Category Archives: Terraforming Mars

Yet, Mars might not be the best candidate for terraforming. A few scientists say Venus could be easier. For one thing, Venus and Earth have a lot in common. Each has a thick atmosphere, and both are nearly the same mass and size. Unlike Mars, the atmosphere on Venus would give scientists something to work with.

Venus boasts an atmosphere chiefly composed of carbon-dioxide. It covers the planet like an electric blanket, heating the surface to an average temperature of 872 F (467 C). Venus is so hot that most life, including human life, cannot possibly exist. Some organisms, however, do thrive in such harsh environments. They're called hyperthermophiles, and they can survive in temperatures above 176 F (80 C) [source: Griffith].

Some scientists believe if we seed Venus with these tiny, heat-loving creatures, at least the kind that chow down on sulfur, which is also present in the Venetian atmosphere, they would flourish on the inhospitable planet, converting all that carbon dioxide into oxygen, which other life-forms then can use to grow and thrive [source: Griffith].

Another proposal involves shading Venus with giant sails to cool the atmosphere until all the carbon dioxide falls to the surface. And still others say building giant floating cities to suck the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere so its molecules could be split into oxygen and carbon could work. The more cities there are, the theory goes, the more their shadows blanket the surface. As a result, the atmosphere cools [source: Cain].

Of course, there is no water on Venus, and water is essential for life. So what's a mad scientist to do? Slam a few comets into the planet, of course. Why should we do that? There's a dearth of hydrogen on Venus because it all escaped into space when the planet formed. Consequently, there's no water. But comets are dirty snowballs that contain ice. If we were to nudge a few comets toward Venus so bits of ice broke off and slammed onto the surface, water molecules would eventually form on the planet. The comets also would bring carbon dioxide, water, methane and ammonia [sources: Benford].

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How Terraforming Works | HowStuffWorks

Paul M. Sutter (opens in new tab) is an astrophysicist at SUNY (opens in new tab) Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman (opens in new tab) and Space Radio (opens in new tab), and author of How to Die in Space (opens in new tab).

Almost every sci-fi story begins (and sometimes ends) with the terraforming of Mars to turn it into a more hospitable world.

But with its frigid temperatures, remoteness from the sun and general dustiness, changing Mars to be more Earth-like is more challenging than it seems (and it already seems pretty tough).

Incredible technology: How to use 'shells' to terraform a planet

The thing is, Mars used to be cool. And by cool, I mean warm. Billions of years ago, Mars had a thick, carbon-rich atmosphere, lakes and oceans of liquid water, and probably even white fluffy clouds. And this was at a time when our sun was smaller and weaker, but occasionally much more violent than it is today in other words, our solar system is a much more favorable place for life now than it was 3 billion years ago, and yet Mars is red and dead.

Sadly, Mars was doomed from the start. It's smaller than Earth, which means it cooled off much faster. The core of our planet is still molten, and that spinning blob of iron-rich goo in the center of Earth powers our strong magnetic field. The magnetic field is a literal force field, capable of stopping and deflecting the solar wind, which is a never-ending stream of high-energy particles blasting out of the sun.

When Mars cooled off, its core solidified and its magnetic force field shut off, exposing its atmosphere to the ravages of the solar wind. Over the course of 100 million years or so, the solar wind stripped away the Martian atmosphere. When the air pressure dropped to near-vacuum, the oceans on the surface boiled away and the planet dried up.

It's so tantalizing: Mars was once Earth-like, and so is there any way to bring it back to its former glory?

Thankfully (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), we humans have plenty of experience in warming up planets. Inadvertently, through our centuries of carbon emissions, we've raised the surface temperature of Earth (opens in new tab) through a simple greenhouse mechanism. We pump out a lot of carbon dioxide, which is really good at letting sunlight in and preventing thermal radiation from escaping, so it acts like a giant invisible blanket over Earth.

The increased heat encourages moisture to leave the oceans and play around as a vapor in the atmosphere, which adds its own blanketing layer, adding to the increase in temperature, which evaporates more water, which warms the planet more, and before you know if prime beachfront property is now better suited as an underwater submarine base.

But if it works on Earth, maybe it could work on Mars. We can't access the OG Martian atmosphere, because it's completely lost to space, but Mars does have enormous deposits of water ice and frozen carbon dioxide in its polar caps, and some more laced just underneath the surface across the planet.

If we could somehow warm the caps, that might release enough carbon into the atmosphere to kick-start a greenhouse warming trend. All we would need to do is kick back, watch and wait for a few centuries for physics to do its thing and turn Mars into a much less nasty place.

Unfortunately, that simple idea probably isn't going to work.

Related: What would it be like to live on Mars?

The first issue is developing the technology to warm the caps. Proposals have ranged from sprinkling dust all across the poles (to make them reflect less light and warm them up) to building a giant space mirror to put some high-beam action on the poles. But any ideas require radical leaps in technology, and a manufacturing presence in space far beyond what we are currently capable of (in the case of the space mirror, we would need to mine about 200,000 tons of aluminum in space, whereas we are currently capable of mining well, zero tons of aluminum in space).

And then there's the unfortunate realization that there isn't nearly enough CO2 locked up in Mars to trigger a decent warming trend. Currently Mars has less than 1% of the air pressure on Earth at sea level. If you could evaporate every molecule of CO2 and H2O on Mars and get it into the atmosphere, the Red Planet would have 2% of the air pressure on Earth. You would need twice as much atmosphere to prevent the sweat and oils on your skin from boiling, and 10 times that much to not need a pressure suit.

Let's not even talk about the lack of oxygen.

To counter this lack of easily accessible greenhouse gases (opens in new tab), there are some radical proposals. Maybe we could have factories devoted to pumping out chlorofluorocarbons, which are a really nasty greenhouse gas. Or maybe we could shove in some ammonia-rich comets from the outer solar system. Ammonia itself is a great greenhouse blanket, and it eventually dissociates into harmless nitrogen, which makes up the bulk of our own atmosphere.

