All volcanoes on Mars are extinct. Is it an old planet?

[Niels]

Any terraforming of Mars might ultimately be temporary on a geological scale... but that's irrelevant to a technological civilisation capable of performing the changes in the first place.

Perhaps. Assuming that terraforming tech and more general planetary climate control tech advance at a sufficiently similar pace, and also assuming that civilization doesn't decline too much.

Currently proposed methods for terraforming Mars include nuking its polar ice caps. We have spacecraft capabilities and we have nukes, but we've yet to solve Earth's climate change problem. One of the suggested reasons for mass colonizing Mars is to escape a declining Earth.

 

[AlexB23]

Any terraforming of Mars might ultimately be temporary on a geological scale... but that's irrelevant to a technological civilisation capable of performing the changes in the first place.

Whew, this reminds me of a 2010 National Geographic periodical that discussed how Mars could be terraformed. It could be done in 1000 years, according to National Geographic. As a 10 or 11 year-old, this stuff was fascinating. It still is 14 years later, but seems unfeasible. 2000s and early 2010s futurism at its finest.


Art for Feb 2010 issue of National Geographic by Stefan Morrell (New Zealand):

Terraforming Mars by Stefan Morrell, National Geographic

Gradual terraformation of Mars by concept artist Stefan Morrell from New Zealand. His picture was used to illustrate article about terraforming Mars in National Geographic Magazine, February 2010 issue.

www.humanmars.net

 

[Shemjaza]

Perhaps. Assuming that terraforming tech and more general planetary climate control tech advance at a sufficiently similar pace, and also assuming that civilization doesn't decline too much.

That's always a danger... even on Earth, if our civilisation declined too much the potential viable population in many areas would drop considerably.

Currently proposed methods for terraforming Mars include nuking its polar ice caps. We have spacecraft capabilities and we have nukes, but we've yet to solve Earth's climate change problem. One of the suggested reasons for mass colonizing Mars is to escape a declining Earth.

In my opinion that idea has always been basically false.

There's no way that terraforming Mars could be easier and less resource intensive than repairing a broken Earth. (And even if you could the resources to move billions to a smaller planet with less natural resources doesn't make sense from an efficiency perspective).

There is the idea of a colinised Mars protects the species from sudden world ending threats like asteroids, and is also a first step to spreading out across the Solar system and Galaxy.

 

[Shemjaza]

Whew, this reminds me of a 2010 National Geographic periodical that discussed how Mars could be terraformed. It could be done in 1000 years, according to National Geographic. As a 10 or 11 year-old, this stuff was fascinating. It still is 14 years later, but seems unfeasible. 2000s and early 2010s futurism at its finest.


Art for Feb 2010 issue of National Geographic by Stefan Morrell (New Zealand):

Terraforming Mars by Stefan Morrell, National Geographic

Gradual terraformation of Mars by concept artist Stefan Morrell from New Zealand. His picture was used to illustrate article about terraforming Mars in National Geographic Magazine, February 2010 issue.

www.humanmars.net

View attachment 354068

It's a lovely image and I imagine we'd learn a whole lot of things that would be useful here on Earth.

Thinking of a green Mars is even better if you imagine the same technology simultaneously rebuilding the toxic dumping grounds, felled forests and poisoned seas back on the home world.

 

[AlexB23]

It's a lovely image and I imagine we'd learn a whole lot of things that would be useful here on Earth.

Thinking of a green Mars is even better if you imagine the same technology simultaneously rebuilding the toxic dumping grounds, felled forests and poisoned seas back on the home world.

Thank you. I actually have thought of that, and might have seen an article or video about how we should terraform a portion of the Sahara. Even better is to rebuild forests. I do have an issue with spraying the air or building reflectors around the Earth to reduce sunlight intensity, cos that is just spewing more stuff into the air, but I strongly support rebuilding toxic dumps into eco parks and cleaning out our oceans, but only in a way that helps the poor. We should tax Musk 99% and use that money to fix our Earth.

 

[timewerx]

The extinction of volcanoes would depend on the cooling of the lava... therefore also the age of the planets. But it remains a great mystery.

It's not an accurate method of determining age of planet.

