Warming a Tiny Piece of Mars For Terraforming

dptalia writes "It's been a dream of science fiction writers everywhere that we would eventually terraform Mars. Now an engineering student has proposed a way to terraform only a kilometer of Mars. By building an array of space based mirrors to focus the sun's light, a small area of Mars could be warmed to about 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) which would make it easier for explorers to work and live there. Since Mars' atmosphere is thin, the mirrors would have to be carefully designed to prevent them from reflecting harmful radiation as well as light and warmth."

Gamma radiation!? WTF?

[Tackhead]

From TFA:

> Woida points out another potential problem. If not carefully designed, the mirrors could focus harmful high-frequency radiation like gamma rays onto the surface.

Woida, if you've got a way to make mylar balloons capable of reflecting gamma rays onto a single focal point, there are some guys in the DoE and the DoD who would like to talk to you, and they pay way better than NASA.

Re:I think is to stupid...

[sillybilly]

It could be a means of saving life on ours. It's called diversifying your portfolio instead of putting all your eggs in one basket. Mars could be a second basket to keep some eggs in. If either goes under, life from the other one can "come back to life a dead planet."

Terraform Earth

[weston]

Aside from the difficulties with terraforming Mars mentioned in other comments, I sometimes wonder why there isn't a little more effort put into doing terraforming experiments where land and resources are a little more accessible: earth.

There's plenty of pretty hostile environments here we could start to practice on, but I rarely see anything indicating we're doing much beyond putting good air conditioning units in new houses in Lancaster so we can build layer 60 of suburbia around LA....

Earth II

[Doc Ruby]

Yes, of course we should start terraforming Mars before we've even really begun to look for existing life there that we'd destroy. Why worry about exterminating an entire planet when there's condos to be built?

Re:Earth II

[nasch]

Yes, of course we should start terraforming Mars before we've even really begun to look for existing life there that we'd destroy.

If it's us or them, I vote us. Now it may not be us or them. But if at some point we have to choose between saving Earth life and saving Mars life (should there be any), guess which way that's going?

Re:Terraform Earth

[LindseyJ]

What hostile environments on earth do you think we should be terraforming? The Sahara? Nope, animals live there. Can't destory their habitats, even if it would mean thousands of acres of farmland to feed a starving continent. Gobi? Nope, animals live there too.

I never understood people who say we should "terraform" places on our planet. By the very definition, that's impossible. Our planet is already formed like terra.

Re:I thought the problem was the geodynamic thing.

[Sperbels]

I thought the problem with Mars was the geodynamic thing with the molten core that forms a magneosphere that would prevent solar winds from blowing away an atmosphere?

That's not really an issue addressed by the article. But if we were to one day to add atmosphere to Mars, it would bleed away slowly over thousands/millions of years. So it's no necessarily impractical (if you have the means).

Nuclear Energy

[TamCaP]

The main problem is that they have to be launched first. Although I understand that we are not talking about 5 years here but more like 50 or even 100, but there is this huge anti-nuclear-whatever trend in the world (and I am talking power-plants, research(!), etc.) so that launching any nuclear device into space may be put between the fairy tales at the moment...

However, they definitely used to do it - look at Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 satellites for example - they were equipped with RTG generators. And I think some fairly recent NASA mission too (Cassini?).

Re:Water?

[Ginger Unicorn]

it always bemuses me that whenever there is a new invention/scientific project reported on slashdot, a gaggle of slashbots assume that their casual understanding of physics/engineering means they are qualified to rubbish the entire idea as if the qualified scientists and engineers that proposed it are just pulling stuff out of their asses.

stupid, ignorant, arrogance.