Could mars be habitable due to terraforming?

[Vane]

I just started playing red faction guerilla and i saw that it said the EDF Made mars habitable by terraforming, And i know what you think GAMES ARE NOT REAL. Well i did my research and NASA And Russian Spain etc Space Scientists say that if we could terraform mars, It'd be habitable as a seccond homeworld for us. And we all should know by now that in about 5-7 billion years later the sun will enter Red Giant Phase possibly meaning the end of civilization earthm venus and mercury and by then we'd have made it to mars once, We could do it again. We'd start a year or more before the sun's red giant phase, At the end getting every single human being on mars, With the terraforming we can breath without oxygen tanks/space suits. And mars will not get affected by the sun, Meaning the ultimate victory for the human race, A race against the sun won. And a few more trillion years of the human race. Now woulden't that be a great cheat of the end? Only the earth and the moon would be gone, But hey atleast we survived. It's how the world goes, We got to make sacrifices sometimes. And earth would be one of them. But if we lived on mars we really woulden't have anything to worry about. By the time the last group of humans got on mars, Mars would be a giant new york city still alot to be built yes, But we'd have a new life on mars a few more trillion years for the human race, And a triumphant victory against the sun... Seems like a great ending to a looking vague situation dont you think?

So yeah think on this and see the logicness that if we can get to mars, We could defeat the sun.

It's wraith would have been stretched to it's limit.

Now there's the possibility earth could survive but a molten rock...Not too habitable mars on the other hand would not be a molten rock. And hey i heard mars's sun is beautiful this trillion more years I personally would love to live on mars i've seen online pictures and it looks so beautiful, I mean yeah it has it's ups and it's downs, But hey we'd have no wars unless we actually brought the enemies of america to mars with us, Only needing to fight a war of Martians if they exist witch if they did it'd be on some other planet not mars. If mars ain't habitable for us right now, Same for martians they are organics like us, Only advanced but so would we be advanced. And hey gliese 586 i think thats the number is a galaxy trillions of years away and top that, in light distances... count this: 10000000000000000000000000000000000000 Years away, So i think the martians would think about tunin their spaceships before coming that long... And while were on the topic is gliese 586 that star system that was said to have been a past homeworld to aliens or is that some other star sytem? I thought there was a planet in there that was said to be a past world to aliens? Also kerbals aren't aliens we're green humans hehe.

[Nibb31]

I just started playing red faction guerilla and i saw that it said the EDF Made mars habitable by terraforming, And i know what you think GAMES ARE NOT REAL. Well i did my research and NASA And Russian Spain etc Space Scientists say that if we could terraform mars, It'd be habitable as a seccond homeworld for us. And we all should know by now that in about 5-7 billion years later the sun will enter Red Giant Phase possibly meaning the end of civilization earthm venus and mercury and by then we'd have made it to mars once, We could do it again. We'd start a year or more before the sun's red giant phase, At the end getting every single human being on mars, With the terraforming we can breath without oxygen tanks/space suits. And mars will not get affected by the sun, Meaning the ultimate victory for the human race, A race against the sun won. And a few more trillion years of the human race. Now woulden't that be a great cheat of the end? Only the earth and the moon would be gone, But hey atleast we survived. It's how the world goes, We got to make sacrifices sometimes. And earth would be one of them. But if we lived on mars we really woulden't have anything to worry about. By the time the last group of humans got on mars, Mars would be a giant new york city still alot to be built yes, But we'd have a new life on mars a few more trillion years for the human race, And a triumphant victory against the sun... Seems like a great ending to a looking vague situation dont you think?

The Earth is 5 billion years old. Humanity is 200000 years old, and most of that time was spent hunting mamouths and eating roots and berries. Civilization is less than 10000 years old. If any of our descendants are still around in 5 billion years, they will be so different from what we are now that you probably wouldn't recognize them as human. And the Earth will be as vastly a different planet to us as it was 5 billion years ago. At these timescales, we are talking about aliens living on a different planet, not our descendants.

People from 300 years ago would not be able to comprehend our modern world. Air travel, satellite TV, modern medicine or the Internet would be completely alien to them, like magic. Speculating about where humanity might be in a few hundred years, let alone several billion is pretty much meaningless.

I mean yeah it has it's ups and it's downs, But hey we'd have no wars unless we actually brought the enemies of america to mars with us,

Do you seriously think that "America" will still have any meaning in 5 billion years? Plate tectonics will have completely remodeled the planet by then anyway.

Humanity is a diverse group. Wherever it goes, it will bring its conflicts with it.

