If we get really really lucky, we might get Martian atmosphere for free if that comet slams into it head on next year (and is sufficiently large and composed of water and some type of frozen gas).
I am really really hoping that will happen, though the current projections are it's unlikely.
Also, it's depressing that Martian atmosphere would cost less then the Iraq and Afganistan wars.
Projected cost is often completely different than actual cost. The Iraq war was supposed to cost $0. The cost analysis of theoretical processes to terraform Mars is likely to be even more inaccurate.
That's because the Iraq war was planned by lunatics. The Martian terraforming plan is made by people who know what they are talking about (insofar as it's possible to know when you're talking about transforming a planet).
If we get really really lucky, we might get Martian atmosphere for free if that comet slams into it head on next year (and is sufficiently large and composed of water and some type of frozen gas).
I am really really hoping that will happen, though the current projections are it's unlikely.
Also, it's depressing that Martian atmosphere would cost less then the Iraq and Afganistan wars.
Projected cost is often completely different than actual cost. The Iraq war was supposed to cost $0. The cost analysis of theoretical processes to terraform Mars is likely to be even more inaccurate.
That's because the Iraq war was planned by lunatics. The Martian terraforming plan is made by people who know what they are talking about (insofar as it's possible to know when you're talking about transforming a planet).
It cost 14 billion dollars to dig a 3.5 mile tunnel under Boston, 7 times the initial estimate and took twice as long. All the technology used already existed. People had been digging tunnels for years.
The things listed on the handy little fantasy graphic a few pages ago are just that, fantasy. They're guesses at best, and outright fabrication at worst. Putting a timeline and a cost estimate on it is laughable.
The Earth's atmosphere is estimated to weigh approximately 5 quadrillion tons.
Of that, .000055% is Hydrogen, a gas the graphic states would need to be trucked to mars.
This means Mars would require 275 billion tons of Hydrogen to bring its atmosphere up to the level of Earth's.
At present time, the launch vehicle with the highest payload capacity is the Saturn V, at 50 tons.
In 2013 dollars, it would cost an estimated $1.17 billion for each Saturn V launch.
It would require 5.5 billion Saturn V launches, just for the amount of Hydrogen in Earth's atmosphere to get to Mars. Costing 9.35 quintillion dollars.
I had to look up what a number with 18 zeroes after it was for that, by the way.
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
You can manufacture hydrogen, just so long as there are compounds with hydrogen locked in present on the planet.
The US manufactures 11million tons of Hydrogen annually.
So really what we need to do is either find water somewhere on Mars, or guide a water-based comet towards the planet, or something that gives use the means to set up terraforming factories that split water/fossil fuels and produce hydrogen that gets leaked into the atmosphere.
We will have the hydrogen problem cracked way before we have the magnetic field problem cracked.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
That actually sounds less like a practically solvable problem after you posted that.
1. Planet encircling rings. For example, the largest concrete construction right now is a 2km long dam in China. Not equivalent example but it is something.
2. 1 GW of power is what, a thousand general nuclear power plants?
And we have fiber optic cables across the Pacific ocean that are 10000km long. What was described in the link was something closer to a cable, with liquid nitrogen flowing down the center, surrounded by superconductors, and then that surrounded by a vacuum gap and insulation. But you would probably need periodic stations around to handle refrigeration and such. And yeah, as mentioned before that's about one commercial nuclear power plant on Earth. About half of that for refrigeration, and half to charge it up over a period of a couple of months. And that was actually examine making such a system on Earth. Mars is smaller, and colder, so it would probably have lesser requirements there, even after you get it terraformed a bit.
In 2013 dollars, it would cost an estimated $1.17 billion for each Saturn V launch.
It would require 5.5 billion Saturn V launches, just for the amount of Hydrogen in Earth's atmosphere to get to Mars. Costing 9.35 quintillion dollars.
