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Maybe can't terraform Mars


Merc14

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4 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

The technology will come available to build giant precipitation towers to draw water out the air. It would just be so much easier to overcome the difficulties of living in the arid regions of Earth than it will be on Mars.

Hmm..percipitation towers sound interesting. We had a percipitation plant built just off the coast of one of the beaches here. It was to draw in the ocean water, then recycle it into fresh drinkable water, during a very bad drought some years back. I'm not quite sure if it's still in use tho...or even if it's still there. If anything I remember it being a rusted eye-saw...and the locals hated it.

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3 hours ago, Astra. said:

Still, the thought of terraforming another planet, whether it be living 'on' Mars or living 'above' Venus is certainly an exciting, not to mention an amazing concept, for the future survival of mankind.

But, in reality...(my imagination is in overdrive atm) say we were all ready prepared because of some kind of unavoidable and imminent catastrophe that was going to destroy earth....and we had built these colossal dome cities on Mars and / or had colossal floating cities above Venus....well, who would be chosen to embark on the journey to live on or above these planets ?

As you have mentioned...there are billions of people that live on earth. So it seems very unlikely that we could all go on this hypothetical journey. So yes, it seems that only a special chosen few would be picked...and that would kinda suck.

Imagine if we go to all the trouble of terraforming Mars or Venus, and then instead of striking the Earth the asteroid strikes the newly terraformed planet! The odds are pretty much the same.

It would be amazing to terraform a planet, but I wonder how the economics would work. Where on Earth (literally) would all the money come from to terraform another planet? Taxation, I hear people say. That would be a hell of a trick to pull off - i.e. telling the 99.9% of people who are going to perish on Earth that they are going to pay for the new planet where the 0.1% "elite" people will live.

The concept of a small "elite" being "saved" sounds too Biblical for me. 

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3 hours ago, Derek Willis said:

Imagine if we go to all the trouble of terraforming Mars or Venus, and then instead of striking the Earth the asteroid strikes the newly terraformed planet! The odds are pretty much the same.

Gee! I never thought of that...as all planets are vulnerable to asteroid strikes. I guess the ones left on Earth would say....

"yikes.. glad I wasn't picked now"  :rofl:

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It would be amazing to terraform a planet, but I wonder how the economics would work. Where on Earth (literally) would all the money come from to terraform another planet? Taxation, I hear people say. That would be a hell of a trick to pull off - i.e. telling the 99.9% of people who are going to perish on Earth that they are going to pay for the new planet where the 0.1% "elite" people will live.

Good question, and I have no idea how the economics would work. I'm thinking into the trillions $$$$..

Yes, the elite would probably milk our taxes... while keeping 'we're moving house' under wraps...as we later watch their rockets take off on the 6 o'clock evening news.:rolleyes:

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The concept of a small "elite" being "saved" sounds too Biblical for me. 

Yep..kinda reminds me of Noah's ark, just before the floods came.

Edited by Astra.
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14 hours ago, taniwha said:

The least solution to any possibility of these scenarios eventuating would be to terraform another planet. The idea is fanciful and not the least bit manageable or practical. 

I think it could be possible...as we've already seen what the best and the greatest of scientific minds have already accomplished and achieved as far as space exploration goes. And the technology will only continue to get better and better.

My only doubt tho - is if humans were to eventually colonise either of these planets, due to Earth perishing for whatever reason. I can't help but feel a little sceptical if we could survive for a long duration without our own planets lifeline.

I guess all sorts of things could go terribly wrong, such as major technical breakdowns, for eg; the heating / and or cooling systems in the controlled bubbled environments etc...

And even if help could arrive with supplies and equipment, it could take months before getting there.

Anyway, I would imagine that many of these problems would of course be taken into consideration before attempting such a great feat.

All in all, it's still a very interesting and fun topic to discuss.

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6 hours ago, Astra. said:

I think it could be possible...as we've already seen what the best and the greatest of scientific minds have already accomplished and achieved as far as space exploration goes. And the technology will only continue to get better and better.

Humans have of course colonized an entire planet before - the Earth. We can all trace our origins to a few valleys in East Africa, from where we spread to every region of the planet, except Antarctica.

