That would be man-made climate change. BAD. Not allowed.
Nuke it from orbit?
You can’t really because there is no Van Allen belt so all the atmosphere is venting into space blown off the planet by the solar winds. Mars must have cooled down and locked the iron core at the center from spinning in molten lava so it is not producing a magnetic field.
I read this fairly quickly, but why have they neglected the lack of a martian gravitational field to hold that atmosphere in place as being the most important thing of all?
Potatoes!
Based on the book? Poop and potatoes.
Mine coal, build several coal power electrical plants, drive a bunch of SUV around......
They think Mars is the size of their Brains
First step would be to increase the energy available. This can be done by either retaining the heat better (altering the atmosphere) or by increasing sun light hitting the surface via the use of Lagrange points and mirrors.
beer. lots of beer
Pretty dumb. Mars is not fit for human life. It may have been, but no longer is. An inordinate amount of energy would be needed to change Mars’ environment to one that can sustain the complete ecosystem of Earth, including plants, animals, bacteria, viruses.
And if this were possible, it would not last long. The forces of nature on Mars would soon send Mars back to its present state.
Humans are not optimized for living on Mars. Humans would not thrive. It would take hundreds of thousands of years of succeeding generations for a noticeable adaptation. Meanwhile, the humans living on Mars would be out of their element and in a state of constant stress for being in an environment for which they are not adapted.
Fact is, all we will ever be able to do in space is live underground. Same thing everywhere else. Tunnels and galleries.
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.
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.
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.