Mars is a lot smaller than Earth. Therefore, it will run out of internal heat faster than Earth.

If you heat a ball bearing and a solid metal cannon ball to the same red-hot temperatures, the red-hot cannonball will always take much longer time before it's cool enough to hold. Even if you do the experiment in outer space, in the near perfect vacuum of space, floating in weightlessness, the much larger cannonball will be red hot for far longer time than the red-hot ball bearing.

Impacts from large comets and asteroids > 5 km across will also significantly raise internal heat of a planet. If Mars got hit by a 10 km wide comet head-on, it could be enough energy to jump-start volcanism on the planet.

Mars simply ran out of heat much faster than Earth because of its much smaller size and/or did not experience large impacts in "recent" times (by a geological timescale).

 

[timewerx]

We have spacecraft capabilities and we have nukes, but we've yet to solve Earth's climate change problem. One of the suggested reasons for mass colonizing Mars is to escape a declining Earth.

Over-population is the #1 driving factor to climate change so it makes sense that getting lots of people off the Earth could also potentially fix climate change or prevent it from getting worse.

 

[Shemjaza]

Over-population is the #1 driving factor to climate change so it makes sense that getting lots of people off the Earth could also potentially fix climate change or prevent it from getting worse.

Disagree strongly.

The resources consumed by humanity are not remotely spread evenly across the population.

But also, how does adding a separate planet change the resources required to keep people alive?

 

[timewerx]

Disagree strongly.

The resources consumed by humanity are not remotely spread evenly across the population.

That's also true. The injustice of it makes it even worse than climate change.

But also, how does adding a separate planet change the resources required to keep people alive?

I did not mention anything about resources.

Personally, I don't think we're short on resources. We have enough resources on Earth to give everyone a decent quality of life if only people can be less greedy, less selfish, and have self-control.

 

[Niels]

There's no way that terraforming Mars could be easier and less resource intensive than repairing a broken Earth. (And even if you could the resources to move billions to a smaller planet with less natural resources doesn't make sense from an efficiency perspective).

Agreed. Yet it's often presented as an alternative to a broken Earth, despite not making much practical sense. If our planet faced such an existential threat, I'd think solving Earth's problems would be less resource intensive as you said. Solving climate change would presumably require less time and energy than restoring and augmenting another planet's atmosphere. That said, the idea of using terraforming technology on Earth, to manipulate our own climate, is fascinating. Although it might make sense to experiment with it elsewhere first, in case something goes wrong. Considering the risk of inadvertently making our own atmosphere worse.

There is the idea of a colinised Mars protects the species from sudden world ending threats like asteroids, and is also a first step to spreading out across the Solar system and Galaxy.

It will be interesting to see (though probably not in our lifetimes) how well our species fare while weighing roughly 1/3 of what they do on Earth, while exposed to more radiation and solar wind due the the lack of magnetosphere, with perhaps less cloud cover due to lacking volcanic activity. More problems to solve, of course. And there may be workarounds.

There already are plans to preserve species by storing genetic samples on the moon. The moon might also be a good location to build a base for missions to Mars. Lower escape velocity would require less fuel, afford greater payload capacity etc.

 

[AlexB23]

Agreed. Yet it's often presented as an alternative to a broken Earth, despite not making much practical sense. If our planet faced such an existential threat, I'd think solving Earth's problems would be less resource intensive as you said. Solving climate change would presumably require less time and energy than restoring and augmenting another planet's atmosphere. That said, the idea of using terraforming technology on Earth, to manipulate our own climate, is fascinating. Although it might make sense to experiment with it elsewhere first, in case something goes wrong. Considering the risk of inadvertently making our own atmosphere worse.


It will be interesting to see (though probably not in our lifetimes) how well our species fare while weighing roughly 1/3 of what they do on Earth, while exposed to more radiation and solar wind due the the lack of magnetosphere, with perhaps less cloud cover due to lacking volcanic activity. More problems to solve, of course. And there may be workarounds.

There already are plans to preserve species by storing genetic samples on the moon. The moon might also be a good location to build a base for missions to Mars. Lower escape velocity would require less fuel, afford greater payload capacity etc.

