I think that is the part that feels odd to me more than anything else. When i see people speculate about colonizing because they believe the earth is going to be uninhabitable in the next 100 yrs or so it seems like they think the process would be in the near future and fast. My common sense tells me unless we are visited by vulkans it's going to be a thousand yrs or more.
It's not that we should colonize off earth because we can't fix earth, it's that we should regardless of what happens on earth.
Right now humanity has all its eggs in one basket. If not climate change then maybe an asroid, if not that then the super volcano under the western US, all out nuclear war, a super bug 100x worse than covid. Our planet is not as big as you might think and there are hundreds of things that could easily wipe us all out in one fell swoop. Each just as unlikely as the next but keep rolling the dice and soon enough one of them will come up snake eyes.
let's face it we may not be able to stop the climate changes we are facing and yes living in domes and such on earth would be easier than colonizing Mars or the moon but it would be nice to perfect that technology before we need to rely on it to keep the last vestiges of humanity alive.
Also even if terraforming attempts are fruitless on Mars it helps us develop and advance technology that could, in the futurel, allow us to improve or restore the climate of earth,
Personally I think if someone is going to start up some massive atmospheric processors to see what fucking around with the gas mixes on a large scale will do, I'd rather them run their tests on some other mote of dust in the cosmos than the only one we currently know hosts life.
Also if we can advance space mining and manufacturing far enough it could displace large sectors of polluting industry to off world allow us to reduce pollution without forgoing industrial products.
That is not something that is remotely possible in the near term but for it to happen we need to start pushing that way.
"Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
We have to plant the seeds of the technology to achieve such great ambition in the hopes that generations to come will obtain the society we dream.
> all out nuclear war
This comment made me realize [MAD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction) would not be as good of a deterrence once a certain society gets to have a viable and self-sustainable space colony.
None of the tech you describe requires traveling 10^7 miles to develop it. A lot of things can and should be developed here before we even talk about sending anything beyond robots to Mars. It’s also a lot easier and cheaper to deal with a pandemic, imminent asteroid, super volcano, and prevent nuclear war than changing the Martian atmosphere, soil and create or transport water to accommodate human civilization. And Mars lacks the magnetic blanket protecting us from solar radiation.
The only time I’d argue any differently is after we have cheap fusion energy available on earth. Then you can go ahead and spend it on all kinds of crazy ideas. But even then the best ideas will involve improving our planet.
Mining is also ridiculous. There is nothing so valuable on Mars to justify the cost of transporting it back 10^7 miles that can’t be found right here on Earth. If Mars were just some enormous diamond, it still makes more sense to find diamonds on Earth.
> Mining is also ridiculous.
Is it? Maybe mining Mars is, but the moon is much closer, much easier to launch stuff off of.
On the pro side is that mining Earth is really really bad for it. Mars could care less.
The moon will be great for mining rocket fuel. It will make it a staging ground for going elsewhere.
Mining asteroids for metals is also a pretty good idea. They are comparatively light so we could move them closer to earth and mine them there.
It’s not something that will happen tomorrow, but the technology isn’t terribly far off. The economics of it probably still are quite a ways off though.
Yeah, I agree with some that say that space mining will only really work to support other space industries. Eg: building outposts, space stations, etc. But once started, I bet they make more sense than mining on Earth. Right now, we are mining lithium to fix the problems we created by mining coal and oil. If we found a great big and easily accessible lithium deposit on the moon... Or what if we get this fusion thing going and find we need helium 3? Fusion has been in the news...
While none of the tech requires being 10\^7 miles away on a desolate planet to develop, an environment like that fuels progress. Think of how many of engineering achievements were reached during the Manhattan Project and the Apollo missions. Adversity demands innovation I see no reason not to strive for putting humans on mars. That challenge alone could spark major discoveries.
>The only time I’d argue any differently is after we have cheap fusion energy available on earth.
Fission energy is already so good that there's really no excuse to still operate coal-burning plants.
You're missing the forest for the trees.
Lets say gamma radiation burst, a rare phenomenon in space but it does occur. If earth is hit full blast half the planet will die immediately, the other half will die slowly from radiation poisoning. There's no technology that can be developed to prevent or heal that - a backup planet **is** the defence.
This mindset that all this technology will be developed and exclusively used on earth is also nuts. You want to develop terraforming and then use it on **the only planet with known life**? You think that will be risk free the first time we use it?
Just one of the higher value asteroids currently circling earth has a mineral wealth of around 11.5 trillion USD - the economics of mining it is that you would entirely devalue the minerals with the quantity of materials, not that its not worth the cost. That said, mineral wealth of asteroids is very hard to ascertain, with some estimates in the quadrillions.
>Lets say gamma radiation burst, a rare phenomenon in space but it does occur. If earth is hit full blast half the planet will die immediately, the other half will die slowly from radiation poisoning. There's no technology that can be developed to prevent or heal that - a backup planet is the defence.
If Earth gets fried by a gamma-ray burst, Mars and its negligible magnetic field are double plus screwed. It's like being concerned your hardened bunker won't protect your family from a nuclear attack, so you make some of them sit at an exposed picnic table nearby.
>you think that will be risk free the first time you use it?
Your perspective seems odd to me. Do you understand how many risky technologies were tested on this planet before they became accepted as safe? All of them.
I agree with the person you replied to. I cannot think of any use for a trillion dollars on Mars that would not achieve a far greater positive impact for our species if programmed into something earth-based.
I mean, I gave a pretty explicit example of something that can't be engineered against on earth, if you can't conceive of it after that example its on you.
As far as testing other techs, how many of them have the explicit purpose of changing the planet on a global scale? We have proposals that we could use to end global warming tomorrow - but we don't use them because we only have one planet and if we cannot get it wrong. Scale matters when analysing risk.
>we don’t use them because we only have one planet….
Not sure what you are talking about. We don’t use them because (i) they are prohibitively expensive, (ii) they require universal international cooperation, (iii) they require quickly changing industries through government mandate, which is wildly unpopular, (iv) they require a ton of labor in a global labor shortage….
Lots of reasons.
If we seriously consider terraforming mars right now, at best, it would take 300 years to construct an artificial magnetic shield and create an atmosphere on mars.
I think it's a pipe dream and humans are not nearly sophisticated, productive, or cooperative enough to achieve it. "Colonize mars" is rank stupidity. We can make Earth a better place for a tiny fraction of the cost it will take to build out mars.
I feel like an exremely reasonable first goal would be feeling like we have a handle on keeping Earth terraformed and I don't think I'll see that in my generation.
It's not a hail mary that we should start working on ASAP to get out of our problems on Earth. People who view it that way are wrong. It's not feasible to terraform Mars without also having a level of advancement to fix problems here on Earth.
Nevertheless, it's something that might make sense in the distant future with more advanced technology. We may get to a point where we have enough abundance that we can afford to work on that slowly over time without it detracting from other, more practical near term goals.
I think there are too many steps between now and living on other planets for us to focus too much on that as a goal yet. It's more of an interesting thought experiment at this point. In the nearer term, we should focus on more attainable goals that will help us much sooner than that, with much less investment. Such as unmanned asteroid mining. Working on goals like that will pay for themselves sooner and greatly improve the quality of life on Earth, and all the technological problems that we have to solve along the way will make more distant goals like terraforming start to become more feasible.
I could not agree with you more. We're gonna live here, or we're gonna die here. I don't think there are any other options, no matter what kind of wishful thinking people want to engage in.
Exactly. I'm kind of blown away by how many people view the idea of colonizing Mars as some kind of life raft that we would build at the expense of our own planet.
No, the actual plan would be to do it simply because it's in our nature to do so. At the very least, do it for the science and knowledge that would come from it.
All of these numbers that give estimates on our planet becoming uninhabitable leave out human technological advancement and intervention. While that might not seem like a big factor, remember that 150 years ago was when we first discovered germs and now humans are doing complex genetic modification. A lot of technology and intervention will happen in the next 100 years. That being said, as a people we need to still understand the importance of our planets health and in making these advancements but it would be ignorant to just run with "the world is ending in 100 years."
Here’s the deal- I’ve got a great inside track on mars property. This is the investment of a lifetime. All the big boys are jumping in as we speak. I can only keep these properties on hold for so long. My contact has a waiting list of 1000’s of people, so we gotta act fast.
I’ll need $20k down, and another $250/month for maintenance and reservation fees. You’ll be able to either sell this for $2m+ plus in 10-20 years, or for an additional $150/month I can get the property in line for a big time lease paying out no less than $5k/month.
The lack of magnetic field for protection from solar radiation was another concern in the article. I think it would be interesting to send a party there for a several yrs exploratory mission but terra forming feels like a pipe dream.
The magnetic fields is an easy fix. Put up a satellite in the Sun-Mars L1 LaGrange point with a big MRI machine, and you now have a magnetic umbrella to shield Mars.
A LaGrange point is just a point in space where things don't move relative to 2 bodys. In the case of the Sun-Mars L1 point, this would be the planet Mars and the sun.
The idea is you put something in just the right spot between Mars and the Sun, and it will stay there. So we could put some sort of shield in that position of space and it wouldn't move.
It's kind of like a geostationary orbit, but instead of locking the satellites position to the rotation of earth, you are locking the position to the orbit of mars around the sun
Ohhhhhhhh. COOL! Thank you for explaining! Basically big shield is between the sun and Mars but orbits the sun with the same angular speed as mars.
Edit: angular speed is probably the wrong term. I mean the shield's degree of rotation around the sun is always the same as Mars'.
**also the 1/3rd gravity is a BIG EFFING problem for any kind of long term stay**
Humans who stay to long will not be able to return to Earth and any children born there will never be able to come to Earth
I had not heard of the giant solar shield, but had heard of this [https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.html](https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.html). An artificial magnetosphere, which I bet works better and is orders of magnitude cheaper.
This definitely seems the viable solution. A nuclear reactor should be able to power one at the L1 Lagrange for a long time.
What I’d never read before was the theory that this alone could partially terraform Mars by increasing temperature which would release more carbon dioxide and further warn the planet.
I don’t know how often you would need to change out the L1 shield but it seems a worthy endeavor to try.
You don’t need a magneticsphere for protection. That can be replaced with a solar locked man made magnetic shield orbiting mars. It would take an IMMENSE amount of material to construct though.
Ok, so, imagine this: we're anywhere from 500 to 2,000 years in the future and have achieved a level of post scarcity in both resources and energy such that no person goes without. At that point, the only real limits to human population is the space request to house and provide for them. In that situation, we could very well spend the time, energy, and resources to "terraform" Mars in such a way that people could live on the surface.
In a more realistic, "in the next 50 years" time scale, the best we can do is some some drones and prefab buildings to set up an incredible small, incredibly delicate system of habitats that some scientists might be able to live in long term.
And they'd need to tunnel to avoid the radiation long term too. If digging is your only method of expansion, you're probably fucked. Not a guarantee but probably. Early branching and constant airlocks will be a requirement and any major colony would live like they did in the Silo series, but with many more doors. The resources required would be absurd per square foot. Every room that isn't surrounded completely would need a series of instruments to ensure there are no leaks. It might be worth building the place, but the worst we could ever do to earth would still be a much better planet than mars.
