If we found another living planet

ScumLord · 02-01-2014 05:59PM #1

Would we really terraform or even inhabit other planets with early earth like conditions that could support us?

I was just thinking, if we did find another planet would we really just set up shop on it? We would basically be contaminating that planet with biological life from earth which could be thousands of generations more advanced than what's currently on that planet and may completely devastate most indigenous life. Wouldn't it be a huge missed opportunity to contaminate a developing planet and much more beneficial to simply observe how it develops?

If we're not going to live on any of the other planets is there any point in making a big rush to get to them? I think populating our solar system is very doable, even without any fancy warp technologies but getting to other planets just to look at them may kill interstellar travel for a while.

Capt'n Midnight · 03-01-2014 08:39AM

Energetically it's easier to live on asteroids then at the bottom of a gravity well. When our planet was molten anything heavier than Iron sank,anything volatile was turned to gas and lost to the solar wind.

supposedly almost all our water and gold is from asteroids during the late bombardment

Mars is small. If our population had a doubling time of 30 years then Mars would take centuries to terraform. Or we get the same surface area from one of the minor planetoids. Would be cool if we could put an asteroid in orbit around the moon

It works both ways. Foreign microbes might find us edible. Or they might have amino acids or DNA that were other handed. Or they might be increadabily toxic. Here on earth we have two main types of organisms. Anaerobes who have no problems with cyanide or carbon monoxide or hydrogen sulphide but find oxygen extremely toxic, and visa versa for stuff like us.

Or look at Azimov's story "Sukcer Bait" about small changes in the environment. Tiny amounts of selenium are needed for cattle to survive IIRC and stuff like that can limit the continents where some animals can live healthily. Lack of Iodine is a problem for us. Of course having too much of some micronutirents might be a problem. There is a lot of FUD about Fluoride, but at illegally high levels it does stain your teeth. And nobody wants heavy metals accumulating in the soil.

Kromdar · 03-01-2014 01:19PM

Two observations to make on this:

1. we should be able to terraform our local system first. asteroid mining, mars, all that good stuff. getting people to the edge of the solar system would be neat.

2. there's too much ethics involved, and realistically, if we were to aim at colonising a planet, you can bet there'll be a big lobby for leaving the planet alone, with cries of "what if someone did that to earth when we were a proto-planet" and, of course, "will somebody please think of the children!"

i mean, as far as we know, mars may have had water on it. it may have had life on it. we dont know yet. if they find any traces of either, you can bet that at least one astro-eco-activist will be shouting about how we should preserve the planet instead of colonise it. what about colonising the moon, even? all that talk about helium 3 mining and/or using it as a waystation for further space flights. why not start there?

technology requirements aside, i think it would be a good idea to at least colonize an earth-like planet. it would be a feat. and who knows, we might find something useful there. i mean, we found penicillin on mold, who knows what medical or scientific breakthroughs the other planet might hold?

Capt'n Midnight · 03-01-2014 06:30PM

Kromdar wrote: »

i mean, as far as we know, mars may have had water on it. it may have had life on it.

Mars had water.

Mars has ice.

Venus had oceans up to a mile deep, before the solar wind stripped off the hydrogen, magnetic fields are handy things to have.

organisms from the planets may have hitched a ride around the solar system
http://www.history.com/news/dinosaur-asteroid-may-have-sent-life-into-space

Kromdar · 03-01-2014 07:23PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Mars had water.

Mars has ice.

yeah i meant to correct that earlier, my bad.

the point is, should they confirm the discovery of fossils etc on mars will that then be marked as some sort of nature reserve or the like? suppose we find some sort of rare mineral there that we need? where do we draw the line at mining it vs preserving fossils etc.

Capt'n Midnight · 03-01-2014 08:45PM

Kromdar wrote: »

yeah i meant to correct that earlier, my bad.

the point is, should they confirm the discovery of fossils etc on mars will that then be marked as some sort of nature reserve or the like? suppose we find some sort of rare mineral there that we need? where do we draw the line at mining it vs preserving fossils etc.

No mining allowed in Antarctica and it's a lot easier to get to.

ScumLord · 06-01-2014 05:39PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

It works both ways. Foreign microbes might find us edible.

It's possible but I'd give the advantage to earths bacteria if we're talking about a planet that's a couple of million years behind. I'm guessing that amount of development would have given earths bacteria a decided advantage. We always like to think aliens will be better than us but life on earth is vicious, we could be the monsters.

Kromdar wrote: »

2. there's too much ethics involved, and realistically, if we were to aim at colonising a planet, you can bet there'll be a big lobby for leaving the planet alone, with cries of "what if someone did that to earth when we were a proto-planet" and, of course, "will somebody please think of the children!"