Only needing to fight a war of Martians if they exist witch if they did it'd be on some other planet not mars. If mars ain't habitable for us right now, Same for martians they are organics like us, Only advanced but so would we be advanced.

There are no signs of life on Mars. If there is life, it will only be at a macrobiotic level.

[Awaras]

If we (humans as a whole or our descendants) are still alive in the next 5-7 billion years and have not yet colonized the entire Milky Way galaxy (and a few neighbouring ones for good measure) then they deserve to become extinct...

Even without any fancy FTL, it would take just a few million years to do it, not billions.

And besides, the Sun might make Earth uninhabitable to humans far, far sooner than that...

[Seret]

The human race will be loooooong gone in 5 billion years. If we're lucky some of our distant descendants may still be around. Who knows, maybe a gene you carry will make it?

As for terraforming, I'm sceptical of the whole concept. Geoengineering is still a speculative field, we lack the actual technology to be able to do it in a controlled and coherent fashion. Doing it on another planet would be astoundingly expensive, one would have to ask the question: who's paying? The process would take hundreds or thousands of years, so you couldn't fund it through the sale of land.

I'm of the opinion that by the time out technology becomes advanced enough that we're able to even consider such enormous projects in space we'd simply be able to create permanent habitats in space. Why bother with planets at all? Instead of shoehorning an alien planet into Earth-like conditions, just create Earth-like conditions from scratch. The other obvious option would be remodelling the human physiology to suit the location, rather than vice versa. Granted that's not really an option for Mars, but it's possible we'll find exoplanets that could be inhabited by modified humans.

[Vane]

Hey guys i understand your opinion, But what if we're still a race? And i did believe america would be there still it's a country, I may be naive but i didn't know or even think that the name of the countries would be affected.

But yeah, About the living in space not a planet thing. Living in space would be harder, And waay more expensive for the reason we'd need to make artifical gravity wells so we don't fly everywhere, Moving food stocks and even buildings and construction Mars already has the gravity we'd need.

[Ravenchant]

People from 300 years ago would not be able to comprehend our modern world. Air travel, satellite TV, modern medicine or the Internet would be completely alien to them, like magic

To be fair, though, the human body didn't actually change that much in the past couple of 10 000's of years. If you could somehow acquire a Cro-Magnon newborn and bring it to the present, there's no reason it couldn't become a particle physicist or neurosurgeon. Education is an amazing thing.

[TwoHedWlf]

To be fair, though, the human body didn't actually change that much in the past couple of 10 000's of years. If you could somehow acquire a Cro-Magnon newborn and bring it to the present, there's no reason it couldn't become a particle physicist or neurosurgeon. Education is an amazing thing.

True, but we're not talking a time frame of "Species slightly evolved" We're talking longer than it's taken for the first life to appear and evolve billions of different species eventually one of them being humans. In the 4 billion or years before earth becomes uninhabitable life on earth might have evolved so far we wouldn't even recognize it as life.

[Seret]

And i did believe america would be there still it's a country, I may be naive but i didn't know or even think that the name of the countries would be affected.

If you took a map from 500 years ago, very few of the countries we know now would be represented. Go back 5000 years and none of them would be. The idea of nation states is actually pretty recent, but even if you take the old definition of a country (the bit a certain king could hold) they're just cultural artefacts. As culture changes, so do the countries.

5 billion years is a really, insanely long period of time. That's about a third of the age of the universe, or about as long as life has existed on Earth. Humanity is the blink of an eye compared to all that. Very, very few species have lasted more than a few million years, let alone billions.

[Nibb31]

Hey guys i understand your opinion, But what if we're still a race? And i did believe america would be there still it's a country, I may be naive but i didn't know or even think that the name of the countries would be affected.

Why would you think that? The USA isn't even 250 years old. That's 1/200,000,000th of the Earth's entire existence. Brought down to the scale of an average human lifetime of 80 years, the USA has only existed for less than 2 minutes.

What makes you think the USA will last thousands, let alone billions of years? Can you name a single political or cultural entity that has survived more than 500 years in a recognisable form?

You don't seem to have much of a grasp of the time scale of things that you are talking about.

But yeah, About the living in space not a planet thing. Living in space would be harder, And waay more expensive for the reason we'd need to make artifical gravity wells so we don't fly everywhere, Moving food stocks and even buildings and construction Mars already has the gravity we'd need.

Gravity will be the smallest of our problems if we plan to still be around in the next thousand years. We have much harder problems to tackle before we start thinking about our Sun going supernova.