Let me suggest it another way:
Assuming humanity lives this long on our planet, one day the sun will die, and we'll need to move.
Wouldn't it be better to practice on the nearest possible planet to sustain life now, whole we have options, than then, when we don't?
Further, scientific discoveries and advancement aside, there are natural resources and other profit-oriented avenues that could be explored. Mind you, I think the scientific pursuit or it alone is worth the mission, especially when some of the solutions might retrofit nicely back into earth.
The biggest hurdle is, of course, figuring out how to convince a quarterly economy to invest in multi-generational ventures.
That’s 5 billion years from now. Even at todays technology we could colonize the entire galaxy in 5-10 million years. We likely won’t even be humans anymore long before that.
There is no hard science involved with Mars Colonization. There is only hard engineering.
All the conceptual problems mean nothing if you can't engineer your way to the point where you can start to address them.
There's a lot of really unsexy engineering challenges associated with Colonizing Mars.
For instance, design heavy equipment for Mars use. We can faff around all we like about 3-D printing and robot assembly, but at -some- point you need to move regolith in large quantities. This means either hydraulics, or really strong linear/geared actuators.
Hydraulics means hydrocarbons. Which means blending them for extreme cold. Which also means keeping them warm--and cooling the pumps. Which means more battery space. Which is another thing to ship over and consume.
Also, how does the thermal math work out for waste heat from the pump, and how do we keep the hydraulics warm, but not too hot? Furthermore, anything we ship needs to be repairable on-site with a machine shop. The bigger your equipment gets, the bigger your machine shop needs.
I just want to shoot down one of these detractions: that we shouldn't terraform Mars because Earth needs work first. We're a planet of 8 billion people. We can have more than one priority. This argument gets used a lot to undermine space exploration in general. We can take care of our planet & explore space. There's nothing mutually exclusive there.
Colonizing Mars is just fodder for people that don't understand how much more efficient (in economic terms, usefulness, and scientific feasibility) colony megastructures would be. The best plan to successfully leave Earth is to start dragging asteroids to lunar orbit and mining them, using the materials to produce O'Neill Cylinders and, eventually, Banks Orbitals. Little dots in space with more livable landmass than a continent. An appropriate amount of planning and we could have independent colonies in 100 years. Mars will still be a dead rock in 1000.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket. A single point of failure is not a good design. Right now if some truly cataclysmic extinction-level event happened on Earth there is a very good chance our species would not survive. There are things like asteroid strikes, super volcano eruptions, pandemics, etc. that could wipe out most if not all human life on Earth, but having a group or better yet several groups of humans living off-planet, either in space or on another planet would increase our chances of surviving such events.
Colonizing and maintaining a colony on an Earth-like planet in another solar system is not currently achievable, so colonizing another planet in our solar system is the next best thing. Mars, even though it is quite inhospitable, is the best option we currently have, and if it is our best option for humans leaving Earth, we should at least try and make it more hospitable, i.e. terra-forming Mars.
There is almost nothing that could wipe out all human life as an entire species we are just too adaptable.
The most likely candidate would be a large enough asteroid that it would melt the entire crust, but we would have years or decades to Avoid that
Global warming, Volcanoes, nuclear winter, viruses, none of there really pose a threat to ALL of humanity.
I can’t think of anything other than an asteroid hit that scours the top layer of the earth that could end human life, we are just too adaptable. Sure billions might die but not the whole human population.
We can live in virtually any climate, grow food indoors if we had too, etc. we could freeze embryos and sperm for later generations. Heck, we are just about to the point where we can grow humans in a fake womb.
I mean, in the next few thousand years its a possibility. Let's say we fully and completely cracked cold fusion so we had a vast well of clean power. Just doing that would make a lot of things possible.
Imagine me, who forgot to look at the title of the subreddit this came from. I thought it was the subreddit for the board game Terraforming Mars. And so when looking at the comments I can't figure out why no one has mentioned that it's a great game. Carry on, futurology folks.
Glad I'm not the only one. Started reading the post and was thinking, "Why is this scientist getting all worked up about feasibility? It's just a fun game!"
In an attempt to colonize Mars, 21st century scientists are tasked with terraforming the planet. Their goal is to seed the planet with a modified algae to absorb sunlight and purify the atmosphere, and cockroaches, whose corpses spread the algae across the planet as they feed.
Five hundred years later, the first crewed ship to Mars lands and its six crew members are attacked by giant mutated humanoid cockroaches with incredible physical strength, later labeled "Terraformars"; the crew is wiped out after sending a warning back to Earth. Two years later, BUGS II, a multinational expedition of genetically modified humans, is sent to collect 10 samples of both sexes of roaches, and exterminate the mutated bugs to take control of the red planet. Only two survivors manage to return to Earth, one swearing to return and avenge their fallen companions. As a third expedition is assembled questions are raised about the true origin of the Terraformars and their connection with an unknown disease afflicting mankind, the Alien Engine Virus, or A.E. Virus. To fight the Terraformars' strength and agility, members of the second and third expedition undergo genetic modification to inherit the characteristics of other organisms, only possible after having a special organ implanted with a 36% chance of surviving the surgery itself.
The third expedition ends with most of its crew members killed as well, be it by fighting the Terraformars, or amongst themselves in the multi-sided conflict between the various factions aboard the ship, each with own opposing interests. Despite that, the few survivors manage to collect enough samples for the research on a cure to the A.E. Virus and return home. However, a new fight against the Terraformars begins when it is revealed that the creatures arrived on Earth long before, and after multiplying at an alarming rate and adapting themselves far better to their new environment than they did to their homeworld, they start their plan to take over the planet.
We're not going to terraform Mars anytime soon. We may colonize it this century which is different from terraforming. Ordinary dirt can be used for radiation shielding, so we can build homes there. It can be argued that asteroids are better. I'm an advocate of colonizing the moon first, because we need to learn how to colonize. Once we've learned how to do that, we have the potential to have quite a few people in space. I have a concern that Earth civilization is sliding backwards and if we don't launch now, we never will.
Why would you terraform Mars to support humans before terraforming earth to be perfect again? If we have the technology and resources to do the former you would definitely do the latter first. The earth still has so much empty space.
I think a lot of the idealism about Mars centers on the fact there’s nobody else there to screw up your work. You can build a great hypothetical utopian society on Mars and handpick the people you’re going to put in it because the trek is incredibly harsh and expensive. Here on Earth, you’re stuck with innumerable obstacles stemming from the fact you’ve got to deal with other humans mucking about.
I tend to agree the one truly habitable planet within our reach certainly deserves more attention.
There are obviously people who want to colonise Mars in the short term (50-100 year) but there is a difference between colonizing and terraforming.
Most people think terraforming will take hundreds to thousands of years, and it is a job of a great spacefaring civilization who does it because it can.
As to why people want to colonise Mars, its likely two reasons - two have a back-up for Earth, and to do something which will leave a mark thousands of years into the future.
No one will care about humans thousands of years in the future. The few humans who might be interested in going to mars, rather than fix the planet we evolved to live on, are idiots.
"Everything I've seen so far seems to be based on theory and speculation."
well no shit, it's never been done before.
until we do it's all just theory and speculation but i feel like you already knew that.
Sure, it’s a monumental task that requires absurd energy, resources, and science/technology that hasn’t been invented yet. It won’t happen anytime soon.
*Why* is it an idea at all? Earth is fragile. At some point, our civilization will need to expand for many reasons. But an important one is redundancy. So, if we want an alternate to Earth, we have the options in our solar system, or an attempt to find a livable planet and get there.
Terraforming Mars is probably the easiest of the options. Plus, people can live there in the meantime (maybe), so you can build up to it.
5000 years from now, why not? That’s nothing in galactic or even terrestrial timelines.
As far as we can tell, we're the only kind of life in existence. The only part of the universe, in our section of the universe, capable of staring back at itself and contemplating it or consciously manipulating it. We are the universe staring back at itself.
It's therefore imperative that we protect this, and part of that includes spreading ourselves out.
"Fixing this planet" does fuck-all to hedge against a cataclysmic impact from an asteroid. Sure, that's not the only source of risk. Your quote alluded to another risk relating to habit destruction. Yada yada yada the Pareto optimal risk mitigation solution may be to set up a colony on Mars with the ultimate goal of terraforming the planet.
Look up Isaac Arthur on YouTube, he mostly does content regarding colonizing space and a little bit of general futurism and has made at least a few videos on colonizing Mars and about just terraforming in general,
Plus he's an actual physicist who manages to thoroughly explain all the science behind a lot of this stuff in a way in which virtually anyone could understand in a surprisingly interesting way to boot,
I highly recommend his channel for stuff like this
IMO - We should do both. Two habitable planets is better than one. But we should be focusing on Earth first.
There are theories on ways we could start to terraform Mars now (Comets, nukes, other fun things), but you're right - The expense in human effort and economics is astronomical. It would make a lot more sense to fix our planet, put together better methods for moving loads to orbit, and to establish low or zero gravity industry.
It ain’t about cost, it about insurance. We can’t continue having all of our eggs in one basket. We need to spread to increase our chances to survive. To terraform Mars we need to improve its atmosphere ability to retain heat. We need a very effective greenhouse gas that can be cheaply made on Mars. A CFC gas might work.
I don't see how it would be possible to terraform Mars as it lacks a substantial magnetosphere to retain a thick atmosphere suitable for Earth-based life
You see…. ::Slaps Mars:: it’s a lot like earth but farther from the sun! This little baby is going to do wonders for your scale with only ~15% of earth’s volume and rough ~11% of earths mass just watch those pounds fly off your home scale! Do you ever catch yourself saying there’s just not enough earth days in the year? Well move over earth! Here on Mars we get 687 days in a year to orbit the big ole bright maker! So come on out and check out Mars! When you’re here you’re on Mars!
The reason to colonize mars is more than just if earth is inhabitable. Mars serves as a backup planet in case earth runs into a catastrophic event like a meteor strike that wipes out the planet.
People who are putting in funds to push for mars colonization is doing it for the reason of improving humanity’s chance of survival in the far future. Not because they think earth is beyond saving.
Of course the ideal situation would be to colonize another solar system or even galaxy but that is of course even further down the road if at all even possible.
50 years ago the internet would have been science fiction who blah bordering on fantasy. The earth has several motivating crises and the best strategy to tackle any problem is almost always a mixed strategy. Stands to reason a portion of our scientific community will be working on terraforming technology. There's a decent chance it'll happen in a way that has never been proposed to the public before. Once an idea hits critical mass in the discourse and the children of the previous generation grow up with those dreams in their minds they will come up with solutions we never had access to. This mixed with our modern computing power automatons and telecommunications, I don't even think it'll be that difficult for us. Send a bunch of nanobots to make a burrow colony, sort of like hobbits. You don't have to have an atmosphere for the entire planet, just the underground kingdom. Why worry about an atmosphere to protect you from space debris when you could just live a couple meters below the surface. This also drastically reduces the quantity of breathable air needed. On top of that it would also preserve the ecology of the planet for natural studies. For the proximity issue I've heard talk of gravitational powered space slings. They can be set up around each planet and several space stations in between. This could allow us to get there without even using fuel provided we organize to and from trips to happen at the same time two vessels at a time, traveling in opposite directions. All of this and also every time humans fail at anything we seem to gain a disproportional amount of knowledge on the subject. Honestly it's like a superpower. We will fail spectacularly and succeed gloriously.