Guys, could we just move people out of India, and other hot places further north, if the climate gets warmer due to AGW (anthropogenic global warming)? For shielding against radiation, could we build an underground Mars base instead with most infrastructure under the Martian surface, with above ground infrastructure that is only used for short periods of time such as the landing pads?

A moon base would be pretty rad, and a good place to preserve species and even more importantly, build a place for launching rockets to Mars. Nice to have a fellow science enthusiast on the threads here. I look forward to this discussion, but it is getting late. We can talk this afternoon about the future of civilization and moon bases. God bless, brother.

 

[timewerx]

Guys, could we just move people out of India, and other hot places further north, if the climate gets warmer due to AGW (anthropogenic global warming)?

No country would be willing to do that because of money.

Even the north is no longer a good safe haven against climate change. We could expect extreme swings of weather up in the north between heat waves and extreme cold if climate change gets even worse.

The Southern Hemisphere usually have the best climate compared to the rest of the world with less extreme temperature differences between summer and cold seasons. The main problem with the Southern Hemisphere is having less land compared to the Northern Hemisphere.

A possible solution is to build floating cities and have these places situated in the Southern Hemisphere. These floating cities will be solar, and wind-powered and will have propulsion system to maintain position. It may even be able to travel between the North and Southern hemispheres to escape hot seasons.

Ironically, such cities will be relatively safe from natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis and even from hurricanes given its massive size. It may even be able to weather extinction-level events.

There would still be habitable places nearer the equator at higher altitudes where the air is colder.

A moon base would be pretty rad, and a good place to preserve species and even more importantly, build a place for launching rockets to Mars.

We only need to setup ONE fully automated factory on the moon that will reproduce itself, reproduce an army of robots, mass manufacture rockets using raw materials it gathered exclusively from the moon's surface.

Phase two: divert some of the moon bots to begin construction of large space station in low Earth Orbit (LEO) using materials from the moon.

Phase three: moon bots construct huge MAGLEV launchers and "catchers" in these huge space stations and on the moon's surface - this eliminates the need to use rockets to travel between the LEO station and the moon station. Their energy will mostly be solar energy although they would still have rocket engines but only for course corrections to make sure the vehicle makes it to the "catcher" and not impact the moon's surface at fatal speeds. Only robots will use them initially but eventually with humans as well!

The very last phase: construction of habitats for humans. IMO, it's far more cost effective to setup automated facilities first. Robots don't require life support and we have all the technology now to be able to manage automated systems over vast distances.

This way, we can undertake massive space projects at very little cost because robots did most of the work and the vast majority of the materials and fuel came from the moon. It just only needs a good plan.

but it is getting late. We can talk this afternoon....

As brotherly advice, you don't need to say these things in a public forum. It can come off as rude. Just respond when you have the time, whether it's after a few hours or after a few days, it won't matter. We all get it that nobody is available all the time.

One time you wrote a similar line to me. I thought you disliked our conversation but now I see you do it to everybody and I misunderstood your response. Just brotherly observation!

 

[Larniavc]

This casts some doubt on whether it can be terraformed and turned into a more human-friendly place.

You’d need to kick start a new Megnetosphere to make any kind of surface habitation viable.

 

[timewerx]

You’d need to kick start a new Megnetosphere to make any kind of surface habitation viable.

Crashing a large asteroid into Mars might kickstart its core by raising the percentage of the molten regions in the mantle, enlarge and energize the convection currents in the mantle and ultimately, enlarging and energizing the convection currents in the molten outer iron core as well. This will kickstart the EM field of the core.

On the negative side, the huge impact could obliterate any finds of interest awaiting discovery on the surface. The impact will also activate giant volcanoes in Mars and release massive amounts of CO2.

On the positive side, the activated volcanoes will thicken the atmosphere with more CO2 and underground water might be pushed to the surface by the increased internal pressure and possibly in liquid form or even as normal clouds with the now warmer surface due to thicker CO2 atmosphere and leftover heat of the impact seeping to the surface.

The thicker CO2 atmosphere can later on be converted into oxygen with photosynthesis. However, this habitable era would only be temporary but at least we're still talking of possibly millions of years of habitable era until enough heat have been lost.

