Terraforming Mars, The Noble Experiment?

Space Daily ^ | July 13, 2004 | Interview w/Robert Zubrin

[RockinRight]

Mars Society founder, Robert Zubrin, talks about how to terraform the red planet. His engineer's eye reveals his robust plans for not just getting to a new home, but also how to build one from scratch. As a former Martin-Marietta aerospace engineer, prolific author and founder of the non-profit Mars Society (1998), Robert Zubrin is regarded as the driving force behind the proposed Mars Direct mission to reduce the cost and complexity of interplanetary travel.

The flight plan calls for a return journey fueled by rocket propellant harvested in situ, from the martian atmosphere itself.

As described in Zubrin's book, The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet, the Mars Direct concept eventually became a cornerstone of a frugal 'living off the land' approach to travel in NASA's Design Reference Mission.

The Design Reference Mission (DRM) covers Earth launch to Mars landing, Mars cruise to Mars launch, and Earth return. The mission entails sending cargo ahead, docking the crew at the space station, then meeting up with the stashed supplies once on Mars.

"For our generation and many that will follow, Mars is the New World," writes Zubrin.

The New York Times Book Review (Dennis Overbye) indicated how such an outline initially was greeted as breaking conventional wisdom about martian mission plans:

"Part history, part call to arms, part technical manual, part wishful thinking, The Case for Mars ... lays out an ingenious plan. ......one of the most provocative and hopeful documents I have read about the space program in 20 years."

The Mars Society continues to grow across many countries with thousands of members interested in space advocacy, particularly how best to encourage the exploration and settlement of Mars.

Notable among the Society's members are science-fiction author, Greg Benford, and Academy Award winning director, James Cameron.

Astrobiology Magazine had the opportunity to talk with Robert Zubrin about the possibilities for terraforming Mars.

Astrobiology Magazine (AM): First off, should Mars be terraformed?

Robert Zubrin (RZ): Yes.

AM: Does Mars contain all of the elements needed to make the planet habitable, or will we have to import gases, chemicals, etc., from elsewhere?

If so, then will Mars always need constant inputs to achieve habitability, or do you think that given enough inputs Mars would reach a tipping point and planetary processes would create a self-sustaining feed-back loop?

RZ: It appears that Mars does have all the elements needed for terraforming. The one outstanding question is nitrogen, whose inventory remains unknown.

However theory suggests that Mars should have had an initial supply of nitrogen comparable to the Earth, and it seems likely that much of this is still there.

AM: How long will terraforming take? When you envision a terraformed Mars, what do you see?

RZ: If one considers the problem of terraforming Mars from the point of view of current technology, the scenario looks like this:

1. A century to settle Mars and create a substantial local industrial capability and population.

2. A half century producing fluorocarbon gases (like CF4) to warm the planet by ~10 C.

3. A half century for CO2 to outgas from the soil under the impetus of the fluorocarbon gases, thickening the atmosphere to 0.2 to 0.3 bar, and raising the planetary temperature a further 40 C.

This will cause water to melt out of the permafrost, and rivers to flow and rain to fall. Radiation doses on the surface will also be greatly reduced.

Under these conditions, with active human help, first photosynthetic microbes and then ever more complex plants could be spread over the planet, as they would be able to grow in the open.

Humans on Mars in this stage would no longer need pressure suits, just oxygen masks, and very large domed cities could be built, as the domes would no longer need to contain pressure greater than the outside environment.

4. Over a period of about a thousand years, human-disseminated and harvested plants would be able to put ~150 mbar (millibars) of oxygen in the Martian atmosphere. Once this occurs, humans and other animals will be able to live on Mars in the open, and the world will become fully alive.

That's the scenario, using current technological approaches. However technology is advancing, and 23rd Century humans will not conduct their projects using 21st Century means. They will use 23rd Century means and accomplish the job much faster than anyone today can suppose.

So if someone in the 24th Century, living on a fully terraformed Mars, should discover this interview, I believe that she will view it in much the same way as we today look at Jules Verne's lunar mission design.

We today look at Verne's ideas and say "Amazing, a man living a hundred years before Apollo foresaw it - and not only that- launched his crew of three from Florida, and returned them in a capsule landing in the Pacific Ocean where they were picked up by a US warship, all as things actually happened.

But launching people with heavy artillery - how 19th Century can you get?"

So our 24th Century Martian historian studying this interview will smile and say; "Incredible. Here are people 300 years ago talking about terraforming Mars. But doing it with fluorocarbon gases and green plants -how 20th century can you get?"

