Mars Terraforming Debate 529
blackhelicopter writes "This Guardian article describes the implications of terraforming Mars - the subject of NASA's forthcoming debate. Quote from Dr Lisa Pratt, a Nasa astrobiologist, concerning life probably already on Mars: 'We simply cannot risk starting a global experiment that would wipe out the precious sensitive evidence we are seeking'."
Already debated in Sci-Fi (Score:5, Informative)
terraforming mars (Score:2, Informative)
Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Terraforming - why? (Score:5, Informative)
These are absolutely huge numbers. Even if we take all oxygen from all our water from the Earth this won't be enough to fill out the Mars atmosphere...
BTW, some facts about Martian Atmosphere (from http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/ma
Surface pressure: 6.36 mb at mean radius (variable from 4.0 to 8.7 mb depending on season)
[6.9 mb to 9 mb (Viking 1 Lander site)]
Surface density: ~0.020 kg/m3
Scale height: 11.1 km
Total mass of atmosphere: ~2.5 x 10^16 kg
Average temperature: ~210 K (-63 C)
Diurnal temperature range: 184 K to 242 K (-89 to -31 C) (Viking 1 Lander site)
Wind speeds: 2-7 m/s (summer), 5-10 m/s (fall), 17-30 m/s (dust storm) (Viking Lander sites)
Mean molecular weight: 43.34 g/mole
Atmospheric composition (by volume):
Major : Carbon Dioxide (CO2) - 95.32% ; Nitrogen (N2) - 2.7%
Argon (Ar) - 1.6%; Oxygen (O2) - 0.13%; Carbon Monoxide (CO) - 0.08%
Minor (ppm): Water (H2O) - 210; Nitrogen Oxide (NO) - 100; Neon (Ne) - 2.5;
Hydrogen-Deuterium-Oxygen (HDO) - 0.85; Krypton (Kr) - 0.3;
Xenon (Xe) - 0.08
We may already have started (Score:2, Informative)
"Schuerger says that of all the space probes sent to Mars, only the two Viking craft in 1976 were adequately heat sterilized. The procedures used for all missions since then, including NASA's two rovers and Europe's Beagele 2, would have left some microbes aboard. After studying whether terrestrial organisms can survive the procedures used to sterilize a spacecraft, he reckons there is a good chance some made it to Mars and might still be living there."
Life will find a way
From Mike Combs' Space Settlement FAQ (Score:4, Informative)
Aren't we going to terraform Mars or Venus?
Terraforming is a long-term project requiring technology significantly advanced over what we have today. Even terraforming advocates admit it would take a minimum of 200 years to modify Mars to the stage where even simple anaerobic microorganisms and algae can survive. [Ref: Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments, Martyn J. Fogg, SAE Press 1995.] Space habitats, on the other hand, can be built with today's technology, and would be homes in space which people initiating the program could move into within their lifetimes.
Interstellar travel may someday become possible, but we have no guarantee that Earth-like planets will be as plentiful in the Milky Way galaxy as they have been in Hollywood, CA.
What advantages would orbital settlements have over a colony built on another planet?
Sunlight also drives the life-support system of the habitat, so the day/night cycle can be set to whatever is convenient. Compare this to the moon, where there is 14 days of continuous daylight, and then a 14-day-long night. Here, some alternate energy source would probably have to be used half the time.
Zero G would be a liability if there were no alternative to it. Astronauts experience loss of bone mass and muscle tone after prolonged exposure to weightlessness. But most of a space habitat would be under Earth-normal gravity, although there would be easy access to regions of reduced gravity and zero G (perhaps for personal flight). With planets, on the other hand, you have to take the gravity that's there, and it's often the wrong kind of gravity to keep us healthy. Lunarians or Martians would probably not be able to visit the Earth (nor accelerate at 1 G).
Wired: "NASA is getting ready to invade [Mars] " (Score:3, Informative)
"Maybe there are spores in the Atacama after all.
That doesn't mean that we'll find them on Mars. But it sure does suggest that we might want to look. "
Re:Not So Bad (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Informative)
Very true. I did a Google search for various time lengths (five/ten/twenty year plan). Anything less than ten years was commercial/industrial, ten to thirty years was regional government, and anything over thirty years was religious/fanatical.
Re:Not So Bad (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think that's quite accurate. Volcanos can emit quite a bit of HCl and sulfate aerosols. The latter tend to amplify the effects of human-generated CFCs. Check out this link [epa.gov]
Re:Teeming masses, indeed.. (Score:2, Informative)
Population expansion will happen among the few people who go off to settle Sedna or whatever, but we really can't rely on colonization to solve population pressure on Earth. Rockets are 'way more expensive than rubbers.
