Warming a Tiny Piece of Mars For Terraforming

[SilverCougar]

Though this could be science as well... it's also about space.. sooo...

here is the link

"It's been a dream of science fiction writers everywhere that we would eventually terraform Mars. Now an engineering student has proposed a way to terraform only a kilometer of Mars. By building an array of space based mirrors to focus the sun's light, a small area of Mars could be warmed to about 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) which would make it easier for explorers to work and live there. Since Mars' atmosphere is thin, the mirrors would have to be carefully designed to prevent them from reflecting harmful radiation as well as light and warmth."

Rather intresting idea! X) I hope it works really. XD

[Bella-Angelique]

Looks great. Looks like it could be modified over time to act like a small artificial sun for a large part of the planet perhaps.

Edited November 15, 2006 by Bella-Angelique

[GreyWeather]

awesome, but I thought there was another theory to try and terraform mars; By polluting it, and over time it would turn habitable for humans.

But the thing is... The two robots we sent up to mars weren't capable of detecting microbes. Or they were but missed it, I forget, so if this did happen we'd be killing the life already on mars .

[Steeler Mania]

Though this could be science as well... it's also about space.. sooo...

here is the link

Rather intresting idea! X) I hope it works really. XD

Mars already has highs in the 80F range, along the equator.

What needs to be done is make the atmosphere more thicker. currently at the best atmospheric pressure, it is a scant 8 millibars...just enought to let water exist at low temperatures and those temps are about 33 degrees F. so, until man can alter the atmosphere, to heavier pressure, terraforming is a mute topic. Yes, Mars did have a denser atmosphere once, but the low gravity and cosmic bombardment, did much to make Mars what it is today...from past articles of recent times, Mars did have a breathable atmosphere, but it was subject to asteroidal bombardment from the asteriod belt.

Terriforming means to plant earthlike vegetation and hopefully it takes root and thrives on the Martian atmosphere of lower pressure than that of Earth at 10 miles high. Imagine a pine or maple tree growing at 30,000 feet in the mountains....

It can be done, but warming isn't the key. Atmospheric pressure has a lot to do with it.

Water has to exist at more nominal temperatures. Like 45-80 degrees. That just isn't possible at this time. The only thing that can be done is to melt the polar ice caps and raise the atmospheric pressure to about 150 millibars and hope life takes root in the form of trees and lower basic mosses...Greenhouse gases are the main thing to terraform...

[Waspie_Dwarf]

To a large extent I agree with steeler, if we are going to terraform we should go the whole way. However I don't think we should attempt to terraform Mars (or any other planet) until we are certain it has no indigenous life.

I can't really see the point in warming up one small area of the planet when working on the surface would still require a space suit.

[Steeler Mania]

To a large extent I agree with steeler, if we are going to terraform we should go the whole way. However I don't think we should attempt to terraform Mars (or any other planet) until we are certain it has no indigenous life.

I can't really see the point in warming up one small area of the planet when working on the surface would still require a space suit.

Unless they are talking about those experimental habitats under glass cover..

[Leonardo]

Good article SilverCougar,

How to get humanity off planet Earth is one of my favourite topics.

Found this site which has some good info on how we could terraform Mars and Venus using machine self-replicating systems.