That's what I'm thinking. Once people see the fact they could be destroying a unique strain of life we may not want to step foot on any other planets for fear of killing off that life.

what about colonising the moon, even? all that talk about helium 3 mining and/or using it as a waystation for further space flights. why not start there?

I'm wondering what would be the long term benefit to it though. I'm guessing we could find helium 3 in other places and you'd have to wonder if it's worth the risk of affecting our tides by reducing the weight of the moon. Also, would it be seen as unsightly to look at the moon and see blotches of human development?

technology requirements aside, i think it would be a good idea to at least colonize an earth-like planet. it would be a feat. and who knows, we might find something useful there. i mean, we found penicillin on mold, who knows what medical or scientific breakthroughs the other planet might hold?

We could do that without colonising the surface though, biologically inert robots could collect samples. It would certainly be a feat but I think if we were able to live in space the surface of a planet could seem very hostile, what with it's weather patterns and tectonic activity. We might not like the idea of living on a planet.

Capt'n Midnight · 06-01-2014 08:50PM

ScumLord wrote: »

I'm wondering what would be the long term benefit to it though. I'm guessing we could find helium 3 in other places and you'd have to wonder if it's worth the risk of affecting our tides by reducing the weight of the moon. Also, would it be seen as unsightly to look at the moon and see blotches of human development?

Don't worry it'll be grand, sure we'll just do the mining on the dark side so ya won't see it and besides helium is lighter than air.

jamo2oo9 · 11-01-2014 07:28PM

ScumLord wrote: »

I'm wondering what would be the long term benefit to it though. I'm guessing we could find helium 3 in other places and you'd have to wonder if it's worth the risk of affecting our tides by reducing the weight of the moon. Also, would it be seen as unsightly to look at the moon and see blotches of human development?

IIRC, from the ISS, you can hardly see civilisation from there and it can't be any better from the moon. On the moon, the buildings on it would be much smaller so you couldn't see much unless you have a Hubble Telescope in your garden

Myrddin · 12-01-2014 11:39AM

We can't even preserve our own planet, deforestation on massive scales, hundreds of thousands of tons of pollutants going into oceans every day, hundreds of thousands of tons of atmospheric pollutants going skyward every day. We've a long long way to go. The chances are, that any terraformation of another world would be one for harvesting the resources of that world, so essentially a commercial venture. Unfortunately, money always shouts louder than ethics...as we can see here on Earth in every day life.

ScumLord · 12-01-2014 07:04PM

Myrddin wrote: »

We can't even preserve our own planet, deforestation on massive scales, hundreds of thousands of tons of pollutants going into oceans every day, hundreds of thousands of tons of atmospheric pollutants going skyward every day.

We kind of have little choice in that though, are most of us not going to take the car/bus to work? Maybe not buy a cheap fridge, buy the expensive item over the cheap one?

We've a long long way to go.

Which means we have to find a way of living in space on our our man made spaceships.

The chances are, that any terraformation of another world would be one for harvesting the resources of that world, so essentially a commercial venture. Unfortunately, money always shouts louder than ethics...as we can see here on Earth in every day life.

It's already been pointed out that it's much easier to take resources from the asteroid belt (which are probably common in every solar system) than it would be to try and pull them off a planet with huge gravity.

If we have large colonial space ships I don't see what attraction a planet would be other than for research. If we can make it to another planet, we don't need that planet to live.

Capt'n Midnight · 12-01-2014 08:03PM

ScumLord wrote: »

It's already been pointed out that it's much easier to take resources from the asteroid belt (which are probably common in every solar system) than it would be to try and pull them off a planet with huge gravity.

If we have large colonial space ships I don't see what attraction a planet would be other than for research. If we can make it to another planet, we don't need that planet to live.

+1

Most of our water came from comets

And most of the Platinum Group Metals on earth are found in one place
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vredefort_crater

Vredefort crater is the largest verified impact crater on Earth, more than 300 km across
...
The nearby Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC) and Witwatersrand Basin were created during this same period, leading to speculation that the Vredefort bolide's mass and kinetics were of sufficient magnitude to induce regional volcanism. The BIC is the location of most of the world's known reserves of platinum group metals, while the Witwatersrand basin holds most of the known reserves of gold.

If that region had been subducted or if it had been an ocean impact then we wouldn't have things like catalytic converters , those metals are very useful in as catalysts in industrial processes.

Typically half of them are more valuable than Gold. On a planet without an obvious source of them they would be worth vastly more than it. Or if we found an asteroid of similar composition it could cause the price of them to collapse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precious_metal#Rough_world_market_Price_.28.24.2Fkg.29

Myrddin · 12-01-2014 09:56PM

ScumLord wrote: »

We kind of have little choice in that though, are most of us not going to take the car/bus to work? Maybe not buy a cheap fridge, buy the expensive item over the cheap one?

