Talk:Terraforming of Mars

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[edit] Questions to answer

I don't know where to direct these questions, but the answers might be interesting to add to the article if someone wants to research them. Chadlupkes 19:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

  • How much effect does the size of Mars have on the density of the atmosphere? If we did the work to increase the atmosphere, how much would it lose by simply not being able to hold the gasses on the surface? Now, given the density difference between Venus and Earth, perhaps some gases could be more able to increase concentrations than others. I know that some gases like Helium and Hydrogen have the ability to escape our own atmosphere, so at least Hydrogen would need to be combined with Oxygen in water molecules to be able to make them heavy enough.
  • There were some tests done in the laboratory here on Earth to see what kind of terrestrial life form would be able to survive and thrive in that type of environment. Is there any information in Wikipedia about those studies?
  • i dont know where to put this but shouldn't the artical explain how they would get oceans going if mars was terraformed?

Add your own questions...

It's not only Venus that has a higher atmospheric pressure than Earth; Titan also has a higher atmospheric pressure than Earth, despite having a surface gravity less than Mars's. I have an equation in one of my books for the (simplified) halflife of an atmospheric gas based on molecular weight and surface gravity; I'll find that. Oxygen and nitrogen have much longer persistence times, being in diatomic gas form, than water vapor, but the persistence time for any gas is long enough that the required replacement rate to maintain a steady state would be minuscule compared to the rate at which it would have to be added in the first place for a reasonable terraforming program. - Reaverdrop (talk/nl/wp:space) 20:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
  • A question i have is the cost, are there any estimates out there on how much terraforming mars would cost?Crd721 06:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
It's almost impossible to make an accurate estimate - even to within a couple of orders of magnitude - at this stage, and the answer is probably not particularly meaningful. At the most basic level, we don't know how big the world (Solar System?) economy will be by the time terraforming is attempted. Nor do we know which technologies will be available and effective for the job, if it's attempted (obviously, being able to use living things as part of the process reduces the cost greatly). And are we assuming a pre-existing human Mars colony, or starting with a blank slate? --Robert Merkel 04:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
If you have one planet to start with and two at the end, you probably turned a profit ;) 70.15.116.59 15:55, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I could be wrong, but i think its 2 million dollars per second. At least thats a good rough estimate.


  • I'd like to see calculations of the volumes of gas required to build an earth-like atmosphere on mars. Specifically, what volume of CO2 would be required, as compared to the volume currently on mars, and what volumes of oxygen and buffer gas would be required? Perhaps compare these values with volumes likely to come from the various gas sources listed in the article. The whole global warming/climate change issue here on earth has shown that we are clearly capable of manipulating an atmosphere on a global scale, but it would be very good for this article to give numbers that put in to perspective exactly how much effort would be required to build an atmosphere nearly from scratch. ~ Harperska 17:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Terraforming Mars sounds nice, but there IS a Reason why the water disappeared. It would be still there. There was a theory that Mars Gravity cant hold the Water. is this true? Christian Kiss —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.70.92.23 (talk) 11:03, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
  • a lot of this is actually addressed in the article, albeit sloppily. Loss of atmosphere -- which includes water -- is a function of gravity (retention) and impact of the solar wind (erosion) plus atmospheric heating (insolation -> expansion). Someone with the right sort of knowledge, or a lot of patience, could knock off a loss rate figure, and thus a replacement-needed figure -- you'd have to assume a human-livable temperature at ground level, of course. Larry Niven did the math for the moon; it turns out that if we really wanted to, our closest heavenly neighbor could have an atmosphere and surface water! NASA actually did an estimate for the time needed to terraform Mars (wish I could find it!), for that matter -- and arrived at a figure of between 100 and 1000 years, which I see as a sort of official way of saying "we really don't know enough". Dismalscholar (talk) 09:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
  • In the "Why terraform?" section, it says that the reason for terraforming Mars and migrating there is that the sun will grow too hot in hundreds of millions of years. This is the only reason listed for terraforming Mars. But hundreds of millions of years is an extremely long time and it's likely that human life on Earth won't last that long. There are many things that could wipe out humans at any time, such as overpopulation, famine, disease, asteroids, meteorites, climate change, or nuclear war. I think it should be mentioned in the article that, besides the sun growing too hot, there may be other, much more pressing reasons for colonizing Mars. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.44.78.154 (talk) 17:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Next section: Adding Life

I think the next section we should add to this article is one about what it would take to add life to the Martian environment. But the only thing that I've seen on the subject is in Sci-Fi. Who has some true research done on this subject? Chadlupkes 19:55, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

Do we need three "artist's conceptions" of what a terraformed Mars might look like? I've removed the top one, as it's the widest and most obtrusive. ▫ UrbaneLegend talk 13:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

is there a map of Mars, like the one of Earth? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BlankMap-World.png

134.169.13.61 16:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ReDirect/Merge from Colonization of Mars?

