Terra-forming Mars

[cronus]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/an ... form-mars/

We can terraform Mars for the same cost as mitigating climate change. Which would you rather?

One frequently quoted study of the global costs of mitigating climate change put them at around $3 trillion by 2100, with the main benefits being felt between 2100 and 2200. Here is alternative way to spend around the same amount of money with around the same timescale of payback: terraforming Mars. A standard estimate is that, for about $2-$3 trillion, in between 100 and 200 years we would be able to get Mars from its current "red planet" (dead planet) status to " blue planet" (i.e. a dense enough atmosphere and high enough temperature for Martian water in the poles and soil to melt, creating seas) – achievable in about 100 years – and from there to microbes and algae getting us to "green planet" status within 200 to 600 years.

There are two standard objections to such terraforming. First, it is said to be too expensive, altogether, to be plausible. Second, it is said to require too long a timescale to be plausible. Both of these objections appear decisively answered by climate change policies and indeed energy policies in general. Between now and the 2035 alone, global investment in energy and energy efficiency (in many cases with a many-decades payback period) is estimated at about $40 trillion, of which $6 trillion is in renewables and $1 trillion in low-carbon nuclear. We are willing to spend many trillions on projects that could take over a century to come to fruition.

But in a century that red dot in the night sky could be transformed into a blue dot, and a couple of centuries later into a green dot. We know how. We just need to decide to do it. If we decided to go for it, some of you reading this article could be alive to see that blue dot.

(continued)

[theropod]

Unless folks live under the ground it wouldn't matter what technology, or how much money, we throw at the problem. Radiation would strip any generated atmosphere away and kill anything remaining on the surface. There is no magnetic field to protect Mars. It's a pipe dream unless someone can reactivate that protective field. Full stop.

RS

[cronus]

Unless folks live under the ground it wouldn't matter what technology, or how much money, we throw at the problem. Radiation would strip any generated atmosphere away and kill anything remaining on the surface. There is no magnetic field to protect Mars. It's a pipe dream unless someone can reactivate that protective field. Full stop.

RS

Take one Ganymede and put it in orbit. Magnetic field becomes.

[klr]

It would all end in tears.

Read "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson.

[cronus]

It would all end in tears.

Read "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Don't worry about the future....Earth is doomed.

[theropod]

Unless folks live under the ground it wouldn't matter what technology, or how much money, we throw at the problem. Radiation would strip any generated atmosphere away and kill anything remaining on the surface. There is no magnetic field to protect Mars. It's a pipe dream unless someone can reactivate that protective field. Full stop.

RS

Take one Ganymede and put it in orbit. Magnetic field becomes.

Right. Just move a moon 3/4 big as Mars into orbit around Mars and expect the planet/moon to stay stable. While Ganymede has a magnetic field that doesn't mean that Mars is suddenly going to gain one, and without the influence of its parent planet there's no assurance that Ganymede would retain that field. Terra forming Mars is just not going to happen, ever.

RS

[pErvinalia]

Even if it was plausible, our current clusterfuck of a political system with so many factional short term interests would never enable it to happen. Rest assure, Scump, we are doomed!

[laklak]

Yeah Scrump, don't lose hope. I'm sure you'll see giant rats eating piles of corpses before long.

[cronus]

After the coming population crash when the dumb die out, we'll see.

[pErvinalia]

Ever the optimist...

[DaveDodo007]

Unless folks live under the ground it wouldn't matter what technology, or how much money, we throw at the problem. Radiation would strip any generated atmosphere away and kill anything remaining on the surface. There is no magnetic field to protect Mars. It's a pipe dream unless someone can reactivate that protective field. Full stop.

RS

Fuck Mars then, how about taming the weather on Venus.

[Sean Hayden]

..and risk unleashing an army of Thetans lead by the resurrected L. Ron Hubbard? -fuck that

[mistermack]

For a tiny fraction of the money wasted on terraforming Mars, you could supply the whole world with contraceptives for ever, and knock back population growth. You could also support the poorest people in their old age, removing the incentive to have loads of kids.

With the change, you could build a gigantic space-station, with artificial gravity of 1g, which could be much better insurance against a meteor strike than trying to terraform Mars.

[Svartalf]

Before providing contraception, you'd have to properly educate them all, and that's not a given...
Also, doing the one doesn't preclude doing the other.

[Hermit]

Also, doing the one doesn't preclude doing the other.

...unless, of course, money is a finite resource, in which case you are forced to choose where to spend it and where not to. An unlikely scenario, I know, but worth considering, just in case.