Isn't that the point though? We're prepared to sacrifice the environment of our very own home, for life's conveniences...what regard do you think we'd show to another planet that we didn't even live on? Plus I wasn't really as much talking about domestic waste, more the sheer scale of daily industrial waste. When the question is "if we found another living planet", I'd wager this other planet would get a rough time of it, it might be an object of study for a while, but part of me reckons we wouldn't take too long before harvesting what it had to offer without worrying too much of the consequences.

Which means we have to find a way of living in space on our our man made spaceships.

Yeah agreed. It's great to see the likes of the ISS & other endeavors in space. But haven't doubts been raised about future funding for the ISS mid-term? When you consider how dwarfed by military spending the ISS actually is, will it be long before we're taking backward steps?

It's already been pointed out that it's much easier to take resources from the asteroid belt (which are probably common in every solar system) than it would be to try and pull them off a planet with huge gravity.

If we have large colonial space ships I don't see what attraction a planet would be other than for research. If we can make it to another planet, we don't need that planet to live.

That's true, & you're correct in that by the time we're capable of reaching other planets, even things like fossil fuels will likely have lost their appeal.

ScumLord · 13-01-2014 04:24PM

Myrddin wrote: »

Isn't that the point though? We're prepared to sacrifice the environment of our very own home, for life's conveniences...what regard do you think we'd show to another planet that we didn't even live on?

I was trying to say that on this planet we have to use it's resources, we have no choice, and the waste we produce is going to be stuck on this planet.

If there are more job opportunities in space I can see a lot of people moving there and maybe even the human population on earth going down taking all the pressure off the planets resources. When earth no longer has to support an increasing human population we'll probably be able to let it go wild in many areas. I could see a time when most humans have never seen earth with their own eyes and have to go through all sorts of hurdles (like trying to get into Australia) just to be allowed onto the planet.

I think most manufacturing would take place in space too, (we'll probably have advanced 3D printers) so the humans that leave earth will be completely independent, they won't need anything from earth bar biological material.

Yeah agreed. It's great to see the likes of the ISS & other endeavors in space. But haven't doubts been raised about future funding for the ISS mid-term? When you consider how dwarfed by military spending the ISS actually is, will it be long before we're taking backward steps?

Private companies are looking at space now though. The problem is there's a massive initial cost in setting up a space colony it will take decades to achieve.

tac foley · 28-04-2014 04:20PM

1. Find your planet.

2. Get to it........

After that it's all pretty easy.

Right now we can't even get to the moon.

tac

jamo2oo9 · 28-04-2014 05:45PM

tac foley wrote: »

1. Find your planet.

2. Get to it........

After that it's all pretty easy.

Right now we can't even get to the moon.

tac

We can get to the moon. Just that NASA, ESA and Russia don't want to spend billions of dollars to just go to the moon. To get to the other earth like planet, the pricetag would probably be in trillions unless we have found a loophole that teleports us to that plannet, just outside our atmosphere..

Baked.noodle · 28-04-2014 06:05PM

Years ago I read the book Red Mars which is part of a trilogy about the colonisation and terraforming of Mars and the relationship the colonists have with Earth. Never got around to the other two books, but it is an interesting take on colonising Mars. The content of the second book Green Mars and the cover artwork for Red Mars were carried on-board a NASA lander called the Phoenix that landed on Mars in May 2008.

jamo2oo9 · 28-04-2014 08:13PM

Just out of interest, have we made any attempt at terraforming anything, not planet scale but something small like an acre of field or something?

ScumLord · 28-04-2014 08:41PM

jamo2oo9 wrote: »

Just out of interest, have we made any attempt at terraforming anything, not planet scale but something small like an acre of field or something?

There's no need to terraform a field, it already has all the properties that you'd want to get from terraforming.

jamo2oo9 · 28-04-2014 09:06PM

ScumLord wrote: »

There's no need to terraform a field, it already has all the properties that you'd want to get from terraforming.

Well what I mean is have we developed anything that we could use to terraform a planet apart from Greenhouse Gas

Labarbapostiza · 28-04-2014 09:19PM

jamo2oo9 wrote: »

Just out of interest, have we made any attempt at terraforming anything, not planet scale but something small like an acre of field or something?

Yes, we have. A large part of Holland is terraformed by taking land from the sea, draining it and creating top soil.

Neil Degrasse Tyson's argument for life on other planets is that the mix of elements is more or less the same throughout the universe. I think the "where is everyone" problem is simply because the amount of energy required to send out a "hello" signal, if you don't have a single target to focus on, is way too much. We've only had radio broadcasts for about a century, maybe a "hello" is going to come to us any day now.

When I was a child, I used to read a lot of science fiction. In some stories, aliens would attack earth, preparing to terraform it to their liking. They'd often send fungus spores, or some kind of microbe that would infect the human race, to turn them into mulch for their arrival. If we wanted to terraform a planet, we'd send the microbes first, if the planet was already dead.

