How We'll Live on Mars by Stephen Petranek

Author:Stephen Petranek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/ TED

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Making Mars in Earth’s Image

We humans have proven ourselves to be incredibly adaptable to unusual living conditions, easily accommodating environments as hostile as Amazonian rain forests and the perpetual ice sheets of northern Greenland. Nevertheless, we will surely tire of rebreathing units, the constant need to monitor oxygen levels, and the intense cold of Mars. So we will naturally turn our attention to reengineering the Red Planet’s atmosphere to be breathable, and to warming the surface temperature.

At this point, it is worth noting that many scientists who have studied the evolution of Mars and who have consumed the information from the spacecraft we’ve sent there since the 1960s believe the planet once had flowing streams, lakes, and at least one ocean, along with a humid atmosphere and, possibly, life.

Fortunately for humans, there is a relationship between water, atmospheric density, and warmth. Here is the simple overview: If the temperature of Mars can be raised, it will likely release gases that are now frozen—gases that will boost the atmosphere, resulting in more density, which will create a greenhouse effect. Temperatures will rise, causing surface ice to melt, especially near the equator. Water will flow. Liquid water (and an appropriate atmosphere) will allow settlers to grow plants outside of greenhouses. In turn, those plants will add to the oxygen content of the atmosphere. As on Earth, the keys to life and ecology are inextricably linked together.

The process by which we will accomplish this reengineering is called “terraforming,” which means shaping the earth. A more accurate moniker would be “planetary engineering.” NASA has called it “planetary ecosynthesis.” Although the creation of the term terraforming is often attributed to various science fiction authors, the astronomer Carl Sagan published an article in the prestigious journal Science in 1961 in which he proposed terraforming Venus to become habitable for humans.

Terraforming will be incredibly expensive, and it may take a thousand years before humans can walk the surface of Mars in an environment not unlike what one finds along the west coast of Canada. But if we engineer even a few degrees of temperature rise in the right parts of Mars, it will make life there far more pleasant than it will be on that day in 2027 when the first astronauts arrive. Dramatic changes in outdoor lifestyles can be accomplished within just a few centuries.

There are several scenarios for warming Mars, which is the first step in terraforming. In many ways, the sexiest approach, with the quickest results, is to simply build huge mirrors to reflect sunlight back onto the surface. It would be especially effective to reflect sunlight toward the south polar regions, where a thick layer of dry ice overlies water ice. Mirrors, however, would be the most expensive method of warming Mars, and technologically the most challenging. But if employed, mirrors could result in liquid water running in streams (during daylight hours, near the equator) within a matter of years. The mirrors used for this purpose would be flexible, like solar sails, and made of polyamide films coated with an extremely thin layer of aluminum.

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