I know there was air to breathe and food to eat, but most often the food was in short supply. I once read that primarily because of disease, whenever a migration occurred up to 90% of the migrants perished. Establishing footholds was not easy, but over time we did it. We now have some amazing technology, so I would say it will be no more difficult to colonize a planet than it was to colonize the entire Earth. The colonists would be few in number to start with, but over decades, centuries and millennia the numbers would grow. You never know, the great-grandparents of the first baby to be born on Mars may well be alive now. When I was younger I would have been more optimistic, and said the grandparents may be alive now. But I have been waiting for almost half a century for people to go back to the Moon, so I accept progress may not be rapid!

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6 hours ago, Derek Willis said:

Humans have of course colonized an entire planet before - the Earth. We can all trace our origins to a few valleys in East Africa, from where we spread to every region of the planet, except Antarctica.

I know there was air to breathe and food to eat, but most often the food was in short supply. I once read that primarily because of disease, whenever a migration occurred up to 90% of the migrants perished. Establishing footholds was not easy, but over time we did it. We now have some amazing technology, so I would say it will be no more difficult to colonize a planet than it was to colonize the entire Earth. The colonists would be few in number to start with, but over decades, centuries and millennia the numbers would grow. You never know, the great-grandparents of the first baby to be born on Mars may well be alive now. When I was younger I would have been more optimistic, and said the grandparents may be alive now. But I have been waiting for almost half a century for people to go back to the Moon, so I accept progress may not be rapid!

Yes, humans are remarkably resilient. Even if one day, we are able to put a colony on Mars. We will no doubt eventually adapt and spread out.

I would imagine that there would be many hurdles and adversities to have to deal with at first. But if we are properly prepared, by knowing what pit falls that may lay ahead, then we stand a far better chance of succeeding through all of the trial's and error's.

The first small step would be to send a mission to orbit the red planet. Honestly, how exciting would that be ?...I'd be happy just to be alive to witness such an awesome thing. If all goes to plan, then the next step would be to land a team on Mars where they would collect samples and explore the terrain and actually experience the environment. Just like they did with the moon landing.

In time, again if all goes well after landing man, and they return safely back to Earth. Then it will no doubt pave the way for an actual colony that will someday possibly live there.

But as you mentioned, this progress will not be rapid, as it takes tremendous planning, not to mention tremendous funding.

 

 

Edited by Astra.
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1 hour ago, Merc14 said:

This is pretty interesting and could be done in the 2030's!  Enjoy fellow space geeks!  http://www.space.com/36563-terraform-mars-asteroid-strike-lake-matthew.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

Very cool article Merc, and certainly interesting. However, I'm a little curious because Mars is already full of impact craters, caused by asteroids and / or other celestial bodies that have slammed naturally into the planet for millions of years without the help of humans and satellites having to steer one into an area to create a lake.

I guess what I'm trying to understand is why wouldn't Mars be already full of these meltwater lakes, due to other natural impacts, whereby still keeping the area's warm ?

 

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They seem to be proposing to make an impact crater deeper in proportion to its diameter than with natural impacts. This would, they report, allow enough atmospheric pressure at the crater bottom, and enough water depth, to keep the water from boiling away quickly.

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13 hours ago, bison said:

They seem to be proposing to make an impact crater deeper in proportion to its diameter than with natural impacts.

Oh ok, well I might have interpreted it in a different way. If you are able to.. could you point out where this was proposed as I seem to be over looking it for some reason, hence why I may not be grasping the full concept as I should.

13 hours ago, bison said:

This would, they report, allow enough atmospheric pressure at the crater bottom, and enough water depth, to keep the water from boiling away quickly.

I see, thanks just the same for responding to my genuine query Bison... it's much appreciated :)

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 Yes, I had to look around quite a bit before I found even a partial explanation for how they thought a crater would be adequately deep to allow enough atmospheric pressure to permit liquid water on the surface of Mars. They don't disclose the technical details, citing a patented method of their's, and a non-disclosure agreement.

To quote what little they were willing to say:  "MATT (the Lake Matthew project Team) has NDA methods for making a crater deeper than standard impact models would predict . . . Crater pressure is 1.3 kPa.* This is adequate for creation of Lake Matthew."  I found this information, and a lengthy discussion of their proposal at a Reddit forum AMA (ask me anything) session, which I link, below:

https://www.Reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/5t8a29/ama_were_the_lake_matthew_team_with_a_mars_2036

The remarks I quoted are about 3/4 of the way down the page.

*1.3 kPa (kilopascals) is about 13 percent of sea level air pressure on Earth, and roughly 10 times Mars' normal pressure.

Edited by bison
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