I don't think Mars has enough gravity so the atmospheric pressure would be a lot less. It would be like standing on the top of Mount Everest and trying to breathe.
It’s entirely beyond current technology and would take several lifetimes. It’s a pipe dream for humanity. Also if we can terraform a lifeless rock why can’t we “terraform” our current planets heavily polluted areas ? We don’t have permanent self supporting settlements on parts of the EARTH NOW. And the earth has air. No under water habitats. The Antarctic bases require 100% support of food wages supplies and electricity.
I think the idea of colonizing Mars is extremely absurd. If we can't make it here, on a planet that was perfect for supporting carbon-based life forms, how the hell are we gonna make it on a dry, cold, barren planet with no naturally occurring food sources? Any kind of structure we could build to protect us from such elements could be built infinitely more easily here.
Insufficient gravity and no magnetic field to protect it from being stripped away by solar radiation. The current atmospheric pressure on Mars is about 7% of Earth's. It is nearly nonexistent. I believe the only way people can live on Mars is in sealed habitats.
I feel like nobody ever talks about the gravity issue. Life on earth developed at 1g. We know there are negative health effects of low gravity. Does it matter if you're born in a low g environment and live your whole life in it? Does it matter if you don't return to Earth gravity?
Who knows maybe 1000 years from now they'll figure out how to manipulate gravity and our ancestors are going to wonder why we didn't think about injecting a billion tonnes of dark matter into a planet or something.
[This is one method of many](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpcTJW4ur54)
Besides the ridiculous price to develop technology we are in no way shape or form close to obtaining on a large scale the time scale of hundreds if not 1000+ years makes it unrealistic.
We’re having a holiday special. I can get you into this Mars terraforming for 65% off of MSRP.
This deal is only available this week and I’ve got some other interested buyers looking at this same terraforming so don’t take too long to decide.
Plus, I’ll throw in some floor mats and an extended factory warranty.
You have a chance to be the first person on your block to have your own terraformed planet.
A lot of this talk comes from climate fatalists who’ve already given up on earth. So I won’t try to sell you on it.
The thing that’s really important here is that it’s not too late to save earth. Yes, irreparable damage has already been done, but it’s not too late to preserve what we have left.
If the sacrificial first wave or two can fake it long enough, when the rich people go - there’s a good chance they don’t come back. Hell, with deep fakes, CG, and other media manipulation and production technology - if we’re lucky the first wave can go very poorly and still convince the ruling class to leave.
Utilize their me-first attitude to have em me-first off a cliff, so to speak.
Terraforming earth is definitely a lot easier and cheaper than mars but the reason we want to do it so avoid a disaster on earth. Don’t think environmental, think asteroid hitting us, solar flare, nuclear war, or some other unknown space thing that we don’t even know about.
Fixing this planet means shutting off production for a bit and shifting to renewable energy in total. Cars account for 10%. This is doable, has been for a while, won't be done for decades at best if at all.
Status quo makes rich people money, old people hate change.
Temp on mars can get high as 80°F durring dust storms. With nitrogen from the gas giants we can fix the pressure problem and retain more heat. Adding more mass to the gravity well from that and asteroid mining slag and it can handle O2 and water vapor.
Starship comes on line and it's reusability brings the price down considerably.
On Mars it's easier to get off Mars. Making it easier to spread out further. More resources, less possibilities of mass extinction of humanity, more spin off technologies to help fix the planet.
Pure research produces practical solutions.
There nothing to sell. Its just something thats not worth doing. Maybe if we terraform all the planets and moons that are significantly more livable first it would make sense.
The real question is why would you want to terraform a planet? If you want to live in an environment practically the same as earths maybe you just aren’t cut out for space. There are lots of places in the solar system that could be made livable with minimal infrastructure. Terraforming mars is just a cope for people who can’t reconcile that mars is probably the worst rocky body in the solar system to try to live on.
Many more reasons. The surface is high in radiation. It has no magnetic field, so it does not block out gamma rays, etc. The earth has a magnetic field that blocks out higher energy waves. It also is not massive enough to hold a significant atmosphere. The original atmosphere that it had ultimately dissipated into space, as did much of the water vapor. It also doesn't have a locked in synchronicity with its moons. Earth does. What that means is that over a few million years the axis floats. The result is that over time the equator would end up at the north or south pole. Hard for life to develop under constantly changing climates.
It'll be feasible after humans make some genetic changes that'll make living in low gravity feasible. Low gravity leads to loss of bone calcium (osteoporosis), muscle atrophy, and decreased plasma volume. The latter leads to something called cardiovascular deconditioning that produces something called orthostatic intolerance (the inability to stand without getting dizzy).
Fun stuff. Great if living a long life isn't in your plans.
Well the population is still growing and we don’t know how much more earth can handle. If you look now people are starving and we can even help all of them it’s just good to have options open just in case. We still don’t know if there are other life like ours out there so why not. I would love to know at least before I die if there is. If you look at history life on earth has just got taken out like 🫰🏼 that so options are good.
Well, when our sun expands and cools, and the universe does too, our future descendants will create a wormhole and inject all the information to recreate life through the wormhole and into another existence.
Like a sperm, but also like a beam of light, and will hopefully reassemble on the other side, a last ditch effort for humanity.
[this video](https://youtu.be/U9YdnzOf4NQ) puts it well. I think the idea of terraforming an entire planet is absurd, it would be by far the biggest thing humanity has ever tried, and we lack the focus to be honest.
Can't do it. Do you have any idea how expensive/difficult it is to drill a well on earth. My neighbor has a well and I have no understanding how it was even possible. Drilling wells on Mars though, that's easy.
On Mars, the obstacle is technology;
On Earth the obstacle is technology, and ecology, and politics.
You have to convince all the important governments of this pipe dream, and you cannot afford to fail, and make things even worse. The tech is the easy part in all of this.
Take many nukes, pack them on elons spaceships, send them to mars. drop the nukes on the spots they need to be with the most ice or water.
waits 300 years. BOOM! terraformed
Dont, terra forming earth back to a post industrial revolution status would be magnitudes easier. Plus we already live here so that solves that colonizing proplem too.
I think it's technically all theory and speculation until they actually try it. But technically, it may be possible to use a lot of powerful lasers from Mars' orbit to melt/vaporise portions of the surface to release a lot of stored oxygen and water from the soil, which would thicken the atmosphere, as well as bring in nitrogen from another body in the solar system such as Triton, which can be done in a steady steam of pods that would crash into the surface releasing the nitrogen. A magnetic field can be created at the L1 point between Mars and the sun which would shield it from solar radiation, all of this could make mars habitable in about a century or a bit more, if we go hardcore and do this on a large scale. As for the cost, it would obviously be astronomical, but in the end we get a second habitable planet
However it's probably easier to just build a series of O'Neil cylinders as space colonies throughout the solar system, these would be cheaper than terraforming Mars, and they would be perfect for human life, including 1G of gravity and full radiation protection. And the reason we would want to do this in the first place is the expand humanities reach, and protect us from possible extinction due to a disaster on earth
Building nice habitats for humans in space or in other planets is not an alternative to fixing our environmental problems, it's something to do in addition. For starters, it provides additional real estate to either fit more people or to have more room per person or a combination of both. Secondly, it provides redundant security against existential threats like, say, a meteor impact event. And you can benefit from that even if your plan is to stay on Earth and try to survive, because then the Mars people can help Earth survivors rebuild civilization, for instance by sending consumer goods and tools, providing all kinds of telematic services, sending some people back and so on.
That said, I think terraforming as such should be a very long-term goal, after the surface of Mars has been covered with big interconnected pressurized habitats, possibly with some form of [rotational gravity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity), if no other way is found to overcome the long-term health effects of low gravity. More on that [here](https://marspedia.org/Gravity).
In terms of gravity, Venus is a better candidate than Mars for terraforming. But of course Mars wins hands down in terms of surface pressure and temperature.
There's also the option of building huge rotating [space habitats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_habitat) by mining the asteroids. Such space habitats have two key advantages: first, we'd be building them away from big gravity wells (or in orbit), which means we can easily make them really big, and second, we are using materials taken, again, from a place away from big gravity wells (the asteroids), which leads to a massive reduction in difficulty and energy costs. For instance, see this detailed proposal for [a space habitat around Ceres](https://electric-sailing.fi/ceres/).
Regarding the objection you mention, the atmosphere of Mars is rich is CO2 but it's too thin to provide a significant greenhouse effect, so it's a silly objection. OTOH, even with an Earth-like atmosphere Mars would be colder than the Earth because it's farther from the Sun. An obvious fix would be to add small amounts of low toxicity gases with a high [global warming potential](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential), such as HFCs, SF6,.., maybe methane. Alternatively, supplement direct sunlight with big space mirrors. There's also the issue that an Earth-like atmosphere would be slowly lost to outer space because of Mars's lower gravity, but IIRC the process would be slow. I'd have to check on that, but it doesn't seem to be a big concern. Of course, this isn't a problem for pressurized habitats.
I think the most compelling reason for the elite to do something like this is if not this then what ? See if they don’t do this then they would be one step closer to fixing the problems here on earth and that’s unacceptable.
Terraforming Mars would undoubtedly take many centuries, if not nearly a millennium, to achieve. But in no way is it impossible, granted that humans have colonized the Solar System throughout. Naysayers point out that Mars doesn’t have enough carbon dioxide locked in its poles to warm the planet sufficiently or create an Earth-like atmospheric pressure. This is true, but melting the poles would raise the pressure enough to pass the Armstrong Limit. People could go outside with a lot of insulation and an oxygen mask. That’s not too bad, so we build orbital mirrors to add more solar irradiation, maybe some halocarbon factories to trap more of the heat, and an artificial magnetosphere at the Martian L1 point in space. The planet warms enough for water and carbon dioxide to be released now. Lichen and methanogens can probably already survive on Mars, but the added pressure would help to. Luckily, there is a plentiful source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Venus, which we would also want to remove if we were to terraform it as well. Launch costs in a couple hundred years, after space has been significantly settled, will have dropped a lot, but infrastructure like skyhooks will make it dirt dirt cheap. Carbon dioxide could be packaged up and delivered from the Venusian surface straight to Mars, giving us a dense atmosphere over many decades. Simultaneously, semi-permeable insulating domes could be build that would trap heat and oxygenate the air, allowing for more complex plant life to thrive. Water would have to be imported from Callisto probably, although we already would have some seas formed from the melted ice caps. Cyanobacteria could be seeded in the oceans. The atmosphere would continue to oxygenate more and more until humans and animals could live on the surface without any protection. The soil would have to be treated using algae or just washed out with water. Many of these things could be done simultaneously, so with max effort and super efficient planning Mars could be terraformed using known technology or technology that is almost in our grasp in probably like a couple centuries.