Yeah, that's why you don't try to terraform it by launching raw material from Earth. You do something like manufacturing big greenhouse gasses like sulfur hexafluoride, chloroflorcarbons, perflorocarbons, etc. out of local factories and using local materials on Mars. Produce enough, and you can start freeing up frozen CO2 into the atmosphere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars
In order to sublimate the south polar CO2 glaciers, Mars would require the introduction of approximately 0.3 microbars of CFCs into Mars's atmosphere. This is equivalent to a mass of approximately 39 million metric tons. This is about three times the amount of CFC manufactured on Earth from 1972 to 1992 (when CFC production was banned by international treaty). Mineralogical surveys of Mars estimate the elemental presence of fluorine in the bulk composition of Mars at 32 ppm by mass vs. 19.4 ppm for the Earth.[14]
There is presently enough carbon dioxide (CO2) as ice in the Martian south pole and absorbed by regolith (soil) around the planet that, if sublimated to gas by a climate warming of only a few degrees, would increase the atmospheric pressure to 30 kilopascals (0.30 atm), [9] comparable to the altitude of the peak of Mount Everest, where the atmospheric pressure is 33.7 kilopascals (0.333 atm). While this would not be breathable by humans, it is above the armstrong limit and would eliminate the present need for pressure suits.
That would be a good start at least.
And there is already quite a large amount of water ice on Mars, at the poles, and elsewhere around the planet, covered or mixed in with rock and dust: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars#Hydrology
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I really enjoy this line in the terraforming Mars wiki.
The need for a buffer gas is a challenge that will face any potential atmosphere builders. On Earth, nitrogen is the primary atmospheric component, making up 78% of the atmosphere. Mars would require a similar buffer-gas component although not necessarily as much. Obtaining sufficient quantities of nitrogen, argon or some other comparatively inert gas is difficult.
Difficult.
Coming up with 3.9 quadrillion tons (nitrogen is about 78% of Earth's atmosphere, about 75% by weight) of gas is difficult.
I'll be fair and call it 1.95 quadrillion tons, since Mars is about half Earth's size.
But yeah.
Finding 1.95 quadrillion tons of something is basically the same as beating Halo on Legendary, apparently.
I really enjoy this line in the terraforming Mars wiki.
The need for a buffer gas is a challenge that will face any potential atmosphere builders. On Earth, nitrogen is the primary atmospheric component, making up 78% of the atmosphere. Mars would require a similar buffer-gas component although not necessarily as much. Obtaining sufficient quantities of nitrogen, argon or some other comparatively inert gas is difficult.
Difficult.
Coming up with 3.9 quadrillion tons (nitrogen is about 78% of Earth's atmosphere, about 75% by weight) of gas is difficult.
I'll be fair and call it 1.95 quadrillion tons, since Mars is about half Earth's size.
But yeah.
Finding 1.95 quadrillion tons of something is basically the same as beating Halo on Legendary, apparently.
It's space. The scale of things you can do goes up because there are no people there you have to worry about. Most terraforming plans call for obtaining resources from local rocky bodies and comets by diverting them into the planet, for example.
Solving the gas problems is a matter of finding comets with the right composition, and nudging them into collision trajectories with Mars.
That actually sounds less like a practically solvable problem after you posted that.
1. Planet encircling rings. For example, the largest concrete construction right now is a 2km long dam in China. Not equivalent example but it is something.
2. 1 GW of power is what, a thousand general nuclear power plants?
No, one plant. There are plenty of nuclear plants that are well above 1 GW
The orbiting ring is a bigger problem as I think it was shown that a rigid ring was not orbitally stable by itself
Everyone needs to keep in mind the proposed time scale. 350 years.
Biology: 350 year's ago we had just observed cells.
Astronomy: 349 year's ago we observed Jupiter's great red spot for the first time
Physics: 347 years ago Newton's Annus Mirabilis: Motion/Optics/Gravitation and ohh yeah...
Math: Calculus
A moderately intelligent high school student can learn as much as all the worlds experts in Math/Physics/Biology/Astronomy knew 350 years ago.
I really enjoy this line in the terraforming Mars wiki.
The need for a buffer gas is a challenge that will face any potential atmosphere builders. On Earth, nitrogen is the primary atmospheric component, making up 78% of the atmosphere. Mars would require a similar buffer-gas component although not necessarily as much. Obtaining sufficient quantities of nitrogen, argon or some other comparatively inert gas is difficult.
Difficult.
Coming up with 3.9 quadrillion tons (nitrogen is about 78% of Earth's atmosphere, about 75% by weight) of gas is difficult.
