Greenhouse effect could make Mars livable

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Geronimo


planets are naturally ****ed up you know. If humans **** up the earth we will just have returned it to it's original state. I don't know why people believe it's so easy to **** up a hostile planetary environment.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Just imagine, we can suck up the greenhouse gases from earth's atmosphere, and use them to warm up Mars. Kill two birds with one stone

I don't know how much atmospheric retention Mars has though, because it doesn't have the sort of "shield" earth has. Besides, it has a much lower mass.

Right. I understand Mars lost most of its atmosphere when it lost its magnetic shield. The key, therefor, to bringing the atmosphere back and to generally making Mars habitable in view of all the radiation that hits its surface because it has no magnetic shield, is to restart the magnetic shield --- somehow.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Ned


Right. I understand Mars lost most of its atmosphere when it lost its magnetic shield. The key, therefor, to bringing the atmosphere back and to generally making Mars habitable in view of all the radiation that hits its surface because it has no magnetic shield, is to restart the magnetic shield --- somehow.

A large enough magnetic field is such a large undertaking we might just as well put an atmosphere containing envelope around the planet instead.

think dyson sphere only transparent and enclosing a planet so a hell of a lot smaller

[Ned]

Well, one of the first things we will have to do when we land on Mars is to investigate the state of its core. Why did the magnetic shield stop? Did the core just cool too much?

Regardless, I think there is little hope of ever making Mars habitable outside of small protected zones where some sort of shield exists or is erected.

[Sandman]

Obsessing about mining isn't going to help space exploration. We've got more than adequate metal supplies as it is. Even if it is economically feasible to recover metals from space, the glut of cheap metal would do more harm to humanity than good.

It'd be like if we really, really went out to increase crop harvests - ploughing up gardens and nature reserves, intensively farming the oceans, GMing the heck out of everything we could, etc. We'd have more food. And we'd be the poorer for it.

[Ned]

Sandman, the main reason for space exploration, in my view, is colonization. It is just that Mars is not a very good candidate because of its lack of a magnetic shield.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Mars will survive the sun's red giant phase though its atmosphere will be burned away.

either way, the sun will not be able to support life eventually.

The human species will face certain extinction if we don't leave this solar system.

[Heresson]

That's why we need to build the giant frog-planet.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by DaShi
If there are bacteria living on Venus, it could be possible that they came from Earth.

There are environments no carbon-based units can survive, smply because they are too energetic.

[The Mad Monk]

Right. And most of Venus falls under that category.

[The Mad Monk]

I think terraforming Mars is possible, but I also believe it would be a complete waste of time and resources.

Our future as a starfaring people lies in sealed environments.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by techumseh
The arrogance! The arrogance! It is to weep.

I am rather fond of arrogance myself. Besides, this seems like the sort of thing one has to actually do to get a proper measure of.

[RGBVideo]

This is not a new theory, I remember reading about it back in... I think it was 1996. The basic idea was to set up well-isolated human-populated biospheres on the surface; then gain energy to them by, not using solar panels, but burning coal and venting pollution directly into the atmosphere. The problem in this would be that you'd lose massive amounts of energy when trying to transport the huge amounts of coal and O2 needed from Earth. Heck, we'd need a space elevator of some sort and colossal freighters with ion engines in order to execute it.

[Ned]

Originally posted by VJ
This is not a new theory, I remember reading about it back in... I think it was 1996. The basic idea was to set up well-isolated human-populated biospheres on the surface; then gain energy to them by, not using solar panels, but burning coal and venting pollution directly into the atmosphere. The problem in this would be that you'd lose massive amounts of energy when trying to transport the huge amounts of coal and O2 needed from Earth. Heck, we'd need a space elevator of some sort and colossal freighters with ion engines in order to execute it.

Another possibility would be to find a comet or asteroid that was composed of frozen greenhouse gasses and divert it for collision with Mars.

[The Mad Monk]

Why not use solar power?