[Vane]

Why would you think that? The USA isn't even 250 years old. That's 1/200,000,000th of the Earth's entire existence. Brought down to the scale of an average human lifetime of 80 years, the USA has only existed for less than 2 minutes.

What makes you think the USA will last thousands, let alone billions of years? Can you name a single political or cultural entity that has survived more than 500 years in a recognisable form?

You don't seem to have much of a grasp of the time scale of things that you are talking about.

Gravity will be the smallest of our problems if we plan to still be around in the next thousand years. We have much harder problems to tackle before we start thinking about our Sun going supernova.

I do know this much, The sun dosen't have enough mass to go supernova. So it'll slowly turn into red giant engulf venus mercury and earth, Then die out and i think after a few more billion years if i remember correctly the sun will just explode? Correct me on the explode part.

[*Aqua*]

But hey we'd have no wars unless we actually brought the enemies of america to mars with us

The terraforming of Mars isn't something one nation can handle itself. It needs the corporation of at least all the western states for several thousand years. I guess there won't be an America by then.

Can you name a single political or cultural entity that has survived more than 500 years in a recognisable form?

If empires in the past count:

Holy Roman Empire (of German Nation) - the so called "First Reich"; founded in 962, dissolution in 1806.

Persia aka Iran is much older, 2.500 years maybe?

The ancient Egypt lasted for at least 4.000 years and its successor is still around. Together it makes a lifetime of 6.000 years.

This topic was already discussed some weeks ago: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/70211-Terraforming-Mars?p=1013567#post1013567

[TheGatesofLogic]

I think that was the biggest run-on sentence I've ever read. I recommend adding periods and spacing out your ideas. Oh, and thinking before you type something, yeah... that's pretty important too...

on a side note, there wouldn't be a "year before the red giant phase" the transition a few billion years and is very gradual, besides, terraforming mars would take a little more than a year, more like 2000 years, give or take half a millenia, just to establish a self-sustaining biosphere.

[TheDarkStar]

I do know this much, The sun dosen't have enough mass to go supernova. So it'll slowly turn into red giant engulf venus mercury and earth, Then die out and i think after a few more billion years if i remember correctly the sun will just explode? Correct me on the explode part.

The sun will expand as it becomes a red giant to eat at least Mercury and Venus and fry the Earth, but the Earth might end up getting pushed away to a more distant orbit instead of being absorbed by the Sun. Later on, the Sun will be unable to sustain fusion and shed layers of gas, leaving a white dwarf core surrounded by a nebula.

[GreatWyrmGold]

And we all should know by now that in about 5-7 billion years later the sun will enter Red Giant Phase possibly meaning the end of civilization...

We haven't made it a million years. If we're still around in a few billion years, we might consider needing to start on it.

5-7 billion years is longer than the Earth has existed. We've got a while. And, frankly, if we survived and don't have interstellar travel by then, we suck.

We'd start a year or more before the sun's red giant phase,

1. The "Red Giant" thing isn't "One day the Sun's small and yellow, the next it's big and red".

2. It would take much longer than a year to evacuate Earth. Even with portals of some kind running 24/7 and moving a thousand people every second, and the population of Earth (and other areas swallowed by the Sun) was only 10 billion, it would take over to three years to move everyone--and it's unlikely that we'd be so lucky on any count.

And a few more trillion years of the human race.

Improbable. If we're still dependent on Sol by then, we're doomed--it won't shine forever. Regardless, I don't see our civilization reaching the hundred-thousand-year mark without serious changes...

By the time the last group of humans got on mars, Mars would be a giant new york city...

1. Capitalize proper nouns.

2. There are places other than America on Earth, you know.

3. The whole Martian surface probably wouldn't be a city...but a lot more of it would be, which means that we'd have a really tough time feeding all those billions of refugees.

But hey we'd have no wars unless we actually brought the enemies of america to mars with us, Only needing to fight a war of Martians if they exist witch if they did it'd be on some other planet not mars.

There are so many things wrong with that.

1. Again, proper nouns. It's really starting to bug me.

2. What, only America gets Mars?

3. Wait, America still exists? Even though no nation on Earth today existed in any kind of form more than a few thousand years ago, and none more than a single thousand if we discount China, India, and possibly Japan?

3. "Which," not "witch".

4. They're not Martians if they're not on Mars.

If mars ain't habitable for us right now, Same for martians they are organics like us, Only advanced but so would we be advanced. And hey gliese 586 i think thats the number is a galaxy trillions of years away and top that, in light distances... count this: 10000000000000000000000000000000000000 Years away, So i think the martians would think about tunin their spaceships before coming that long... And while were on the topic is gliese 586 that star system that was said to have been a past homeworld to aliens or is that some other star sytem? I thought there was a planet in there that was said to be a past world to aliens? Also kerbals aren't aliens we're green humans hehe.

