Reviving a Planet

[nrocha20]

Mercury is a prime example of a dead planet, and Mars could well soon join its ranks. If any hope of enhabiting Mars one day is to be achieved, we should look into reviving it. The two problems that REALLY need to be fixed to save it, is recreating a Magnetic field, and improving the atmosphere. The Magnetic Field is produced through all the nickal and iron in its core correct? Well, how does the core diminish in the first place? And How can we stuff iron and nickel back inside the core? The Atmosphere is useless without the Magnetic Field. But an Atmosphere is created through Volcanos correct? Well, how can we CREATE artificial volcanos? Or just fool the environment into making a natural volcano?

[Arch2008]

The problem with "reviving" Mars is that it is dead for a reason. At about one tenth of the Earth's mass, any atmosphere manufactured there will simply not stay there. If we were somehow able to revive Mars and it became a sort of Earth II, then how much would be gained by our investment? The surface area of Mars is about equal to the land area of the Earth, so we could reasonably expect to support the Earth's population again on Mars, another 6 billion people. However, instead of a massive, planet-wide terraforming project, if you used the material on Mars to build say 500 billion Island Three space habitats by deconstructing the planet, then you could support about one hundred million times the Earth's population. Terraforming Mars might conservatively be done in about a millenium, so the space habitats might be completed in the same time frame. All the cities in the Western Hemisphere were built in half that time with much less technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Neill_cylinder

IMHO, I think that we should explore Mars, but colonizing/terraforming it is a mistake.

[Sisyphus]

The core didn't lose anything except energy. It cooled off, and the dynamo effect generating the magnetic field broke down. Atmospheres can come from many different sources, not just volcanoes.

 

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

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

[nrocha20]

I'm real into the expansion of the human habitat. So I really like the idea Arch2008 pointed out. Thanks!

[Mr Skeptic]

We're not going to be melting mars' core just for it to have a magnetic field. If we wanted a magnetic field we would make one ourselves, and use it to store electricity in addition to protecting the planet with it. See Superconducting magnetic energy storage. Put a couple of these suckers at opposite ends of the planet, and you got yourself a magnetic field and an excellent buffer for the energy grid.

[NeonBlack]

What if we somehow drilled a hole to the center of mars and got The Core spinning again?

[Moontanman]

What if we somehow drilled a hole to the center of mars and got The Core spinning again?

 

Probably have to melt it first. Orbiting habitats make much more sense.

[insane_alien]

someones been watching too much crap Sci-Fi

[Moontanman]

someones been watching too much crap Sci-Fi

 

Hey, I resemble that remark!

[Sisyphus]

What if we somehow drilled a hole to the center of mars and got The Core spinning again?

 

Then we would be godlike beings, and wouldn't have any use for childish things like planets anyway.

[Arch2008]

Yes, where might the Human Genome project lead?

[Moontanman]

Then we would be godlike beings, and wouldn't have any use for childish things like planets anyway.

 

I take it back, I resemble this remark

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Yes, where might the Human Genome project lead?

 

With the human mind and technology any where and every where!

[Airbrush]

I heard this idea on The Universe, History.com discussions, questions for the universe. Send large numbers of asteroids to impact on Mars to create more mass and heat it up and thus create atmosphere. I think the amount of matter it would take to significantly increase the mass of Mars (by about 50%) would be enough to melt the surface into pools of magma. That would be beyond our technical ability for hundreds or thousands of years. What do you think?

[Sisyphus]

I heard this idea on The Universe, History.com discussions, questions for the universe. Send large numbers of asteroids to impact on Mars to create more mass and heat it up and thus create atmosphere. I think the amount of matter it would take to significantly increase the mass of Mars (by about 50%) would be enough to melt the surface into pools of magma. That would be beyond our technical ability for hundreds or thousands of years. What do you think?

 

50%?!?! That's still five times the mass of the Moon. If, somehow, we could throw that much mass around, it would make it unlivable for a billion years, if not obliterate it completely. Again, if you can do something on that scale, you have may as well just make your own worlds from scratch.

[Moontanman]

Hey if we're going to start moving things around lets just combine Mercury and Mars into one planet, move it out of the way, bring Venus out to Mars orbit and place Merc/Mars into an orbit a bit further from the sun than Venus currently is. Place a large moon in orbit around Venus (maybe Titan) and see what happens!

 

It's costs no more to go first class, you just can't stay as long!

[SH3RL0CK]

Well, a very slow collision would not create as much heat. So suppose we change the orbit of Ceres so that it just matches that of Mars, then the impact will be very slow as not as much heat is developed (i.e. less kinetic energy).

 

But is there even 50% of the mass of Mars available in the asteroid belt? I doubt it. And we can't use mercury or venus or the moon as moving them to Mars would royally screw up the orbit of earth. And I don't see any way to pull the moons or Jupiter or Saturn out of their gravity well...if we have that much power available we should simply fly to another star system. I don't think this is a realistic possibility.

[Moontanman]

Well, a very slow collision would not create as much heat. So suppose we change the orbit of Ceres so that it just matches that of Mars, then the impact will be very slow as not as much heat is developed (i.e. less kinetic energy).

