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.
Maybe the terraformed areas of mars are still in pressure domes
God, how long does it take to fill an ocean!?
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 ]
ive read a lot of the hard science for terraforming mars (i had a class in high school where we spent and entire semester formulating a plan to develop the moon for a colony or base, but the teacher admitted mars would make more sense for living) The best idea my group came up with was introducing a genetically altered microbe that 'ate' oxidized metal, metabolizing it into metal and releasing oxygen.
I terraformed Mars many time in SimEarth.
There has got to be someway to explain how Mars is 'actually' terraformed and yet we have not seen such in the total of 30 secs we've ever seen 'present day' Mars.
and you and my tech ed teacher think alike...
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.
Timo Saloniemi
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.
Venus isn't much better of a candidate, either. Drop Earth into its orbit, and the global temperature would go up almost 100 degrees F. TSN raised a good point; it really doesn't make much sense to terraform a planet outside the zone of habitability in a solar system.
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 ]
Of course, the novel and all the concepts contained within could be written off as non-canon, especially since it would also be very necessary to not have any lifeforms present lest they disrupt the Genesis matrix.
But if you were terraforming a planet with a preexisting microbial life structure, would it actually make it more difficult for you? If they ate plants and released methane, you might be uncomfortable there, and it would require a lot of fun to try and destroy every microbe on a planet, especially if they lived under oceans or underground. And the Federation really doesnt seem the type to go on such a great Tribble hunt massacre. Why risk all that trouble?
Regarding life: Present day humanity has enough moral trouble with killing off an entire species of a horrible disease. I don't think the hypermoral Federation would be doing it on a regular basis.
And to bring the Trek speculation back to Mars; there is a lot of debate over whether or not we should terraform Mars since we don't know whether there are or have been lifeforms. It is a major theme in the Mars Trilogy. Though the debate in real life is not so evenly distributed in the book, it is the general consensus that we should bring life to Mars and make it like Earth if it never was. And if it was, make it like it once was.
I'm fairly familiar with the various space advocacy movements, and support them, but to be philosophical about it, why do we need to terraform Mars? Or, to put it another way, why is a terraformed Mars more valuable than an...aresformed Mars? Because of the existence of life? Piffle, I say. Life is nothing. Just a temporary negentropic effect that's completely canceled out by the larger entropy all around it.
I forgot to add my devil's advocate tag.
Oh, and while I'm at it, my Liamism for today: Arseform Mars? Surely we have enough of those here on Earth. 
I used the same values for Earth's atmosphere in my computations; the only thing I changed was I, which varies at the square of the distance from the sun. That's how I computed the roughly hundred degree variance each way.
The formula comes from the book "World-Building", by Stephen L. Gillett. I recommend it to anyone considering trying to design a solar system from scratch.
"I didn't pull those figures out of thin air"
Nice pun
"Yeah, i wouldnt feel bad about raping Mars.
But it would suck to have all that beautiful red scenery interrupted by ugly white clouds and green plants and blue water."
Was that sarcasm?
why do we need to terraform Mars? Or, to put it another way, why is a terraformed Mars more valuable than an...aresformed Mars? Because of the existence of life? Piffle, I say. Life is nothing. Just a temporary negentropic effect that's completely canceled out by the larger entropy all around it.
Well, if you were a primate, you would be concerned with self preservation. But hey, its not for everybody.
It's been theorized that the Genesis Wave screwed around with time and gravity and such to accomplish its intented goal. What if the reason for needing a lifeless body wasn't so much philosophical and ethical as practical. Namely, that any pre-existing life could get caught in a time distortion field and evolve into who-knows-what inside of two minutes. And if they were intelligent, then you couldn't touch the planet at all.
quote:
"Yeah, i wouldnt feel bad about raping Mars.
But it would suck to have all that beautiful red scenery interrupted by ugly white clouds and green plants and blue water."Was that sarcasm?
But mind you, I'm feeling rather bitter at the moment.
And now, the hypocritical .sig!
quote:excerpted from 'Ex Astris Scientia: Treknology'
Weather modification net: System that controls and modifies the weather on Federation planets.
The weather modification net was mentioned in TNG: "True Q". It played an important role in TNG: "Sub Rosa" and DS9: "Let He Who is without Sin", where it turned out to be essential for the well-being of the planets.