There are things we don't even know about earth, that we should. The common hypothesis that earth's atmosphere was created by microbes, isn't all that plausible. I think it was solar radiation that cooked them into their current form. I don't know why comets are required to give us water. For it's size, earth's oceans and atmosphere are a very thin layer of the whole thing.

I think a very good chance for extra-terrestrial life could be inside liquid filled voids in drifting space rocks in deep space. Where there's a constant temperature from radioactive decay - and less chances of absolute extinction events. Inside the ruin of the Chernobyl power planet, there's fungus thriving on the walls using radioactive material as its' energy source. There could be aliens for who radioactive minerals are an essential part of their diet.

The Helium 3 deposits on the moon. I believe they're only in the first few feet of the moon's soil. We get a lot of Helium 3 from the sun, on earth, but it ends up floating around the atmosphere, or in the sea. I think the easiest way to get Helium 3 would be just to extract atmospheric Helium, then separate the isotopes. I've heard, in theory, one kilo could power a major city for a year.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-04-2014 11:12PM

jamo2oo9 wrote: »

Just out of interest, have we made any attempt at terraforming anything, not planet scale but something small like an acre of field or something?

Biosphere II except the science and execution was half arsed, stuff like the concrete and carbon dioxide

moss bottle gardens work though

Labarbapostiza · 29-04-2014 01:18AM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Biosphere II except the science and execution was half arsed, stuff like the concrete and carbon dioxide

Much more half arsed than that. The original soil they brought in hadn't been sterilised, and they really didn't have a clue as to what they were doing. If you want a sealed environment, why bring in microbes. Can you not bring in microbes in the first place. And plants need microbes to break down nutrients in the soil. (gardeners some times do sterilise the soil they're about to use.)

But they seemed to be clueless as regards to everything. Soil itself can belch out CO2, but you wouldn't notice it in open air.

ScumLord · 29-04-2014 04:44PM

jamo2oo9 wrote: »

Well what I mean is have we developed anything that we could use to terraform a planet apart from Greenhouse Gas

Terraforming includes changing the atmosphere, so we haven't really done that, we just know the theory. Although, I suppose we are terraforming earth, just not in a good way.

Terraforming mars would probably have to include liquefying the planet's core so it would have a magnetic field again. Any planet we hope to terraform would need to have some sort of protection against the suns radiation, otherwise nothing can live. Mars is a dead planet because it's core cooled and solidified, stopping it's magnetic field from protecting the surface from radiation. The other problem for people on mars would be the reduced gravity which would mess with any life from earth.

If we went to another solar system we could find a planet with an existing magnetic field but if it has one it may well have it's own version of life and us going down to terraform that planet could mean the destruction of any life on the planet which I'm pretty sure no scientist would be thrilled about doing.

A spaceship colony would be a much more economical option, it would be a completely unrestricted society, it could move to resources or locations of interest providing everything the people inside need making terraforming redundant or at the very least too costly to seriously consider.

Maximus Alexander · 30-04-2014 02:57PM

ScumLord wrote: »

Also, would it be seen as unsightly to look at the moon and see blotches of human development?

I actually think it would be awesome to look up at the night sky and see something like this:

rosetta-osiris-wide-angle-camera-wac-night-northern-hemisphere-eo-bg.jpg

rosetta-osiris-wide-angle-camera-wac-night-northern-hemisphere-eo-bg.jpg

riffmongous · 03-05-2014 12:10AM

Geo-engineering is starting to be looked at as a serious way to deal with Anthropogenic Climate Change (or even plain old climate change) here on earth, there was a debate on it at this years EGU which I missed unfortunately

I could only imagine it's use here on earth to be an absolute disaster, considering how much is still unknown about our current atmosphere, especially feedback mechanisms. On other planets where the atmosphere could be not so complicated (which is perhaps unlikely) it might be possible. While the spaceship colony might seem like a better idea I think it's always going to be human nature to want to go to places and colonise them physically

Capt'n Midnight · 03-05-2014 09:12AM

riffmongous wrote: »

I could only imagine it's use here on earth to be an absolute disaster, considering how much is still unknown about our current atmosphere, especially feedback mechanisms. On other planets where the atmosphere could be not so complicated (which is perhaps unlikely) it might be possible. While the spaceship colony might seem like a better idea I think it's always going to be human nature to want to go to places and colonise them physically

We could warm up Mars by pumping out loads of Sulphur hexa Fluoride. There's enough water there to create an atmosphere with enough oxygen to breath , maybe.

Labarbapostiza · 03-05-2014 03:00PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

We could warm up Mars by pumping out loads of Sulphur hexa Fluoride. .

I don't think you can, but could you explain the principle behind this?

There's enough water there to create an atmosphere with enough oxygen to breath , maybe.