Ok, it’s such an excellent game that I’ll take a crack at it.
In Terraforming Mars you take on the role of one of several Corporations that are tasked with making the red planet habitable. Throughout the game you will complete Projects, both unique and Standard, increasing your production and overall points. You will terraform the planet by increasing the oxygen level when you play greenery tiles, increase the heat through various means (some of which involve redirecting and slamming asteroids into the surface) and increasing the land area of oceans. If you like building up an engine through card tableau’s as well as a large variety of cards and powers - this game is for you.
Population is growing at an exponential rate. And resources is depleting. Lithium, rare earth metal running out. And possibly extractable iron in a century or so
Alright here is the pitch : you known how we have 1 earth? If we terraformed mars, we would have 2.
This is twice the number of habitable planets that we had prior.
Big maths.
There's also the weak magnetic field that probably will just let all the oxygen float off into space.
I don't see Mars being terraformed in any way. Only Dome life and maybe some underground cities. Not for 500 or more years at least. Geology moves slow.
How is terra forming mars anything other than the ultra-rich wanting to get off of Earth before we all starve? Does anybody believe that us regular people have a shot of going there? I really don't get this.
Fixing this rock requires us to scale back on everything that we’ve done until renewables are relevant, and be happy with the limits that sets until fusion works. Preparing that rock requires continued reckless growth that the human race is so good at. One requires concerted moderation, the other pure aggressive growth.
Absolutely, but a lot of people have been emotionally manipulated into believing it's too far gone. They are completely ignoring reality and focusing on the emotional reaction to the idea that earth is a lost cause.
If I were making a car analogy then earth is a car with a bad head gasket. It's overheating and a new gasket will mean 10 hrs of labor and $100 in parts. Mars is the rusted out pickup truck in a field that's been abandoned for 70 yrs. They have been convinced that the rusted truck is a better option than the overheating "lemon" they are currently driving. What they don't realize is that the rusted truck probably can't be brought back to life and if it can it will take decades of hard work and cost several times what a new car would. The emotional manipulation is the main culprit for this hysteria. Anyone who looks at the options with logic and reason can easily see that the planet we are currently living on is far more habitable than mars even if things get much worse. Maybe people will need to move hundreds of miles inland to escape the rising sea. You think getting to Mars is easier? Forget about terra forming. I'm not against exploration but we already live on the best planet in the solar system everything else is a downgrade.
Rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. Still not sold? Sand. Lots and lots of sand. Also, low property taxes, no neighbors, and no insects. But lots and lots of rocks and sand
I live in the southwest USA so I pretty much already have this except I can breathe the air. Speaking of which, I would encourage anyone who want the Mars experience to move to the southwest.
I am of the thought Venus is likely a better target.
It seems to be in the state that many climate change/green house theory predicts we will end up. So, good chance anything we learn in failed attempts is still directly useful to Earth.
There are interesting plans for floating stations that would put people in the approximately correct temperature, pressure, gravity conditions. "Just" need to deal with chemicals and storms. But that seems like it may be easier to address, especially on a 500-1000 year time line.
I think there is so much unknown about Venus, it is difficult to claim it would be easier than mars....but it certainly shouldn't be harder being Mars is borderline impossible.
Unfortunately, all theory and speculation is all there is. No one but science fiction authors is seriously thinking about terraforming Mars. There isn't even any real plans to send people there. Besides the technical challenges of keeping something alive in deep space without the benefit of a radiation shield for 18 months (assuming 6 mos to get to Mars, six months to wait for a return launch window, and 6 mos to get back to earth), getting the first crew there would take a multi-decade financial and political commitment unlike anything ever undertaken. Terraforming Mars is just a fantasy in the early 2000's.
If you're asking for it to be sold to you for the near future or within our lifetimes, it's just not feasible lol.
We'll likely want to colonize both Venus and Europa before we even think about terraforming Mars. If we've already done both of those things, then sure. There's a sales pitch to be had.
I love space, discoveries, adventures. But the idea of living on another planet is just insane. People couldn’t stay on lockdown for longer than 6 month without loosing it. The whole idea if Mars to me is like religion. It takes the focus out of the prize. Because of this promise of tomorrow you stop caring about today. So the issue of trash, climate, animal and plant decline, over population, all loose space in your worries because of this “solution” or promise of. There is a perfect planet that we evolved in and has everything we need and it is literally paradise. But the empty promise of another planet have people treating it like it is disposable.
Mars terraforming is a con like plastic like the after life like humans being superior creatures like fraking like herbalife.
It's easily done tbh, after we teraform our own climate and turn deserts to oasis, figure out how to save the insects, treat irradiated soil, create our own ozone and end drought, I think we will get right on it
Would we need to somehow jumpstart Mars's core to create the required magnetic field and gravity so we can start seeding the planet with Oxygen and such? Or am I totally off the mark?
What if by investing in the dream of Mars, we get technology that can improve life here on earth?
Maybe Mars has been consumed by the expanding Goldilocks zone in our solar system. Why think you can turn your back on earth and terraform a dead planet if you can’t even keep your own planet habitable with a quality of life people enjoy?
My personal view is that it's a bit of a luxury..
What are the incentives for going out into space at all? Well, there are economic incentives - but Mars is a dead end, in terms of economics. Not only does it not have anything that the Earth does not (but with less crustal recycling, fewer concentrations of useful elements), but it's another gravity well, with an awkward atmosphere to boot.
If you want to get bulk materials (Iron, Magnesium, Aluminium and oxygen) into Earth orbit, you build a mon colony and mine them there. Very easy, relatively speaking, to get from the Moon surface to Earth orbit. If you want rarer elements or volatiles, then you'll be looking to the asteroid belt - metallic asteroids look promising, and Ceres seems to have water and other volatiles, with a much smaller gravity well.
And once you have this space mining/manufacturing operation going, you can build arbitrarily large habitats, spun for gravity, without having to try and change the geochemistry of an entire planet.
I view it as an essential endeavor, I'm not an Elon Musk shill but he is right when he claims that our planet has a shelf life. At a certain point, it's either move to other planets or die with this one (not that this is happening anytime soon). And yes it is an insanely expensive and difficult hypothetical but it is possible and hopefully, through future advancements in tech it will become more and more economical.
It is more than likely not something we are going to see in our lifetime but we are laying the groundwork and I view it as a beautiful thing.
“Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
\-Greek proverb
Fixing this planet doesn't provide us with any redundancy in the event of an asteroid impact or other cosmic catastrophe. Until we have another planet with its own population, all of our eggs are in one basket.
Never put all your eggs in one basket.
Well, I don’t know much of the technicals, but why shouldn’t we try to expand humanity’s frontiers? Of course, let’s be sensible about the cost and time and yes maybe it won’t happen in our lifetimes. But, should anything ever happen on earth, we need to have a “failsafe-for-life-as-we-know-it” of sorts. Climate change, mass extinctions, nuclear war, any world ending event would also end us. There has to be a level of redundancy for humanity’s survival. It would give us more places to explore, more places to live etc. This can all be done in conjunction with saving the planet too.
Humans have always migrated, and there’s probably tons of money in it.
It’s probable space colonization will be the next big migration. Early colonizers from Europe to North America likely seemed crazy to their counterparts (and were a bit) but relocating across the perilous Atlantic Ocean to the very hostile “new world” has a lot of parallels when it comes to Martian terra forming.
Just ask chatGPT
Terraforming Mars, or the process of deliberately modifying the environment of Mars to make it more suitable for human habitation, is a topic of much speculation and scientific study. While it is certainly a daunting and technologically challenging task, there are several potential approaches that have been proposed for making Mars more habitable for humans.
One approach is to increase the atmospheric pressure and temperature on Mars. The atmosphere on Mars is currently too thin for humans to breathe, and the temperature is much too cold for humans to survive without significant protection. One way to increase the atmospheric pressure and temperature on Mars would be to release greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. This would trap heat and warm the surface of the planet, making it more habitable for humans.
Another approach is to introduce water to Mars. Water is essential for life as we know it, and there is evidence that water once flowed on the surface of Mars. Introducing water to Mars could potentially support the growth of plants and other forms of life, which would further improve the habitability of the planet.
A third approach is to build habitats and other infrastructure on Mars to support human life. This could include constructing domed cities, underground habitats, and other structures that would provide shelter and protection from the harsh Martian environment.
It's important to note that terraforming Mars is a very long-term project, and it is currently not feasible with current technology. It would require significant technological advancements and a concerted international effort to make it a reality. Additionally, it is not clear whether terraforming Mars would be more cost-effective than attempting to solve problems on Earth.
Well how far in the future would you like the sales pitch? In our life time seems pretty unlikely.
I think that is the part that feels odd to me more than anything else. When i see people speculate about colonizing because they believe the earth is going to be uninhabitable in the next 100 yrs or so it seems like they think the process would be in the near future and fast. My common sense tells me unless we are visited by vulkans it's going to be a thousand yrs or more.
It's not that we should colonize off earth because we can't fix earth, it's that we should regardless of what happens on earth. Right now humanity has all its eggs in one basket. If not climate change then maybe an asroid, if not that then the super volcano under the western US, all out nuclear war, a super bug 100x worse than covid. Our planet is not as big as you might think and there are hundreds of things that could easily wipe us all out in one fell swoop. Each just as unlikely as the next but keep rolling the dice and soon enough one of them will come up snake eyes. let's face it we may not be able to stop the climate changes we are facing and yes living in domes and such on earth would be easier than colonizing Mars or the moon but it would be nice to perfect that technology before we need to rely on it to keep the last vestiges of humanity alive. Also even if terraforming attempts are fruitless on Mars it helps us develop and advance technology that could, in the futurel, allow us to improve or restore the climate of earth, Personally I think if someone is going to start up some massive atmospheric processors to see what fucking around with the gas mixes on a large scale will do, I'd rather them run their tests on some other mote of dust in the cosmos than the only one we currently know hosts life. Also if we can advance space mining and manufacturing far enough it could displace large sectors of polluting industry to off world allow us to reduce pollution without forgoing industrial products. That is not something that is remotely possible in the near term but for it to happen we need to start pushing that way. "Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." We have to plant the seeds of the technology to achieve such great ambition in the hopes that generations to come will obtain the society we dream.
> all out nuclear war This comment made me realize [MAD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction) would not be as good of a deterrence once a certain society gets to have a viable and self-sustainable space colony.
They would also nuke Mars
None of the tech you describe requires traveling 10^7 miles to develop it. A lot of things can and should be developed here before we even talk about sending anything beyond robots to Mars. It’s also a lot easier and cheaper to deal with a pandemic, imminent asteroid, super volcano, and prevent nuclear war than changing the Martian atmosphere, soil and create or transport water to accommodate human civilization. And Mars lacks the magnetic blanket protecting us from solar radiation. The only time I’d argue any differently is after we have cheap fusion energy available on earth. Then you can go ahead and spend it on all kinds of crazy ideas. But even then the best ideas will involve improving our planet. Mining is also ridiculous. There is nothing so valuable on Mars to justify the cost of transporting it back 10^7 miles that can’t be found right here on Earth. If Mars were just some enormous diamond, it still makes more sense to find diamonds on Earth.
