What would It take to make Mars's atmosphere semi habitable?

[DerpenWolf]

So I'm wondering what it would take to make mars semi habitable, meaning that Hellas Planitia (area with the highest air pressure on mars) has a air pressure above the armstrong limit. How might we accomplish this? What is the best way to accomplish this? Basically I'm wondering what it would take to make it so that humans might be able to survive without a pressure suit on mars (not necessarily breathable, you will still probually need breathing equipment and a warm suit).

Edited January 23, 2015 by DerpenWolf

[prophet_01]

I don't think that terraforming the best option on mars. The atmosphere would have to be produced over hundreds of years. You would also need to constantly replace the escaped atmosphere. Not to mention how expensive it would be to build the facilties necessary to produce that atmosphere.

I think some kind of presurised dome would be a lot more realistic. Such a massive project would have to rely on mining on site anyway. A presurised structure could be pretty big considering the lower gravity.

[KSK]

Find a part of Mars that you don't need and drop a couple of dirty snowball comets on it. The logistical practicalities of that, I leave as an exercise for the reader.

[KerikBalm]

To get the atmosphere about the armstrong limit at Hellas planitia would involve making it roughly 6x thicker.

That would mean releasing a lot of volatiles.... asteroid redirects to the poles might work.

[Streetwind]

Positioning giant mirrors above the poles of mars to melt the permanently frozen sheets of carbon dioxide there with sunlight has been pondered. CO2 is a good greenhouse gas, thereby having more of it would help raise the planet's temperature. Though one of the issues with this is that the planet's temperature is so low in the first place that CO2 freezes... meaning, anything you'd melt would come back down as snow fairly quickly, especially in the winter. And it's always winter on one of the two hemispheres. So it's a bit of a catch-22: the stuff you need to raise the temperature keeps getting frozen because the temperature is not high enough.

Because of this, the amount of mirrors you'd need to do something meaningful is... well, let's say, it's not trivial

[*Aqua*]

On this site there are several methods discussed: http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=&to=en&a=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drg-gss.org%2Ftypo3%2Fhtml%2Findex.php%3Fid%3D74

IMO the method with mirrors is the best one because we are already able to build one of the needed size. Of course there's still the problem how to get a very very VERY thin mirror with a mass of 200 000 tons to Mars. At the moment we are happy if we can send a 1 ton probe there.

[Frozen_Heart]

Maybe pump a load of CFCs into the atmosphere? They are ridiculously powerful greenhouse gasses and the temperature doesn't have to be brought up much before the CO2 poles melt. That would raise the temperature and pressure quite a bit. (still not close to habitable though.

Maybe after that very tough things like lichen could survive?

[lajoswinkler]

You drill a vertical mine shaft until the pillar of atmosphere above you is sufficiently high. At designated depth you have heat, water and air pressure. Voila.

[78stonewobble]

On this site there are several methods discussed: http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=&to=en&a=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drg-gss.org%2Ftypo3%2Fhtml%2Findex.php%3Fid%3D74

IMO the method with mirrors is the best one because we are already able to build one of the needed size. Of course there's still the problem how to get a very very VERY thin mirror with a mass of 200 000 tons to Mars. At the moment we are happy if we can send a 1 ton probe there.

Possibly combine with throwing suitable comets at the planet, just to fill er up?

[rtxoff]

Just let a species named hu-mans loose on Mars. They are professionals at messing with planets. They will turn every cold ball of rock into a hellish hot paradise for them to live.

They accomplish that by burning fossil fuels.

Edited January 23, 2015 by gpisic

[Technical Ben]

Just add a sprinkling of time and wait...

[Streetwind]

Just let a species named hu-mans loose on Mars. They are professionals at messing with planets. They will turn every cold ball of rock into a hellish hot paradise for them to live.

They accomplish that by burning fossil fuels.

In a twist of irony...

Robert Zubrin (that slightly obsessed Mars Direct advocate) champions using combustion engines on Mars instead of electric vehicles. They'd get better range endurance.

(No, this is not a joke, you can in fact build methane/oxygen fueled internal combustion engines, and they work.)

[EdFred]

Exercise in futility. No magnetosphere, it's a dead end street.

[Frozen_Heart]

Exercise in futility. No magnetosphere, it's a dead end street.

Venus doesn't have a magnetic field either and is much closer to the sun. Lack of a magnetic field doesn't preclude an atmosphere.

[EdFred]

Venus doesn't have a magnetic field either and is much closer to the sun. Lack of a magnetic field doesn't preclude an atmosphere.

No, but there's that pesky radiation issue. What's the difference between wearing a pressure suit and a radiation suit? Both are still encumbering.

