NASA Proposes Warming Mars

hotsauce writes "The Guardian reports a NASA scientist has proposed releasing a gas on Mars to start a global warming of the planet in order to make it more hospitable for life. No word on how much traction this has amongst geophysicists. I wonder how much simulation and testing you need before we feel safe about affecting an entire planet."

Stupidest thing ever

[Mark_MF-WN]

This is the stupidest thing I've heard. And from a NASA scientist no less.

Where the hell are we supposed to get that much of ANY gas?

How are we supposed to get it to stay there on Mars? If Mars could successfully hold an atmosphere, wouldn't it still have one? I was under the impression that Mars' low gravity and weak magnetic field allowed radiation to strip away any gases on Mars' surface.

Planetary Engineering Bibliography

[IO ERROR]

http://spot.colorado.edu/~marscase/cfm/terrabib.ht ml [colorado.edu] contains references to nearly 100 books, articles, papers, etc., on terraforming.

Is there enough gravity?

[nasor]

Isn't the gravity on Mars only something like 1/3 that of earth? Is that enough to support a breathable atmosphere? Our air here on earth is 21% oxygen, so to obtain the same partial pressure I assume we would need something like a 60% oxygen atmosphere. Wouldn't everything (including us?) be really dangerously flammable?

Multiple methods

[soab]

Nasa is actually considering multiple methods for heating Mars. These include: nuclear dust over the south pole (dark dust attracts sun energy which melts south pole), Methanogens (can survive Mars and produce methane), Space mirror (heating the southpole to melt), Drilling into Mars to use it's geothermal energy, and a few other even crazier ideas.

There is a lot of theories out there and some are experimental. We can't expect success on the first try so sending multiple attempts at once will most likely be NASA's approach.

babysteps first guys...

[WiFireWire]

Why is NASA so gung-ho about going to mars so quickly? Why not return to the moon so we can learn how to sustain our peeps closer to home?

Re:Pipe Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess thats why Venus' atmosphere is so tiny, its lack of magnetic field never allowed it to have one. Oh wait, it has an atmospheric pressure 90 times greater than Earth's, and all without a magnetic field.

Titanic Hubris

[Doc Ruby]

This is totally irresponsible work by NASA. Climate scientists should know better than anyone the lesson of our imminent climate change crisis. Human meddling with astoundingly complex systems like planetary climate is arrogant well beyond our competence, and predictable only by the law of unintended consequences. Screwing with Mars' atmosphere when we're just beginning to admit that we've already screwed up ours will nearly certainly make that planet harder to "manage" as it becomes more necessary to our human evolution. Humans thrive only in a very narrow band of climate parameters, out of a vast range of possible climates. When they spend a century shifting Mars unexpectedly into a less mutable climate stasis, that is just as inhospitable to human life as it is now, but a different configuration, it will take even more centuries to undo the damage, if even possible. We're just not ready for this kind of work, if we ever will be in the foreseeable future - and the stakes are too high to fool with.

Why would it work this time?

[GaepysPike]

This post is definitely meant as more of a question than a statement, as I am pretty ignorant of geophysics and the like.

But could someone explain to me why scientists even consider the idea of trying to artificially create a new atmosphere around another planet, and why they think it could work?

The thing I am not understanding is that if Mars is thought/known to have had an atmosphere in the past, and doesn't anymore, clearly there are factors beyond our control that would just cause a new atmosphere to eventually disppear too, right?

The original atmosphere on Mars must have disappeared due to factors such as boiling away, not enough mass to create a strong enough gravitation field to retain it, or perhaps being blown away by solar wind because Mars does have a magnetic field like we do here to deflect it, etc. (By the way, I don't even know if these are real situations that could occur, I am just making them up as examples of things beyond our control that seem to me that logically could maybe have caused the previous atmosphere to disappear.)

So again, this is not a statement but an honest question from someone who doesn't get it- what is different about mars now than a hundred million years ago that makes scientists think it would work now?

Ahem

[t_allardyce]

So whens the global vote on this gonna be? There _is_ going to be a global vote on this right? Ya know democracy and stuff?

Re:No !

[darkmeridian]

Well, you do not know if there's life unless and until you do research. What if you jump the gun and change Mars before you complete all research?

Furthermore, there is research that could reveal the genesis of our solar system, planet, or universe up there on Mars. We should preserve it until we are sure that we need the planet populated or that we have exhausted all scientific exploration of Mars.