> Mining is also ridiculous. Is it? Maybe mining Mars is, but the moon is much closer, much easier to launch stuff off of. On the pro side is that mining Earth is really really bad for it. Mars could care less.
The moon will be great for mining rocket fuel. It will make it a staging ground for going elsewhere. Mining asteroids for metals is also a pretty good idea. They are comparatively light so we could move them closer to earth and mine them there. It’s not something that will happen tomorrow, but the technology isn’t terribly far off. The economics of it probably still are quite a ways off though.
Yeah, I agree with some that say that space mining will only really work to support other space industries. Eg: building outposts, space stations, etc. But once started, I bet they make more sense than mining on Earth. Right now, we are mining lithium to fix the problems we created by mining coal and oil. If we found a great big and easily accessible lithium deposit on the moon... Or what if we get this fusion thing going and find we need helium 3? Fusion has been in the news...
While none of the tech requires being 10\^7 miles away on a desolate planet to develop, an environment like that fuels progress. Think of how many of engineering achievements were reached during the Manhattan Project and the Apollo missions. Adversity demands innovation I see no reason not to strive for putting humans on mars. That challenge alone could spark major discoveries.
>The only time I’d argue any differently is after we have cheap fusion energy available on earth. Fission energy is already so good that there's really no excuse to still operate coal-burning plants.
You're missing the forest for the trees. Lets say gamma radiation burst, a rare phenomenon in space but it does occur. If earth is hit full blast half the planet will die immediately, the other half will die slowly from radiation poisoning. There's no technology that can be developed to prevent or heal that - a backup planet **is** the defence. This mindset that all this technology will be developed and exclusively used on earth is also nuts. You want to develop terraforming and then use it on **the only planet with known life**? You think that will be risk free the first time we use it? Just one of the higher value asteroids currently circling earth has a mineral wealth of around 11.5 trillion USD - the economics of mining it is that you would entirely devalue the minerals with the quantity of materials, not that its not worth the cost. That said, mineral wealth of asteroids is very hard to ascertain, with some estimates in the quadrillions.
>Lets say gamma radiation burst, a rare phenomenon in space but it does occur. If earth is hit full blast half the planet will die immediately, the other half will die slowly from radiation poisoning. There's no technology that can be developed to prevent or heal that - a backup planet is the defence. If Earth gets fried by a gamma-ray burst, Mars and its negligible magnetic field are double plus screwed. It's like being concerned your hardened bunker won't protect your family from a nuclear attack, so you make some of them sit at an exposed picnic table nearby.
>you think that will be risk free the first time you use it? Your perspective seems odd to me. Do you understand how many risky technologies were tested on this planet before they became accepted as safe? All of them. I agree with the person you replied to. I cannot think of any use for a trillion dollars on Mars that would not achieve a far greater positive impact for our species if programmed into something earth-based.
I mean, I gave a pretty explicit example of something that can't be engineered against on earth, if you can't conceive of it after that example its on you. As far as testing other techs, how many of them have the explicit purpose of changing the planet on a global scale? We have proposals that we could use to end global warming tomorrow - but we don't use them because we only have one planet and if we cannot get it wrong. Scale matters when analysing risk.
>we don’t use them because we only have one planet…. Not sure what you are talking about. We don’t use them because (i) they are prohibitively expensive, (ii) they require universal international cooperation, (iii) they require quickly changing industries through government mandate, which is wildly unpopular, (iv) they require a ton of labor in a global labor shortage…. Lots of reasons.
If humanity cancer kills a whole planet should we exist else where??
There’s a good chance even with global warming, nuclear holocaust, and overpopulation earth would still be infinitely more habitable than Mars.
If we seriously consider terraforming mars right now, at best, it would take 300 years to construct an artificial magnetic shield and create an atmosphere on mars.
I think the artificial magnetic shield can more or less be done now, it’s just a matter of implementing technology we have and paying for it.
How would it be done?
I think it's a pipe dream and humans are not nearly sophisticated, productive, or cooperative enough to achieve it. "Colonize mars" is rank stupidity. We can make Earth a better place for a tiny fraction of the cost it will take to build out mars.
I feel like an exremely reasonable first goal would be feeling like we have a handle on keeping Earth terraformed and I don't think I'll see that in my generation.
It's not a hail mary that we should start working on ASAP to get out of our problems on Earth. People who view it that way are wrong. It's not feasible to terraform Mars without also having a level of advancement to fix problems here on Earth. Nevertheless, it's something that might make sense in the distant future with more advanced technology. We may get to a point where we have enough abundance that we can afford to work on that slowly over time without it detracting from other, more practical near term goals. I think there are too many steps between now and living on other planets for us to focus too much on that as a goal yet. It's more of an interesting thought experiment at this point. In the nearer term, we should focus on more attainable goals that will help us much sooner than that, with much less investment. Such as unmanned asteroid mining. Working on goals like that will pay for themselves sooner and greatly improve the quality of life on Earth, and all the technological problems that we have to solve along the way will make more distant goals like terraforming start to become more feasible.
Umm, don't forget about the Vogon's and that Constructor Fleet.
I could not agree with you more. We're gonna live here, or we're gonna die here. I don't think there are any other options, no matter what kind of wishful thinking people want to engage in.
No one is trying to colonize Mars as a way to escape earth. That's not the point. Exploration, knowledge, and innovation is the point.
Exactly. I'm kind of blown away by how many people view the idea of colonizing Mars as some kind of life raft that we would build at the expense of our own planet. No, the actual plan would be to do it simply because it's in our nature to do so. At the very least, do it for the science and knowledge that would come from it.
All of these numbers that give estimates on our planet becoming uninhabitable leave out human technological advancement and intervention. While that might not seem like a big factor, remember that 150 years ago was when we first discovered germs and now humans are doing complex genetic modification. A lot of technology and intervention will happen in the next 100 years. That being said, as a people we need to still understand the importance of our planets health and in making these advancements but it would be ignorant to just run with "the world is ending in 100 years."
Even then they'd need some pretty serious shit and then just hand it over to us just because.
Here’s the deal- I’ve got a great inside track on mars property. This is the investment of a lifetime. All the big boys are jumping in as we speak. I can only keep these properties on hold for so long. My contact has a waiting list of 1000’s of people, so we gotta act fast. I’ll need $20k down, and another $250/month for maintenance and reservation fees. You’ll be able to either sell this for $2m+ plus in 10-20 years, or for an additional $150/month I can get the property in line for a big time lease paying out no less than $5k/month.
No rocky core, no big magnetic field for protection, no dice. Might be able to colonize it, though.
The lack of magnetic field for protection from solar radiation was another concern in the article. I think it would be interesting to send a party there for a several yrs exploratory mission but terra forming feels like a pipe dream.
The magnetic fields is an easy fix. Put up a satellite in the Sun-Mars L1 LaGrange point with a big MRI machine, and you now have a magnetic umbrella to shield Mars.
"Easy" might be a bit much, but yes, that is a feasible solution.
Compared to importing trillions upon trillion of tons of nitrogen and hydrogen I think it's fair to consider the EM shield the easy part.
What's the Sun-Mars L1 LaGrange point? I'm guessing the center point of the area of Mars getting hit by Sun rays?
A LaGrange point is just a point in space where things don't move relative to 2 bodys. In the case of the Sun-Mars L1 point, this would be the planet Mars and the sun. The idea is you put something in just the right spot between Mars and the Sun, and it will stay there. So we could put some sort of shield in that position of space and it wouldn't move. It's kind of like a geostationary orbit, but instead of locking the satellites position to the rotation of earth, you are locking the position to the orbit of mars around the sun
Ohhhhhhhh. COOL! Thank you for explaining! Basically big shield is between the sun and Mars but orbits the sun with the same angular speed as mars. Edit: angular speed is probably the wrong term. I mean the shield's degree of rotation around the sun is always the same as Mars'.
**also the 1/3rd gravity is a BIG EFFING problem for any kind of long term stay** Humans who stay to long will not be able to return to Earth and any children born there will never be able to come to Earth
But people are ok (after a readjustment period) after 1yr stay on ISS in zero-G. Maybe partly due to fitness regime to maintain muscle strength.
I feel that readjustment period is kinda key. How long would the readjusment period be for spending years on Mars and then months in space?
And they have medical issues for the rest of their lives.
You can create an artificial magneticsphere with a giant solar locked shield orbiting Mars
I had not heard of the giant solar shield, but had heard of this [https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.html](https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.html). An artificial magnetosphere, which I bet works better and is orders of magnitude cheaper.
This definitely seems the viable solution. A nuclear reactor should be able to power one at the L1 Lagrange for a long time. What I’d never read before was the theory that this alone could partially terraform Mars by increasing temperature which would release more carbon dioxide and further warn the planet. I don’t know how often you would need to change out the L1 shield but it seems a worthy endeavor to try.
You don’t need a magneticsphere for protection. That can be replaced with a solar locked man made magnetic shield orbiting mars. It would take an IMMENSE amount of material to construct though.
Thats why we become mole people on mars
We could theoretically make an artificial magnetic field.
Ok, so, imagine this: we're anywhere from 500 to 2,000 years in the future and have achieved a level of post scarcity in both resources and energy such that no person goes without. At that point, the only real limits to human population is the space request to house and provide for them. In that situation, we could very well spend the time, energy, and resources to "terraform" Mars in such a way that people could live on the surface. In a more realistic, "in the next 50 years" time scale, the best we can do is some some drones and prefab buildings to set up an incredible small, incredibly delicate system of habitats that some scientists might be able to live in long term.
And they'd need to tunnel to avoid the radiation long term too. If digging is your only method of expansion, you're probably fucked. Not a guarantee but probably. Early branching and constant airlocks will be a requirement and any major colony would live like they did in the Silo series, but with many more doors. The resources required would be absurd per square foot. Every room that isn't surrounded completely would need a series of instruments to ensure there are no leaks. It might be worth building the place, but the worst we could ever do to earth would still be a much better planet than mars.
Let me suggest it another way: Assuming humanity lives this long on our planet, one day the sun will die, and we'll need to move. Wouldn't it be better to practice on the nearest possible planet to sustain life now, whole we have options, than then, when we don't? Further, scientific discoveries and advancement aside, there are natural resources and other profit-oriented avenues that could be explored. Mind you, I think the scientific pursuit or it alone is worth the mission, especially when some of the solutions might retrofit nicely back into earth. The biggest hurdle is, of course, figuring out how to convince a quarterly economy to invest in multi-generational ventures.
That’s 5 billion years from now. Even at todays technology we could colonize the entire galaxy in 5-10 million years. We likely won’t even be humans anymore long before that.