[Cirocco]

No, but there's that pesky radiation issue. What's the difference between wearing a pressure suit and a radiation suit? Both are still encumbering.

well for one: atmospheres, even without a (strong) magnetosphere would still absorb a nice amount of radiation in the top layers. Not nearly all of it, but still it would lessen the amount that reaches the surface.

secondly: one difference between pressure suits and radiation suits is that the former must be fully hermetically sealed and will have a pressure gradient with the outside environment. The latter doesn't require said pressure gradient, which renders it less cumbersome. Depending on the type and intensity of radiation you're trying to stop it might be comparable in weight, but without the whole ballooning problem pressure suits need to deal with.

Cumbersome? yes, absolutely, but perhaps less than a full pressure-and-radiation suit all in one.

EDIT: as for martian terraforming, there's a few trains of thought.

slamming some asteroids in the surface could already help. Mirrors to melt the polar ice are options. One theory which is starting to/has gained some popularity is the existence of large bodies of water (either in ice or liquid form) not too deep into the martian soil. If those reserves could be tapped, then they could provide a lot of oxygen for a more breathable atmosphere.

I'm no astro-biologist and everything I type here should definitely be looked at with healthy scrutiny, but if I recall correctly there are terrestrial organisms on earth which can survive a simulated martian environment. I don't think there's any multi-cellullar ones that can do it, but some lichens are pretty damn close. If we can get those to survive, they can start photosynthesis, which can in time allow for progressively complex plantlife.

Of course all this assumes that a whole slew of other problems can be solved, such as the radiation issue. There's also the possibility that mars already harbors microbiological life today. Maybe that can be used/altered in some way. Of course that also involves ethical issues.

Thing is that planetary engineering has never (purposely) been done before, so there's in incredible amount of things we simply don't know about it. Maybe heating up the planet or providing it with an atmosphere will have consequences we never even thought of. We still don't exactly know how Mars lost so much of its atmosphere, who says it son't simply happen again if we try to thicken it?

In short: what would it take to make mars' atmosphere habitable? We don't know. But we do know it will involve a looooooooot of time and a looooooooooooot of energy.

Edited January 23, 2015 by Cirocco

[Frozen_Heart]

No, but there's that pesky radiation issue. What's the difference between wearing a pressure suit and a radiation suit? Both are still encumbering.

An atmosphere prevents a large amount of the radiation from reaching the surface. Though even then I agree it may still be above safe levels.

[EdFred]

In short: what would it take to make mars' atmosphere habitable? We don't know. But we do know it will involve a looooooooot of time and a looooooooooooot of energy.

And it would be much easier to just build a dome with shielding. At least until we find the ancient Martian atmosphere generator that's buried there.

[78stonewobble]

An atmosphere prevents a large amount of the radiation from reaching the surface. Though even then I agree it may still be above safe levels.

Even if the levels are unsafe for humans, you could still live most of the time under x meters of rock and still take advantage of a functioning outside enviroment for food, oxygen production and so on.

[Frozen_Heart]

Building huge, pressurised greenhouses on Mars might be a better option, at least in the short and mid term.

[kahlzun]

Are there any earthian plants or algae that can survive the martian temperatures? Like, arctic stuff?

[StrandedonEarth]

Kim Stanley Robinson's fictional Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars trilogy outlines what it would take, and what technologies could be used, to colonize and terraform Mars, along with the social, cultural, and political implications. It includes bombing with ice asteroids, moholes, orbiting lenses, and other smaller efforts.

Edited January 23, 2015 by StrandedonEarth

[peadar1987]

No, but there's that pesky radiation issue. What's the difference between wearing a pressure suit and a radiation suit? Both are still encumbering.

Actually, any sort of substantial atmosphere would absorb pretty much all of the radiation without the need for a magnetic field. Relevant calculations here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/57915-Would-Laythe-really-be-habitable-Redux?p=779513&viewfull=1#post779513 They're for a Laythe-like moon in a Europa-like environment (i.e. a far higher-radiation one than Mars). The main problem would be with atmospheric stripping. We don't know how fast a thick Martian atmosphere would be eroded by the solar wind. It could take of the order of millions of years, which is still completely acceptable, especially if we can periodically redirect icy bodies to replenish the atmosphere.

Having worn radiation suits before, they are actually not particularly encumbering. Trying to stop gamma radiation is pretty futile anyway, you're mainly trying to stop contaminating yourself with beta and alpha emitters (which won't be a problem on Mars).

[lajoswinkler]

Are there any earthian plants or algae that can survive the martian temperatures? Like, arctic stuff?

Yes, there are. Some forms of bacteria. The pressure, however, can not sustain them.

[Dispatcher]

So I'm wondering what it would take to make mars semi habitable, meaning that Hellas Planitia (area with the highest air pressure on mars) has a air pressure above the armstrong limit. How might we accomplish this? What is the best way to accomplish this? Basically I'm wondering what it would take to make it so that humans might be able to survive without a pressure suit on mars (not necessarily breathable, you will still probually need breathing equipment and a warm suit).

Mars needs more mass. That's why its air is so rarefied; it can't hang onto the air it has (or had).