 

We need Ceres to be the moon of Merc/Mars

 

But is there even 50% of the mass of Mars available in the asteroid belt? I doubt it. And we can't use mercury or venus or the moon as moving them to Mars would royally screw up the orbit of earth. And I don't see any way to pull the moons or Jupiter or Saturn out of their gravity well...if we have that much power available we should simply fly to another star system. I don't think this is a realistic possibility.

 

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

 

The mass of all the objects of the Main asteroid belt, lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, is estimated to be about 3.0-3.6 × 1021 kg, or about 4 percent of the mass of the Moon.

[Arch2008]

I think that crashing asteroids together to construct artificial planets is wrong. It's like making a huge pile from the building materials for thousands of skyscrapers, then trying to live on top of the pile. Asteroids are even better building materials for space habitats than planets, because you don't have to beat as much gravity to get them where you want them.

[SH3RL0CK]

So Mars has a mass of 6.4185 × 1023 kg ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars ) which makes the total mass of the asteroid belt 0.5% of the mass of Mars. There isn't enough mass in the asteroid belt to significantly increase the mass of mars.

[Mr Skeptic]

What people are forgetting is that it really isn't necessary to go through that much trouble to make Mars earthlike to make it livable. As I mentioned, putting large superconducting magnetic energy storage devices on opposite ends of the planet would not only create a magnetic field (the strength of which we could adjust, say to cope with solar flares) but would create a beautiful buffer for the grid. Mars isn't large enough to hold an atmosphere for geologic timescales, but since when does everything we build have to last thousands of times longer than our civilization has existed?

[Moontanman]

I think that crashing asteroids together to construct artificial planets is wrong. It's like making a huge pile from the building materials for thousands of skyscrapers, then trying to live on top of the pile. Asteroids are even better building materials for space habitats than planets, because you don't have to beat as much gravity to get them where you want them.

 

There is no doubt you are correct, moving planets at will is not impossible but far beyond the ability of mortal men. Building artificial habitats is more than enough of a challenge for now:D

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What people are forgetting is that it really isn't necessary to go through that much trouble to make Mars earthlike to make it livable. As I mentioned, putting large superconducting magnetic energy storage devices on opposite ends of the planet would not only create a magnetic field (the strength of which we could adjust, say to cope with solar flares) but would create a beautiful buffer for the grid. Mars isn't large enough to hold an atmosphere for geologic timescales, but since when does everything we build have to last thousands of times longer than our civilization has existed?

 

You are correct and if we can build up the atmosphere of Mars we can also add to it as time goes by. I think that gravity wells will be avoided by a future space fairing civilization, artificial habitats constructed by Von Neumann machines would be the best way to go.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine

[INTESTINES]

first if a volcano on mars erupts then the surface will be hot so we can pour water on the planet so the planet has clouds of rain then we should find the technology to move a planet a little closer but not in earts orbit then we will have a second earth;)

[Taffer]

Mercury being 'merged' with Mars (and probably Phobos and Deimos too) is possible.....IF the blackhole drive/generator envisioned by Lois Crane and Shawn Westmoreland is as 'doable' as their math and our technology so far suggests. With a Black Hole drive/generator, we would potentially have a lot of energy and mass to throw around. Many, many, many high mass close flybys (if we could make a ship that could survive prolonged time that close to the sun) could nudge Mercury into a higher orbit. We could then eventually guide it into the gentlest possible collision with Mars. That added mass (and the energy of the collision) might even get the core going again. It would be a shame though we lost the near 24 hour rotation period of Mars

 

Maybe we could NEAR (or barely) impact Mercury with Venus for (A) a slingshot effect and (B) skim off some CO2 from Venus to bring to Mars.....

 

Hmmm, it might be easier to do the same thing with one of Jupiter's moons instead of Mercury.....

 

That said, we could also likely do a lot of interesting things with Venus, Titan, Rhea and Europa.

 

Not sure what to do about Venus's CO2 though....maybe a Black Hole (without attached ship) being skimmed through Venus's atmosphere could deal with the issue? It just seems so wasteful when Mars could really use some of that gas.....

 

Between all those planets, we might be able to squeeze out an extra 1-3 terrestrial worlds.

 

Also, as our star's luminosity increases, we would also be able to continually keep our planet at an ideal distance.... and if we can't do this, our world will start to become inhospitable for us in about 500 million years. I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for the math in compensating for moving both Earth AND the Moon though....oh wait, I guess there is about 0% chance of that happening. lol

 

IF we can make these drives/generators, then we can make the trips to other star systems. Hey, what would happen if you had a Red Dwarf with a few large gas giants, and you guided those gas giants into collisions with the star? Maybe we could make Class G-K stars without permanently frying potentially useful inner planets....of course, we would need to make a gazillion flybys to move planets like that because of their huge mass and thick atmosphere. Hmmm, their atmospheres are probably the biggest problem there, since the distance of the fly by would need to be increased so far = there would be close to zero gravitational effect on the gas giant.

 

Anyway, lots of possibilities IF the drive/generator is possible. I just don't like the idea that the Black Hole will eventually explode......

Edited January 9, 2011 by Taffer