There is an interesting question: where did the water go? Is everything you see on the icecaps all there is, or is there small oceans worth of the stuff in aquivers.

riffmongous · 03-05-2014 04:06PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

We could warm up Mars by pumping out loads of Sulphur hexa Fluoride. There's enough water there to create an atmosphere with enough oxygen to breath , maybe.

But I wonder how good the climate models that are used for the simulations that are the basis of the terraforming ideas are. With one incorrectly modeled feedback and you can get a runaway effect on the temperature.

But I think the ideas and research are fascinating, and it's definitely an area I'd like to get into in a few years.

Labarbapostiza · 03-05-2014 06:39PM

riffmongous wrote: »

But I wonder how good the climate models that are used for the simulations that are the basis of the terraforming ideas are.

I didn't know there already was a Martian terraforming project in motion. It's possible it hasn't got further than the internet bulletin board.

With one incorrectly modeled feedback and you can get a runaway effect on the temperature.

Let's not let things get messy and just stick to Mars, but that "runaway temperature effect", may have no real basis in science, and just be a figment of panicked apocalyptic thinking.

Here's my model for a stable atmosphere.

Total energy in the atmosphere Te = Ke + Pe, The Ke is the kinetic energy of the gases whizzing around. This is what we measure as temperature. And the Pe is potential energy due to gas particles and gravity.

Rin = Rout. Radiation absorbed by the atmosphere must equal radiation emitted (reflected radiation is not included as it is never absorbed by the atmosphere - Rout does not include reflected light). This is a simple straightforward thermal equilibrium. It also means that when Rin = Rout, Te will be static (not absolutely, but I'll get to that in a second). Take a barren planet with no atmosphere, and throw a massive block of ice at it, then switch on a sun (with a constant emission), it will heat up to a point its' Te is constant.

For a stable atmosphere you also need a stable volume of gas. Essentially gas that cannot escape the planet's gravity. For this Ke-max, the maximum kinetic energy of a gas particle, must be smaller than Pe-escape, the energy required to escape the planet's gravity. In reality there will always be some particles that can escape, but it decreases exponentially, until the volume is close to stable. You throw your block of ice at the dry atmosphereless planet, switch on your sun, gas will boil off until Ke-max <= Pe-escape, because the gas particles will not be able reach escape velocity.

Rin, is not constant, as an atmosphere will have clouds that reflect light into space. This will make the Te fluctuate. Since the stirring effect is local, the weather will be changeable, but the atmosphere will be stable. I haven't worked this out, but Te might be completely stable if the cloud formation is noisy enough.

So the total model for a stable atmosphere is

Te = Ke-temperature + Pe-gravity
Rin = Rout
Ke-max < Pe-escape

It would be wrong to assume that there would be only one stable climate for a planet, the equation probably has more than one solution. It might cycle between two or more states. There may even be an instance where the volume changes, like a pendulum running out of energy.

Here's my idea of what may happened to the Martian oceans. An ice-age is not caused by atmospheric cooling, it's caused by ocean warming. There is a cycle to it. The oceans warm, more precipitation, snow builds up at the poles, it happens at a rate that it cannot all melt from season to season. Gradually atmosphere's water is transferred to the poles, this causes atmospheric thinning, which leads to less absorption of radiation in, which leads to atmospheric cooling, and the oceans cool too. When the oceans are cooler, there is less precipitation, which leads to less seasonal snow fall, which allows the pole ice to melt. This cycle can then repeat, over a very long time of course, but I have thought of an instance where the atmosphere could change radically in the process.

Hydrogen is the lightest element, it's also an essential component of water, H20. In an atmosphere, there are free ions; hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, etc, from molecules being zapped with sunlight. If hydrogen bonds with oxygen, it will form a heavier molecule of water, and precipitate, it will be hard to reach escape velocity. because it's heavier. If the carbon and oxygen molecules bond, they will also precipitate. BUT, if the free hydrogen has less opportunity to bond with oxygen, (the oxygen bonding with the CO2), it has a greater chance of reaching escape velocity.

So the difference between earth and mars may be, that it eventually lost all it's hydrogen, because there was no organic life to sequester the carbon.

To terraform mars, what I would do first is send some lichen (it might not need modifying), that thrives on CO2, but doesn't need much water. This will increase the atmospheric oxygen, then find a big asteroid of hydrogen and throw it into mar's atmosphere. And then maybe the red planet will turn green and become warmer.

riffmongous · 03-05-2014 07:41PM

Labarbapostiza wrote: »

I didn't know there already was a Martian terraforming project in motion. It's possible it hasn't got further than the internet bulletin board.

