Let's terraform Mars

  On 1/12/2011 at 12:26 PM, kaini said:

  On 1/12/2011 at 12:19 PM, kokoon said:

  On 1/12/2011 at 10:59 AM, kaini said:

the closest thing to a manual i've read for it is kim stanley robinson's mars trilogy

 

excellent, extremely plausible science fiction which deals with very real questions like separate political factions developing on mars, some of whom are earth-seperatist

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy

awesome, i'll check this out.

 

terraforming mars is something i've been thinking about a lot recently. afaik the main issue is how to make the core liquid, for the magnetic field to form. that would help protecting the colonies from the solar storms.

 

well, that and water :)

 

it even isn't that cold up there, i was quite surprised to read that the temperatures are up to -5 deg celcius!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars

 

they go the domed city/algae/greenhouse gas route in those books

 

he normally writes historical fiction, so robinson is well qualified for the job.

they build a space elevator and attach it to phobos and... well, i won't spoil it for you, but halfway through the first book in the series there's a crowning moment of awesome involving it :)

Yeah, the Mars trilogy is pretty decent, although maybe getting a little silly with the transhumanism toward the end. I think I liked Red Mars the most.

There's also this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars

  On 1/12/2011 at 8:17 PM, baph said:

I think I liked Red Mars the most.

me too.

my bro has 'the martians', a collection of short stories by robinson set in the same universe. looking forward to reading it.

if we can find a way to get rid of excess co2 and methane, that would make venus attractive as well, no? It would no doubt take longer to terraform venus than mars, but is this even possible?

  On 1/12/2011 at 10:20 PM, theSun said:

if we can find a way to get rid of excess co2 and methane, that would make venus attractive as well, no? It would no doubt take longer to terraform venus than mars, but is this even possible?

nah. venus is what earth would be like in a million years if we allowed a greenhouse effect to run completely out of control, only more hostile. air pressure similar to the bottom of the deepest bits of the sea, sulfuric acid rain, and extremely volcanic - as well as a very weak magnetic field like mars - so it would get fried by solar wind radiation.

while the americans were landing fragile probes on mars, the russians were basically dropping typically russian probes (i.e. tanks) on venus, and even their hardiest probe only lasted about two hours. before it was crushed by the fucking atmosphere.

this is the only photo we have of the surface of venus

colonizing/terraforming venus would need far, far more advanced tech than doing the same for mars.

  On 1/12/2011 at 8:17 PM, baph said:

Yeah, the Mars trilogy is pretty decent, although maybe getting a little silly with the transhumanism toward the end. I think I liked Red Mars the most.

 

There's also this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars

Funny, I actually liked the way he handled transhumanism.

Anyway the best book of the trilogy is not one of the 3, it's the one with the short stories ( The Martians )

I love the Baseball game one, and the one where hike up Olympus Mons. I really liked in the end, the way he handled his description of landscape. I'm a landscape architect, I read the trilogy when I was a teenager, and it forged my head my imagination of mars landscapes.

Guys, none of us would get to go to Mars. Come on... (unless there are any ninja billionaires on watmm)

  On 1/13/2011 at 12:26 AM, cardan said:

Guys, none of us would get to go to Mars. Come on... (unless there are any ninja billionaires on watmm)

maybe if they force common folk into slavery after NWO and ship us there.

see what i did there?

*merges threads*

  On 1/13/2011 at 12:26 AM, cardan said:

Guys, none of us would get to go to Mars. Come on... (unless there are any ninja billionaires on watmm)

i think what they need to do is make it clear it's a one-way trip (again, like in red mars). they'd still have awesome science people queuing around the block, and they'd massively cut the price of the venture.

think if they had a global lottery. That'd unite the world more than the world cup, i'll wager, plus get people interested in space travel again.

I wish it could be like "2012" where all the world governments cooperate to pull it off. Would definitely be worth it, even if the terraforming never took place. People bouncing around in dune buggies on mars? Hellz yeah...

if carl sagan hadn't died humans would be on mars now.

  On 1/13/2011 at 1:13 AM, kaini said:

if carl sagan hadn't died humans would be on mars now.

i dunno about the rest of you but I would totally donate to a manned mission to mars. As opposed to say, putting food in the mouths of starving african astronaut babies

yes, but what about golf?

I hope they start publicly distributing the live forever drugs Keanu Reeves has within my lifetime, so I might stand a better chance of living until the day when terraforming & intergalactic travel are commonplace. I'd be all going to Giant Ball of Water Planet, Floating Cloud Fortress Planet.....Underground Industrial Music Video with Giant Space Worms Planet....

  On 1/13/2011 at 1:41 AM, Cryptowen said:

I hope they start publicly distributing the live forever drugs Keanu Reeves has within my lifetime, so I might stand a better chance of living until the day when terraforming & intergalactic travel are commonplace. I'd be all going to Giant Ball of Water Planet, Floating Cloud Fortress Planet.....Underground Industrial Music Video with Giant Space Worms Planet....

it's cause he's from the matrix.

If you take too much of that live forever drug, though, you go all Michael J Fox

terraforming mars is so passé

we already have a mars base

we should terraform the sun

fuck off troon, this is a SERIOUS DISCUSSION

i wonder how many earths you'd have to throw at the sun to turn it off?

  On 1/13/2011 at 2:21 AM, lumpenprol said:

i wonder how many earths you'd have to throw at the sun to turn it off?

about 20-30, back-of-a-napkin calculation based on the percentage of heavy metallic elements that compose the earth. the sun is roughly 110 times the size of the earth but all you need to do is fire in enough that there's an accumulation of heavy metallic elements in the core, which will end in a chain reaction that makes the sun asplode.

course as it is anyone living on mars will get pumped so fulla radiation theyll be getting tumours forming in their eyelids, fucking scientists, they should pull their fucking fingers out and find a cure already <superhans/>

  On 1/13/2011 at 2:13 AM, nsixqatsi said:

we already have a mars base

confirmed