By the time of the 23rd century, Terraforming a planet was difficult, judging by the amazingness of the Genesis-idea.

By the 24th, 'Home Soil' revealed that Terraformers might spend their whole lives working on one world, and were considered to be a little fruity or at least in their choice of profession.
It makes sense that it would take several generations to get a planet to be breathable.. you would first need to introduce bacteria (much is written about not using a planet with life already, because it would be wrong to wipe its evolution out see: ST:II 'there cant be one microbe or the shows off' and Shatner's (and the Reeves' ;-) 'Avenger')
The bacteria would either produce oxygen or lead up to a bacteria that produces oxygen (or CO2 if you were introducing plants i guess) .. you would first have to make water tables (like they were doing in home soil).. it might be a long time until you had dug enough for water and made enough gases to support macroscopic life.
Would you have to make an ozone layer? to keep in your greenhouse gases?

you would have to let several generations (season?) of plants go by until you were getting soil.. and how would the atmosphere be doing? could life gases be introduced mechanically?.. its a pretty large scale to beam in tanks or something.

would your temperature be evening out? it was probably cold when you started and warmed up with the introduction of the ozone layer.

They might not have had time to do all this on mars, even with being there 200 years (since 21something: Kim, '37s')

possibly mars has limited agriculture.. in special areas that have been more terraformed than the red we've seen. Keep in mind that even portions of earth remain unlivable (deserts, mountains, ice caps), like martian deserts. Its possible they have big green areas that still dont show up as much from orbit and are semi-artifically supported, but there remains much of the deserts.

But do they have weather? possibly all the heat created for their homes and oxygen released by their planets and co2 released by their living there hasnt caused too much greenhouse, and there isnt a lot of moisture for clouds.

Or you can read "The Case for Mars" which goes into depth about starting to go to Mars tommorrow, to building a base, to terraforming and creating another branch of civilization

But in absolute brief here it is:

Pressure
We land and promptly create greenhouse gases. That which is decried as damaging to the Earth is supremely beneficial to Mars. Thickening the atmosphere increases the pressure to the point where humans would be able to walk outside w/o space suits. Mars current atmosphere at the datum (equivelent of sea level) is about a thousandth of Earth's. (Mars = .001 bar Earth = 1 bar)

Heat
Thickening the atmosphere also traps more heat, preventing it from escaping. Greenhouse gases on Earth are bad because they increase heat on an already tropical planet. Doing this on Mars, will eventually (granted, over the period of several hundred years) warm Mars up to habitable levels. In the moderately far future, we can even put up solar lenses which will be in orbit and magnify the sun to closer to Earth levels. These solar lenses (I forget the exact term used in the Mars Trilogy) will be akin in size and shape to solar sails.

Atmospheric Gases
Mars' atmosphere is composed of 95% carbon dioxide. Genetically engineered bacteria that are capable of converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, then plants that do the same (when pressure gets high enough) and finally animals that are genetically engineered with high CO2 tolerances to complete an ecosystem. In real science, it would take centuries or even a thousand years to make it breathable for humans. But there are things that can be done to speed it up. Skimming iceteroids through the atmosphere adds pressure and oxygen.

Water
There is believed to be giant aquifers of water under the surface of Mars. Yes, liquid water. Release these, pipe them. At first you have sublimated ice, then ice, and eventually water.

I would get more into the philosophy of Martian exploration, but I have a shitload of homework.

Read The Case for Mars.

With Treknology, the process can certainly be done between 2103 and the 24th century. Is there any way we could explain away scenes of an unterraformed Mars? Please?

(BTW: I would've called the thread "Terraforming: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Greenhouse Gases and Eugenics")

[ September 24, 2001: Message edited by: Stingray ]

I'm sure Mars will remain unterraformed in Trek exactly because it's a monument of sorts, and because there is no need to alter it. I'm also convinced that the Feds will happily terraform life-containing planets even when this means killing the native life - life in Trek is omnipresent, never-ending, 13-in-a-dozen. You don't have to specifically cherish every last bit of it. When Marcus was concerned about single microbes on Ceti Alpha V/VI, she was probably worrying about them ruining her great experiment, not about them dying. IIRC, it was the idealistic eternally-wet-behind-the-ears Chekov who brought up the idea of transplanting the microbes instead of just destroying them. Marcus then threw up her arms in exasperation: "Transplant?" Why this unnecessary delay?

When a planet *is* going to be terraformed, the process has to be worth it. Probably when the need is greatest, the odds are against the terraformers. When a planet desperately needs a farming world to provide food, one cannot terraform a planet several star systems over - one has to terraform something within easy transportation range.