AM: Who should the first human colonists to Mars be and how should they be chosen? Since Martian gravity is one-third of Earth's, wouldn't bone and muscle loss, along with radiation, make colonization a one-way journey? What are the implications of what, from an Earth-perspective, is exile?

RZ: Life is a one-way trip, and we are all permanently exiled from our past. In that sense Mars colonists, and all colonists, are no different from anyone else. It is just more apparent in their case, as in addition to leaving behind the time of their past, they also leave behind the place.

But in so doing, they gain the opportunity to create a world where none existed before, and thus gain a form of immortality that is denied to those who are content to accept the world they are born in.

AM: If there's life on Mars, how do we balance the Martian right to life with the human impulse to explore and extend our borders?

RZ: The basis of ethics needs to be of benefit to humanity. If there is life on Mars, it is microbial, and its interests can in no way be considered as commensurate with human interests. Those who argue otherwise strike a fashionable pose, but deny their arguments every day through their actions.

If bacterial interests trump human interests, then mouthwash should be banned, chlorination of water supplies should be banned, and antibiotics should be banned. If bacterial interests trump human interests, then Albert Schweitzer and Louis Pasteur should be denounced for crimes against bacteria.

Now, in saying that ethics must be based in human benefit, we need not deny that preserving valuable environments in important.

It is important to save the amazon rain forest, for example, because a world without an amazon rain forest would be a poorer inheritance for our descendants than one with one, and the degree of the impoverishment exceeds whatever value might be obtained in the short term from slash and burn agriculture.

However, in the case of Mars, the calculation votes the other way, as a terraformed Mars, filled with life, cities, universities, used book stores, and yes, rain forests, would be a vastly richer gift to posterity than the current barren Red Planet.

Clearly, just as anyone who proposed transforming the current Earth into a place like Mars would be considered mad, so those who, given the choice, would keep Mars dead rather than make it a place as wonderful as the Earth must have their sanity doubted.

There remains only the question of science. Surely we should avail ourselves of the opportunity to study native Martian life before we terraform the place.

We surely will. Terraforming Mars will be a long term project, and should native Martian microbes exist, there will be ample opportunity to study it before terraforming takes place. There will also be opportunity to study how it adapts to warmer, wetter conditions and the presence of terrestrial microbes after terraforming takes place.

Furthermore, if Mars actually is terraformed, there will be much more people on Mars to study every aspect of Mars, including both its native and immigrant life. So in fact, our knowledge of Martian biota will be increased by terraforming, not decreased.

AM: Humans sent to live on Mars will bring with them ideas on how to govern themselves, rules of conduct for living in society, economic motivations, and personality conflicts.

How should the colonization of Mars be managed, and how should Mars be governed? Should the colonization of Mars be a cooperative effort among every nation, or should only those that financial contribute be in charge of the operation?

RZ: The Founding Fathers of the United States called our infant republic a "Noble Experiment," a place where the grand liberal ideas of the Enlightenment could be given a run, and the idea of a government based on the rights on man could be tested to see if it could succeed in practice.

Their Noble Experiment did succeed, and as a result became the model for a new and better form of human social organization worldwide.

Mars can, should, and will be a place for numerous new Noble Experiments. The well of human social thought has not yet run dry, nor do I believe that we have yet discovered the ultimate and most humanistic form of society possible.

In the 22nd Century, as in the 18th, there will always be people who think they have discovered a better way, and need a place to go where the rules haven't been written yet so they can give their ideas a try. For these, the Martian frontier will beckon.

Many of their ideas will prove impractical, and their colonies will fail. But some of those who really have a better idea will succeed, and in doing so, light the way forward for all humanity.

So, to answer your question, I say that the colonization of Mars should not be managed at all, but be done through the joyful chaos of human freedom.

AM: Taking a leap into the future, let's assume the technology, biology, sociology, and politics have all combined to create a unique sub-race of humanity on Mars. Generations of human beings have now been born, grown, bred and died on Mars. Who are these Martians?

RZ: In 1893, the great historian Frederick Jackson Turner wrote:

"To the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics. That coarseness of strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance that comes from freedom - these are the traits of the frontier."

I think that says it all. The pioneers of the Martian frontier will be the Americans of the future.

[SunkenCiv]

Global warming is bunk. Period. There's no scientific basis for it whatsoever. It is strictly political demagoguery.

[SunkenCiv]

Not a bad place to exile liberals... particularly since occasionaly catastrophic failures of the balloons would dump whole cities worth of them into the spectacularly hot planet itself.

[SunkenCiv]

"Mercury's much higher orbital velocity"? Mercury moves more slowly than the Earth, just as Earth moves more slowly than Mars. The faster something moves around the parent body, the greater the distance.

