"Another way to warm Mars would be to increase its input of solar energy by reflecting light that passes the planet down to its surface. The use of orbiting mirrors to do this is a common suggestion in terraforming-related discussions (e.g. Oberg, 1981) and some outline designs have been published (Birch, 1992; Zubrin and McKay, 1993; Fogg 1995a).
Whilst all are necessarily large in size, none are unfeasible in principle and their masses are surprisingly modest. A mirror system specifically designed as part of a runaway greenhouse scenario was presented by Zubrin and McKay (1993).
By balancing gravitational and light pressure forces, they determined that a 125 km-diameter solar sail-mirror could be stationed 214,000 km behind Mars where it could illuminate the south pole with an additional ~ 27 TW. This should be sufficient to raise the polar temperature by ~ 5 K which, according to some models, should be sufficient for cap evaporation.
At first glance, the size of such a mirror and its mass (200,000 tons of aluminium) may appear too grandiose a concept to take seriously."
Keep in mind, I am recommending the encasement or strapping of the ice shipments with supporting amounts of aluminum as they are launched toward Mars. This aluminum could be used to make large orbital mirrors, or even spacecraft once it is in outer space. As Heinlein said, "Once you're in Earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere!"
Hey there,
I've read all the structural posts, but I can't remember anything on propulsion. Have you worked on that? She'll be needing a fair amount of thrust for the masses involved.
Couldn't we just send Halliburton to Mars?