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'Terra-forming'.. (Or: 'Better Living Through Breathing an Oxygen/Nitrogen Mixture')
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Stingray: [QB] First off: Read the Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's hard sci-fi and chronicals the terraforming and settling of the Red Planet. Though the Star Trek universe is neccessarily quite different, I would personally love to see the general principle and arc applied to the terraforming of Trek Mars 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: [b]Pressure[/b] 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) [b]Heat[/b] 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. [b]Atmospheric Gases[/b] 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. [b]Water[/b] 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 [i]The Case for Mars[/i]. 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") [/QB][/QUOTE]
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