[SunkenCiv]

Of the planets, Mars and Mercury are the only ones where humans will ever set foot. Mercury won't be a great destination for anyone, as far as permanent habitation, but then, neither is Antarctica. Eventually (generations hence) there will be a permanent human presence there.

I wholeheartedly agree with whoever said that the Moon's far side would be a great place to do astronomy. That's particularly true of radioastronomy, because the noise of Earth would be blotted out. Of course, the far side of the Moon faces the Sun fairly often, but the Sun requires study. A fiberoptic backbone (which is nice and quiet) reaching from the far side station to the Earth side station (antipodal relationship) would be a major civil engineering achievement I suppose.

As far as mining, I think John S. Lewis is onto something -- mine the asteroids, which don't have the disadvantage of overcoming a gravity well (not much of one anyway) and simultaneously remove the threat of a civilization-ending impact.

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Rain of Iron and Ice: The Very Real Threat of Comet and Asteroid Bombardment by John S. Lewis

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[mvpel]

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/glossary/orbital_velocity.html
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How fast a planet travels as it orbits around the Sun is called orbital velocity.

Planets that are close to the Sun have high orbital velocities because of Kepler’s second law of planetary motion. This means that Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, is the fastest moving planet in our solar system moving at about 48 km/sec! Earth is orbiting slightly more slowly at a speed of about 30 km/sec and poor Pluto, far from the Sun, travels less than 5 km/sec.

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[RockinRight]

Venus would require a lot more-solar shades and removing 98% of the atmosphere and taking the Oxygen out of the CO2...but in a few centuries, maybe. Even if we could accept a hotter planet to live on, we'd need shading on Venus otherwise we'd all sunburn like crazy since sunlight is double the intensity on Venus as here on Earth. On Mars it's half (44% actually) so that's another challenge.

[RockinRight]

Actually I did read that with an Earth-like atmosphere Venus would have a planetwide temperature of about 87 degrees (Earth is 59 or 60). Hot, but tolerable, especially at higher latitudes.

[RockinRight]

That is true, but I think a capitalistic economy with private property rights *could* develop, like this:

A few scientists and entrepreneurs explore and colonize Mars. As population grows, demand for other goods increases. A few people with the resources start trading and eventually open a branch or new business on Mars. This business wants property of it's own, which it takes. How did people get property when America was founded? Can't Martian settlers do the same thing? Basically as demand increases, and is met, it continues to exponetially increase over time.

[Liberal Classic]

"Is a planetary surface the right place for an expanding technological civilization?" -- Gerard K. O'Neill

Let's say Mars is terraformed. We've doubled the number of planets available to us. Great, but what then? After great expense and effort, we'd be back in the same boat in not too many more years later.

I think we should build space cities, like Babylon 5 from TV. We could mine the moon for the raw materials for the earlier ones, move on to mining the asteroid belt for more materials. The advantage is that our carrying capacity would not be limited to double that of the earth. Through building space habitats, we should be able to increase our carrying capacity by thousands, even millions of times. This is an important point, because the population will not stop growing when Mars reaches capacity.

Space settlements have other advantages over planets, as well. For one, easy access to zero gravity. Two, distributed population. No one natural disaster, such as a dinosaur-killer comet or asteroid, would be able to put an end to the human race.

[TMSuchman]

Sign me up! I volenteer to be the first Freeper to claim the planet in the name of the FreeRepublic!

[RightWhale]

The problem is there is no mechanism to get private property rights. It would be the cheapest thing the FedGov ever did, and as long as we are asserting primacy over the entire earth why not set up a land office for outer space property claims?

[RightWhale]

opinions on this concept

When developing my business model for asteroid mining I looked at using Mars for something or other if possible, but asteroid mining would actually be sidetracked by trying to incorporate any Mars operations. So, for asteroid mining, Mars is not part of the equation.

[Romish_Papist]

How would you increase a planet's rotational period?

[eagle11]

Yes. We'd still need artificial shade on Venus, but since Venus turns so slowly on its axis, we'd better get used to longer days and nights....

[Amish with an attitude]

Reserve Mars in its current state as a penal colony for the dregs of Earth's societies.

[Amish with an attitude]

"How would you increase a planet's rotational period?"

Tangentially placed rockets at the equator.

[RockinRight]

Yeah, if we use about a thousand rockets with the force of 100 H-bombs a piece...

...in theory it sounds feasible but imagine the energy that would take.

[Amish with an attitude]

Moving planets is serious stuff not to be taken lightly.

One false move and you could bounce right off a star, or fly right through a supernova...