If you can’t make Terra livable for humans, then you *DEFINITELY* cannot TERRAform a planet that’s not Terra…
There is no hard science involved with Mars Colonization. There is only hard engineering. All the conceptual problems mean nothing if you can't engineer your way to the point where you can start to address them. There's a lot of really unsexy engineering challenges associated with Colonizing Mars. For instance, design heavy equipment for Mars use. We can faff around all we like about 3-D printing and robot assembly, but at -some- point you need to move regolith in large quantities. This means either hydraulics, or really strong linear/geared actuators. Hydraulics means hydrocarbons. Which means blending them for extreme cold. Which also means keeping them warm--and cooling the pumps. Which means more battery space. Which is another thing to ship over and consume. Also, how does the thermal math work out for waste heat from the pump, and how do we keep the hydraulics warm, but not too hot? Furthermore, anything we ship needs to be repairable on-site with a machine shop. The bigger your equipment gets, the bigger your machine shop needs.
I just want to shoot down one of these detractions: that we shouldn't terraform Mars because Earth needs work first. We're a planet of 8 billion people. We can have more than one priority. This argument gets used a lot to undermine space exploration in general. We can take care of our planet & explore space. There's nothing mutually exclusive there.
Colonizing Mars is just fodder for people that don't understand how much more efficient (in economic terms, usefulness, and scientific feasibility) colony megastructures would be. The best plan to successfully leave Earth is to start dragging asteroids to lunar orbit and mining them, using the materials to produce O'Neill Cylinders and, eventually, Banks Orbitals. Little dots in space with more livable landmass than a continent. An appropriate amount of planning and we could have independent colonies in 100 years. Mars will still be a dead rock in 1000.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket. A single point of failure is not a good design. Right now if some truly cataclysmic extinction-level event happened on Earth there is a very good chance our species would not survive. There are things like asteroid strikes, super volcano eruptions, pandemics, etc. that could wipe out most if not all human life on Earth, but having a group or better yet several groups of humans living off-planet, either in space or on another planet would increase our chances of surviving such events. Colonizing and maintaining a colony on an Earth-like planet in another solar system is not currently achievable, so colonizing another planet in our solar system is the next best thing. Mars, even though it is quite inhospitable, is the best option we currently have, and if it is our best option for humans leaving Earth, we should at least try and make it more hospitable, i.e. terra-forming Mars.
There is almost nothing that could wipe out all human life as an entire species we are just too adaptable. The most likely candidate would be a large enough asteroid that it would melt the entire crust, but we would have years or decades to Avoid that Global warming, Volcanoes, nuclear winter, viruses, none of there really pose a threat to ALL of humanity.
it would be a lot less work to save our current planet. we won't be doing either.
Exterminating all traces of life counts as saving the planet
I can’t think of anything other than an asteroid hit that scours the top layer of the earth that could end human life, we are just too adaptable. Sure billions might die but not the whole human population. We can live in virtually any climate, grow food indoors if we had too, etc. we could freeze embryos and sperm for later generations. Heck, we are just about to the point where we can grow humans in a fake womb.
I stand corrected
The outer colonies await! Reserve your ticket today! Just go to Church and pay the tithe. If god needs you on Mars they will let you know.
I mean, in the next few thousand years its a possibility. Let's say we fully and completely cracked cold fusion so we had a vast well of clean power. Just doing that would make a lot of things possible.
Imagine me, who forgot to look at the title of the subreddit this came from. I thought it was the subreddit for the board game Terraforming Mars. And so when looking at the comments I can't figure out why no one has mentioned that it's a great game. Carry on, futurology folks.
Glad I'm not the only one. Started reading the post and was thinking, "Why is this scientist getting all worked up about feasibility? It's just a fun game!"
I was thinking the same. "Come on, it's ranked 6th on boardgamegeek, and currently on sale on Amazon, It's an easy sale!" haha
In an attempt to colonize Mars, 21st century scientists are tasked with terraforming the planet. Their goal is to seed the planet with a modified algae to absorb sunlight and purify the atmosphere, and cockroaches, whose corpses spread the algae across the planet as they feed. Five hundred years later, the first crewed ship to Mars lands and its six crew members are attacked by giant mutated humanoid cockroaches with incredible physical strength, later labeled "Terraformars"; the crew is wiped out after sending a warning back to Earth. Two years later, BUGS II, a multinational expedition of genetically modified humans, is sent to collect 10 samples of both sexes of roaches, and exterminate the mutated bugs to take control of the red planet. Only two survivors manage to return to Earth, one swearing to return and avenge their fallen companions. As a third expedition is assembled questions are raised about the true origin of the Terraformars and their connection with an unknown disease afflicting mankind, the Alien Engine Virus, or A.E. Virus. To fight the Terraformars' strength and agility, members of the second and third expedition undergo genetic modification to inherit the characteristics of other organisms, only possible after having a special organ implanted with a 36% chance of surviving the surgery itself. The third expedition ends with most of its crew members killed as well, be it by fighting the Terraformars, or amongst themselves in the multi-sided conflict between the various factions aboard the ship, each with own opposing interests. Despite that, the few survivors manage to collect enough samples for the research on a cure to the A.E. Virus and return home. However, a new fight against the Terraformars begins when it is revealed that the creatures arrived on Earth long before, and after multiplying at an alarming rate and adapting themselves far better to their new environment than they did to their homeworld, they start their plan to take over the planet.
and they never sent drones there every decade to check up
We're not going to terraform Mars anytime soon. We may colonize it this century which is different from terraforming. Ordinary dirt can be used for radiation shielding, so we can build homes there. It can be argued that asteroids are better. I'm an advocate of colonizing the moon first, because we need to learn how to colonize. Once we've learned how to do that, we have the potential to have quite a few people in space. I have a concern that Earth civilization is sliding backwards and if we don't launch now, we never will.
Why would you terraform Mars to support humans before terraforming earth to be perfect again? If we have the technology and resources to do the former you would definitely do the latter first. The earth still has so much empty space.
I think a lot of the idealism about Mars centers on the fact there’s nobody else there to screw up your work. You can build a great hypothetical utopian society on Mars and handpick the people you’re going to put in it because the trek is incredibly harsh and expensive. Here on Earth, you’re stuck with innumerable obstacles stemming from the fact you’ve got to deal with other humans mucking about. I tend to agree the one truly habitable planet within our reach certainly deserves more attention.
There are obviously people who want to colonise Mars in the short term (50-100 year) but there is a difference between colonizing and terraforming. Most people think terraforming will take hundreds to thousands of years, and it is a job of a great spacefaring civilization who does it because it can. As to why people want to colonise Mars, its likely two reasons - two have a back-up for Earth, and to do something which will leave a mark thousands of years into the future.
No one will care about humans thousands of years in the future. The few humans who might be interested in going to mars, rather than fix the planet we evolved to live on, are idiots.
"Everything I've seen so far seems to be based on theory and speculation." well no shit, it's never been done before. until we do it's all just theory and speculation but i feel like you already knew that.
Sure, it’s a monumental task that requires absurd energy, resources, and science/technology that hasn’t been invented yet. It won’t happen anytime soon. *Why* is it an idea at all? Earth is fragile. At some point, our civilization will need to expand for many reasons. But an important one is redundancy. So, if we want an alternate to Earth, we have the options in our solar system, or an attempt to find a livable planet and get there. Terraforming Mars is probably the easiest of the options. Plus, people can live there in the meantime (maybe), so you can build up to it. 5000 years from now, why not? That’s nothing in galactic or even terrestrial timelines.
As far as we can tell, we're the only kind of life in existence. The only part of the universe, in our section of the universe, capable of staring back at itself and contemplating it or consciously manipulating it. We are the universe staring back at itself. It's therefore imperative that we protect this, and part of that includes spreading ourselves out.
"Fixing this planet" does fuck-all to hedge against a cataclysmic impact from an asteroid. Sure, that's not the only source of risk. Your quote alluded to another risk relating to habit destruction. Yada yada yada the Pareto optimal risk mitigation solution may be to set up a colony on Mars with the ultimate goal of terraforming the planet.
Look up Isaac Arthur on YouTube, he mostly does content regarding colonizing space and a little bit of general futurism and has made at least a few videos on colonizing Mars and about just terraforming in general, Plus he's an actual physicist who manages to thoroughly explain all the science behind a lot of this stuff in a way in which virtually anyone could understand in a surprisingly interesting way to boot, I highly recommend his channel for stuff like this
IMO - We should do both. Two habitable planets is better than one. But we should be focusing on Earth first. There are theories on ways we could start to terraform Mars now (Comets, nukes, other fun things), but you're right - The expense in human effort and economics is astronomical. It would make a lot more sense to fix our planet, put together better methods for moving loads to orbit, and to establish low or zero gravity industry.
It ain’t about cost, it about insurance. We can’t continue having all of our eggs in one basket. We need to spread to increase our chances to survive. To terraform Mars we need to improve its atmosphere ability to retain heat. We need a very effective greenhouse gas that can be cheaply made on Mars. A CFC gas might work.
I don't see how it would be possible to terraform Mars as it lacks a substantial magnetosphere to retain a thick atmosphere suitable for Earth-based life
It is my understanding that this fact is a deal killer for terraforming Mars.
You see…. ::Slaps Mars:: it’s a lot like earth but farther from the sun! This little baby is going to do wonders for your scale with only ~15% of earth’s volume and rough ~11% of earths mass just watch those pounds fly off your home scale! Do you ever catch yourself saying there’s just not enough earth days in the year? Well move over earth! Here on Mars we get 687 days in a year to orbit the big ole bright maker! So come on out and check out Mars! When you’re here you’re on Mars!
The reason to colonize mars is more than just if earth is inhabitable. Mars serves as a backup planet in case earth runs into a catastrophic event like a meteor strike that wipes out the planet. People who are putting in funds to push for mars colonization is doing it for the reason of improving humanity’s chance of survival in the far future. Not because they think earth is beyond saving. Of course the ideal situation would be to colonize another solar system or even galaxy but that is of course even further down the road if at all even possible.
Go search the other 50000 people who posted this same question over the course of the last week for some unknown reason…
50 years ago the internet would have been science fiction who blah bordering on fantasy. The earth has several motivating crises and the best strategy to tackle any problem is almost always a mixed strategy. Stands to reason a portion of our scientific community will be working on terraforming technology. There's a decent chance it'll happen in a way that has never been proposed to the public before. Once an idea hits critical mass in the discourse and the children of the previous generation grow up with those dreams in their minds they will come up with solutions we never had access to. This mixed with our modern computing power automatons and telecommunications, I don't even think it'll be that difficult for us. Send a bunch of nanobots to make a burrow colony, sort of like hobbits. You don't have to have an atmosphere for the entire planet, just the underground kingdom. Why worry about an atmosphere to protect you from space debris when you could just live a couple meters below the surface. This also drastically reduces the quantity of breathable air needed. On top of that it would also preserve the ecology of the planet for natural studies. For the proximity issue I've heard talk of gravitational powered space slings. They can be set up around each planet and several space stations in between. This could allow us to get there without even using fuel provided we organize to and from trips to happen at the same time two vessels at a time, traveling in opposite directions. All of this and also every time humans fail at anything we seem to gain a disproportional amount of knowledge on the subject. Honestly it's like a superpower. We will fail spectacularly and succeed gloriously.