Assuming we could overcome the technological challenges associated with those proposals, there's still one major hurdle: the lack of a magnetic field. Unless we protect Mars, every molecule that we pump (or crash) into the atmosphere is vulnerable to getting blasted away by the solar wind. Like trying to build a pyramid from desert sand, it's not going to be easy.

Creative solutions abound. Maybe we could build a giant electromagnet in space to deflect away the solar wind. Maybe we could girdle Mars with a superconductor, giving it an artificial magnetosphere.

Naturally, we don't have nearly the sophistication to realize either of those solutions. Could we ever, possibly, terraform Mars and make it more hospitable? Sure, it's possible there's no fundamental law of physics getting in our way.

But don't hold your breath.

Learn more by listening to the episode "Could we really terraform Mars? (opens in new tab)" on the Ask A Spaceman podcast, available on iTunes (opens in new tab) and on the Web at http://www.askaspaceman.com (opens in new tab). Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul @PaulMattSutter (opens in new tab) and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter (opens in new tab).

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Could we really terraform Mars? | Space

As part of our continuing Definitive Guide To Terraforming series, Universe Today is happy to present our guide to terraforming Mars. At present, there are several plans to put astronauts and ever settlers on the Red Planet. But if we really want to live there someday, were going to need to do a complete planetary renovation. What will it take?

Despite having a very cold and very dry climate not to mention little atmosphere to speak of Earth and Mars have a lot in common. These include similarities in size, inclination, structure, composition, and even the presence of water on their surfaces. Because of this, Mars is considered a prime candidate for human settlement; a prospect that includes transforming the environment to be suitable to human needs (aka. terraforming).

That being said, there are also a lot of key differences that would make living on Mars, a growing preoccupation among many humans (looking at you, Elon Musk and Bas Lansdorp!), a significant challenge. If we were to live on the planet, we would have to depend rather heavily on our technology. And if we were going to alter the planet through ecological engineering, it would take a lot of time, effort, and megatons of resources!

The challenges of living on Mars are quite numerous. For starters, there is the extremely thin and unbreathable atmosphere. Whereas Earths atmosphere is composed of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and trace amounts of other gases, Mars atmosphere is made up of 96% carbon dioxide, 1.93% argon and 1.89% nitrogen, along with trace amounts of oxygen and water.

Mars atmospheric pressure also ranges from 0.4 0.87 kPa, which is the equivalent of about 1% of Earths at sea level. The thin atmosphere and greater distance from the Sun also contributes to Mars cold environment, where surface temperatures average 210 K (-63 C/-81.4 F). Add to this the fact that Mars lacks a magnetosphere, and you can see why the surface is exposed to significantly more radiation than Earths.

On the Martian surface, the average dose of radiation is about 0.67 millisieverts (mSv) per day, which is about a fifth of what people are exposed to here on Earth in the course of a year. Hence, if humans wanted to live on Mars without the need for radiation shielding, pressurized domes, bottled oxygen, and protective suits, some serious changes would need to be made. Basically, we would have to warm the planet, thicken the atmosphere, and alter the composition of said atmosphere.

In 1951, Arthur C. Clarke wrote the first novel in which the terraforming of Mars was presented in fiction. Titled The Sands of Mars, the story involves Martian settlers heating up the planet by converting Mars moon Phobos into a second sun, and growing plants that break down the Martians sands in order to release oxygen.

In 1984, James Lovelock and Michael Allaby wrote what is considered by many to be one of the most influential books on terraforming. Titled The Greening of Mars, the novel explores the formation and evolution of planets, the origin of life, and Earths biosphere. The terraforming models presented in the book actually foreshadowed future debates regarding the goals of terraforming.

In 1992, author Frederik Pohl released Mining The Oort, a science fiction story where Mars is being terraformed using comets diverted from the Oort Cloud. Throughout the 1990s, Kim Stanley Robinson released his famous Mars Trilogy Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars which centers on the transformation of Mars over the course of many generations into a thriving human civilization.

In 2011, Yu Sasuga and Kenichi Tachibana produced the manga series Terra Formars, a series that takes place in the 21st century where scientists are attempting to slowly warm Mars. And in 2012, Kim Stanley Robinson released 2312, a story that takes place in a Solar System where multiple planets have been terraformed which includes Mars (which has oceans).

Over the past few decades, several proposals have been made for how Mars could be altered to suit human colonists. In 1964, Dandridge M. Cole released Islands in Space: The Challenge of the Planetoids, the Pioneering Work, in which he advocated triggering a greenhouse effect on Mars. This consisted of importing ammonia ices from the outer Solar System and then impacting them on the surface.

Since ammonia (NH) is a powerful greenhouse gas, its introduction into the Martian atmosphere would have the effect of thickening the atmosphere and raising global temperatures. As ammonia is mostly nitrogen by weight, it could also provide the necessary buffer gas which, when combined with oxygen gas, would create a breathable atmosphere for humans.

Another method has to do with albedo reduction, where the surface of Mars would be coated with dark materials in order to increase the amount of sunlight it absorbs. This could be anything from dust from Phobos and Deimos (two of the darkest bodies in the Solar System) to extremophile lichens and plants that are dark in color. One of the greatest proponents for this was famed author and scientist, Carl Sagan.

In 1973, Sagan published an article in the journal Icarus titled Planetary Engineering on Mars, where he proposed two scenarios for darkening the surface of Mars. These included transporting low albedo material and/or planting dark plants on the polar ice caps to ensure they absorbed more heat, melted, and converted the planet to more Earth-like conditions.

In 1976, NASA officially addressed the issue of planetary engineering in a study titled On the Habitability of Mars: An Approach to Planetary Ecosynthesis. The study concluded that photosynthetic organisms, the melting of the polar ice caps, and the introduction of greenhouse gases could all be used to create a warmer, oxygen and ozone-rich atmosphere.

In 1982, Planetologist Christopher McKay wrote Terraforming Mars, a paper for the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. In it, McKay discussed the prospects of a self-regulating Martian biosphere, which included both the required methods for doing so and ethics of it. This was the first time that the word terraforming was used in the title of a published article, and would henceforth become the preferred term.