The Feds thus probably mostly transform unoptimal worlds, and spend lots of resources in studying new ways of transforming them. The work at Velara in the Pleiades was probably all part of an experiment to see if it could be done, more than a project to get Velara III inhabited.

First, I don't like the notion prevalent in Star Trek that the galaxy within 30,000 light years of Earth has thousands of inhabitated worlds.
There is something to be said for less the number, the better the credibility.

Second, terraforming. Our global civilization is becoming less patient and less tolerable to projects that require years and decades to resolve. Results have to be immediate and present for investment to continue. This is one of the factors that is inhibiting the development of space exploration and colonization. I don't see this civilization wanting to fund a project that could take 50 generations to complete. Furthermore, any effort to terraform Mars will be affected by the economic and social events that defined the Earth at any given decade or century. This can be seen indirectly in the aftermath of the Sept 11 events. NASA is scheduled to lose at least 5 percent of its budget which will translate into projects to Mars being reduced in scope or being canceled.

I would love to be alive when humans land on Mars. However, I am realistic. IF there is an landing, the landing will occur at a time when the nations are more united than they are now and the social and economic conditions on Earth are stable.

As for terraforming Mars, this probably will never occur. I would imagine that the cost of this enterprise would be greater than the combined GDP of the US and other first world nations.
The costs include transportation of the materials, the time that humans are on Mars, and the research and development needed to begin and continue the research.

Stingray, I know that you support the exploration for Mars. I do, however, feel that you need to do more for your cause. Like for instance, I think maybe you should learn how the social and economic matrices of a civilization affect the spread of exploration.

[ September 25, 2001: Message edited by: targetemployee ]

[ September 25, 2001: Message edited by: targetemployee ]

The second hurdle is Mars' lower gravity. Mars can't retain enough of an atmosphere to keep from freezing over the long run. If it could, it would be doing so right now, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

First off, Venus and Mars ARE in the habitability zone of the sun. Yes, they are.

Second, target: Believe me, if I had the time or energy, I would give each and every member of this board a three hour seminar on how every preconception about going to Mars and making a new branch of civilization there is entirely feasible and possible. However, I'm limited to a bulletin board and emails.

"The second hurdle is Mars' lower gravity. Mars can't retain enough of an atmosphere to keep from freezing over the long run. If it could, it would be doing so right now, and we wouldn't be having this discussion."

This is simply wrong. It is a factual error. Mars has no problem retaining its atmosphere because of gravity. It has to do with something else that we don't know about yet. If we can figure out what that is, then maybe we can fix it and maybe ***GASP*** we might be able to prevent it from happening here on Earth. Comparative planetology is a powerful, powerful tool.

(The greenhouse effect was discovered by studying Venus)

::gets on knees and pleads::

Please please PLEASE read "The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin. it will answer everything in slightly over 300 pages that I have tried to answer in brief here and in emails.

"Stingray, I know that you support the exploration for Mars. I do, however, feel that you need to do more for your cause. Like for instance, I think maybe you should learn how the social and economic matrices of a civilization affect the spread of exploration."

That is one of the main goals of the Mars Society, target, as I've already tried to explain. Education is the key. I'm trying to educate seemingly intelligent (except for maybe Omega), traditionally educated, rational people about the facts of sending humans to Mars. Granted, my arguments are broad and sweeping and I address only the facts that you bring up (for lack of time).

But here it is as fast as I can type it: There is no JFK today and there are no social conditions that will allow us a moon program style. Thanfully, because this would not allow us to truly explore Mars (as it did not allow us to truly explore the Moon). Instead we have to find another way. Traditionally, initial exploration projects have been funded by the government (Columbus, Lewis and Clark, etc.) and then private interests take over in developing the possibilities. This has yet to happen with space. Partly due to the government's (NASA's) reluctance to encourage private industries from sending humans to space. But its already happened with orbit, its about to really take off with MirCorp.

In the context of Mars, governments will fund the initial 2 1/2 year missions and 'astronauts' will fly them. Then, once the infrastructure is there (and hoepfully the government discouragement is not), private enterprises will begin to exploit the possibilities. And there are many possibilities. I could go into the neccessity of a frontier for our civilization, but I won't.

Watch our three hour special 'Mars on Earth' on the Discovery Channel on November 7. It will talk all about simulating Mars missions on Earth and paving the way. And as you watch, bear in mind that the fact that your watching means we've just accomplished as much PR work as scientific work. And we've only just started.

[ September 25, 2001: Message edited by: Stingray ]