Do we really ned 2 distinct articles, namely Teraforming of Mars and Colonization of Mars? It's not like colonization is likely to happen without teraforming or parateraforming.

The 2 seem rather duplicative.

  • I think having two articles linking to eachother as they are now is better than a single article for two reasons. First, both are vast subjects that could easily be large pages in and of themselves. Second, human colonization would be possible without terraforming, not on the scale of millions but hundreds or thousands. --AndrewBuck 15:39, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
If millions of Canadians can thrive during the local winter in their underground cities I don't see why millions of Martians couldn't do the same year-'round. :) It's also handy having separate articles from an organizational standpoint too, since with things as they are now we can have "see main article at" links in both the colonization of Mars and Terraforming articles, neither of which has significantly more "claim" to the subject than the other. Bryan 00:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
As a Canadian living Canada's most northern major city (Edmonton: >1 million) I think it's importanat that I point out we don't live in underground cities. This city is no more underground than any other city I've lived in, including London, Cape Town, and Amsterdam. Humans adjust to temperature quite well; Edmonton gets and annual range from below -30 C to above 30 C. The main problem with Mars is a lack of breathable air, the surface temp has been monitored as getting up to 16 C (ESA: 2005), but without a sufficient atmosphere there is no way to hold the heat, and it dissapates a few cm from the surface. Scottphilp 20:34, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{originalresearch}}

I've tagged this article with {{originalresearch}} due to the citations needed on the processes involved in terraforming and methods that could be used. 1ne 05:28, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

 - That bottom assertion is just silly.  There are a few "citation needed" tags in it presently which ought to go, because they're stuck to statements that are just conclusions from the prior discussion.  OTOH, there are places where citations could be used that aren't tagged.  It's hardly worth the effort, though, in much of the article because so many sections are just plain sloppy. Dismalscholar (talk) 10:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mars future

As of 3 years ago on Patrick's astronomy page I've hear about when Earth becomes uninhabitable about 2 or 3 Gyrs years from now, when our solar system slowly heats up when Earth becomes a wasteland of greenhouse effect, almost like Venus today, Mars can gradually heat up. I remeber on Patrick's website they mention about Mars may eventually release CO2 and slowly get wetter and warmer. Mars can be a new home when Earth becomes a hell. My guess is in 2 to 3 Gyrs Venus and Earth will be totally identical sister greenhouse effect. Their surface is almost identical. By then Mars on the other hand will be much like Earth today. Its frozen iron oxide and CO2 will gradually sublimate, look much greener and much like Earth today. Freewayguy789194 (Any questions? - My updates) 00:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Except that it will have a tiny fraction of the atmosphere, magnetic field, and a small fraction of its gravity — those being listed in order of importance. It'd still require significant terraforming to make Mars habitable, even after the Sun swells in size. Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 02:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] blame the magnetic field

Mars didn't lose its atmosphere because it had less gravity, it lost its magnetosphere and its atmosphere had no protection from the sun. 3 billion years ago venus, earth and mars were probably all very similar. Add a magnetic field and it will be easier to terraform mars. However, we can never colonize mars or terraform it. T.Neo 10:42, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Please give more information on how to add a magnetic field to mars by using only what human is capable of. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.94.187 (talk) 11:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I read somewhere (Possibly an older version of this article) that a nuclear fusion powered electromagnet at each pole would generate a sufficient magnetic feild. With future advances in power generation and superconductors, I think this is possible. Anyway, building a huge magnet would be childs play compared to importing buffer gas from Venus or Titan. P.S. I take back my earlier comment: Mars can be colonized and could possibly be terrraformed. T.Neo (talk contribs review me ) 08:22, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Duration of Terraforming

How much time would the terraforming of a planet take? -- 86.121.56.174 16:37, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

They predict something around 50 years to just establish a colony, and millions of years for an atmosphere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roboy600 (talk • contribs) 04:42, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably a lonnnnnnng time.19:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by T.Neo (talk • contribs)

For Mars, it would probably take somewhere between 400 and 1,000 years. Venus would probably take at least twice that. Elsewhere, low surface gravities would allow atmospheres to escape fast enough to make it not worth the effort. 70.252.172.50 (talk) 15:32, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Permafrost sea level?

The Main Page describes the featured picture at the top of this article as representing the sea level on Mars if all the existing permafrost melted. I know that estimates of the depth of ice at the polar caps have increased greatly in recent years, but I thought we were still far short of such vast oceans. Could someone provide this information in the article? 70.15.116.59 00:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:CRYSTAL

Hi, I saw the image on the main page. How is this not a future prediction of events uncertain, I.e. WP:CRYSTAL? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.78.64.101 (talk) 11:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Because of this from WP:CRYSTAL-->It is appropriate to report discussion and arguments about the prospects for success of future proposals and projects or whether some development will occur, provided that discussion is properly referenced. This is a discussion about current theories about terraforming, not a prediction that it will occur. Now as for properly referenced that seems to be lacking. Mad031683 17:59, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Needs a Complete Rewrite

There's much more going on here than just original research. This article, as it stands, does not belong in an encyclopedia at all, certainly not without some kind of strong disclaimer regarding its extremely speculative nature.