This was followed in 1984 by James Lovelock and Michael Allabys book, The Greening of Mars. In it, Lovelock and Allaby described how Mars could be warmed by importing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to trigger global warming.

In 1993, Mars Society founder Dr. Robert M. Zubrin and Christopher P. McKay of the NASA Ames Research Center co-wrote Technological Requirements for Terraforming Mars. In it, they proposed using orbital mirrors to warm the Martian surface directly. Positioned near the poles, these mirrors would be able to sublimate theCO2 ice sheet and contribute to global warming.

In the same paper, they argued the possibility of using asteroids harvested from the Solar System, which would be redirected to impact the surface, kicking up dust and warming the atmosphere. In both scenarios, they advocate for the use of nuclear-electrical or nuclear-thermal rockets to haul all the necessary materials/asteroids into orbit.

The use of fluorine compounds super-greenhouse gases that produce a greenhouse effect thousands of times stronger than CO has also been recommended as a long term climate stabilizer. In 2001, a team of scientists from the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech made these recommendations in the Keeping Mars warm with new super greenhouse gases.

Where this study indicated that the initial payloads of fluorine would have to come from Earth (and be replenished regularly), it claimed that fluorine-containing minerals could also be mined on Mars. This is based on the assumption that such minerals are just as common on Mars (being a terrestrial planet) which would allow for a self-sustaining process once colonies were established.

Importing methane and other hydrocarbons from the outer Solar System which are plentiful on Saturns moon Titan has also been suggested. There is also the possibility of in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), thanks to the Curiosity rovers discovery of a tenfold spike of methane that pointed to a subterranean source. If these sources could be mined, methane might not even need to be imported.

More recent proposals include the creation of sealed biodomes that would employ colonies of oxygen-producing cyanobacteria and algae on Martian soil. In 2014, the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NAIC) program and Techshot Inc. began work on this concept, which was named the Mars Ecopoiesis Test Bed. In the future, the project intends to send small canisters of extremophile photosynthetic algae and cyanobacteria aboard a rover mission to test the process in a Martian environment.

If this proves successful, NASA and Techshot intend to build several large biodomes to produce and harvest oxygen for future human missions to Mars which would cut costs and extend missions by reducing the amount of oxygen that has to be transported. While these plans do not constitute ecological or planetary engineering, Eugene Boland (chief scientist of Techshot Inc.) has stated that it is a step in that direction:

Ecopoiesis is the concept of initiating life in a new place; more precisely, the creation of an ecosystem capable of supporting life. It is the concept of initiating terraforming using physical, chemical and biological means including the introduction of ecosystem-building pioneer organisms This will be the first major leap from laboratory studies into the implementation of experimental (as opposed to analytical) planetary in situ research of greatest interest to planetary biology, ecopoiesis and terraforming.

Beyond the prospect for adventure and the idea of humanity once again embarking on an era of bold space exploration, there are several reasons why terraforming Mars is being proposed. For starters, there is concern that humanitys impact on planet Earth is unsustainable, and that we will need to expand and create a backup location if we intend to survive in the long run.

This school of though cites things like the Earths growing population which is expected to reach 9.6 billion by mid-century as well as the fact that by 2050, roughly two-thirds of the worlds population is expected to live in major cities. On top of that, there is the prospect of severe Climate Change, which according to a series of scenarios computed by NASA could result in life becoming untenable on certain parts of the planet by 2100.

Other reasons emphasize how Mars lies within our Suns Goldilocks Zone (aka. habitable zone), and was once a habitable planet. Over the past few decades, surface missions like NASAs Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and its Curiosity rover have uncovered a wealth of evidence that points to flowing water existing on Mars in the deep past (as well as the existence of organic molecules).

In addition, NASAs Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN Mission (MAVEN) (and other orbiters) have provided extensive information on Mars past atmosphere. What they have concluded is that roughly 4 billion years ago, Mars had abundant surface water and a thicker atmosphere. However, due to the loss of Mars magnetosphere which may have been caused by a large impact or rapid cooling of the planets interior the atmosphere was slowly stripped away.

Ergo, if Mars was once habitable and Earth-like, it is possible that it could be again one day. And if indeed humanity is looking for a new world to settle on, it only makes sense that it be on one that has as much in common with Earth as possible. In addition, it has also been argued that our experience with altering the climate of our own planet could be put to good use on Mars.

For centuries, our reliance on industrial machinery, coal and fossil fuels has had a measurable effect Earths environment. And whereas this has been an unintended consequence of modernization and development here on Earth; on Mars, the burning of fossil fuels and the regular release of pollution into the air would have a positive effect.

Other reasons include expanding our resources base and becoming a post-scarcity society. A colony on Mars could allow for mining operations on the Red Planet, where both minerals and water ice are abundant and could be harvested. A base on Mars could also act as a gateway to the Asteroid Belt, which would provide us with access to enough minerals to last us indefinitely.

Without a doubt, the prospect of terraforming Mars comes with its share of problems, all of which are particularly daunting. For starters, there is the sheer amount of resources it would take to convert Mars environment into something sustainable for humans. Second, there is the concern that any measure undertaken could have unintended consequences. And third, there is the amount of time it would take.

For example, when it comes to concepts that call for the introduction of greenhouse gases to trigger warming, the quantities required are quite staggering. The 2001 Caltech study, which called for the introduction of fluorine compounds, indicated that sublimating the south polar CO glaciers would require the introduction of approximately 39 million metric tons of CFCs into Mars atmosphere which is three times the amounts produced on Earth between 1972 and 1992.

Photolysis would also begin to break down the CFCs the moment they were introduced, which would necessitate the addition of 170 kilotons every year to replenish the losses. And last, the introduction of CFCs would also destroy any ozone that was produced, which would undermine efforts to shield to surface from radiation.

Also, the 1976 NASA feasibility study indicated that while terraforming Mars would be possible using terrestrial organisms, it also recognized that the time-frames called for would be considerable. As it states in the study:

No fundamental, insuperable limitation of the ability of Mars to support a terrestrial ecology is identified. The lack of an oxygen-containing atmosphere would prevent the unaided habitation of Mars by man. The present strong ultraviolet surface irradiation is an additional major barrier. The creation of an adequate oxygen and ozone-containing atmosphere on Mars may be feasible through the use of photosynthetic organisms. The time needed to generate such an atmosphere, however, might be several millions of years.