I'll be fair and call it 1.95 quadrillion tons, since Mars is about half Earth's size.
But yeah.
Finding 1.95 quadrillion tons of something is basically the same as beating Halo on Legendary, apparently.
Jupiter has more than we would ever need
Though if your goal is a breathable atmosphere it's suboptimal as it's mostly hydrogen-helium. Venus gives yoyu co2, plus plants gives oxygen
Also, once we crack getting net power from fusion we basically have all the energy we need. Even at the currently abysmal funding levels it shouldn't take that long
That actually sounds less like a practically solvable problem after you posted that.
1. Planet encircling rings. For example, the largest concrete construction right now is a 2km long dam in China. Not equivalent example but it is something.
2. 1 GW of power is what, a thousand general nuclear power plants?
No, one plant. There are plenty of nuclear plants that are well above 1 GW
The orbiting ring is a bigger problem as I think it was shown that a rigid ring was not orbitally stable by itself
Geth knows a thing or two about superconstruction.
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Gennenalyse RuebenThe Prettiest Boy is Ridiculously PrettyRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I'd go to Mars. Especially if it was to stay for good. There's not a whole hell of a lot on Earth I care about enough to stay here for and I'm not afraid of dying. Give me a few video games (especially endless sandboxes) and a word processor, I'll probably be just fine. Hell, I'd probably find it fun. But I may qualify as one of those "insane" people that are always brought up when talking about trips to Mars.
I'm settled. I've got a home, family, and I'm never going to go to Mars, much less a one-way trip. I think people are underestimating their needs when they think they would be fine with a copy of GTA for the rest of their life.
If I were 20 again? Maybe. I've heard some older / retired astronauts talking about how willing they would be to take a low-probability of return trip to Mars. While I realize most of those 60-70 year old men (and women) are in far better shape than I am, I wonder about sending geriatrics on a many-year off-planet mission.
People seem to be underestimating the scale of terraforming an entire freaking planet. A trillion dollars and 150 years? Right...more like a trillion dollars a year for 150 years, at best, for the starting lowest bid...then watch that multiplier go up like you are playing pinball when you start working out the technical details. Our limited experience terraforming a planet is limited to mostly inadvertently fucking up our own planet, and we can't even agree quite how it works and what the consequences will be. At this point in time, anything along the lines of a self-sustaining colony on Mars is a pipe dream.
As much as I love space travel, we've got limited resources. Unless we are actually going all-in for a self-sufficent colony, after a few days we've collected plenty of data to work on few years / decades, and all people are doing on the surface is putzing around. I'd rather see the money going to launching probes, observatories, space telescopes, and working on near earth resource extraction. If we can launch ten automated missions for one human, I'll choose the automated missions every time.
Once we've completed and exhausted the information we can get from Mars sample return mission, then we are at the place where we should start considering sending people.
I think that chart is being a wee bit optimistic about terraforming mars
however I'd rather try to terraform the fucking moon than have another mid east war because at least we get scientific progress
Also fuck the movie contact
Terraforming the moon would be essentially impossible; its proximity to earth would cause its atmosphere to get pulled away from it and back down to earth.
mars would be the better option to try.
Go in, get the girl, kill the dragon. What's so hard about that? ... Oh, so THAT'S what a dragon looks like.
Had a though along a similar path, spurred on by the Fermi paradox thread.
Seems like if we really wanted to, we could build a nuclear propelled colony ship that could get to one of the twenty nearest starts within about 100 or so years. So probably a generation ship, with your grandchildren leading the colonisation when you get there. Anyone want to sign up for that?
What if one of the options was hibernation (not stasis), that could extend your remaining lifespan by about double - you can get on the ship now, spend most of the time travelling there asleep (all but a few years) and step foot on the new world as an old man/woman with about 10-20 years left to live?
Had a though along a similar path, spurred on by the Fermi paradox thread.
Seems like if we really wanted to, we could build a nuclear propelled colony ship that could get to one of the twenty nearest starts within about 100 or so years. So probably a generation ship, with your grandchildren leading the colonisation when you get there. Anyone want to sign up for that?
