 |
Posted on 03/17/2016 11:37:24 AM PDT by LibWhacker
LOL!!!
impossible - this article must be lying. It says the atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide. We know - it is a fact, that just 0.04% carbon dioxide in earth’s atmosphere is going to cause runaway global warming. Mars cannot be cold, it could only be super hot, even after adjusting for it being further from the sun, which is not relevant to global temperature anyway.
You have nailed one of the primary problems.
Could artificial magnetic stations at the poles be made strong enough to build a field large enough to do any good?
Yeah, the atmosphere continues to bleed off in chunks through an effect I believe they call "magnetic disconnect." It needs a magnetic field and it needs a lot more mass.
Beat me to it...
There is already an effort to colonize Venus. It's pretty clever actually. Apparently ordinary air will "float" in Venus Atmosphere, so large metal tanks filled with Air will float, and can be used to build heavy structures upon.
It is possible for man to live there, but not on some terraformed ball.
Mars has more than enough resources to construct massive enclosed spaces that are also partially underground, and more than enough water to people ,plants and animals to live.
They wont have oil or petroleum, but there might be lots of natural gas. Also nuclear power is a given, as well as solar beamed to the ground via microwaves, maybe some wind power.
It will be a constant challenge to keep it going as everything will depend on man, though.
Well that was quite a long-winded bit of speculation. I can come up with most of it sitting on the commode if I forget my smartphone. The idea of using hydrocarbons to warm the atmosphere of Mars is not going to prove global warming on Earth. Mars is 2.2 times as far from the Sun as Earth is. There is some kind of formula for calculating how much energy is going to reach Mars from the Sun compared to how much Earth gets. I think it is something like RMS. Double the distance and you will reduce incipient energy by 1/4. So Mars will get less than 1/4th.
Bringing hydrocarbons from Titan is a complete flight of fancy given the even greater distance of 14 astronomical units AU compared to Mars 2.2 and Earth 1.0. And half of the time Mars will be more than 12 AU from Mars making it harder to haul all those hydrocarbons.
And then there is the question of why Mars doesn’t already have an atmosphere already. Part of it is gravity.
If Mars is to be inhabited it will be under domes and under ground.
Nuke the center of the planet? Melt the core to get it spinning again?
I’ve read that the bigger long term problem is the weak magnetic field. Sure we can work to build up the atmosphere, but the solar winds will strip it away.
There are quite a few theories on how to fire up Mars’ molten core, which would provide the needed magnetic field. Some include nudging large steroids into intercept course. The impact would release boatloads of greenhouse gases in addition to helping to melt Mars’ cold core. Another large asteroid placed in orbit as a moon would boost tidal forces, which help to hear a planets core as well.
With lots of comments like “sublimating the south polar CO² glaciers would require the introduction of approximately 39 million metric tons of CFCs into Mars’ atmosphere”, I have to notice that terraforming Mars would require doing everything the Left is trying to stop here on Earth.
Since ammonia (NH³) is a powerful greenhouse gas, its introduction into the Martian atmosphere would have the effect of thickening the atmosphere and raising global temperatures. As ammonia is mostly nitrogen by weight, it could also provide the necessary buffer gas which, when combined with oxygen gas, would create a breathable atmosphere for humans.
Really? They suggest an oxygen-ammonia atmosphere and call it breathable for humans? The OSHA limit for a 15-minute exposure is 35 ppm by volume in the air. Even 1 ppm is not pleasant. I hope I'm misunderstanding and they plan to convert all the ammonia to N2 before people show up! Throw in low gravity, a lack of a magnetic field, and less incident solar radiation, and I see real potential problems, even with the best process. But let's not start with something stupid like planning to breath ammonia.
We are told that CO2 is a major greenhouse gas and trace increases cause global warming.
Mars = 96% CO2
Earth = 0.04% C02
I wonder why Mars isn’t burning up.
“Humans are not optimized for living on Mars.”
And we are not optimized for Earth either with 2/3rds of the planet covered with water where are the human gills, webbed feet; our eyes are also wrong for night vision; we cannot run as fast as most animals; our sense of smell is atrocious; the list goes on.
Humans are a generalized species and can adapt to many environments - so many assumptions that are not proven only speculated about.
So we may as well go live somewhere where we are also not optimized ... or do you want to wait here for the inevitable ELE?
Don’t try to terraform the surface.
Tunnel. Build underground compounds and ultimately underground cities. No reason to live on the surface full time.
|
Terraforming Mars would kill off the Delta Smelt!
I think you are right about creating human habitats in space rather than down gravity wells on a planet.
It is a lot easier to build a city in space than terraform a whole planet. I think Mars should be settled even before terraforming. There is a wealth of resources underground and I believe that NASA is deliberately not researching what is there. All they need to do is send 1 ground penetrating nuke into Mars with a lot of spectroscopes trained on the impact to tell us a lot of what we need to know about Mars but it has not been done.
Nuke it from orbit.
I posted similar earlier upthread.
The main “Greenhouse Gas” for the earth is water vapor, and accounts for about 60% of the effect. Almost all water vapor is natural (greater than 99%).
CO2 accounts for about 3.8% of the effect, and humans account for about 3.4% of that CO2 (so 96%+ of CO2 is natural).
Now, if we can only figure out a way to tax the natural water vapor we could REALLY make some money. (Oh - I mean “really stop global warming”)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.