The study goes on to state that this could be drastically reduced by creating extremophile organisms specifically adapted for the harsh Martian environment, creating a greenhouse effect and melting the polar ice caps. However, the amount of time it would take to transform Mars would still likely be on the order of centuries or millennia.

And of course, there is the problem of infrastructure. Harvesting resources from other planets or moons in the Solar System would require a large fleet of space haulers, and they would need to be equipped with advanced drive systems to make the trip in a reasonable amount of time. Currently, no such drive systems exist, and conventional methods ranging from ion engines to chemical propellants are neither fast or economical enough.

To illustrate, NASAs New Horizons mission took more than 11 years to get make its historic rendezvous with Pluto in the Kuiper Belt, using conventional rockets and the gravity-assist method. Meanwhile, the Dawn mission, which relied relied on ionic propulsion, took almost four years to reach Vesta in the Asteroid Belt. Neither method is practical for making repeated trips to the Kuiper Belt and hauling back icy comets and asteroids, and humanity has nowhere near the number of ships we would need to do this.

On the other hand, going the in-situ route which would involve factories or mining operations on the surface to release CO, methane or CFC-containing minerals into the air would require several heavy-payload rockets to get all the machinery to the Red Planet. The cost of this would dwarf all space programs to date. And once they were assembled on the surface (either by robotic or human workers), these operations would have to be run continuously for centuries.

There is also several questions about the ethics of terraforming. Basically, altering other planets in order to make them more suitable to human needs raises the natural question of what would happen to any lifeforms already living there. If in fact Mars does have indigenous microbial life (or more complex lifeforms), which many scientists suspect, then altering the ecology could impact or even wipe out these lifeforms. In short, future colonists and terrestrial engineers would effectively be committing genocide.

Given all of these arguments, one has to wonder what the benefits of terraforming Mars would be. While the idea of utilizing the resources of the Solar System makes sense in the long-run, the short-term gains are far less tangible. Basically, harvested resources from other worlds is not economically viable when you can extract them here at home for much less. And given the danger, who would want to go?

But as ventures like MarsOne have shown, there are plenty of human beings who are willing to make a one-way trip to Mars and act as Earths first-wave of intrepid explorers. In addition, NASA and other space agencies have been very vocal about their desire to explore the Red Planet, which includes manned missions by the 2030s. And as various polls show, public support is behind these endeavors, even if it means drastically increased budgets.

So why do it? Why terraform Mars for human use? Because it is there? Sure. But more importantly, because we might need to. And the drive and the desire to colonize it is also there. And despite the difficulty inherent in each, there is no shortage of proposed methods that have been weighed and determined feasible.In the end, all thats needed is a lot of time, a lot of commitment, a lot of resources, and a lot of care to make sure we are not irrevocably harming life forms that are already there.

But of course, should our worst predictions come to pass, we may find in the end that we have little choice but to make a home somewhere else in the Solar System. As this century progresses, it may very well be Mars or bust!

We have written many interesting articles about terraforming here at Universe Today. Heres The Definitive Guide To Terraforming, Could We Terraform the Moon?, Should We Terraform Mars?, How Do We Terraform Venus?, and Student Team Wants to Terraform Mars Using Cyanobacteria.

Weve also got articles that explore the more radical side of terraforming, like Could We Terraform Jupiter?, Could We Terraform The Sun?, and Could We Terraform A Black Hole?

Astronomy Cast also has good episodes on the subject, like Episode 96: Humans to Mar, Part 3 Terraforming Mars

For more information, check out Terraforming Mars at NASA Quest! and NASAs Journey to Mars.

And if you like the video, come check out our Patreon page and find out how you can get these videos early while helping us bring you more great content!

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How Do We Terraform Mars? - Universe Today

Nuking Mars is still on Elon Musk's wish list, it would seem.

Four years ago, the SpaceX founder and CEO went on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" and discussed a strategy for making the Red Planet more livable: detonating nuclear bombs over its poles. The explosions would vaporize a fair chunk of Mars' ice caps, liberating enough water vapor and carbon dioxide both potent greenhouse gases to warm up the planet substantially, the idea goes.

This terraforming concept is apparently still bouncing around in Musk's head, because on Thursday (Aug. 15), he tweeted, seemingly unprompted, "Nuke Mars!" A few hours later, he followed up with another tweet: "T-shirt soon."

Related: Make Mars Livable with Asteroids: A Terraforming PlanInfographic: How Humanity Could Terraform Small Planets

If Musk is serious about nuking the Red Planet and it's possible that he's not he'll have to overcome significant skepticism. For starters, many scientists and exploration advocates have concerns about any terraforming effort: Do we have the right to fundamentally transform another world especially one that might host its own uniquely adapted life even today for our own purposes?

In addition, the strategy might not even work. A 2018 study published in the prestigious journal Nature Astronomy concluded that Mars doesn't harbor enough CO2 today to achieve significant warming even if all the stuff were liberated into the atmosphere. "As a result, we conclude that terraforming Mars is not possible using present-day technology," the researchers wrote (opens in new tab).

(The study team also explained why it did not consider water as a warming agent. "Previous models of atmospheric warming have demonstrated that water cannot provide significant warming by itself; temperatures do not allow enough water to persist as vapor without first having significant warming by CO2," the team members wrote.)

But the nuke concept could be worse than ineffectual, some scientists have said. Namely, it could backfire, ushering in a "phenomenon known as 'nuclear winter' (akin to the asteroid impact that killed off the dinosaurs), wherein you generate so much dust and particles that they literally block out a significant portion of the incoming sunlight, cooling down the planet," climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University told U.S. News and World Report via email in 2015.

