Terraforming planets (making them inhabitable)

New_Departure06

Came across this interesting article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming

It talks about how uninhabitable planets like Mars could be made inhabitable by humans. The steps involved include:

3.1 Building the atmosphere
3.2 Converting atmosphere
3.3 Removing atmosphere
3.4 Paraterraforming
3.5 Cloud-top colonization
3.6 Adding heat
3.7 Removing heat
3.8 Building a shield against radiation
3.9 Planet rotation speed

Do you consider this a feasible proposition? Is it an ethical or desirable one? If so why? Also, do you share my conviction that in the long-run, in an age of potential asteroid-hazards of the kind that wiped out the dinosaurs, that mankinds only long-term hope of survival is the colonisation of new worlds?

Here's a pic of a terraforming Mars in stages:

aidan_dunne

Sounds to me like someone's been watching 'Star Trek III' too much, to be honest.

Seriously, though, surely trying to do something like that would majorily end up f**king up a planet in the longterm, wouldn't it? As they say, if you mess with it too much, nature has a way of turning on you. We've already seen it happen here on earth, what with global warming and the increase and intensity of storms and things as a result. If we were to "create" a habitable world from a barren one, surely at some stage in the future the nature of that planet would also turn against the inhabitants, wouldn't it?

I don't know, to be honest, as I don't know enough of the science of it. I guess I'm just rambling a bit here. But having already seen here on earth the effect that humans can have on a planet and it's weather, ecosystem, etc., and how nature here can revolt against us as a result, surely the same must be true of other planets and how tampering with them could also end up having catastrophic results in the longterm?

Son Goku

That's because Earth has a naturally chaotic weather system. A planet such as Mars, if we were to perform it, would only have a weather system as designed and created by us.
Mars has no natural weather systems really, aside from sand storms.

BigCon

Surely the moon would be the first target - being the same distance from the sun as us, and being a lot smaller than Mars?
Try it on a small scale first?

Cake Fiend

New_Departure06 wrote:

Is it an ethical or desirable one?

I don't know where ethics comes into it; who are you harming by terraforming Mars? It's not as though it has native inhabitants.

Son Goku wrote:

system. A planet such as Mars, if we were to perform it, would only have a weather system as designed and created by us

In that case, if we had the power to alter an entire planet's wether system, wouldn't it make more sense to alter Earth's to make it less chaotic?

Flukey

Sico wrote:

I don't know where ethics comes into it; who are you harming by terraforming Mars? It's not as though it has native inhabitants.

Perhaps it does. We can never be 100% sure. Anyway, let's see what we can do to make this world more stable again, before going anywhere else.

The Bollox

aidan_dunne wrote:

Sounds to me like someone's been watching 'Star Trek III' too much, to be honest.

actually I was thinking more like it was Aliens. I just hope you were right because I wouldn't want xenomorphs running amok on my planet

SystemError51

New_Departure06 wrote:

Came across this interesting article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming

It talks about how uninhabitable planets like Mars could be made inhabitable by humans. The steps involved include:



Do you consider this a feasible proposition? Is it an ethical or desirable one? If so why? Also, do you share my conviction that in the long-run, in an age of potential asteroid-hazards of the kind that wiped out the dinosaurs, that mankinds only long-term hope of survival is the colonisation of new worlds?

Here's a pic of a terraforming Mars in stages:

As evolution in technology progresses, it is likely that mankind will have the capability to terraform Mars at some point in the future. The first stage required does not require technology much further than what we currently have. That would be to melt the poles on Mars so they vaporize into the atmosphere, and thus having a more friendly one.

As for the planet's speed... There is not even a theoretical proposition on how to adjust the speed of an entire planet so it fits human requirements. But like I said, we may have that technology at some time, which will most likely make us interesting for other civilizations.

Moriarty

BigCon wrote:

Surely the moon would be the first target - being the same distance from the sun as us, and being a lot smaller than Mars?
Try it on a small scale first?

I suspect it could be a lot harder on the moon than on Mars - the increased gravity on mars would make the process technically easier I'd think.

Sico wrote:

In that case, if we had the power to alter an entire planet's wether system, wouldn't it make more sense to alter Earth's to make it less chaotic?

Most of the life on earth at the moment is reliant on a chaotic and sometimes violent weather system, would you not think?

Capt'n Midnight

For mars the problem is energy. Very little solar power due to distance and the thin air means not much wind power either. For Venus it's time. It would take centuries to somehow reduce the pressure. For icy moons you have the problem that at a temperature we could live in the atmosphere would boil off.

Our population doubles every 30 years or so at present so terraforming is not a solution to that.

Space stations would provide larger living area without having to be stuck at the bottom of a gravity well. Using the moon or asteroids as raw material would also help the launching.

Terraforming would also remove any traces of indiginous life too. So it's far far in the future.

The thing about global warming is that many people don't accept it and besides we aren't sure about the outcome, so can't be sure terraforming would work elsewhere.


One interesting option would be to use an asteroid as a generation ship , some thing large enough to provide raw materials if needed en-route.

5uspect

Isn't the problem with mars that has lost its electromagnetic field if indeed it ever had one? As a result any teraforming would be useless as nothing would survive the suns radiation?