For years and decades now the concept of terraforming Mars has kept researchers and science experts on their feet scratching their heads to find a solution. This enthusiasm came from various fictional novels and movies that have given scientists hope that perhaps they can implement this idea. According to research, Mars has the potential to be humanity’s second home and they are trying to make this concept a reality.
If Mars is ever to be terraformed, it will be a monumental task. Terraforming Mars could take decades or even centuries in its initial stages. Additionally, we do not have the technological capacity to implement this initiative. This sobering realisation highlights the enormous obstacles that stand in our way of realising the aim of altering the Red Planet. NASA needs to reassess the grand dream of Terraforming Mars
The dream or vision of making Mars a planet that can give life to humanity is an interesting one. This concept has been part of scientific language and conversation for decades now and it promises not to just give humanity a different perspective, but, also to serve as plan B as the Earth is changing. Scientists have hypothesised that humanity may establish conditions conducive to human life on Mars by releasing greenhouse gases and altering Martian.
NASA has admitted to this impossible mission stating that It is not possible to terraform Mars with current technology. Mars’ thin atmosphere and deficiency in vital resources such as enough carbon dioxide that would be required to start a greenhouse effect and warm the planet are the main obstacles. The idea of converting Mars into an environment more like Earth is significantly more difficult than first thought due to the harsh reality of the planet’s current status.
Therefore, the issue is not entirely based on technology, but also based on the enormity of the resources needed. Less than 1% of Earth’s atmosphere is found on Mars, and the planet does not have a magnetic field to shield it from cosmic radiation. It is therefore a wise idea for scientists and researchers to discard this idea since reports state that it could take thousands of decades to implement this idea. Unless a new technology advances enough to take on this big idea. Obstacles on the journey to a habitable Mars: Scientific, material, and time
Mars does not have the nature or resources that are similar to Earth that can even give us hope. If it comprises less than 1% of what the Earth attributes, then it could be a waste of time, resources and investments. Due to the abundance of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (earth), heat is retained and a rather stable climate is produced. Mars’s sparse atmosphere prevents the planet from efficiently retaining heat.
According to Bonsor (n.d.), NASA is reportedly developing a solar sail propulsion technology that would harness solar energy to power spaceships through the use of enormous reflective mirrors. Placing these massive mirrors a few hundred thousand kilometres away from Mars would be another way to use them: to heat the Martian surface by reflecting solar radiation.
NASA has found that, even in the event that all of Mars’ CO2 could be released, the atmospheric pressure required for human survival without a spacesuit would not be produced. The entire accessible carbon dioxide is insufficient to generate a habitable atmosphere, and transferring more gases from Earth or other celestial planets is currently beyond our technical capabilities.
The lack of a magnetic field on Mars presents another significant difficulty. The Earth’s magnetic field is essential for protecting the world from solar winds and dangerous cosmic radiation, which would otherwise remove our atmosphere. Mars has a thin atmosphere now because billions of years ago, the planet lost its magnetic field. It is just not possible to build an artificial magnetic shield using the technologies available today in order to terraform Mars.
The idea of terraforming may not be fully realised for several millennia, even though humans might visit Mars this century. It took the Earth billions of years to develop into a planet on which plants and animals could flourish. It is not an easy task to change the Martian landscape to resemble Earth. To create a livable environment and introduce life to the icy, arid planet of Mars, generations of human creativity and labour will be required (Bonsor, n.d).
You don't necessarily need to terraform Mars.
Everyone is thinking Humans, land first, then live on there. I think we are putting the cart before the horse on this. Now getting a human there on the ground and back - doable. Just not the most practicable. Maybe somewhat suatainable but risky.
We have robotics, VR, cell and wireless tech. We can fairly easily build a space station around Mars. Set up a VR lab in the station and Avatar robots down there. I really am suprised we are not pioneering this tech with our current space station. Wouldn't it be cool to walk up to an Avatar bot controlled by someone on the ISS? That would be a great moment. Robots cheaper than humans and the systems required to keep them alive. They can also build.
That way if the robot breaks down you just send another to replace / fix. No need to worry about human suits, tears, squishy living things. They're all safe up in the station. The amount of work that can be done would be exponential. You wouldn't need to worry so much about time delays or planning careful routes. So much more ground could be covered in much higher detail because you don't need to worry so much about bandwith and power tranmission requirements, youxre just beaming to the local satellites which will beam it to the nearby station which will have far greater capabilities.
We can set up a logistics of power and refuling trains to go back and forth. Ion engines, batteries powered by the sun. Ect. You'd just need to get things into low Earth orbit and then hook up with your thrust module to get to Mars. You don't need massive gargantuan Saturn V Starship rockets for everything.
We can absolutely do this. We can do it with the Moon too to really test it out.
Oxygen? Rocks. Iron OXIDE. Titanium diOXIDE. If you really want people. That's a do-able thing I think. It just needs to be researched. We don't have a need here because Oxygen is plentiful here. But I think this will be key to just make our own water rather than trying to find some underground hidden glacier in the shadow of a crater in the poles to sustain human life. Hydrogen is plentiful too. Make our own water, litterly squeezing water from a stone.
Lack of magnetic field, dynamo is what allowed Mars' atmosphere to just leech off into space. My theory is a big asteroid punched it and created Olympus Mons where the core was ejected out / knocked out of comission. Reguardless we can't fix that right now. Any atmosphere for humans is going to have to be contained within either a suit or a vessel.
We can store energy from the sun and ship it wherever it needs to go, and even have a logistics train to do this and refill them. Have a standardized battery pack adapter that can be swapped out. Use this to also build out a high bandwith communications relay network for the solar system and beyond. We can then set out satelites and telescopes in deep space without having to consider as large or power hungry communications on them since we will have relay networks to carry the signal.
This will be the step we need to take advantage of the resources out there and expand humanity to get off this rock and maybe just maybe find some ETs.
Agreed generally. Counterargument though- billionaires, land first, then live(?) on there. Totally sustainable and it even returns a whole lot of wasted, poorly-allocated and ill-gained resources back into the system on Earth for humanity to benefit from immediately. Highly practicable (and flexible, once they're out of orbit it doesn't matter where they go or if anything goes wrong), sustainable, and virtually zero risk (at most, the shuttles are a write-off- using catapults instead might remedy this).
The rest of the process you described can happen after, but I think this is the most appropriate course of action.
I like the vision, but I think just shooting them out of a cannon is probably going to achieve the same desired results with less expenditure.