Transforming frigid, dry and radiation-blasted Mars into a more clement world aligns with Musk's long-term goals. He wants to help humanity colonize the Red Planet, and he's building a spaceflight system to help make it happen a 100-passenger spaceship called Starship and a huge rocket known as Super Heavy. The reusable duo could start launching satellites as early as 2021 and people by 2023, SpaceX representatives have said.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There (opens in new tab)" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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Elon Musk Floats 'Nuke Mars' Idea Again | Space

For players of Daybreak, the challenges are identical but the solutions roll out in seconds.

Sayanti Sengupta, a technical advisor for the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, was one of the first people to try the beta version of Daybreak, a highly anticipated board game from creators Matt Leacock and Matteo Menapace. Playing at home, she marveled as her friends slapped down cards to deploy solar farms, struck multilateral climate deals across the table, and swapped out tiles to phase out fossil fuel energy. Together, they counted up little gray cubes representing carbon in the atmosphere, a binding moment every round where they paused to celebrate and reassess.

Every time we could do a round without losing communities or without raising the temperature, people were more into it. Like next time, they want to do it better," Sengupta says. This is exactly what you need to feel for the climate problem. You need to keep at it."

After three years in development, Daybreak will hit the commercial market next spring, joining a plethoraof climate change-inspired games. Leacock, best known for his cooperative board game Pandemic, is adding his own spin to Daybreak: The game is based on real-world data and policies, with a degree of game abstraction. Like Pandemic, its tricky to win, and players must work together to achieve collective solutions. In the runup to COP27, the creators say that Daybreak offers a miniature model through which to understand current events.

Heres how it works: Four players assume the roles of China, the US, Europe and the Majority World" the Global South each of which comes with its own strengths and vulnerabilities. In each round, they convene to decide on a global project, draw individual opportunities and brace for unknown crises.

The central tension lies in trade-offs. Do you use your opportunity cards to fund the global project, or do you capitalize on growing social movements in your region? Do you invest in mangrove forests, hedging against future floods, or do you prioritize the rapid shift to renewable energy? The center game board keeps an ongoing tally of the temperature and thawing ice as droughts and heatwaves escalate.

Daybreak has been in development since March 2020. In the early days, Leacock and Menapace found themselves lost in the sheer size and breadth of the climate crisis. Both rejected the narrative around individual carbon footprints that encourages people to fly less or rethink having children. Citing BPs 2000s campaign, Menapace wrotethatframing climate action as an individual carbon diet would be playing the enemys game."But it wasnt until they read The 100% Solution by Solomon Goldstein-Rose, which lays out a comprehensive global plan, that the duo found a foothold.

The tendency I saw was that people would say, Oh, this is the answer to the climate crisis, and everyone would say, Well, of course not, thats not big enough," Leacock explains. Where if you change the frame and say, We need all of these solutions, and you can see them and see their part in the larger whole, then I was able to better understand the nature of the problem and really wanted to be able to communicate that to other people."

Leacock and Menapace consulted a wide array of environmental advocates, from Greenpeace and WWF to the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, which has developed dozens of DIY educational games. Long-time climate activist Bill McKibben was instrumental in helping them understand the role of the fossil fuel industrylobbying, which they eventually folded into the deckof crises. Early feedback also pushed them to move beyond technocratic carbon addition and subtraction to concentrate instead on the impact on communities.

When we started to thread all that in there, threads of climate justice and so on, the game became much, much richer," Leacock says. Suddenly, we could be picking up books on the Green New Deal, all these policy books, and we could see anything as a climate solution, whether its healthcare or city greening or what have you. They all had their role in the game."

In its current form, Daybreak offers almost 150 cards with different solutions to fight climate change, from citizens assemblies to walkable cities to green steel and alternative cement. The name itself, Daybreak, was chosen to evoke the feeling of a new dawn, solar energy and the reality that the world, in fact, has many tools at hand. (One earlier title: Climate Crisis.)

While playing, Sengupta watched as her friends grew curious about the real-world implications of various solutions. One was enthralled by a card on agrovoltaic solar farms, which he wanted to see at home in the Philippines. The [unique selling point] of the game," she says, is that its not only something that brokers knowledge, but also actually gives you hope that you can do something collaboratively."

Game theory

Daybreaks forerunners each tell a different story about climate change. In the game CO2, players adopt the role of energy companies going green, while Energetic assigns players as politicians, entrepreneurs, activistsor engineers pushing the clean energy transition in New York. Online games featured in the community Earth Games range from building trust between disaster-stricken societies to battling disinformation. You could even argue that Terraforming Mars, in which players change the climate to create a biosphere on the Red Planet, is yet another symptom of humanitys existential crisis here on Earth.

Research on climate change games has demonstrated their efficacy in educating players and instilling hope even in inspiring players to take more action after the game. Dr. Juliette Rooney-Varga, director of the Climate Change Initiative at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, has conducted dozens of sessions with World Climate, a dual-simulation game that models both the scientific reality of anthropogenic climate change sea-level rise, more frequent storms and flooding and the interpersonal reality of United Nations conferences.

As in Daybreak, World Climate participants take the position of government leaders. Role play has proven effective in activating how closely people pay attention, asit offers a layer of responsibility absent in a lecture or film.Real-time feedback on decisions, which truncates the timeline between action and outcome, is also essential. Its actually that sense of increased urgency that drives desire to learn more and intent to take action on climate change, as opposed to a change in your analytic understanding of the problem," says Rooney-Varga.Its that combination that I think of as really powerful."

What Daybreak does particularly well, says Pablo Suarez, innovation lead at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, is illustrate the trade-offs of us versus them, now versus later, and certainty versus uncertainty, such as whether to invest in adaptation when youre not sure if an extreme event will actually occur.

Suarez offered his own example of a trade-off: At a workshop at the White House in 2012, he explained that the frisbee he was about to throw into the standing crowd symbolized a hurricane. Participants who sat down evacuated," while those who remained standing were suddenly keenly aware of their vulnerability. The moral of the game was to demonstrate the importance of early warning systems.

Games are uniquely well-suited to help people experience complex issues where you have limited information, you have to make decisions, and your decisions will have consequences," Suarez says. Playfulness allows people to engage very intensely into imagining the range of possible futures."