Re:Original NASA Article from Feb/2001 with more i

[Rei]

A much more difficult task than terraforming Mars, conceptually, is terraforming Venus.

Sci-fi authors have often implemented plot devices such as impacting ice-laden comets or moons into Venus to cool it, supply water, and spin it up; however this is fundamentally flawed, as the problem the amount of CO2. Furthermore, impacting a comet or moon will impart more energy than it would soak up. Now, perhaps with a large enough impact you could blast away part of Venus's atmosphere; however, this would need to be a very significant impact. Hypothetically, a large near-impacting body that skims Venus's atmosphere repeatedly might be able to take some atmosphere with it on each pass; however, it seems unlikely that you could ablate enough atmosphere in this manner while using a body small enough to control.

Sagan proposed the use of microbes in the atmosphere to absorb the CO2 and precipitate it out, but this suffers from one big fundamental problem: life as we know it requires CHONP, and there's no significant quantities of phosphorus in Venus's atmosphere. Perhaps a simpler form of "life" or nanomachine - even if not self-replicating, but simply mass produced on Earth - could use solar energy to convert CO2 to solid compounds.

In theory, if Venus could be driven into a very elliptical orbit (causing close passes to the sun), the sun would blow off most of its atmosphere. Or, if Venus could be given an extremely fast rate of rotation, the atmosphere could be made to expand to the point where the solar wind can blow it off easily. However, apart from the length of time for the sun to remove the atmosphere, both of these require imparting incredible amounts of energy to the planet.

Another concept has been to use gigantic sunshades to block sunlight approaching the planet; however, planet-sized shades seem a bit far-fetched to build. An alternative that I've seen would be to use gigantic mirrors to focus solar energy on a small part of the upper atmosphere and use the light pressure to encourage particles to reach escape velocity; whether or not this is realistic, I don't know.

Re:safety?

[khallow]

Well, it wouldn't be easy, but if we somehow affected Mars' orbit, we could end up indirectly affecting Earth's orbit, which could make global warming look like a minor inconvenience as we move closer to or further away from the Sun...

And how would we change Mars' orbit? Heating up the atmosphere of Mars is inconsequential to the amount of energy required to significantly perturb the orbit of a planet.

Re:Tinkering

[loucura!]

If we mess up, then we'll have learned a lesson which can be used next time. There's no way to learn how to go about messing with a planet's atmosphere without... messing with the atmosphere! Think ahead: If we can't live there when we need it, we can always mine it for resources.

Re:Stupidest thing ever

[Dipster]

Mars' gravity is perfectly capable of holding a thick atmoshpere. If you look at Venus, who's gravity is something like 98% of Earth's, it has an atmosphere 100 times thicker than ours. The thickness is determined by a lot of factors, but gravity is a relitivaly small one.

The magnetic field argument is a strong one. Its the only thing that protects the atmosphere from being blown away. However, another theory on why Mars lost its atmosphere is the following:

As rain falls through the atmosphere, CO2 dissolves in it. When this rain water hits the ground, the CO2 reacts with Calcium and others to form limestone. On earth, this limestone is eventually recycled through our tectonic processes and released in volcanos/other release points (this being part of the global warming argument that something like 70% of earths CO2 is released by volcanos and is outside our control).

However, on Mars, any tectonic activity has stopped, and as such, this limestone never gets put back into the atmosphere. It's ironic that the water itself eliminated the gas it needed to exist.

One could say its a little of both. When tectonic processes stopped, CO2 stopped being recycled leading to a slightly thinner and much colder atmosphere, at the same time that the magnetic field dissappeared and the remainder of the atmospere was blown away.

interesting

[essreenim]

Thats a very good point for another reason. We have shown in the past that we are likely to destroy ourselves. Every major empire on Earth has always collapsed in the end and slowed down technological development with it. But we can break out of that loop if we spread to other "rocks". Say we populate Mars and Venus. With Venus, the atmosphere is a runaway greenhouse effect so we would have to stip allot of the atmostphere off by diverting huge asteroids into it's atmosphere's path. once we have spread to half the solar system we can undergo a prolonged campaign of removing technology and going back to nature and paganism. Then we can start from scratch from our ignorance as we will not have been corrupted. Then some day Venusians s of the future will invest huge amounts of money on exploring "this Earth" because it supports life and they will discover that although there is evidence of an advanced civilisation there, it is only now populated by animals and they are in fact the decendants of Earth. Then they will send missions to Mars and find the Marsians are in fact decendants of Earth too but they have not developed technologically as well as the Venusians ( the low gravity has got to their head!!)