Re:Terraforming - why? (Score:3, Informative)
The US has tried to be careful about sterilizing its Mars landers. The Viking landers were very thoroughly sterilized, since their main purpose was to look for signs of life; it was important to eliminate false positive results from terrestrial "hitchhikers". The Pathfinder and MER landers were mainly geology missions and that, combined with the negative Viking results, led to a somewhat lower standard of sterility. (IIRC they went over the exterior of the rover with disinfectants, but did not have to heat sterilize all the internal components.) According to this interview:
http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/nasadirect/elv/merb/theis- ab.htm [nasa.gov]
"There is a set of international treaties and agreements that regulate the ability of us to take bacteria or organic material or spores to Mars in order to avoid contaminating Mars for future scientific investigations. The Mars Exploration Rover project is what is called a Class B. We're not involved in the search for life and so we have a level of cleanliness that we did when we put the rovers together. If you were a Class A mission looking more directly for life, the requirements would be much more stringent. You would actually have to sterilize the equipment, almost like an operating room, in order to be able to satisfy these agreements."
I'm curious about the extent to which the Soviet Mars landers [russianspaceweb.com] were sterilized. None of them were exactly successful, but a couple made it to the surface and crashed there.
Re:Interesting. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It comes down to who owns Mars (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, I also believe that those same people would prefer a mass genocide of all of mankind (excepting themselves and a very small group of like-minded people). Some even plan for it and hope the rest of us kill each other.
I would have to agree that ownership of the territory is going to be a huge issue. There are folks that I consider to be on par with the name-a-star-after-your-loved-ones who are selling square mile parcels on planetary bodies throughout the solar system. That is at least the first wave of ownership that is currently happening.
Ownership of any rock that is outside of the earth is still up for debate. I think D. Delos Harriman (from Heinlein's "The Man Who Sold the Moon") probabally has the best approach if it really needs to come down to it, by trying to buy the property rights for celestial bodies from all nations that lie below the orbit of the planets (or the moon) but this is something that is going to get ugly before it gets better. Try to park a geosync satellite above Equador and find out just how valuable celestial real estate really is. Equador claims that spot directly above their country as soverign territory (really, look it up).
A pro-active approach from the UN might help in trying to distribute celestial territory, but their current efforts are more along the lines of the Moon Treaty [asi.org] and the Outer Space Treaty [asi.org] are, IMHO examples of those UN member nations who don't have spaceflight capability from legally keeping those who have it from doing anything with spaceflight. That and they are also diplomats and lobbiest who endorse mass genocide of most of mankind at heart. They really don't want anybody to go anywhere else beside staying on the earth. Oh, maybe send a few robots to check out some cool places, and keep the scientist in their ivory towers to keep writing cool proposals and professional research publications. Keep the teeming hoards of ordinary people from ever getting to the rest of those places.
If the UN get into the business of realistically dealing with outer space, it would have to be more along the lines of the Homestead Act [nps.gov] and the Northwest Territories Ordinance [state.gov] passed by the United States congress, which specifically acknowledged that the new territories are going to be settled, provided a way for individuals to get involved in the process, and established governing principles for the creation of new governments for the people going into those territories. It would be cool to see the UN coming up with a plan that would allow sections of the Moon, for instance, be able to achieve the status as a UN member nation in the General Assembly.
(BTW, the Northwest of the Northwest Ordinance was the northwestern portion of the USA after the Revolution: Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota. This was one of the only comprehensive pieces of legislation passed under the U.S. Articles of Confederation before the current U.S. Constitution. This also established the pattern for making most of the western USA as well, in addition to current governing principles for American territory that is not currently in a state. I'm sure this would apply to soverign American territory in space as well.)
I seriously doubt that will ever happen.
Instead, I think what is probabally going to happen is a reenactment of the territory grab for the Americas (and most of the rest of the world as well) that happened between the 15th and 18th Centuries. That the players are going to be a little bit different (Europe will be a united voice, but India, China, and Japan w
Re:Useless Navel-gazing (Score:2, Informative)
Er, that would be *two* orders of magnitude. Use "a hundred-fold" if you like.
It's still a depressingly large amount of cash, without invoking a google's (10**100) worth of dollars.
Re:It's a futile effort... (Score:5, Informative)
Despite this being /. I decided to perform a bit of research, so here are a few links to pages that I think support my point, that terraforming as far as a more hospitable atmosphere on Mars is possible:
They may be wrong, I may be wrong, but simply claiming the fact that the current Martian atmosphere is very thin as proof that no sustainable atmosphere is possible on Mars, that does not cut it. I will grant you that a 99% earth-like biosphere is unlikely, but a lot less is needed for it to be of use to a colony. Even a slight increase in temperature and pressure would make it easier to live on Mars, some plants might be able to grow (genetically modified mountain plants), the domes (or whatever it might be) needed for habitation might have to handle a smaller difference in pressure, or the time an astronaut might survive in an accident might increase.
And besides, even if it only lasts a few thousand years, an atmosphere might still prove useful. Not that I think we should do something like this without considering the consequenses, but once we have the technology, the trade-offs and risks might prove to be small enough for us to attempt terraforming Mars.