To Leacock and Menapace, Daybreak gives people permission to talk about climate change, to learn about the diversity of solutionsand try, round after round, to fit them together effectively.

You might hear the government is putting forward a plan to tackle a certain aspect of the climate crisis," says Menapace. And you still feel like, Okay, thats good, but they need more cards. They need to do more of that. It really gives you a way to quickly assess whats happening in reality."

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.

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How to save the planet in less than two hours | Mint - Mint

Yesterdays science fiction is todays reality as humans have already begun producing oxygen on Mars says Satyen K. Bordoloi

In the climax of the 1990 sci-fi cult classic Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger is flung out into the atmosphere of Mars. His eyes and limbs begin bulging as theres no oxygen to breathe. But just before this, he had managed to activate a giant instrument left by aliens that begins making oxygen on the planets surface. The result: he survives as the atmosphere of Mars is terraformed.

Something similar has been happening since April 20, 2021 on the surface of Mars that has made this science fiction a reality. Except this time the aliens terraforming Mars by making oxygen on it, are humans from Earth.

What began on that day is not as big as it sounds. It is bigger. A little lunchbox-sized device on the Perseverance rover called MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment), has been making tiny quantities of oxygen, enough that as Michael Hecht, a planetary scientist at MITs Haystack Observatory told Marina Koren of The Atlantic A small dog would be just fine..

Science fiction 2.0 which began about 200 years ago (Sci-fi 1.0 is religion) has fantasized humans establishing colonies on different planets particularly Mars since thats the brightest in our night sky, and transforming it enough to make it habitable. But it is only this year that this fantasy has taken its first tiny step toward reality.

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Making Oxygen on Farting Spaceships

Oxygen is a non-negotiable must have for almost every lifeform we know in the universe so far. Because the earths gravity traps gasses in the surface and trees produce a ton of it, Oxygen on Earth is not a big problem. But space is a different beast altogether.

Ever wondered how the International Space Station ISS makes its oxygen? Its a miracle of science and recycling. Water is converted into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis. This water comes from all kinds: wastewater, sweat, and even urine. As astronaut, Col. Douglas H. Wheelock famously explained recycling water in space as, Yesterdays coffee is tomorrows coffee.

The oxygen produced by electrolysis of this water is breathed in. The hydrogen is combined with carbon dioxide that humans breathe out to produce water and methane. The water is put into circulation while the methane is thrown out of the ship using special vents. Its like spaceships farting.

Thus, any human or animal going on a long journey to Mars will have to carry enough water to turn to oxygen for six months. This could be done either on the ship they are traveling on or special fast-moving unmanned supply spaceships like the Russian Progress or American Dragons that could follow behind.

But once they reach Mars, they have to use the resources available on its surface to make more oxygen: be it turning the carbon dioxide on its surface like the MOXIE is doing or the water on it. This will also be necessary for humans to have a chance of making it back to earth because the hydrogen and methane could be mixed with other elements to make rocket fuel.

MOXIEs BIRTH CHART Role: To produce oxygen from the Martian carbon-dioxide atmosphere Location: Inside the Perseverance rover (front, right side) Mass: 17.1 kilograms Weight: 37.7 pounds on Earth, 14.14 pounds on Mars Power: 300 Watts Volume: 9.4 x 9.4 x 12.2 inches (23.9 x 23.9 x 30.9 centimeters) Oxygen Production Rate: Up to 10 grams per hour (At least 0.022 pounds per hour) Operation Time: Approximately one hour of oxygen (O2) production per experiment, enough for a dog

Thus, MOXIE is fulfilling a crucial human need in space exploration. It is also figuring out the time it can make the most oxygen. Mars atmosphere thins and thickens based on the time of day and weather. MOXIE has found the best time and weather to make oxygen there is the middle of day and middle of summer.

But even beyond that, just the symbolic nature of it is tremendous. This is the first-time humans anywhere have made oxygen on a surface except Earth. Chinese scientists have found that the Moons soil contains active compounds that can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and fuels. What we are doing in Mars, is the first time anything resembling the idea of terraforming a planet has even been tried.

Making Mars Habitable

There are already thousands of scientists in different projects across the world using 3D printers and materials available on Mars to build human habitations. Others are tinkering with making oxygen factories on Mars. One team devised a method of making oxygen from carbon dioxide with the help of plasma. Still others are trying to figure out how to use Mars ice deposits for the same purpose.

Future missions could mine the planets ice and purify it for daily use and use the residual hydrogen to fuel their crafts. Even the farts i.e methane, is a rocket propellant and can be used to refuel an ascent vehicle. A lot of these work can be done even before the first humans have landed on the planet. 3D printing robots with artificial intelligence will build human habitations and these oxygen factories will keep it ready for humans.

Just like on ISS, if we have the slightest chance of making it to Mars, we will not only have to become the best recyclers ever but also have to invent a ton of stuff like, many of which are already happening.

We are living in the age of science fiction rapidly turning into everyday reality. Things we never thought possible are within realms of possibility and more importantly, things we thought could take decades, are taking years, sometimes months, often even less. It is hence no longer a question of if humans will ever go to Mars as it was just a few decades ago. The question now is when.

In the film The Martian, the protagonist unlike in Total Recall is a scientist who becomes the first human to grow plants on Mars using its soil and nutrients from his own excreta. The strangest thing is that within two decades of the film, it is likely to become a reality. And one day so will many things we saw in Total Recall: especially if MOXIE has its way terraforming.

Original post:

Farting spaceships and the terraforming of Mars - Sify

Futurists, policymakers, scientists and industry leaders are gathering at the Dubai Future Forum this week to discuss how society, governments and technology could look in the next 20, 30 or 40 years.

The conference is taking place at the Museum of the Future on Tuesday and Wednesday and will welcome 70 futurists from all over the world, who will share their visions.

Omar Sultan Al Olama, the UAE's Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, will give the opening speech.

Dubai Future Forum is an annual platform for discussing future opportunities and challenges, identifying priorities, and enhancing collaboration between governments, the private sector and societies to keep pace with the rapidly evolving world around us, he said.

