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Oh yes, Curiosity's been busy, it seems. This makes me wonder - would all that would be needed to terraform Mars be artificially inducing it to thicken its atmosphere?

That's been the running theory, but the problem that's been brought up is the lack of a magnetic field from an active core would mean that whatever atmosphere that gets introduced would just get blasted off in time.

Really though we don't need to be bothering with the deep gravity wells. To the asteroids!

Why would the lack of a magnetic field play into it? I was always under the impression that Mars simply didn't have the gravity to hang on to a breathable atmosphere for keeps.
And I think at least for colonization, a built-in gravity well (even one as shallow as that of Mars) has its advantages, what with the colonists having evolved in one even deeper.

Josh wrote:That's been the running theory, but the problem that's been brought up is the lack of a magnetic field from an active core would mean that whatever atmosphere that gets introduced would just get blasted off in time.

Eventually, yes. That and the gravity, but the timescale involved is immense by human standards. It's not really an issue, because if we can induce a breathable atmosphere dealing with the miniscule rate of loss which won't even be noticeable in less than tens of thousands of years won't be a problem.

Batman wrote:Why would the lack of a magnetic field play into it? I was always under the impression that Mars simply didn't have the gravity to hang on to a breathable atmosphere for keeps.

From what I understand, a stronger magnetic field allows a planet's atmosphere to be better protected against being blown away by solar wind.

I'm sure that if we can give Mars an atmosphere we can keep replenishing it as needed. In other words this isn't really a problem. Now giving Mars an atmosphere in the first place, that is a problem.

Well I'll float the stupid idea so everyone can explain to me why it wouldn't work.

In high school some friends and I had this idea of setting up some of the nastier factories on Mars, the ones that pump out so much CO2? Later I abandoned the idea because of economics and logistics. It just wasn't logistically feasible to put it mildly. The economics also made it a ridiculous idea as I got older (once again maturity gets in the way of a good time).

So would pumping out a bunch of green house gases work?

frigidmagi wrote:Well I'll float the stupid idea so everyone can explain to me why it wouldn't work.

In high school some friends and I had this idea of setting up some of the nastier factories on Mars, the ones that pump out so much CO2? Later I abandoned the idea because of economics and logistics. It just wasn't logistically feasible to put it mildly. The economics also made it a ridiculous idea as I got older (once again maturity gets in the way of a good time).

So would pumping out a bunch of green house gases work?

That's basically the plan a few people have proposed - find a way to reduce the greenhouse gases on Venus to make it livable, and add greenhouse gases to Mars' atmosphere to make it livable.

There are mechanical differences of the terraforming of both, of course, but that's pretty much what it boils down to, from what I've read and seen.

One of those mechanical differences being you'd have to remove Venuses atmosphere alltogether and start from scratch while Mars, not having much of an atmosphere anymore to begin with, is much more malleable.

Batman wrote:One of those mechanical differences being you'd have to remove Venuses atmosphere alltogether

No, not really. Venus' main issue is an overabundance of carbon dioxide, and there are ways to reduce the amount of CO2 in its atmosphere to the point where the Sun can shine directly on the surface unimpeded. At that point, Venus will have liquid water on its surface, and its atmosphere will be manageable for human life.

More data on the subject, regarding Mars' atmospheric loss, and an upcoming mission to study it further:

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