Terraforming of Mars -- some informal remarks

Mars is the place... I've mentioned it before... now I'm doing it again.

The planet Mars in uninhabitable.

It is a rather sterile desert. It has got some negiligble atmosphere but man can't live there.

Not today. But we can terraform it. Transform the planet into something more hospitable.

We can transmogrify it, transfigurate it... with current scientific means (mutatis mutandum)..

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Terraforming: this way we could make the arid Red Planet habitable for man. Making it livable, without the need for space suits or pressurized habitats.

As we all know, Mars is situated in the bio-friendly zone because of its relative proximity to the sun.

Neither too hot (like Mercury) or too cold (like Pluto).

So the plan to transform this desert world into a world of breathable atmosphere and waterways, maybe even seas, is deemed within the scope of possibility.

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First, the damaged magnetosphere of Mars must be redressed, this being a prerequisite for any life to sprout, shielding the world from harmful cosmic radiation. This could be done with a network of generators creating a magnetic field, using the principle of holographic immanence. Admitted, this technology is still rather "potential" and unrealized, and not scientifically proved. Re-creating a magnet field for Mars is difficult.

But let us suppose that this problem is solved. Then we have the greening, “gardening” part of it all, making the desert grow and produce its own oxygen. This would take about about fifty to one hundred years. Those “fifty to one hundred years” are a rather long time from a human perspective. The basic wisdom of that is, you can’t hurry nature. Give it time...!

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As for details of the process, after having this rather necessary magnetosphere in place, oxygen is needed. Put simply, this can be done by sowing certain algae that would generate it. Then it would be on to sowing fungi, fern, herbs, etc.

For the plants water is needed. For this, the Martian polar ice caps can be covered with dust, spread by crawler robots. This would, with time, melt the ice shields and water the seeds that other robots have spread.

Also, the general temperature of the Martian surface can be raised by drilling holes releasing subsurface heat. Mars already has a thin atmosphere and now it can be thickened by bio-chemical means.

Given the above developments, the planet would be shielded from harmful radiation, it would have water, a budding, breathable atmosphere, and its temperature would have risen.

From then on we could colonize it. More about this in an earlier post.

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And when I say "we" can transform Mars into a new paradise... I of course mean Faustian Man, European Man, Northern Man... Absolute Man, Total Man, Magician man...

Of the "Faustian" nature of Mars colonization, I spoke in this post.



Sources (selective)
Anders Palm. Gröna Mars: Nasas planetbyggare skapar en ny värld. Teknikmagasinet 1/1984
Rachel K. Wentz. NASA Hopes to Rely on Algae and Bacteria for Oxygen Production on Mars. 16 May 2016



Related
Target: Mars
Sci fi short: Lessons of War