Re:No !

[prgrmr]

We have no way of telling that a massive release of gas on Mars would not eventually come back to haunt us here on Earth.

For what value of "massive" are you referring? The Sun produces "massive" releases of gas and plasma constantly. Anything we do on Mars is going to be so much less energetic that it's ridiculous to consider as a possible threat to Earth.

Backhanded political statement

[fishbowl]

Nobody is really going to terraform Mars with greenhouse gases. But if you get people to accept the argument that greenhouse gases can cause global climate change, you win the political argument that it can, or does happen here. It forces the question quite handily.

Re:The Earth IS at Equilibrium

[twiddlingbits]

Conclusive proof does not exist for or against Scientific Theories like Global Warming. If you go back to the 1960s and 1970s you can find all sorts of ideas and theories about Global COOLING. The scientists can't make up thier minds. I wonder why? If they could all agree it IS or it IS NOT happening then all the research money would dry up!! It's self preservation to change your mind after a 10-15 years when no one recalls what you said the first time!

Re:Original NASA Article from Feb/2001 with more i

[PMuse]

For an entertaining discussion of methods of terraforming Mars and the politics that go with them, see Red Mars [wikipedia.org] (1992), Green Mars [wikipedia.org] (1993) and Blue Mars [wikipedia.org] (1996) Kim Stanley Robinson [wikipedia.org], which scored a Nebula and two Hugos.

Re:Bad idea

[jdray]

I've been reading something over at space.com today that's a panel discussion regarding terraforming Mars [space.com]. Topics include could we, can we and should we?

Gravity

[PsiPsiStar]

I don't think mars has enough gravity to hold molecular oxygen.

On a related note, the Earth doesn't have the gravity to hold Hydrogen or Helium. I've always imagined that the stuff probably boils off at a rate that varies with the amount of water in the upper atmosphere.

And there seems to be a good amount of water entering due to mini comets (see Dr. Frankl's mini comet theory, which received support a few years back from some NASA studies. We may be constantly getting new water added, mostly to our upper atmosphere.) If some of this water were broken apart, with the Hydrogen escaping and the oxygen remaining, this would be another argument in favor of early earth having an oxidizing atmosphere, an issue currently under some debate.

BTW, does anyone know if there any planets that actually have been confirmed to have a reducing atmosphere? Does Venus?

Re:Original NASA Article from Feb/2001 with more i

[PsiPsiStar]

You're seriously scaring me.

But here's somthing I've never quite understood. I can understand how eutrophic ponds become anoxic when you have a sudden die-off and decomposition. But with the ocean, the surface should remain oxygenated (since it has living plantlife) but the depths would be anoxic. You can only suck so much oxygen from the water. Not all the plantlife would decay since you can only take so much oxygen out of the water and most of the organic matter would be buried under sediment.

The surface and depths should be separated by several thermoclines so the water won't mix like it would in a lake.

And oceans don't 'turn over' the same way that lakes do (though they do cycle, but that happens slowly over several centuries). So would an algal bloom really cause anoxyic conditions in water that was several miles deep the same way that it would in a shallow pond?

Bring a big magnet too...

[PhreakOfTime]

Ill admit, I didnt RTFA. But the general thing Im reading here is based on an AWEFUL lot of assumptions, most of which arent true.

Terraforming another plante, sounds good on paper. But can we please pick a planet that is shielded from the solar wind so all the 'efforts' arent wasted away, or in this case blown away into outer space.

Without an active magnetic field, the upper atmosphere of mars would be directly exposed to solar flares, radiation storms, etc. Which is why there is no atmosphere there now. Nothing to do with water on the surface, it just sublimates and gets ejected off the planet anyway if there was water.

So until someone figures out a way to start a regenerating dynamo half the size of the planet mars INSIDE the planet mars, can we stop with the mental masturbation?

Re:Easy!

[bzipitidoo]

I believe Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed [amazon.com] is better researched and thought out than Crichton's State of Fear. A common route to failure was denial, until the problem got so bad that society could no longer handle it. False alarms are also a problem, but from what I hear and see, global warming is real.