What if one of the options was hibernation (not stasis), that could extend your remaining lifespan by about double - you can get on the ship now, spend most of the time travelling there asleep (all but a few years) and step foot on the new world as an old man/woman with about 10-20 years left to live?
Alpha Centauri, which contains the closest known exoplanet to Earth, is 4.3 light years, or 25.6 trillion miles away. The Space Shuttle, traveling at its maximum speed of about 18,000 mph, would take 160,000 years to get to Alpha Centauri. Voyager 1, currently the fastest traveling spacecraft (although it's not pointed towards Alpha Centauri) would take 70,000 years.
So no, we could not get anywhere worthwhile in 100 years.
Also, the one planet we know about orbiting Alpha Centauri, has a surface temperature of 1200C.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think he means daedalus/orion drive. That is at least theoretically possible and would take about that time.
It would just be something like an electrical cable, or a whole bundle of electrical cables, in a loop around the planet. Like the equator line on a globe, if it were a physical object.
Depending on the advances of technology and science, terraforming a planet could get cheaper as more and more discoveries that lend themselves towards terraforming are made. Granted it could get more expensive too, but I suspect most price hikes would be attributed to human stupidity and greed, rather than developing new tech that uses super rare or difficult to make materials. I'm cool with the idea of planetary colonization because we shouldn't have all our eggs in one basket, plenty of things in the universe that aren't aliens that can easily wipe us out, including ourselves.
Anyways, if IIRC, the the big hurdles with Mars colonization.
-Getting there obviously.
-Creating an atmosphere.
-Finding some way to generate a magnetic field so that lethal radiation is cut down and so that the atmosphere doesn't get destroyed (probably would be needed before creating an atmosphere).
-Find some way to make sure you can get close to replicating the gravitational effects of the earth. Biologically, we are build around the idea of operating under a certain g-force and if you get to far from that in either direction, things start going awry. Last I checked Mars wasn't quite up to par here.
Posts
That's because the Iraq war was planned by lunatics. The Martian terraforming plan is made by people who know what they are talking about (insofar as it's possible to know when you're talking about transforming a planet).
It cost 14 billion dollars to dig a 3.5 mile tunnel under Boston, 7 times the initial estimate and took twice as long. All the technology used already existed. People had been digging tunnels for years.
The things listed on the handy little fantasy graphic a few pages ago are just that, fantasy. They're guesses at best, and outright fabrication at worst. Putting a timeline and a cost estimate on it is laughable.
The Earth's atmosphere is estimated to weigh approximately 5 quadrillion tons.
Of that, .000055% is Hydrogen, a gas the graphic states would need to be trucked to mars.
This means Mars would require 275 billion tons of Hydrogen to bring its atmosphere up to the level of Earth's.
At present time, the launch vehicle with the highest payload capacity is the Saturn V, at 50 tons.
In 2013 dollars, it would cost an estimated $1.17 billion for each Saturn V launch.
It would require 5.5 billion Saturn V launches, just for the amount of Hydrogen in Earth's atmosphere to get to Mars. Costing 9.35 quintillion dollars.
The US manufactures 11million tons of Hydrogen annually.
So really what we need to do is either find water somewhere on Mars, or guide a water-based comet towards the planet, or something that gives use the means to set up terraforming factories that split water/fossil fuels and produce hydrogen that gets leaked into the atmosphere.
We will have the hydrogen problem cracked way before we have the magnetic field problem cracked.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Yeah, that's why you don't try to terraform it by launching raw material from Earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars That would be a good start at least.
And there is already quite a large amount of water ice on Mars, at the poles, and elsewhere around the planet, covered or mixed in with rock and dust: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars#Hydrology
I dont want to end up like Sam Bell, but then again the architecture/decor was fucking amazing so.
Difficult.
Coming up with 3.9 quadrillion tons (nitrogen is about 78% of Earth's atmosphere, about 75% by weight) of gas is difficult.
I'll be fair and call it 1.95 quadrillion tons, since Mars is about half Earth's size.
But yeah.
Finding 1.95 quadrillion tons of something is basically the same as beating Halo on Legendary, apparently.
It's space. The scale of things you can do goes up because there are no people there you have to worry about. Most terraforming plans call for obtaining resources from local rocky bodies and comets by diverting them into the planet, for example.