This seems to be the original paper Capt was referring to link

snip

But this is what I mean, your model is far too simplistic and to start a project without fully understanding the system is dangerous. For instance in your ice-age example there is no mention of the effects of increased ocean evaporation and clouds on albedo, and will those clouds increase the albedo or decrease it? More water vapour in the atmosphere will increase the surface temperature, increasing the humidity meaning you can have even more water vapour in the atmosphere, increasing the temp and so on, at what point does it increase so much that your snow will just melt every season, reducing the albedo further and leading to more radiation absorbed? No mention of the martian magnetic field?

Labarbapostiza · 03-05-2014 08:26PM

riffmongous wrote: »

But this is what I mean, your model is far too simplistic and to start a project without fully understanding the system is a dangerous.

It's a dead planet, and not likely to get any deader.

For instance in your ice-age example there is no mention of the effects of increased ocean evaporation and clouds on albedo, and will those clouds increase the albedo or decrease it?

More water vapour in the atmosphere will increase the surface temperature, increasing the humidity meaning you can have even more water vapour in the atmosphere, increasing the temp and so on, at what point does it increase so much that your snow will just melt every season, reducing the albedo further and leading to more radiation absorbed?

The answer to all these questions is, that atmospheric temperature changes rapidly, it's colder at night than it is in the day. It cools and warms very quickly. The oceans take thousands of years to warm or cool. Ice takes a long time to melt. Before the invention of the freezer, blocks of ice were cut in winter from lakes in America and shipped to south America for cocktails - it takes a long time to melt.

Snow does melt every year with the flow of the seasons. Why doesn't it all melt? It might on a planet with longer hotter summers. For an ice-age all you need is more snow to fall, than melts, in a year.

No mention of the martian magnetic field?

This is something I wonder about. Supposedly, in many descriptions, the earth's magnetic field protects us from being fried to death by high velocity particles coming from the sun. The idea might be as wrong headed as thinking the ozone layer protects us from ultra violet light. Our atmosphere protects us from high energy electromagnetic radiation, maybe you don't need a magnetic field to deflect particles.

Labarbapostiza · 03-05-2014 09:08PM

riffmongous wrote: »

But this is what I mean, your model is far too simplistic

If you look back at my sketchy equations, I have chosen to ignore certain mechanics within the system. Rotations, seasons, etc. But I have accounted for the total energy.

and to start a project without fully understanding the system is dangerous.

Dangerous, of course. This is why mankind loves to play God, because it is dangerous.

In terraforming, I think you might have a great degree of chaos. So, you'll never know precisely how it will go, but on a large scale, it's not that chaotic.

ScumLord · 05-05-2014 01:23PM

Labarbapostiza wrote: »

To terraform mars, what I would do first is send some lichen (it might not need modifying), that thrives on CO2, but doesn't need much water. This will increase the atmospheric oxygen, then find a big asteroid of hydrogen and throw it into mar's atmosphere. And then maybe the red planet will turn green and become warmer.

Isn't all that pointless without a magnetosphere to protect it from the suns rays stripping it all away again?

Labarbapostiza · 05-05-2014 06:15PM

ScumLord wrote: »

Isn't all that pointless without a magnetosphere to protect it from the suns rays stripping it all away again?

I think the claim that the magnetosphere is essential for trapping atmospheric gas may be incorrect. Mars does have an atmosphere. Though the extreme lack of hydrogen on mars would indicate that it has escaped.

The magnetosphere does not stop high energy sun light from zinging gases into deep space. I think earth loses millions of tonnes of hydrogen to space each year, but it's replenished by meteorites and I believe hydrogen from the sun.

But it might just take a very long time to leak away. So, if we could find some big icy comets, and plunge them into the current atmosphere of mars, we might be good for a few million years.

There are trace amounts of water in the Martian atmosphere, and a lot of CO2. On earth the situation is reversed, plants have a lot of water but not much CO2.

ScumLord · 06-05-2014 12:53PM

Isn't a lot of suns radiation get diverted as well though? Anything that tried to live on the surface would get fried instantly. I suppose there's no point worrying about life on the surface until there's a atmosphere but I'm pretty sure to make mars habitable in the sense a human could walk around outside without protection would require a magnetosphere.

I don't think there's really any planet in this solar system that we could realistically use, mars is too small, we'd have to supplement the planets natural gravity to make it work for life from earth. I don't think it would be a particularly nice place to live, titan would be much more interesting being an ice planet and it would be cool to look up into the night sky and see Saturn so big.

Labarbapostiza · 06-05-2014 03:55PM

ScumLord wrote: »

Isn't a lot of suns radiation get diverted as well though? .

In terms of photons, no. High energy photons are reduced in energy by collisions in the atmosphere. There is a nice formula, that I do not immediately have to hand, that shows high energy light loses its' energy exponentially as it passes through the atmosphere. So even x-rays from the sun are greatly reduced in energy by the time they reach the planets surface.

The magnetosphere can only divert charged particles. The sun spews out high velocity charged particles. They're diverted by earth's magnetic field and head to the poles and create the aurora. But some make it through to other parts of the surface of the earth.