...

I'm of the opinion that by the time out technology becomes advanced enough that we're able to even consider such enormous projects in space we'd simply be able to create permanent habitats in space. Why bother with planets at all? Instead of shoehorning an alien planet into Earth-like conditions, just create Earth-like conditions from scratch. The other obvious option would be remodelling the human physiology to suit the location, rather than vice versa. Granted that's not really an option for Mars, but it's possible we'll find exoplanets that could be inhabited by modified humans.

Re: Space habitats: Space living has a good number of issues. It is harder to fix things if they go wrong, harder to expand or gather resources, harder to get gravity, and overall you're more reliant on your equipment. One failure in the right system could spell doom for the whole habitat. Oh, and planets hold a lot more people (unless you're building planetary-scale habitats, which pose their own issues). Not that space habitats are inherently inferior--they just have different strengths and weaknesses.

Re: Gengineering: Yup. That's probably easier than terraforming. Of course, we can't say for sure what things will be like in a few centuries; maybe both tasks will be trivial enough that people decide to terraform because it means more tourism.

And i did believe america would be there still it's a country,

The U.S.A. hasn't made its third century. Talking about its fifth...billenium? trillenium? is kinda silly.

I may be naive but i didn't know or even think that the name of the countries would be affected.

The names for everything else change. Just a few centuries ago, people spoke sufficiently differently that you'd have trouble understanding them. A millenium ago, the common English would be as hard to understand as modern French.

To be fair, though, the human body didn't actually change that much in the past couple of 10 000's of years. If you could somehow acquire a Cro-Magnon newborn and bring it to the present, there's no reason it couldn't become a particle physicist or neurosurgeon. Education is an amazing thing.

True. However, five billion years is a lot longer--specifically, half a million times as long. That's like saying that a piece of tissue paper stayed together in water for 15 seconds, so it'll make it a few months.

Can you name a single political or cultural entity that has survived more than 500 years in a recognisable form?

I'm pretty sure China stayed more or less recognizable for that period of time.

We have much harder problems to tackle before we start thinking about our Sun going supernova.

And so far, as a species we're doing a great job of ignoring them.

[Vane]

Guys, Just to remind you. This isn't about my grammer issues okay? It's about mars being habitable by terraforming, Thank you

[sal_vager]

Picking at someones grammar, or spelling for that matter, is extremely bad etiquette whether in the real world or online.

Please be more considerate of other members, English is not the primary language for a large portion of the KSP community.

[Capt.Joseph Kerbertson]

Guys, Just to remind you. This isn't about my grammer issues okay? It's about mars being habitable by terraforming, Thank you

Without using the United States in your examples... here goes.

With present technology, we have almost no idea how to actually accomplish geo-engineering. We have scientists and some entrepreneurs that have made mistakes and discovered that that they can make changes to our own environments. But in terms of creating a stable, thick and warm atmosphere that actually has moisture cycles is something we cannot accomplish at this juncture in our evolution. Mars does not have the gravity, nor do we have the means to alter Mar's in a way to help it keep the atmosphere we create. The core of Mars is lifeless, it doesn't provide the necessary magnetic shielding from solar storms. While it's fun to dream about geo-engineering, it's easier to just plan self sustaining habitats.

[dansmithers]

As far as your example off the EDF "terraforming" Mars:

That was the earliest stage of terraforming (breathable{?} air) and it took 45 years at least. And Mars is still quite cold and mostly uninhabited (not to mention there is no plant life)

As far as everything else:

Mars has a supply of greenhouse gasses built in, but frozen. It's like a frozen pizza, except instead of "nuking" in the microwave, you actually drop a nuclear bomb on it.

Just my 2 cents.

[*Aqua*]

Mars has a supply of greenhouse gasses built in, but frozen. It's like a frozen pizza, except instead of "nuking" in the microwave, you actually drop a nuclear bomb on it.

One bomb isn't enough. You'll need millions or billions of them. (source)

There were about 2000 nuclear bomb tests on Earth up till now. Did they change our atmosphere in a significant way? No.

It seems most people don't realize the scale of things. Mars have 1/10th the mass, about half the diameter and about 1/4th the surface area of Earth. It's smaller but it it still a huge rock!

[Creature]

It seems most people don't realize the scale of things. Mars have 1/10th the mass, about half the diameter and about 1/4th the surface area of Earth. It's smaller but it it still a huge rock!