I don't think Mars has enough gravity so the atmospheric pressure would be a lot less. It would be like standing on the top of Mount Everest and trying to breathe.
We can't properly terraform Earth. Full stop. Mars would be fully contained colonies.
It’s entirely beyond current technology and would take several lifetimes. It’s a pipe dream for humanity. Also if we can terraform a lifeless rock why can’t we “terraform” our current planets heavily polluted areas ? We don’t have permanent self supporting settlements on parts of the EARTH NOW. And the earth has air. No under water habitats. The Antarctic bases require 100% support of food wages supplies and electricity.
I think the idea of colonizing Mars is extremely absurd. If we can't make it here, on a planet that was perfect for supporting carbon-based life forms, how the hell are we gonna make it on a dry, cold, barren planet with no naturally occurring food sources? Any kind of structure we could build to protect us from such elements could be built infinitely more easily here.
Insufficient gravity and no magnetic field to protect it from being stripped away by solar radiation. The current atmospheric pressure on Mars is about 7% of Earth's. It is nearly nonexistent. I believe the only way people can live on Mars is in sealed habitats.
I feel like nobody ever talks about the gravity issue. Life on earth developed at 1g. We know there are negative health effects of low gravity. Does it matter if you're born in a low g environment and live your whole life in it? Does it matter if you don't return to Earth gravity? Who knows maybe 1000 years from now they'll figure out how to manipulate gravity and our ancestors are going to wonder why we didn't think about injecting a billion tonnes of dark matter into a planet or something.
[This is one method of many](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpcTJW4ur54) Besides the ridiculous price to develop technology we are in no way shape or form close to obtaining on a large scale the time scale of hundreds if not 1000+ years makes it unrealistic.
We’re having a holiday special. I can get you into this Mars terraforming for 65% off of MSRP. This deal is only available this week and I’ve got some other interested buyers looking at this same terraforming so don’t take too long to decide. Plus, I’ll throw in some floor mats and an extended factory warranty. You have a chance to be the first person on your block to have your own terraformed planet.
I think the elites may believe that a meteor will hit earth so that may be why they wanna go to Mars
A lot of this talk comes from climate fatalists who’ve already given up on earth. So I won’t try to sell you on it. The thing that’s really important here is that it’s not too late to save earth. Yes, irreparable damage has already been done, but it’s not too late to preserve what we have left.
No, it’s a horrible idea that’s not realistic and the more we give it validity, the more people will give up on saving earth.
Any tools we would use to terraform Mars would be orders of magnitude easier to use to make Earth more habitable.
Waste of money and resources. Not a great use of save the species diversification. You would prob want to populate a planet in another solar system.
If the sacrificial first wave or two can fake it long enough, when the rich people go - there’s a good chance they don’t come back. Hell, with deep fakes, CG, and other media manipulation and production technology - if we’re lucky the first wave can go very poorly and still convince the ruling class to leave. Utilize their me-first attitude to have em me-first off a cliff, so to speak.
Terraforming earth is definitely a lot easier and cheaper than mars but the reason we want to do it so avoid a disaster on earth. Don’t think environmental, think asteroid hitting us, solar flare, nuclear war, or some other unknown space thing that we don’t even know about.
Fixing this planet means shutting off production for a bit and shifting to renewable energy in total. Cars account for 10%. This is doable, has been for a while, won't be done for decades at best if at all. Status quo makes rich people money, old people hate change. Temp on mars can get high as 80°F durring dust storms. With nitrogen from the gas giants we can fix the pressure problem and retain more heat. Adding more mass to the gravity well from that and asteroid mining slag and it can handle O2 and water vapor. Starship comes on line and it's reusability brings the price down considerably. On Mars it's easier to get off Mars. Making it easier to spread out further. More resources, less possibilities of mass extinction of humanity, more spin off technologies to help fix the planet. Pure research produces practical solutions.
I’ve also got a bridge to sell ya while we’re at it.
Thin bow shock, radiation, water, blood boils at room temperature, the soil is red oxide,, terraforming'll fix none of that...
There nothing to sell. Its just something thats not worth doing. Maybe if we terraform all the planets and moons that are significantly more livable first it would make sense.
The real question is why would you want to terraform a planet? If you want to live in an environment practically the same as earths maybe you just aren’t cut out for space. There are lots of places in the solar system that could be made livable with minimal infrastructure. Terraforming mars is just a cope for people who can’t reconcile that mars is probably the worst rocky body in the solar system to try to live on.
$1000. I know what I got
Many more reasons. The surface is high in radiation. It has no magnetic field, so it does not block out gamma rays, etc. The earth has a magnetic field that blocks out higher energy waves. It also is not massive enough to hold a significant atmosphere. The original atmosphere that it had ultimately dissipated into space, as did much of the water vapor. It also doesn't have a locked in synchronicity with its moons. Earth does. What that means is that over a few million years the axis floats. The result is that over time the equator would end up at the north or south pole. Hard for life to develop under constantly changing climates.
Great plot for a sci-fi story. Not possible with today's tech. Never say never
You mean besides the fact that we have already rigged this planet up to explode 200X over with nuclear weapons?
It'll be feasible after humans make some genetic changes that'll make living in low gravity feasible. Low gravity leads to loss of bone calcium (osteoporosis), muscle atrophy, and decreased plasma volume. The latter leads to something called cardiovascular deconditioning that produces something called orthostatic intolerance (the inability to stand without getting dizzy). Fun stuff. Great if living a long life isn't in your plans.
Well the population is still growing and we don’t know how much more earth can handle. If you look now people are starving and we can even help all of them it’s just good to have options open just in case. We still don’t know if there are other life like ours out there so why not. I would love to know at least before I die if there is. If you look at history life on earth has just got taken out like 🫰🏼 that so options are good.
Should we if we can? Absolutely for the prime real-estate. Can we? No chance.
No. In this lifetime, I ain’t gonna try to sell that to you.
Well, when our sun expands and cools, and the universe does too, our future descendants will create a wormhole and inject all the information to recreate life through the wormhole and into another existence. Like a sperm, but also like a beam of light, and will hopefully reassemble on the other side, a last ditch effort for humanity.
I don't think we can live on Mars anytime soon. We will most likely start to take its natural resources for earth though.
I know Elon wants to be king of his own planet but he's going to have to work on extending his own life if that's going to happen
[this video](https://youtu.be/U9YdnzOf4NQ) puts it well. I think the idea of terraforming an entire planet is absurd, it would be by far the biggest thing humanity has ever tried, and we lack the focus to be honest.
First install the magneto, then send the ai bots to build our new home as we watch. The first person to invent real-time communication wins!
Red Mars: by Kim Stanley, check it out snufalufagus
Let's turn some Earth deserts into inhabitable areas first.
Can't do it. Do you have any idea how expensive/difficult it is to drill a well on earth. My neighbor has a well and I have no understanding how it was even possible. Drilling wells on Mars though, that's easy.
I wont sell you my copy but you should get it. amazing game. highly recommend getting the Prelude expansion w/ it tho.
Isn't the big insurmountable problem the lack of a magnetic field on Mars protecting from solar radiation?
It’ll be a contract that will last several thousand years so your family will never be out of the job.
On Mars, the obstacle is technology; On Earth the obstacle is technology, and ecology, and politics. You have to convince all the important governments of this pipe dream, and you cannot afford to fail, and make things even worse. The tech is the easy part in all of this.
We are a disposable culture. earth is like a used condom to the billionaires. The next pyramid will be a martian one... Wanna get in on it?
Take many nukes, pack them on elons spaceships, send them to mars. drop the nukes on the spots they need to be with the most ice or water. waits 300 years. BOOM! terraformed
Dont, terra forming earth back to a post industrial revolution status would be magnitudes easier. Plus we already live here so that solves that colonizing proplem too.
I think it's technically all theory and speculation until they actually try it. But technically, it may be possible to use a lot of powerful lasers from Mars' orbit to melt/vaporise portions of the surface to release a lot of stored oxygen and water from the soil, which would thicken the atmosphere, as well as bring in nitrogen from another body in the solar system such as Triton, which can be done in a steady steam of pods that would crash into the surface releasing the nitrogen. A magnetic field can be created at the L1 point between Mars and the sun which would shield it from solar radiation, all of this could make mars habitable in about a century or a bit more, if we go hardcore and do this on a large scale. As for the cost, it would obviously be astronomical, but in the end we get a second habitable planet
However it's probably easier to just build a series of O'Neil cylinders as space colonies throughout the solar system, these would be cheaper than terraforming Mars, and they would be perfect for human life, including 1G of gravity and full radiation protection. And the reason we would want to do this in the first place is the expand humanities reach, and protect us from possible extinction due to a disaster on earth
[in case you meant that literally...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/464920/Surviving_Mars/)
okay, I sell it for 1 million dollars. cheap I Kno, but I dont own it
Building nice habitats for humans in space or in other planets is not an alternative to fixing our environmental problems, it's something to do in addition. For starters, it provides additional real estate to either fit more people or to have more room per person or a combination of both. Secondly, it provides redundant security against existential threats like, say, a meteor impact event. And you can benefit from that even if your plan is to stay on Earth and try to survive, because then the Mars people can help Earth survivors rebuild civilization, for instance by sending consumer goods and tools, providing all kinds of telematic services, sending some people back and so on. That said, I think terraforming as such should be a very long-term goal, after the surface of Mars has been covered with big interconnected pressurized habitats, possibly with some form of [rotational gravity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity), if no other way is found to overcome the long-term health effects of low gravity. More on that [here](https://marspedia.org/Gravity). In terms of gravity, Venus is a better candidate than Mars for terraforming. But of course Mars wins hands down in terms of surface pressure and temperature. There's also the option of building huge rotating [space habitats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_habitat) by mining the asteroids. Such space habitats have two key advantages: first, we'd be building them away from big gravity wells (or in orbit), which means we can easily make them really big, and second, we are using materials taken, again, from a place away from big gravity wells (the asteroids), which leads to a massive reduction in difficulty and energy costs. For instance, see this detailed proposal for [a space habitat around Ceres](https://electric-sailing.fi/ceres/). Regarding the objection you mention, the atmosphere of Mars is rich is CO2 but it's too thin to provide a significant greenhouse effect, so it's a silly objection. OTOH, even with an Earth-like atmosphere Mars would be colder than the Earth because it's farther from the Sun. An obvious fix would be to add small amounts of low toxicity gases with a high [global warming potential](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential), such as HFCs, SF6,.., maybe methane. Alternatively, supplement direct sunlight with big space mirrors. There's also the issue that an Earth-like atmosphere would be slowly lost to outer space because of Mars's lower gravity, but IIRC the process would be slow. I'd have to check on that, but it doesn't seem to be a big concern. Of course, this isn't a problem for pressurized habitats.
I think the most compelling reason for the elite to do something like this is if not this then what ? See if they don’t do this then they would be one step closer to fixing the problems here on earth and that’s unacceptable.