We can then perform another "reset" by crashing another large asteroid on the planet maybe every couple million years. It makes me wonder if God is doing the same to Earth but for whom??

 

[Niels]

You’d need to kick start a new Megnetosphere to make any kind of surface habitation viable.

The lack of magnetosphere is an obstacle, which is why I mentioned it. The following article discusses some possible solutions. We might start with temporary structures before building nuclear reactors on Deimos and Phobos, to run plasma generators and establish a plasma torus around the planet, for instance. Which proposed methods do you prefer, and why?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356251772_How_to_create_an_artificial_magnetosphere_for_Mars

 

[timewerx]

The lack of magnetosphere is an obstacle, which is why I mentioned it. The following article discusses some possible solutions. We might start with temporary structures before building nuclear reactors on Deimos and Phobos, to run plasma generators and establish a plasma torus around the planet, for instance. Which proposed methods do you prefer, and why?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356251772_How_to_create_an_artificial_magnetosphere_for_Mars

I like my solution better, crash a large asteroid on Mars or even better, crash either Deimos or Phobos (why not both!) on Mars!

The impact will melt more of the mantle and energize the convective currents on both the mantle and the core, rebooting the planet's natural dynamo.

It will also trigger major volcanism to thicken Mar's atmosphere, cause the inner heat to warm the surface as well as force water to the surface in either liquid or vapor form.

That's hitting 4 birds with one or maybe two stones, quite literally!

 

[AlexB23]

No country would be willing to do that because of money.

Even the north is no longer a good safe haven against climate change. We could expect extreme swings of weather up in the north between heat waves and extreme cold if climate change gets even worse.

The Southern Hemisphere usually have the best climate compared to the rest of the world with less extreme temperature differences between summer and cold seasons. The main problem with the Southern Hemisphere is having less land compared to the Northern Hemisphere.

A possible solution is to build floating cities and have these places situated in the Southern Hemisphere. These floating cities will be solar, and wind-powered and will have propulsion system to maintain position. It may even be able to travel between the North and Southern hemispheres to escape hot seasons.

Ironically, such cities will be relatively safe from natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis and even from hurricanes given its massive size. It may even be able to weather extinction-level events.

There would still be habitable places nearer the equator at higher altitudes where the air is colder.



We only need to setup ONE fully automated factory on the moon that will reproduce itself, reproduce an army of robots, mass manufacture rockets using raw materials it gathered exclusively from the moon's surface.

Phase two: divert some of the moon bots to begin construction of large space station in low Earth Orbit (LEO) using materials from the moon.

Phase three: moon bots construct huge MAGLEV launchers and "catchers" in these huge space stations and on the moon's surface - this eliminates the need to use rockets to travel between the LEO station and the moon station. Their energy will mostly be solar energy although they would still have rocket engines but only for course corrections to make sure the vehicle makes it to the "catcher" and not impact the moon's surface at fatal speeds. Only robots will use them initially but eventually with humans as well!

The very last phase: construction of habitats for humans. IMO, it's far more cost effective to setup automated facilities first. Robots don't require life support and we have all the technology now to be able to manage automated systems over vast distances.

This way, we can undertake massive space projects at very little cost because robots did most of the work and the vast majority of the materials and fuel came from the moon. It just only needs a good plan.


As brotherly advice, you don't need to say these things in a public forum. It can come off as rude. Just respond when you have the time, whether it's after a few hours or after a few days, it won't matter. We all get it that nobody is available all the time.

One time you wrote a similar line to me. I thought you disliked our conversation but now I see you do it to everybody and I misunderstood your response. Just brotherly observation!

This tech sounds way to advanced for 2024, but is is possible, maybe by 2200 or so. When I was a teenager in the mid-2010s, I thought we would have a permanent moon base by 2020, and a permanent Mars base by the 2030s. Technological stagnation has prevented that from happening, so to be honest, this stuff will probably not happen in our lifetimes, or Jesus might return before the end.