Anything that tried to live on the surface would get fried instantly.

The mars rover is still beavering away after years. Yes, it's a robot. But if there's no magnetosphere to stop it getting bombarded by particles (which can penetrate to its' electronics) it obviously hasn't been cooked yet.

I suppose there's no point worrying about life on the surface until there's a atmosphere but I'm pretty sure to make mars habitable in the sense a human could walk around outside without protection would require a magnetosphere. .

There is an atmosphere on mars. The problem for us, is we can't breath it. It's mostly carbon dioxide. The atmospheric pressure is also much lower

I don't think there's really any planet in this solar system that we could realistically use, mars is too small, we'd have to supplement the planets natural gravity to make it work for life from earth. .

There's a huge diversity in life on earth. The different conditions on mars might be great for some existing earth life forms. The lower gravity and higher CO2 might make grass grow as tall as trees. Currently, as it appears there is no life on mars, introducing something that can survive might make it rapidly take over the planet as it has no competition.

I don't think it would be a particularly nice place to live, titan would be much more interesting being an ice planet and it would be cool to look up into the night sky and see Saturn so big.

No, not a nice place to live.....But a fun place to visit. Is tourism a worthy enough cause? Why not. When you consider how resources are squandered on earth.

Doing the kind of research needed for extra-terrestrial human habitats and travel would more likely than not have lots of spinoffs that could solve problems on earth.

A moon base would be a very good start. For heavy materials, like metals and water, asteroids could be captured and taken to the moon. Launching inter-planetary missions from the moon would be much easier than from earth, because of the much much lower gravity.

riffmongous · 07-05-2014 12:29AM

ScumLord wrote: »

Isn't a lot of suns radiation get diverted as well though? Anything that tried to live on the surface would get fried instantly. I suppose there's no point worrying about life on the surface until there's a atmosphere but I'm pretty sure to make mars habitable in the sense a human could walk around outside without protection would require a magnetosphere.

I don't think there's really any planet in this solar system that we could realistically use, mars is too small, we'd have to supplement the planets natural gravity to make it work for life from earth. I don't think it would be a particularly nice place to live, titan would be much more interesting being an ice planet and it would be cool to look up into the night sky and see Saturn so big.

I saw something on that just a minute ago

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-22718672

Capt'n Midnight · 07-05-2014 06:19PM

riffmongous wrote: »

I saw something on that just a minute ago

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-22718672

Reaching 1,000mSv is associated with a 5% increase in the risk of developing a fatal cancer.

...
It also needs to be considered in the context of the risks of contracting cancer during a "normal" lifetime on Earth, which is 26% (for a UK citizen).

Smoking carries a 50% risk of a fatal something so I don't think it would put many people off.

Of the 536 people went into space up to last November, 18 died. That's a 3.35% risk there. ( It's less per flight )

riffmongous · 07-05-2014 06:25PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Smoking carries a 50% risk of a fatal something so I don't think it would put many people off.

Of the 536 people went into space up to last November, 18 died. That's a 3.35% risk there. ( It's less per flight )

But they calculated 660 mSV for the flight to and fro, living on the planet would lead to a much higher dosage no?

Capt'n Midnight · 07-05-2014 06:54PM

riffmongous wrote: »

But they calculated 660 mSV for the flight to and fro, living on the planet would lead to a much higher dosage no?

no
because you have some atmosphere, and the planet will cut out half the cosmic rays and you can live in a cave

Humans should probably go to the deepest places as they will have slightly more atmosphere , and better for parachutes too

or just drop an ammonia rich comet or two on the poles

And the thing is if you have the technology to drop a comet, you could probably just go live on it instead

Actually speaking of lobbing comets about , how long would it take for the moon to loose an atmosphere ?

Labarbapostiza · 07-05-2014 07:04PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Smoking carries a 50% risk of a fatal something so I don't think it would put many people off.

Of the 536 people went into space up to last November, 18 died. That's a 3.35% risk there. ( It's less per flight )

Journalists are more responsible for over blowing the radiation risk than anyone else. Because radiation sounds terrifying and sensational.

It does become an issue, if you go into space. But, I was reading an interview of an astronaut a few years ago. (There are kranks who claim that any space flight is impossible, because of radiation above the atmosphere). The pilot said radiation was an issue, but that a lot of it could be stopped by shielding that was as thin as aluminium foil.

What interested me about that BBC article is the claim a lot of the radiation is ejected solar protons - hydrogen. If it could be harvested as water, then it's more of a benefit than a problem.