Solving the gas problems is a matter of finding comets with the right composition, and nudging them into collision trajectories with Mars.
No, one plant. There are plenty of nuclear plants that are well above 1 GW
The orbiting ring is a bigger problem as I think it was shown that a rigid ring was not orbitally stable by itself
Biology: 350 year's ago we had just observed cells.
Astronomy: 349 year's ago we observed Jupiter's great red spot for the first time
Physics: 347 years ago Newton's Annus Mirabilis: Motion/Optics/Gravitation and ohh yeah...
Math: Calculus
A moderately intelligent high school student can learn as much as all the worlds experts in Math/Physics/Biology/Astronomy knew 350 years ago.
Jupiter has more than we would ever need
Though if your goal is a breathable atmosphere it's suboptimal as it's mostly hydrogen-helium. Venus gives yoyu co2, plus plants gives oxygen
Yeah, it's actually rather simple. Comparatively speaking.
Geth knows a thing or two about superconstruction.
If I were 20 again? Maybe. I've heard some older / retired astronauts talking about how willing they would be to take a low-probability of return trip to Mars. While I realize most of those 60-70 year old men (and women) are in far better shape than I am, I wonder about sending geriatrics on a many-year off-planet mission.
People seem to be underestimating the scale of terraforming an entire freaking planet. A trillion dollars and 150 years? Right...more like a trillion dollars a year for 150 years, at best, for the starting lowest bid...then watch that multiplier go up like you are playing pinball when you start working out the technical details. Our limited experience terraforming a planet is limited to mostly inadvertently fucking up our own planet, and we can't even agree quite how it works and what the consequences will be. At this point in time, anything along the lines of a self-sustaining colony on Mars is a pipe dream.
As much as I love space travel, we've got limited resources. Unless we are actually going all-in for a self-sufficent colony, after a few days we've collected plenty of data to work on few years / decades, and all people are doing on the surface is putzing around. I'd rather see the money going to launching probes, observatories, space telescopes, and working on near earth resource extraction. If we can launch ten automated missions for one human, I'll choose the automated missions every time.
Once we've completed and exhausted the information we can get from Mars sample return mission, then we are at the place where we should start considering sending people.
Terraforming the moon would be essentially impossible; its proximity to earth would cause its atmosphere to get pulled away from it and back down to earth.
mars would be the better option to try.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
So, uhh... like the beams in the dark tower.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Seems like if we really wanted to, we could build a nuclear propelled colony ship that could get to one of the twenty nearest starts within about 100 or so years. So probably a generation ship, with your grandchildren leading the colonisation when you get there. Anyone want to sign up for that?
What if one of the options was hibernation (not stasis), that could extend your remaining lifespan by about double - you can get on the ship now, spend most of the time travelling there asleep (all but a few years) and step foot on the new world as an old man/woman with about 10-20 years left to live?
Alpha Centauri, which contains the closest known exoplanet to Earth, is 4.3 light years, or 25.6 trillion miles away. The Space Shuttle, traveling at its maximum speed of about 18,000 mph, would take 160,000 years to get to Alpha Centauri. Voyager 1, currently the fastest traveling spacecraft (although it's not pointed towards Alpha Centauri) would take 70,000 years.
So no, we could not get anywhere worthwhile in 100 years.
Also, the one planet we know about orbiting Alpha Centauri, has a surface temperature of 1200C.
Or, since we actually do have some superconducting power transmission lines built:
http://www.superconductorweek.com/free-content-photo-gallery
It would just be something like an electrical cable, or a whole bundle of electrical cables, in a loop around the planet. Like the equator line on a globe, if it were a physical object.
I mean, it's literally just making a giant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnet , with the wires wrapped around the entire planet.
Anyways, if IIRC, the the big hurdles with Mars colonization.
-Getting there obviously.
-Creating an atmosphere.
-Finding some way to generate a magnetic field so that lethal radiation is cut down and so that the atmosphere doesn't get destroyed (probably would be needed before creating an atmosphere).
-Find some way to make sure you can get close to replicating the gravitational effects of the earth. Biologically, we are build around the idea of operating under a certain g-force and if you get to far from that in either direction, things start going awry. Last I checked Mars wasn't quite up to par here.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.