Not Scientific Science
Created | Updated Nov 18, 2004
The future of the Human Species - Part 31: How do we engineer an
Earth-like environment?
The process of making an unearthly world more earth-like for the purpose of supporting human life is called teraforming -
Steven Wintergerst.
Teraforming Mars is the only way. We humans can live and reproduce
thus starting all over again on the red planet. As stated above,
teraforming transforms any world unlike Earth into an inhabitable
place for humans. Of course we cannot convert another planet, Mars for
example, 100% into Earth. However Mars must resemble Earth in the
following aspects:
- Thicken the small existing atmosphere and make it comprise the
important gases required for life, in their needed volume. - A new magnetosphere should be set up. A magnetosphere will protect
inhabitants and every other object on Mars from being beamed with
cosmic rays from outer space. All lives are in danger of being
destroyed by cosmic rays as they may destroy DNA bonds of common life. - Make the temperature more or less similar to that of Earth. As you
know, Mars is colder than Earth as the red planet is further away from
the sun than Earth is.
Some issues however cannot be changed. The main ones are:
- Gravity of Mars is much lower than that of Earth. If ever humans
settle there, they will have to cope with this. They will use much
less effort to move about on Mars. But they will then be condemned to
stay there unless they exercise regularly. This is simply because
their muscles will become weaker and weaker and smaller and smaller in
size. These muscles will not be able to cope with the much larger
effort needed to walk on Earth. - Mars is dead. They are no forests nor any bush. In fact there are
no greens. Mars is forced to remain as this unless we re-melt its core
(that's a joke by the way).
As written above, Mars has a small atmosphere and it should be
prevented from completely vaporizing off. One proposed strategy to
prevent the vaporization is to put satellites around Mars but only
just outside the planet's orbit. When the satellites fly near the
atmosphere, they will pull the thin atmosphere. When the same
satellites following their own orbit go further away from Mars, the
atmosphere will fall closer to the planet thanks to Mars's gravity.
The latter has pulled its atmosphere back down. When this process is
done over and over again, the Martian atmosphere will thicken.
Another problem is a magnetosphere. A magnetosphere is a region of
space surrounding, in this case, Mars. The magnetosphere is thus
dominated by the object's magnetic field so that charged particles
(found in cosmic rays) are trapped in it. Mars doesn't have any such
protection and we should try to set one up. Because I don't have any
extremely good ideas about how to solve this problem, what I am going
to say may seem like science fiction but who knows...
How about installing giant electromagnets in strategic places of Mars? These will act as a big magnet and this is exactly what the
magnetosphere is.
Many people think that to make Mars habitable, we only need to take
the planet's temperature into consideration. Well this is not true, of
course, but these people will also insist that to succeed in making the
temperature of Mars the same as that of Earth, we only have to crash an
asteroid or even a comet into Mars.
Now, when you come to think of it, the basic essence of this idea is;
If ever we manage to crash a space rock on Mars and this is yet
another problem, the temperature of Mars will gradually increase. This
is due to the fact that greenhouse gases like methane and carbon
dioxide will be released. They will then trap heat making the planet
become hotter and hotter. Unfortunately, scientists are working on
teraforming so as to manage to make man, one day, live on Mars! The
latter's air thus has to be, well... breathable! If the asteroid/comet
theory is put in practise, the percentage of these greenhouse gases
will mount instantly and will take ages to drop back to normal.
To me huge mirrors might work out alright. These will orbit Mars and
reflect light and heat from the sun to the red planet. Another idea is
that instead of using these man made mirror-satellite, why not use
natural mirror-satellites? Mars has two natural satellites orbiting it
namely Phobos and Deimos. We could cover these with mirrors! They may
then act as the mirror-satellites and reflect light and heat onto
Mars.
Many of the present ideas of how to teraform Mars seem ridiculous and
only good for science fiction movies but isn't teraforming itself
still in the realm of science fiction? Maybe these ideas will, one
day, form part of the revolutionary ideas mankind has had; but maybe
they will not.
Teraforming is a dream. And this dream lies on the shoulders of the
next generation of scientists and astronauts. But we really should
bear in mind that teraforming Mars is only a small step in human
flight for survival. When the sun blows up, both Earth and Mars will
disintegrate. Teraforming Mars is only an experiment before really
doing the ultimate job: teraforming a planet outside the solar system
for humans to live in peace at least for some millennia. Can humans bear a 2 year-long voyage in shuttle condition though? Won't we be obliged to modify ourselves to make this Mars experiment a
success?
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