Mars One is a project in which humans will be sent to Mars to develop a permanent settlement and colonize a completely new planet, essentially transforming it into another Earth. Is this possible? Let's discuss.
What are the conditions on Mars today?
- Temperatures reach -60 degrees Celsius
- It has un-breathable air composed of 95.97% Carbon Dioxide
- It receives deadly doses of radiation due to not having an atmosphere
If you put 2 and 2 together, humans simply cannot live there; but could we use technology to change the conditions to terraform it? Terraforming is simply the Science of transforming a planet to support human life. What must need to be done to be able to achieve this?
Terraforming Mars into Earth 2.0
Mars would need an Earth like atmosphere
The history of Mars
Roughly 4 billion years ago, Mars had many similarities to Earth. It had an atmosphere and its soil absorbed Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen. Active volcanoes then put them back into the atmosphere so the cycle repeated. Asteroids hitting Mars also kept it nice and warm. It also had a magnetic field which protected the atmosphere from being stripped away from the Sun's radiation.
Eventually the planet cooled and its magnetic field died down, volcanoes stopped erupting and asteroid collision rate went down. One thing that did not change is the martian soil continued to absorb the contents of the atmosphere, and solar winds stripped away what was left leaving Mars in the state we see it today.
How can we produce it a new atmosphere?
In simple terms, we must induce a massive Global Warming effect. Technology can be used to extract Carbon, Fluorine and Sulfur in its soil, convert them into greenhouse gases and pump them into the air.
Figure 1: A picture of Mars' south pole. Image shows dry ice which is frozen Carbon Dioxide
These greenhouse gases begin to trap heat from the sun, slowly warming up the south pole of Mars causing the sublimation of this dry ice. Sublimation is converting a solid directly into a gas. The result of this would help trap more heat from the Sun, which again, releases more greenhouse gases.
While this sounds like great news, it would take a long time. Besides that, these machines would need a lot of resources which are not readily available.
In that case, what else can we do?
Humans can build a machine which is effectively a huge mirror that they can put into Mars' orbit, which reflects sunlight onto its ice cap which would cause sublimation of this Carbon Dioxide, releasing it into the air.
Another way would be bombarding the planet with asteroids. Asteroids on the edge of the solar system can be captured and rocket engines can be used to propel them into Mars. There comes a problem with doing this though. This problem is that the power of this asteroid would be like a 70,000 megaton Hydrogen bomb striking its surface. This means if we were to do this, we must do it before humans land on the planet.
Now that we have an atmosphere, is that it?
Having just an atmosphere is not enough. This atmosphere would need an ozone layer to absorb some of the sun's Ultraviolet radiation which is dangerous to humans in high doses. To solve this, organisms can be introduced which release oxygen as a by-product eventually forming an ozone layer.
But what about Nitrogen? We would need to release Nitrogen to achieve an Earth like atmosphere. Bacteria could be used to extract trapped Nitrogen in the soil into the air or again, by using Asteroids.
Do we have an Earth 2.0?
Not quite. How would Mars hold on to this newly created atmosphere without a magnetic field. A magnetic field is needed to fend off solar winds from stripping it away. This is the biggest problem humans will encounter when attempting to terraform the planet. In fact, we don't quite know how to do that yet. On Earth, its core is made up of liquid metals which cause the magnetic fields. If we knew how to melt Mars' core which is solid metal, not liquid, it would bring back this magnetic field.
Mission would then certainly be accomplished. Bringing in water and plants would finish the job and it would only be a matter of time before humans would colonize what would now be known as Earth 2.0.
This video will help fill in some gaps in this article!
Please don't hesitate to look at my other posts. Some may end up interesting you!
Until next time, take care.
~ Mystifact
Hey... Mars here.... please don't change me into earth... Jups will ram uranus if you do....
This caught me off guard. I salute you my friend
Tell America mars has oil. :P
The amount of money needed to accomplish all theses things are astronomical. What people need to realize is the we have one earth and we need to make radical changes to keep in intact. With the amount of money used toward colonizing mars we could stop world hungry, have a world basic income and stop climate change before its too late. Once this is accomplished and our world is safe then we should branch out to try and colonize mars
Colonizing Mars I don't think we will ever see this in our lifetime but I'm sure that if anyone can do it's the people at NASA
lol NASA will never do anything because the USA only cares about killing brown-people in the middle east mate.
I like to think if it was up to the USA citizens we'd be spending 500+ Billion on space instead of destroying things in the developing world.