Amy Webb from the Future Today Institute will be a keynote speaker.

Chief executives, government leaders, policymakers and central banks are grappling with immense volatility and critical uncertainties, she said.

Their decisions today will determine thelong-term fate of human civilisation.

Strategic foresight has never been more urgent and more necessary. The world's most eminent forecasters are gathering at the Dubai Future Forum to challenge leaders and each other to be more ambitious in meeting our emerging global challenges.

Well-known futurist and theoretical physicist Dr Michio Kaku will also be speaking.

The conference will focus heavily on how governments are adapting to changes happening around the world.

The first panel session will be on how governments can mitigate challenges through foresight.

Speakers will include Abdulla Nasser Lootah, Director General of the UAE's Prime Minister's Office, and Sophie Howe, future generations commissioner for Wales.

There will also be a panel on whether international borders would still exist in the future, as society continues to produce more global citizens.

Speakers will discuss whether traditional citizenship would still play an important part in individual and social identity.

Technology will also be a focus at the forum.

There will be discussions on alternate forms of digital currencies, if personal data could be monetised by businesses, and if personal data could be used as a medium of exchange to pay for digital services.

Another panel session will share ideas on whether digital poverty is the new global crisis.

Panellists will discuss the impact of digital transformation on social and economic equity.

Experts will discuss whether space agencies and companies should focus on space research or space colonisation.

Billionaire Elon Musk hopes to send a million people to Mars by 2050.

But his plans are often criticised by scientists, who say that the Red Planet has hostile conditions in which it would be impossible to survive.

There have been calls by scientists for space agencies and companies to focus instead on improving the health of Earth, including fighting against climate change.

Terraforming Mars will also be discussed. That is a process of modifying the atmosphere of a planet to make it habitable.

Presentations regarding different facets of Metaverse at the Dubai Metaverse Assembly at Museum of the Future. All photos: Khushnum Bhandari / The National

Updated: October 11, 2022, 5:29 AM

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Dubai Future Forum begins with focus on society and space - The National

IconTechnologyEffect1

Advanced Drone Drive

Alien Imprints

- Each scanned anomaly provides a 3% reduction in research cost for all technologies, including breakthroughs.

Ancient Terraforming Device

Artificial Muscles

Autonomous Hubs

Cloning

- Creates Clones over time.

- Cloned Colonists grow and age twice as fast.

Construction Nanites

Core Metals

Core Rare Metals

Core Water

Cryo-sleep

Designed Forestation

Dome Streamlining

Dry Farming

Eternal Fusion

- Fusion Reactors no longer require workers and operate at 150 performance.

Factory Automation

- Lowers the amount of Workers needed in factories.

Forever Young

Frictionless Composites

Gem Architecture

Gene Selection

Giant Crops

This tech is repeatable and can be researched multiple times.

Good Vibrations

Hive Mind

Hull Polarization

- Maintenance bar build up speed reduced by 25%

Hypersensitive Photovoltaics

Inspiring Architecture

Interplanetary Learning

Lake Vaporators

- Lakes no longer require maintenance.

Landscaping Nanites

- Production increased by 50%.

This tech is repeatable and can be researched multiple times.

Martian Diet

Martian Steel

Martianborn Ingenuity

Colonists also gain 10 morale while they are in the underground

Multispiral Architecture

Nano Refinement

Neo-Concrete

Neural Empathy

- Empaths raise the Morale of all Colonists in the Dome.

- The effect stacks with other Empaths.

Nocturnal Adaptation

Overcharge Amplifications

Plasma Rocket

Plutonium Synthesis

- Increased Power production while opened.

Prefab Compression

Printed Electronics

- Applies to the Positronic Brain Breakthrough as well

Project Phoenix

Rapid Sleep

Resilient Vegetation

Safe Mode

- Colonists can't commit suicide or gain flaws due to sanity breakdown.

Service Bots

- Building no longer requires workers and operates at 100 performance.

- Upgrade costs 10 Electronics per building.

Buildings: Casino, Diner, Spacebar, Electronics Store, Jewelry Store, Megamall, Low G Amusement Park

Soylent Green

- 1 Food is dropped where a colonist dies

Space Rehabilitation

Superconducting Computing

The first unused 500 Power is converted into 1.5 each. Any unused power beyond 500 is converted into 0.375 each.

Superfungus

- Increases production while increasing Oxygen consumption.

Superior Cables

Superior Pipes

Sustained Workload

The Positronic Brain

- Biorobots eat, sleep and can gain traits but can't reproduce and never die from old age.

- Cost: 5 each; 5 Metals each if Printed Electronics is researched.

Vector Pump

- Water production increased by 100%.

Vocation-Oriented Society

Wireless Power

Zero-Space Computing

- Research points production increased by +25%. Upgrade cost: 10 / 5 / 10

Link:

Breakthrough - Surviving Mars Wiki - Paradox Wikis

Everyone is throwing this catchy slogan around these days, whether it be activists, writers, presidents, or the former Secretary-General of the United Nations. It gives strong impetus to address our planetary crisis. But they dont actually explain why there isnt another planet we could live on. So, is it true? What do Earth sciences and astronomy tell us?

Next time youre out on a clear night, look up at the sky and pick a star. It most likely has planets around it. Could we live on one of them? The data show that 1 in 5 stars host an Earth-sized, temperate planet. Astronomers deem a planet Earth-sized if it has a radius between 0.5-1 times that of Earth, and temperate if it receives between 30-100% of the heat that Earth receives from the Sun. There are around 300 billion stars in our galaxy, which adds up to 63 billion planets with sizes and temperatures similar to Earth!

Heres the catch: while there are billions of planets out there, none of them is quite the way we need it to be in order to survive on it. Every planet has its own history and character, much like people do. There are almost eight billion people alive today; and yet everyone is different. Even identical twins each have their own unique personality and life story. The same goes for planets. We have no reason to expect any two planets to be alike. Thinking we could live on a planet just because it is a similar size and temperature to Earth is a bit like deciding that someone is our best friend after finding out their shoe size and favorite color.