About propulsion, I think we might use ion drives to get to the moon. Now, ion drives are too weak to get off the Earth, but once in LEO, it might be possible to use ion drives to get to the moon, but the journey may take a long time (ion drives have poor acceleration). We need a Star Trek impulse drive. Sadly, impulse drives are in the realm of sci-fi.


Hey, we may all misunderstand each other, so I am sorry about saying I had to get offline for a few hours.

 

[timewerx]

This tech sounds way to advanced for 2024, but is is possible, maybe by 2200 or so.

Robots, miniaturization, automation, and 3D printing is the critically essential component of this venture and we all have them now.

Just one tiny, self-replicating automated factory on the moon and everything will be history. Self-replication can executed with old-school programming without using ML nor AI.

it might be possible to use ion drives to get to the moon, but the journey may take a long time (ion drives have poor acceleration).

NASA have a better idea of using MAGLEV tech to launch payloads from LEO to moon and vice versa. But only with payloads that are used for building and manufacturing. They are not meant to transport people which isn't an issue at all because the initial expansion and building phase of massive LEO and moon structures will be fully automated and unmanned.

We're not building maglev tracks all the way to the moon but will use an oval or round maglev track like a gun to shoot discreet payloads into destinations in space. Conversely, this method requires a "catcher" as well. The payload container will still need propulsion system for course corrections to precisely make it to the catcher. Course corrections require far less fuel than using it to accelerate payload to high speeds as well.

These replicating robots and factories will be building these maglev tracks as well using materials from the moon. Once the maglev system has been setup, the cost of the expansion will further be reduced.

NASA have thought of similar concepts back in the 70's and 80's to build massive, miles long structures in LEO and the moon using both robotic and manned missions with "skeleton crew". But with today's technology, it's easily possible to do everything unmanned.

We need a Star Trek impulse drive. Sadly, impulse drives are in the realm of sci-fi.

Fortunately, we don't need to if we're only transporting materials between LEO and the moon for expansion of factories and other facilities.

Hey, we may all misunderstand each other, so I am sorry about saying I had to get offline for a few hours.

No need to apologize. I realized your sincerity. I simply found it unusual because it's the first time I encountered the behavior in a public forum.

 

[AlexB23]

Robots, miniaturization, automation, and 3D printing is the critically essential component of this venture and we all have them now.

Just one tiny, self-replicating automated factory on the moon and everything will be history. Self-replication can executed with old-school programming without using ML nor AI.



NASA have a better idea of using MAGLEV tech to launch payloads from LEO to moon and vice versa. But only with payloads that are used for building and manufacturing. They are not meant to transport people which isn't an issue at all because the initial expansion and building phase of massive LEO and moon structures will be fully automated and unmanned.

We're not building maglev tracks all the way to the moon but will use an oval or round maglev track like a gun to shoot discreet payloads into destinations in space. Conversely, this method requires a "catcher" as well. The payload container will still need propulsion system for course corrections to precisely make it to the catcher. Course corrections require far less fuel than using it to accelerate payload to high speeds as well.

These replicating robots and factories will be building these maglev tracks as well using materials from the moon. Once the maglev system has been setup, the cost of the expansion will further be reduced.

NASA have thought of similar concepts back in the 70's and 80's to build massive, miles long structures in LEO and the moon using both robotic and manned missions with "skeleton crew". But with today's technology, it's easily possible to do everything unmanned.


Fortunately, we don't need to if we're only transporting materials between LEO and the moon for expansion of factories and other facilities.


No need to apologize. I realized your sincerity. I simply found it unusual because it's the first time I encountered the behavior in a public forum.

You do realize humans may wipe themselves out or Jesus may return before all this stuff happens?

 

[timewerx]

You do realize humans may wipe themselves out or Jesus may return before all this stuff happens?

I've had lots of dream about the end of the age. The meek inherited the Earth and only few remained.

We had to deal with the tons of junk left behind by this crazy age like the 1 million dollar supercars whose owners are gone, disappeared.

And of course, what's left of the Earth's space program. The Lord did not tell us to stop. I think it helped that the money-obsessed population is gone and with money no longer a factor, we suddenly have unlimited resources to reboot the space program.

Having these replicating robots in space might help ease the transition to the next age.