Same applies to time. If the Sun starts to be worryingly large in 6 billion years, that's a veeeeeery long time. Last time the Earth was wiped clean of almost all large animals was 60 (?) million years ago. After that the biosphere recovered and produced an insane amount of complex organisms, resulting in some disproportionate, self conscious, wobbly creatures that enjoy watching disproportionate, green wobbly creatures launch themselves into space.

We can let all that happen a hundred times over before the sun goes red giant. It's such a long time that human mind can't really even understand it properly. So I'm sorry if I sound offensive, but no nation, no species, no geological formation, nothing that exists now will be even remotely recognizable after 6 billion years. We could even boil the entire earth back into primordial soup and let everything develop all over again in that time. Twice.

[Comrade Jenkens]

Well most predication state that earth will start to become uninhabitable by multicellular life between 500 million years and 1 billion years in the future simply due to the gradual expansion and heating of the sun. Assuming that the species that descended from humanity is still around by then I think is highly likely that we will have terraformed Mars.

I'm also pretty sure that neither America nor the entire English language will exist by then. In fact the continents will have moved and changed shape as well.

[SuperBigD60]

As far as english existing, I'd say 400-500 years until it is not understandable, and then maybe another 500 or so years until it is completely unrecognizeable as ever evolving from english. (in fact, I suspect we'll get 3 major offshoots from english due to the UK, US, and Australia, and possibly a 4th from Canada, but that's beside the point.) Early modern english (like Shakespeare) actually likely sounding somewhat like and someone from the midwestern US trying to fake an Irish accent. So I figure if we can understand backwards 400 years, perhaps we could understand forwards 400, also.

The one thing that makes me think we might try to terraform Mars is the fact that, in terms of dV, Phobos and Deimos are both actually easier to get to than the Moon. This might provide some commercial reason in the near(ish) future if there is some sort of useful resource that is easier to get there than terrestrially (which would have to be something new, or something rare, as its always going to be cheaper to just get the resource on Earth unless its just not here). If we have manufacturing plants in Mars orbit, it is likely, then that over a few centuries, we might start to establish permanent colonies and cities on Mars just by virtue of its proximity.

As far as terraforming goes, theres loads of evidence that we are already altering our own environment here, though to what extent remains hotly debated (some scientists actually suggest starting a new geological era called the anthropocene due to our supposed impact, but I suspect that's a little overboard).

I suspect over the next millenium, if we don't kill ourselves first, we will at least have the means to terraform Mars, if not the desire.

I don't, however, imagine that any nation that exists now will have the capability to do that sort of thing. I imagine at some point in the next 200 years, we'll start to see private entities become more wealthy than most nations, and they will be in charge for the next epoch of humanity, but I digress.

[Nemrav]

didn't read most of this (tell me if this was covered) but here are a bunch of things to consider :

1)what happens if there is a disease (in early colonies)

2)1/3 of earth's gravity, what happens if you need to send future generations back to earth

3)protection from solar wind (mars = no substantial magnetic field)

4)€€€,$$$ is needed, anyways why not colonize Siberia and Canadian territories/Alaska tundra or northern greenland etc. they are much more habitable for less cash.

5)sunlight, no matter how much you do, plants still need sunlight which isn't in abundance on mars. it would be even less if you increased the atmosphere in order to retain more heat.

6)loneliness, I think mars would have a higher suicide rate.

Terraforming is a good idea though.... I guess.... but there's no place like home

edit : why not terraform Titan, useful transfer base and also has ocean of what is essentially..... petrolium (methane) and it has a substancial atmosphere.

Edited April 12, 2014 by Nemrav

[KaBob]

I see no reason why Mars won't be terraformed someday. It might be thousands of years until we start to work on it but as long as we don't go extinct we will terraform mars and probably Venus and some random moons as well.

As for the sun expanding, that's so far in the future that there is not much of a point in worrying about it. Having a terraformed planet for hundreds of millions of years more than justifies the cost of terraforming, no planet will ever be permanent. By the time it actually happens our ancestors will be so advanced that it will hardly be an issue, they'll just go live in different solar systems or on giant space ships or move the planets further away from the sun or any other solution that becomes technological viable after millions of years of technological advancement.

[dansmithers]

One bomb isn't enough. You'll need millions or billions of them. (source)

There were about 2000 nuclear bomb tests on Earth up till now. Did they change our atmosphere in a significant way? No.

It was a metaphor. I know full well that the yield of one nuke would not start that feedback loop.