In fact, the article really should be rewritten from the perspective of describing the ways in which people (and here I mean notable people writing stuff that bills itself as non-fiction) have speculated about the topic. To my way of thinking, such an article would belong in Wikipedia, because there is little doubt in my mind that a lot of notable people have speculated in print on this subject, so documenting that seems appropriate.

It is not, however, appropriate for an encyclopedia to itself engage in the speculation. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, a tertiary source. As it stands, the article is entirely without any redeeming encyclopedic value. If any serious space agency (e.g., NASA or its equivalent in other countries) has any actual plans to attempt something like this, then that should be mentioned in the article, and if not, then the whole thing (as written) is pretty much just pure speculative science fiction.

(Indeed, like a lot of sci-fi, the article as it stands overlooks major fundamental problems with the premise, e.g., that in its present orbit Mars would need a significantly thicker atmosphere than Earth in order to maintain a habitable climate, that science has never collected any data on how quickly an Earth-like atmosphere would leak away from a planet the size and mass of Mars, that the reduced gravity may not be suitable for humans over the long term, or cetera. This is all neither here nor there, however; flaws in the article's reasoning are irrelevant, since an encyclopedia article has no business speculating about stuff like this anyway.)

I don't think the article should be deleted, though. I think it should be rewritten to document notable speculation that has been written elsewhere, without engaging in speculation directly.

One of the things that's fundamentally wrong about the article is that it follows an outline structured around a specific set of hypothetical steps, presumably those envisioned by the author(s) of the article. This is wholly inappropriate. There are various ways the article might reasonably be structured (chronologically, noting how ideas about the terraforming of Mars have changed over time, seems obvious; alternately, there could be sections covering different but mutually contemporary schools of thought on the matter), but the current arrangement is not suitable.

--Jonadab the Unsightly One, 2007 Nov 14.

I moved this to the bottom, where more people will look for new discussions Mad031683 20:58, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I think there's nothing seriously wrong with the writing or structure - most of these claims are coming from good sources, though perhaps a bit mangled by recollection. It's just that they all need sources - which is work, but not difficult. I just added two, which is perhaps 5% of the job. The current organization actually makes much more sense than an author-based organization because the original authors of these papers are reputable sources - which means they don't publish complete how-to-terraform plans but focus on proving the scientific feasibility of one particular method or step in the process. Thus the current outline form is appropriate, seeking only to classify and explain all the notable ideas on the topic. 70.15.116.59 (talk) 16:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Taking an outline conjured up by the Wikipedia community and prooftexting individual statements with citations is unencyclopedic and eisegetical and certainly does not validate the outline of the plan that the article advocates. The outlines of any plans discussed, as well as the details, all must come from reliable, notable sources. -- Jonadab the Unsightly One, 2008 Apr 05
I'll second that. The structure isn't bad, since it pretty much follows an outline of the scientific/technical challenges and address those. It's sloppy, though, in a meandering fashion; the sections' headings aren't well adhered-to in their content.Dismalscholar (talk) 10:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Whose outline of the scientific/technical challenges does it follow? --Jonadab, 2008 Apr 05

I've lifted a couple of sections onto my clipboard to struggle with. Given my unpredictable opportunities to hit this, though, don't count on anything soon. Dismalscholar (talk) 10:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Smashing Asteroids

That would be a good name for a band...

But seriously -- is the line about adding mass to Mars by crashing small asteroids into it worth keeping? If I got my math right, tossing the entire asteroid belt onto Mars would increase its mass a bit over 1/2%! While giving more mass to the planet would make it more earth-like, I think that notion is more science fiction than good sense. Dismalscholar (talk) 10:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Increasing Mars' mass might be a negligible effect. But how about increasing temperature this way through the release of impact energy? -- The Cascade (talk) 08:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
This discussion illustrates my point (above): it is obvious that the authors of the Wikipedia article are themselves speculating and reasoning about the topic, and basing the content of the article on their reasoning. That's extremely inappropriate. "Would it work" is completely the wrong question. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a public think tank. The questions we should be asking are more along the lines of "Who first introduced this idea to the scientific community", "How was this idea received by the scientific community", and so forth. If we can't answer those kinds of questions, the article does not belong in an encyclopedia. --Jonadab the Unsightly One, 2008 Apr 05
Actually, that's not the Wikipedia community speculating. That's a well published idea on how to increase the temperature of the planet. I thought it was bogus at first too, but it turns out some real smart people thought about it and have written books about it. See the references, and read "The greening of mars" if you have disputes.--MaizeAndBlue86 (talk) 19:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

--Pinkfloyd2050 (talk) 01:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)