What to do about global warming? Perhaps if we were really motivated, we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to matter without wrecking our economies, otherwise that cure might be worse than the disease. Or maybe we shouldn't try to stop global warming but instead get ready for it by moving people to higher ground, working on more drought and heat tolerant crop varieties, adding irrigation, inventing and stockpiling vaccines for hundreds of tropical diseases, and other measures.

Re:Bad idea

[Alan Partridge]

Well, as we've fucked up the Earth already, we'd better start terraforming Mars ASAP. If we're content to render hundreds of Earth species extinct, I don't see it makes sense to be precious about a few Martian bacteria.

Re:No life on Mars?

[Lord Ender]

Humanity doesn't need to spread to other planets for "elbow room." It needs to spread for the survival of the human race! There is no more important goal in the history humanity than to establish itself on other planets. For all we know, if we don't get off of Earth. life itself may vanish throughout the universe.

Venus is more suitable than Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

Venus despite greater difficulty in creating a stable environment suitable for terran life to adapt will ultimately prove more hospitable to humans.

The most crucial factor is that Venus' gravity is close to earth's, I'm not sure if it is close enough for human comfort, but is much closer than mars'.

Venus has an extremely dense mostly CO2 Atomosphere and if cooled could probably begin supporting green organisms immediately. Cooling Venus is in fact easier than warming mars. All it requires is an artificial satellite (albeit a large one) between venus and the sun to control the amount of sunlight reaching venus.

I do not wish to join in the debate on the ethics of space colonisaztion, as I consider it a moot point. And am clearly in the minority on this thread because I wholeheartedly support it.

I also think efforts at Terraforming both Mars and Venus could be a huge impetus for international cooperation.

Re:Could we increase the mass?

[DonVictor]

The asteroid belt has a mass of about 1/10 earth. One alternative to dropping them directly on the surface, is that the asteroids could be accreted into a moon, perhaps using one of the existing moons as a starting point, or joining the existing moons together (by manipulating the velocities of the asteroids. The merged moons, plus asteroidal mass would form a large moon. Lunar tidal effects would heat the planet just as the lunar tides on earth cause friction and release some kinetic energy.

This kinetic heating would be a slower effect, but would not have the "instant heat and violence" of just hitting Mt. Olympus with the rocks. Of course the difficulty level is still pegged at "essentially impossible".

One approach to get this asteroid-pinball started would be to attach solar sails to asteroids -- a small CPU should be enough to control the sails to "brake" the asteroids and spiral their orbit toward mars. (But it would still take an enormous amount of time.)

The results could also be split - use some asteroids to hammer the surface (for heat and to release gasses) and others for moon building.

Re:interesting

[dgatwood]

It shouldn't be that hard. The core of Mars is thought to be liquid iron. The problem is that liquid iron doesn't hold a magnetic field. What we need to do is thermal ducting. Release enough core heat that the center will solidify, all the while heating the surface enough to sustain life.

The problem is that with our luck, the center wouldn't cool, but rather the outer portions of the core would cool, and eventually we'd end up with a tectonically dead planet, which is probably not what you want... but we'd have centuries to solve that little problem....

Alternately we could move our power plants to Mars, use a directed EM field to send the power back to collection stations in orbit around Earth, and allow some of the waste EM to magnetize the iron in the soil on Mars.... Maybe. I'd hate to think about the safety concerns on that one, though.... :-)

Very poor sledding

[andrewwyld]

This is all top-of-the-head stuff, but I remember reading once that a planet's escape velocity should exceed the RMS velocity of a gas by about six to retain that gas at that temperature. Mars's escape velocity is about 5 kms-1, and the RMS velocity of O2 molecules at room temperature according to this website [psigate.ac.uk] is about 500 ms-1. No problem so far, but water molecules weigh just over half what oxygen molecules weigh, the RMS velocity of water vapour will be about sqrt(2) higher, putting it in the borderline bracket.

Since water evaporation takes a great deal of heat from liquid water, I imagine the continuous loss of water vapour from the Martian atmosphere would tend to cool the planet, reversing any terraforming effort, while leaching away the natural water resources which are thought to exist and which would be necessary to sustain life in a terraformed settlement -- leaving Mars drier and more wintry than ever ...

... I'm pretty sure every single step of that argument is seriously flawed, but frankly I doubt we have enough energy to terraform Mars anyway.