 16 2007 09:07 MaxdigsSoda wrote:
more importantly, does mars have strong enough sunlight to grow weed?

On March 16 2007 08:51 {88}iNcontroL wrote:


Didnt say we could not go there. You sure its 6 months? I somehow doubt that strongly.

On March 16 2007 08:51 {88}iNcontroL wrote:


Didnt say we could not go there. You sure its 6 months? I somehow doubt that strongly.

On March 16 2007 04:20 d4d wrote:
Send in Chuck Norris and Jack Bauer.
If they don't fight during transport (which would result in the end of the known universe anyways) they can do the work with ease, and with bare hands.
So there is no need to focus laser beam and we can keep BlueRay supplies for manufacturing PS3.

All we need actually is for the governor of California to join his middle fingers so his hand can fit the switch, and then push it.

It's going to be cool, but I am against the use of nuclear weapon for that end.

I'll volunteer to go too.

On March 16 2007 10:05 Cpt Obvious wrote:


that depends on the positioning of the planets when the spaceship starts from earth orbit.
I think during the last Mars mission, the started in a somewhat lucky and rare constellation, thus decreasing travelling time to 6 months iirc.

On March 16 2007 10:48 PissedOffEmo wrote:
Isnt mars like a 100 times bigger then the earth, i read somewhere that a satellite spotted a huge hurricane that was almost the size of earth.

On March 16 2007 08:41 Luhh wrote:
Excellent idea. Now we know what to do with all the nuclear weapons mankind has created. 2 birds with one stone - "Peace in our time"!

On March 16 2007 10:48 PissedOffEmo wrote:
Isnt mars like a 100 times bigger then the earth, i read somewhere that a satellite spotted a huge hurricane that was almost the size of earth.

On March 15 2007 22:28 MannerGent wrote:

hahaha owned...

On March 16 2007 12:21 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Doesn't matter, it won't happen in our lifetime.

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 08:45 .kaz wrote:


Do you read SUPER slow..?

On March 16 2007 08:50 KaasZerg wrote:
Our technologylevel is far insufficient to terraform anything. Currently we fail to protect our own from ecosystem from overexploitation.

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 11:40 Scorpion wrote:
I found a picture of water on Mars. All other claims say there's only Ice but this one says otherwise:

On March 16 2007 14:03 ZaplinG wrote:
we will live underwater before living on mars

On March 17 2007 07:16 HeadBangaa wrote:

Yup.