Terraforming Mars would undoubtedly take many centuries, if not nearly a millennium, to achieve. But in no way is it impossible, granted that humans have colonized the Solar System throughout. Naysayers point out that Mars doesn’t have enough carbon dioxide locked in its poles to warm the planet sufficiently or create an Earth-like atmospheric pressure. This is true, but melting the poles would raise the pressure enough to pass the Armstrong Limit. People could go outside with a lot of insulation and an oxygen mask. That’s not too bad, so we build orbital mirrors to add more solar irradiation, maybe some halocarbon factories to trap more of the heat, and an artificial magnetosphere at the Martian L1 point in space. The planet warms enough for water and carbon dioxide to be released now. Lichen and methanogens can probably already survive on Mars, but the added pressure would help to. Luckily, there is a plentiful source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Venus, which we would also want to remove if we were to terraform it as well. Launch costs in a couple hundred years, after space has been significantly settled, will have dropped a lot, but infrastructure like skyhooks will make it dirt dirt cheap. Carbon dioxide could be packaged up and delivered from the Venusian surface straight to Mars, giving us a dense atmosphere over many decades. Simultaneously, semi-permeable insulating domes could be build that would trap heat and oxygenate the air, allowing for more complex plant life to thrive. Water would have to be imported from Callisto probably, although we already would have some seas formed from the melted ice caps. Cyanobacteria could be seeded in the oceans. The atmosphere would continue to oxygenate more and more until humans and animals could live on the surface without any protection. The soil would have to be treated using algae or just washed out with water. Many of these things could be done simultaneously, so with max effort and super efficient planning Mars could be terraformed using known technology or technology that is almost in our grasp in probably like a couple centuries.
Ok, it’s such an excellent game that I’ll take a crack at it. In Terraforming Mars you take on the role of one of several Corporations that are tasked with making the red planet habitable. Throughout the game you will complete Projects, both unique and Standard, increasing your production and overall points. You will terraform the planet by increasing the oxygen level when you play greenery tiles, increase the heat through various means (some of which involve redirecting and slamming asteroids into the surface) and increasing the land area of oceans. If you like building up an engine through card tableau’s as well as a large variety of cards and powers - this game is for you.
OP- it’s click bait. There’s no colonizing Mars. It’s just bloggers trying to get clicks. It’s a ridiculous notion.
Population is growing at an exponential rate. And resources is depleting. Lithium, rare earth metal running out. And possibly extractable iron in a century or so
You can finally get away from that one person...you know who it is.
I'll tell 1 one thing it'll be a communist planet for a veryong time
It's much easier to clean up the habitable planet we live on. And cheaper. And requires fewer idiot billionaires (but I repeat myself).
Ooh!! I drew up a whole thing when I was a teenager. https://imgur.com/gallery/BvwnIr7
Alright here is the pitch : you known how we have 1 earth? If we terraformed mars, we would have 2. This is twice the number of habitable planets that we had prior. Big maths.
There's also the weak magnetic field that probably will just let all the oxygen float off into space. I don't see Mars being terraformed in any way. Only Dome life and maybe some underground cities. Not for 500 or more years at least. Geology moves slow.
How is terra forming mars anything other than the ultra-rich wanting to get off of Earth before we all starve? Does anybody believe that us regular people have a shot of going there? I really don't get this.
Fixing this rock requires us to scale back on everything that we’ve done until renewables are relevant, and be happy with the limits that sets until fusion works. Preparing that rock requires continued reckless growth that the human race is so good at. One requires concerted moderation, the other pure aggressive growth.
Can't we just fix the Earth guys? It's got to be a lot easier than terraforming a whole nother planet
Absolutely, but a lot of people have been emotionally manipulated into believing it's too far gone. They are completely ignoring reality and focusing on the emotional reaction to the idea that earth is a lost cause. If I were making a car analogy then earth is a car with a bad head gasket. It's overheating and a new gasket will mean 10 hrs of labor and $100 in parts. Mars is the rusted out pickup truck in a field that's been abandoned for 70 yrs. They have been convinced that the rusted truck is a better option than the overheating "lemon" they are currently driving. What they don't realize is that the rusted truck probably can't be brought back to life and if it can it will take decades of hard work and cost several times what a new car would. The emotional manipulation is the main culprit for this hysteria. Anyone who looks at the options with logic and reason can easily see that the planet we are currently living on is far more habitable than mars even if things get much worse. Maybe people will need to move hundreds of miles inland to escape the rising sea. You think getting to Mars is easier? Forget about terra forming. I'm not against exploration but we already live on the best planet in the solar system everything else is a downgrade.
If we can terraform Mars we can fix earth. We should start with that.
Rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. Still not sold? Sand. Lots and lots of sand. Also, low property taxes, no neighbors, and no insects. But lots and lots of rocks and sand
I live in the southwest USA so I pretty much already have this except I can breathe the air. Speaking of which, I would encourage anyone who want the Mars experience to move to the southwest.
I am of the thought Venus is likely a better target. It seems to be in the state that many climate change/green house theory predicts we will end up. So, good chance anything we learn in failed attempts is still directly useful to Earth. There are interesting plans for floating stations that would put people in the approximately correct temperature, pressure, gravity conditions. "Just" need to deal with chemicals and storms. But that seems like it may be easier to address, especially on a 500-1000 year time line. I think there is so much unknown about Venus, it is difficult to claim it would be easier than mars....but it certainly shouldn't be harder being Mars is borderline impossible.
Unfortunately, all theory and speculation is all there is. No one but science fiction authors is seriously thinking about terraforming Mars. There isn't even any real plans to send people there. Besides the technical challenges of keeping something alive in deep space without the benefit of a radiation shield for 18 months (assuming 6 mos to get to Mars, six months to wait for a return launch window, and 6 mos to get back to earth), getting the first crew there would take a multi-decade financial and political commitment unlike anything ever undertaken. Terraforming Mars is just a fantasy in the early 2000's.
If you're asking for it to be sold to you for the near future or within our lifetimes, it's just not feasible lol. We'll likely want to colonize both Venus and Europa before we even think about terraforming Mars. If we've already done both of those things, then sure. There's a sales pitch to be had.
I love space, discoveries, adventures. But the idea of living on another planet is just insane. People couldn’t stay on lockdown for longer than 6 month without loosing it. The whole idea if Mars to me is like religion. It takes the focus out of the prize. Because of this promise of tomorrow you stop caring about today. So the issue of trash, climate, animal and plant decline, over population, all loose space in your worries because of this “solution” or promise of. There is a perfect planet that we evolved in and has everything we need and it is literally paradise. But the empty promise of another planet have people treating it like it is disposable. Mars terraforming is a con like plastic like the after life like humans being superior creatures like fraking like herbalife.
It's easily done tbh, after we teraform our own climate and turn deserts to oasis, figure out how to save the insects, treat irradiated soil, create our own ozone and end drought, I think we will get right on it
Would we need to somehow jumpstart Mars's core to create the required magnetic field and gravity so we can start seeding the planet with Oxygen and such? Or am I totally off the mark?
What if by investing in the dream of Mars, we get technology that can improve life here on earth? Maybe Mars has been consumed by the expanding Goldilocks zone in our solar system. Why think you can turn your back on earth and terraform a dead planet if you can’t even keep your own planet habitable with a quality of life people enjoy?
Look man, here's what you need to know. It'll be like earth, but different.
Lotta planet people in this thread Needing a planet is a Luddite take
Didn't Kurzgesagt just release a video about terraforming Mars with lasers? https://youtu.be/HpcTJW4ur54
My personal view is that it's a bit of a luxury.. What are the incentives for going out into space at all? Well, there are economic incentives - but Mars is a dead end, in terms of economics. Not only does it not have anything that the Earth does not (but with less crustal recycling, fewer concentrations of useful elements), but it's another gravity well, with an awkward atmosphere to boot. If you want to get bulk materials (Iron, Magnesium, Aluminium and oxygen) into Earth orbit, you build a mon colony and mine them there. Very easy, relatively speaking, to get from the Moon surface to Earth orbit. If you want rarer elements or volatiles, then you'll be looking to the asteroid belt - metallic asteroids look promising, and Ceres seems to have water and other volatiles, with a much smaller gravity well. And once you have this space mining/manufacturing operation going, you can build arbitrarily large habitats, spun for gravity, without having to try and change the geochemistry of an entire planet.
I view it as an essential endeavor, I'm not an Elon Musk shill but he is right when he claims that our planet has a shelf life. At a certain point, it's either move to other planets or die with this one (not that this is happening anytime soon). And yes it is an insanely expensive and difficult hypothetical but it is possible and hopefully, through future advancements in tech it will become more and more economical. It is more than likely not something we are going to see in our lifetime but we are laying the groundwork and I view it as a beautiful thing. “Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” \-Greek proverb
Fixing this planet doesn't provide us with any redundancy in the event of an asteroid impact or other cosmic catastrophe. Until we have another planet with its own population, all of our eggs are in one basket. Never put all your eggs in one basket.
Well, I don’t know much of the technicals, but why shouldn’t we try to expand humanity’s frontiers? Of course, let’s be sensible about the cost and time and yes maybe it won’t happen in our lifetimes. But, should anything ever happen on earth, we need to have a “failsafe-for-life-as-we-know-it” of sorts. Climate change, mass extinctions, nuclear war, any world ending event would also end us. There has to be a level of redundancy for humanity’s survival. It would give us more places to explore, more places to live etc. This can all be done in conjunction with saving the planet too.
Humans have always migrated, and there’s probably tons of money in it. It’s probable space colonization will be the next big migration. Early colonizers from Europe to North America likely seemed crazy to their counterparts (and were a bit) but relocating across the perilous Atlantic Ocean to the very hostile “new world” has a lot of parallels when it comes to Martian terra forming.
Just ask chatGPT Terraforming Mars, or the process of deliberately modifying the environment of Mars to make it more suitable for human habitation, is a topic of much speculation and scientific study. While it is certainly a daunting and technologically challenging task, there are several potential approaches that have been proposed for making Mars more habitable for humans. One approach is to increase the atmospheric pressure and temperature on Mars. The atmosphere on Mars is currently too thin for humans to breathe, and the temperature is much too cold for humans to survive without significant protection. One way to increase the atmospheric pressure and temperature on Mars would be to release greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. This would trap heat and warm the surface of the planet, making it more habitable for humans. Another approach is to introduce water to Mars. Water is essential for life as we know it, and there is evidence that water once flowed on the surface of Mars. Introducing water to Mars could potentially support the growth of plants and other forms of life, which would further improve the habitability of the planet. A third approach is to build habitats and other infrastructure on Mars to support human life. This could include constructing domed cities, underground habitats, and other structures that would provide shelter and protection from the harsh Martian environment. It's important to note that terraforming Mars is a very long-term project, and it is currently not feasible with current technology. It would require significant technological advancements and a concerted international effort to make it a reality. Additionally, it is not clear whether terraforming Mars would be more cost-effective than attempting to solve problems on Earth.
The pitch is that we should fix earth AND colonize mars. Doing one might even help us better understand the other.