Take Mars. It is half the size of Earth and receives 40% of the heat that we get from the Sun, so technically speaking, it is Earth-sized and temperate. The photos sent back by NASAs Curiosity rover reveal familiar landscapes: we could be on Earth, perhaps somewhere in the Atacama desert. But dont be fooled! Look at the sky: its a mucky brown-yellowish color. Thats because Mars has 100 times less air to breathe and it is full of dust. What little air it has is primarily carbon dioxide, which would immediately suffocate us. Oh, and its as cold as the Antarctic. Mars may have similar properties to Earth by astronomical standards, but it is nothing like Earth to us humans.

Any semi-reasonable plan to establish a long-term presence beyond Earth requires a planet to which we are fit. Earth was not always so friendly to humans as it is today. For around 90% of its 4.6 billion-year history, it had conditions completely incompatible with our survival. We have only been a part of our planet for less than 0.05% of its existence. Geological evidence from ancient rocks shows that Earth has had many faces. Earths earliest life was welcomed onto a world that would have been entirely inhospitable and alien to us: at the time, early Earth had green oceans and a red sky. It had no continents to stand on, no oxygen to breathe, and no ozone layer to protect us from the Suns harmful UV rays. And yet life took hold and thrived, slowly shaping Earth over hundreds of millions of years, eventually transforming it into a world capable of supporting complex organisms such as ourselves. For example, billions of bacteria worked over billions years to shape our atmosphere into air we can breathe.

Earth is the home we know and love not because it is Earth-sized and temperate. No, we call this planet our home thanks to its billion-year-old relationship with life. Just as people are shaped not only by their genetics, but by their culture and relationships with others, planets are shaped by the living organisms that emerge and thrive on them. Over time, Earth has been dramatically transformed by life into a world where we, humans, can prosper.

The relationship works both ways: while life shapes its planet, the planet shapes its life. Present-day Earth is our life support system, and we cannot live without it.

Despite impressive advances in technology, transforming Mars into a planet capable of supporting humans is complete science fiction. It took hundreds of millions of years to shape Earth into a world capable of supporting us. And that was with a 3.7 billion-year head start from the billions and billions of organisms that preceded us! Lets be clear: when people talk about terraforming Mars, theyre talking about replicating this very same process, except without billions of planet-construction workers and on timescales of just a few human lifespans.

Another issue to consider is that other worlds are at unimaginable distances from us. Mars, our neighbor, is on average 225 million kilometers away. Imagine a team of astronauts traveling in a vehicle similar to NASAs robotic New Horizons probe, one of humankinds fastest spacecrafts it recently flew by Pluto! With New Horizons top speed of around 58,000kph, it would take at least 162 days to reach Mars.

Beyond our solar system, the closest star to us is Proxima Centauri, at a distance of 40 trillion kilometers. Going in the same space vehicle, it would take our astronaut crew 79,000 years to reach planets that might exist around our nearest stellar neighbor. Thats 79,000 years one way.

Living on a warming Earth presents many challenges. But these pale in comparison to the challenges of converting Mars, or any other planet, into a viable alternative. Astronomers study Mars and other planets to better understand how Earth and life formed and evolved. We are not looking for an escape from our problems: Earth is our unique and only home in the cosmos. There is no planet B.

Dr. R. D. Haywood is an Assistant Professor in Astrophysics and Ernest Rutherford Fellow at the University of Exeter, UK. Her research is on planets that orbit other stars than the Sun. She has formal training in sustainability science and has been invited to talk about Earth as our unique home in the Cosmos at over a dozen institutions worldwide. Dr. A. E. Nicholson is a Leverhulme Research Fellow in Astrophysics at the University of Exeter, and holds a PhD in Geography. Her research focuses on understanding life-environment feedbacks and how these impact the long-term habitability of planets. Both authors are members of Exeters Global Systems Institute.

See related:

Can a new wave of climate fiction inspire climate action? (commentary)

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Why is there no Planet B? (commentary) - Mongabay.com

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Today, following up on the events of Superman: Warworld Apocalypse, sees the publication of Action Comics #1047 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, David Lapham and Will Conrad,which saw Superman returning to Earth and to Lois Lane. But everything else was left hanging.

Today's Action Comics #1047 fills in those gaps but also shows how the Warworld story will continue to affect stuff.

Because it seems the actual Warworld turned up in orbit around the Earth.

Including The Authority, and a few WarWorldians as well including Orphan. Something not everyone is happy about.

While Superman reminds the world that he too is a refugee.

The Warworld may not be here long, but many of its people will be.

It brings to mind a little of the changes that the X-Men books have brought to the Marvel Universe with Krakoa and the terraforming of Mars as Arakko. Warworld may not be sticking around but its people might. And they bring other changes of their own.

Technology that all sorts of people might be interested in

Orphan carries power from the breaching of the Source Wall, and Warworld developed Orphan Boxes for Mongul as powerful weapons and power sources.

With Lex Luthor finding a home for one of the Orphan Boxes.

Just as Superman tries to find homes for the orphans of Warworld.

And some wish to turn Earth itself into a Warworld. So, a new population with good guys and bad guys has just landed on Earth. How will they affect everyone else?

ACTION COMICS #1047 CVR A STEVE BEACH(W) Phillip Kennedy Johnson, David Lapham (A) Will Conrad, David Lapham (CA) Steve BeachIn the aftermath of Superman's epic Warworld Revolution, the Man of Steel is back on Earth and stronger than he's ever been! As he and Steel join forces to remake Metropolis as a true City of Tomorrow, two of Superman's most iconic villains take noticeand they have plans of their own. Meanwhile, Superman's meddling on Warworld has had unforeseen consequences: he's awakened an enemy so ancient and powerful, even this stronger-than-ever Superman will need the whole Super-Family to face it. Introducing new characters and beginning this new chapter in Superman's mythology, don't miss the kickoff to the countdown to Action Comics #1050! Retail: $4.99 In-Store Date: 09/27/2022

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The Fallout Of Warworld Across The DC Universe, Today (Spoilers) - Bleeding Cool News