To become Martian

Back in the day, Americans were electrified by the space program. Their interest, however, was not entirely rooted in curiosity.

Americans had to be first to walk on the moon. Learning stuff was OK; triumphing over the red menace was survival.

Okay, Mars had water, perhaps an ocean’s worth. Could it be that the ancient tale of days of endless rain here on Earth, had an actual extra-terrestrial cause?
If water from the planet Mars escaped into orbit, most of it would have been swept up by Jupiter, hopefully some by the Jovian moons, but a portion of it could have come to Earth as well.
Eventually, we will get around to making habitations on those moons, Saturn’s moons, our moon, and of course on Mars.
That’s not a radical idea. This is -- The water that could have come our way from Mars? We should send it back.

Bear with me. Once we have gotten used to using technology to provide the necessities of life in a hostile environment as represented by space, this may not sound as strange. If the panicked suppositions about global warming on Earth turn out to have a basis in fact, there are a number of things that we could do.

Step one: Reduce the amount of insolation streaming in to warm up the planet by orbiting large arrays of solar-cell farms to reduce sunlight warming Earth.
Even more effectively, position those farms in a relatively stable location between the Earth and the sun. In this position, called LaGrange point L-1, it would be a sunshade 24-7, and would be a continuous source of power.

Step two: We could bite the bullet, and realize that WE have to control what happens on Earth, and begin terraforming Earth as well. (This could well be as much as a thousand years in the future, so don’t panic just yet.)
A way to reduce one of the “greenhouse gases” that adds to global warming is to send it to another place in the Solar System where it is more needed. The greenhouse gas to which I refer is water vapor.
Can Earth function with less water than at present? Easily, it has done so in the past, often for long periods of time. That is, it has gone through periods of glaciation, with much water frozen on land-locked plateaus and an ocean greatly reduced in volume. Underwater caves in the Caribbean have stalactites, which take millennia to form, hanging from their ceilings!
How do you get the water off-planet? Here’s the really radical idea.

Box it up in Antarctica, and launch it into orbit with an electric catapult. It would have to be appropriately scaled to be able to launch a boxcar sized load into interplanetary orbit, but the electricity won’t be a problem. It will come from a geostationary “satellite” in heliostationary “orbit” that maintains position above the South Pole. Light pressure from the sun pushes it outward, gravity pulls it toward Earth. A proper balance of lightweight materials allows it to remain stationary over the south pole and reflect sunlight from “directly” overhead onto that frozen desert.
A balance of this would allow a temperate climate on a new continent! During the Antarctic summer, two suns would be in the sky, and it would be warmer. During winter, only the reflected sunlight would be available, but that would still be enough to melt the ice.

Step 3. What to do with all the ice in Antarctica. -- We would start small. Lower capacity catapults would launch ballistic loads to desert regions remaining on Earth on a contractual basis. The Sahara would once again become a breadbasket for the world, instead of a basket case. With a proper sizing of the loads, and the appropriate sub-orbital path, it would melt upon re-entry and produce rain on demand at specified times and locations. This would remain as a commercial enterprise in the ski areas of Antarctica, the land of perpetual sunshine. Who wants to move?

Step 4: The interplanetary shipments of ice would arrive on Mars in much the same manner, perhaps with a well-timed explosive device to ensure rainfall instead of lake formation. Interspersed with these shipments would be carbon dioxide from the atmosphere of Venus. Eventually, we could build up the atmosphere of Mars to the point of making that world more human friendly as well. Don’t forget the role that sun-reflecting satellites will have on Mars also. Two staionary reflectors would end night on Mars, as well.

Step 5: Wrapping up some loose ends. These prcedures would increase the habitable living areas of Earth by approximately fifty percent, a tidy fraction. Not only would we gain a lost continent, but also reclaim desert areas at will. The increased space travel required by these operations would open up other possibilities for habitations on various moons and asteroids, and even offer the capability of a low-tech multi-generation starship for interstellar flight by using a hollow asteroid, and abundant water as reaction mass. Eventually, Mars could be shirtsleeve comfortable after several hundred years, doubling the land area of Earth for more settlements.

Final point. It’s the 1490’s all over again, folks. A traveler has brought information about another world, and some in the government want to know what possible use it is.

"Why use PV for solar power?"
"Why not mirrors?"
"I think PV is still worth more than its weight in gold."
"All those zillions of photons? ...a big force."

I'm suggesting Photo-Voltaic panels because,
. . . A) they have no moving parts,
. . . B) they can be made from space indigenous materials, i.e. robotic lunar factories, then catapult to orbit.
. . . C) no maintenance other than occasional replacement.

I do have plans for the mirrors, but not for steam turbines (that should be considered and calculated however. It is unlikely that any level of efficiency could make up for the cost to orbit mechanical systems and put them together.)

As far as the light force pushing the mirrors, I'm counting on that! Keep in mind the mirror over the South Pole does not orbit. Instead, it flies like a kite, pushed by the solar wind and light force, and pulled by the string of gravity.

The LaGrangian points are empty space, and the balance of forces will dictate a wide variation in parking locations. I'm sure it won't get too crowded. Even if it did, a little reaction mass to use as steering and station-keeping rocket fuel could always be factored in.

My only concern at the moment is just how big does the South Polar Axis Mirror (Hey! SPAM!) have to be made? We not only have to illuminate a continent, but also warm that "awful place." The mirror may take the form of the Keck telescope in Hawaii, with steerable mirrors, probably made of extremely thin sheets of aluminum, or perhaps aluminum struts with mylar reflectors, but it WILL have to be BIG!

The reflecting mirrors to warm Mars would also have to be very large. Keep in mind the orbital distance there means that sunlight is weaker. I may have over-estimated the time needed for terraforming Mars. A really aggressive plan could possibly be completed in only twenty years or so!

I have also glossed over the matter of estracting Carbon Dioxide from Venus. This will obviously involve more direct human activity in space, and dependence on "scoop ships" into the Venusian, (Venerean) atmosphere. (Dangerous!)

----This technique could also be used to gather hydrogen from Jupiter. That would provide a tripod of needed materials, Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Carbon which we have recently discovered is an excellent high-strength building material, AKA Carbon Fiber.----

Additionally, some may think this would lead to terraforming Venus. Theoretically that may be possible, but that is a LOT of heat to dissipate, and atmosphere to evacuate. Still, we could "mine" the atmosphere of Venus to supply Oxygen to the Jovian moons, for example, without concern about running low on the supply!

If all this sounds just too fantastically ambitious, keep in mind that a hundred years ago, Earth had one satellite, and today it has uncountable thousands!

I'm beginning to think I may as well just write the book. The problem is, there's so much detail about all these projects, it would read like a textbook. And look how slow this thread is moving. Who would read a book like that?

And if anyone else is out there, a question. How do I "soft-land" an iceberg on the moon? I know we'd have to wait for the turning moon to cool a bit, but could we get an effective delivery of water to the moon that way? Maybe after we "softened it up" a bit, it might not all evaporate, but I'm not sure of the kinetic energy involved. I'm thinking some kind of grazing shot, but the math is beyond me.

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