NASA could do incredible things but, off hand, thier budget is liek 3-4 Billion i think? Nothing compared to the money our leaders send to warfare inc.
Exactly, but sadly unless we overthrow the government that's never going to become a reality
That's going to take a lot of money. I don't think that We would ever see, in our lifetime people living in mars . I'm sure it can be done @mannyfig1956
I agree, it probably will be in the next 2 generations if it does end up happening!
Is there Life???
Space is fake. Aliens are demons. It's the great deception. Don't be deceived.
But if aliens can live there, then human why not?
Great insight, hats off! Upvoted and restemmed
Appreciate it thank you for your kind comment!
It would make more sense to have a lunar base, extra orbit base and then colony ships.
All of this is possible, it all comes down to money
Terraformation is possible on every planet, its about having the necessary technology and having the proper funding, nothing more, nothing less
I don't see Mercury beeing terraformed.
You could still have a civilization on it with proper tech though.
I strongly disagree. Firstly time is a huge factor if it was possible on every planet, but there are some planets where it is literally impossible to alter the atmosphere and temperature to support human life. In fact terraforming anywhere BUT mars in our solar system is pretty much impossible
We can, certainly. It's good to have a "backup" drive, so to speak.
But the point remains. If we took care of our own planet, this wouldn't be as pressing of an issue.
Glad I could respond, hope you will do the same and looking forward to hearing back : )
Thank you for your comment, yes I agree in that we must take care of what we have got before worrying about how we can colonize a different planet!
was starting to wonder what happen to all the talk about mars. I feel no matter what said, it is a money thing. NASA has always been about the money. Great information man. Thanks for the update. Cheers!
#follow4follow
Thanks for your comment. Money is always an issue but in this case time is also an issue. Besides even with the money, what we planned may not work accordingly as we have never done anything like this before!
It would be big to be living when they ever figure it out !
Yea ofc one day we can turn it like earth but I think it will be destroyed like our planet
I t does sound interesting. Still, I don't understand why anyone would want to divert time, money, and untold resources into making Mars habitable. Wouldn't this be better spent making Earth more habitable to all people? Meaning the countless impoverished and starving people of the world.
Just an idea...
The issue with that is you have people innovating in every area of life. Telling people to take that money and put that into more important things basically puts a lot of people and industries out of their jobs. I agree with you but the sad truth is it may never happen!
You're probably right about that, unfortunately.
I dont think that this is possible. The price would simply way to high.
It may not be possible at all if we don't figure out how to melt Mars' core!
We already pump out massive amounts of greenhouses gasses I don't see how its going to be an issue here! I hear we have a mission to land people on Mars in 2020
space is fake. why would we spend so much money on bullshit when so many are starving around the world??? Can't you see this is a distraction??? WE DID NOT EVEN GO TO THE MOON. How do you think this is real???? All space is basically CGI and lies based on the 'theory' of gravity.
By that definition you're also CGI why does anything matters to a CGI? Lol I know it's sarcasm I'm just kidding.
On the off chance you are not being sarcastic; taking all the money from different industries to put everyone homeless under a ceiling or food in their mouths, means these industries have no jobs anymore. While this idea is what most people want, it will sadly probably never happen.
Let me ask you a question.. why not? If most of us want it, can we not simply take it? (Rhetorical)
This an interesting concept! Of course it is inevitable that sooner or later we are going to start moving out and spreading ourselves around the galaxy.
I wonder though if you can say why we aren't starting on the moon to get a stable colony going there first, and learn from that a bit closer to home? Im sure there is a good reason but I can't think of it!
thanks!
The moon is too small to have an atmosphere of itself. It has no magnetic field to protect an atmosphere if it had one, and doesn't even spin about its axis meaning one side is always day and the other is always night. The gravity is too low and there is no water on this planet. I hope this helps answer your question!
i guess that's why they are called moons and not planets! RIght thanks that makes perfect sense!
I don't mean to be a downer or to deny that scientific progress is good; however, humanity MUST invest the time and resources to heal and improve the Earth before setting out to "improve" an entirely alien planet. I mean... what's easier, correcting our mistake here at home, or shipping a jillion gigatons of equipment into space for a mission that is guaranteed to fail the first few times we try it? Food for thought.
"The issue with that is you have people innovating in every area of life. Telling people to take that money and put that into more important things basically puts a lot of people and industries out of their jobs. I agree with you but the sad truth is it may never happen!" hope this helps answer your question.
The period of time and energy needed to accomplish the mission are beyond interest of any politician. Their imagination is very limited (determined by a term).