Depraved · 03-03-2015 11:57PM

I believe that the technology required to terraform a planet would be based on quantum manipulation of matter, along with the ability to generate massive amounts of energy.
But if we had that technology then we would have the ability to convert asteroids, moons, gas clouds etc into whatever we needed. Perhaps even take matter from a star and create a new planet from scratch.
There would be no need to modify any planet that currently had life on it.

tac foley · 04-03-2015 09:18AM

Just to point out that given our present level of technology, it is going to take Voyager 1 - if it was headed in that direction of course - just under 77,000 years to get to the nearest star.

We'd need some major scientific miracle, if such a thing actually exists, to go fast enough to even begin to consider terra-forming a new planet, especially since we seem to be determined, one way or another, to do it to this one by the use of copious numbers of nuclear weapons.

Does no harm to dream, though, eh?

tac, pragmatist.

Maximus Alexander · 04-03-2015 09:26AM

tac foley wrote: »

Just to point out that given our present level of technology, it is going to take Voyager 1 - if it was headed in that direction of course - just under 77,000 years to get to the nearest star.

We'd need some major scientific miracle, if such a thing actually exists, to go fast enough to even begin to consider terra-forming a new planet, especially since we seem to be determined, one way or another, to do it to this one by the use of copious numbers of nuclear weapons.

Does no harm to dream, though, eh?

tac, pragmatist.

In fairness, Mars is pretty close by.

silverharp · 06-03-2015 05:12PM

Say a thousand years from now or 5000 even and top speed is say less than .5 light speed with a realisation that warp speed will never be possible. Would it imply that you might have a small number of colonies with further expansion being grindingly slow plus the obvious logistics and communications problems where a round trip message could be 50 years.?

ScumLord · 06-03-2015 05:51PM

tac foley wrote: »

Just to point out that given our present level of technology, it is going to take Voyager 1 - if it was headed in that direction of course - just under 77,000 years to get to the nearest star.

We'd need some major scientific miracle, if such a thing actually exists, to go fast enough to even begin to consider terra-forming a new planet, especially since we seem to be determined, one way or another, to do it to this one by the use of copious numbers of nuclear weapons.

Does no harm to dream, though, eh?

tac, pragmatist.

We simply can't go fast enough to make round trips anywhere outside the solar system. Without some kind of warp technology we're stuck in the solar system or restricted to one way trips on generation ships.

The lazy rat · 09-03-2015 07:49PM

This whole conversation is pointless. The speed of light 187000 miles per second is slow. Do you get that? 187000 miles per second, the speed of light, yes it is ridiculously slow. Terra forming other planets. The mind boggles.

The world is on fire through greed but still money is squandered on these pie in the sky never to be fulfilled spacer notions.

tac foley · 09-03-2015 08:13PM

ScumLord wrote: »

We simply can't go fast enough to make round trips anywhere outside the solar system. Without some kind of warp technology we're stuck in the solar system or restricted to one way trips on generation ships.

As I've already noted, travelling at whatever speed it's making now, Voyager would take 77,000 years to get to the nearest star - and that has NO habitable planets - leastways, for humans.

tac

Depraved · 10-03-2015 01:09AM

The lazy rat wrote: »

This whole conversation is pointless. The speed of light 187000 miles per second is slow. Do you get that? 187000 miles per second, the speed of light, yes it is ridiculously slow. Terra forming other planets. The mind boggles.

The world is on fire through greed but still money is squandered on these pie in the sky never to be fulfilled spacer notions.

We may yet find a way to make distance irrelevant, or more manageable. If/When we do. knowledge of space travel will be extremely important.

Also, we have the possibility of mining/colonising other planets/asteroids/moons in our own solar system. Something that will likely be required with the current population growth rate. For once our species is not waiting for something bad to happen before we act. We are proactively trying to find solutions to future problems and that is a good thing.

The lazy rat · 10-03-2015 03:57AM

Depraved wrote: »

We may yet find a way to make distance irrelevant, or more manageable. If/When we do. knowledge of space travel will be extremely important.

Also, we have the possibility of mining/colonising other planets/asteroids/moons in our own solar system. Something that will likely be required with the current population growth rate. For once our species is not waiting for something bad to happen before we act. We are proactively trying to find solutions to future problems and that is a good thing.

We will never be able to make distance irrelevant, listen to yourself "We may yet find a way to make distance irrelevant". We need to get real here Depraved. What is it you're expecting? Wormholes and the like? It's not going to happen. I like Michio Kaku and respect him but I think he's outlook on these matters is unrealistic.
We have hit the wall in physics. We cannot figure out what this all encompassing theory of everything is. Einstein couldn't do it and smarter guys than him still can't do it. Cern in Switzerland is 16 mile long joke shop. One of the most monumental white elephants (probably thee most) in history. Bashing particles together at almost the speed of light. What good is bashing particles at almost the speed of light? Surely if anything these particles would have to be bashed at greater the speed of light if anything?
The global scientific community are just greasing up jobs for themselves and that's basically it.
A damn shame.

If we found another living planet

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