Retreat Mars

[faded glory]

The only people currently capable of funding somthing like that is NASA, and at the moment there hands are full with ISS. And the problem would be selling it to a largely uninterested American public.

However your right. I think it should be somthing to set the sights for in 15 years.

Anybody know how thin Mars atmosphere is? How much terraforming would you have to do too heat up the planet enough?

[DanS]

fg: One-way missions to Mars are not that expensive. The US is doing some. The UK is doing some. Maybe others. If you have a defined goal, and are focused on building blocks, then there is no reason why it should bust anybody's budget.

[faded glory]

yes but one way bot missions have a low success rate. So in the long haul, there not dependable. Theres been somthing like a 50% loss of space vehicles assigned to land on comets and planets.

[DanS]

"Theres been somthing like a 50% loss of space vehicles assigned to land on comets and planets."

A 50% success rate is sufficient.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by faded glory
Anybody know how thin Mars atmosphere is? How much terraforming would you have to do too heat up the planet enough?

About one hundreth of Earh pressure. Just enough for very high altitude wings to work (maybe) and for humongous parachutes to be usefull.

Lots of terraforming would be needed. The atmosphere is mosty CO2 allready so it would take a lot of CO2 to get a green house effect. Where would we get it if we can't find a good carbon source? We would probably have to start with something else like methane or flourochlorocarbons that have much stronger greenhouse effects per unit.

After it gets warm enough you might get some water vapor in the atmosphere and some liquid water on the surface. Then you could get some oxygen producing algae going. It would take a long time to reach that point and the algae would have to make do with less light than on Earth.

And you would need more water and green house gases in the long run as Mars is too small to keep it. It has no magnetosphere either so thats another problem. The best way to get going on Mars fast is likely to involve domes to hold in an atmosphere and to be a real greenhouse.

[faded glory]

**** so we could just move all of us Americans over to mars and we can make all the greenhouse gases we want? Cool..... Im sure Europe would like that.

[ZaphodBeeblebrx]

If that's what you're postulating, Good Idea!

We could even use them to turn the Sahara into a Solar Farm, that could Power Europe forever, well, at least 'til the Sun Burns out.

Just remember to turn them off, when you're done with them, I already have more than enough Gnomes, Stealing my Underwear!

[ZaphodBeeblebrx]

I see the confusion.

In this case, the Term, refers to Von Neumann's postulations about self sustaining Neural-Networks, particularly in the Form of Ant-Like Robots.

Let me guess Faded, you're a David Brin Fan, right, or have you reading the Andromeda Strain?

[RedFred]

Ned, cosmic radiation would affect people exactly like any other kind of radiation. Mars has a crap magnetic field; iirc the earth's is great because of all the iron in its core and the rotation speed.

Dagletti, I don't understand what you mean by a Lagrange point between Earth and Mars. If such a thing existed how could it be stable?

Volatile lighter elements which would normally be found in a planet's atmosphere have largely leaked out to space already as a result of Mar's lower gravitational field. Would you really want to hydrate the atmosphere at such a huge effort if the water would be lost eventually?

Merely living on Mars is a huge enough challenge; terraforming it, even if possible, is quite a bit less probable.

[notyoueither]

Subterranean settlement is the most likely solution to atmosphere and radiation issues in the long run.

BTW. Would it be submartian, submartianean, or...

[ZaphodBeeblebrx]

Yes, but where's the sun, the Sun, The Sun, THE SUN!

[MORON]

Mods are annoying...lets go to mars to avoid them....

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
Mars is too small for all of us anyway. Let us just send the Americans there to pollute it, I guess the rest of us can get this one to recover

Its actually got more landmass than Earth- no oceans.

Doesn't it?

[Ecthy]

so?

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
so?

Soooooooooooooooooo...........

in essence, there is more room for us there (land wise) than on Earth.

But I am not sure, because Mars is a smaller planet.