Terraforming!? Noooooooo!

[Kharak]

I am actually surprised at something tha seems to come up frequenty in everyday life.

Every now and then, I see that people often mention terraforming entire planets in the future. Now this isn't in a science fiction context (so shut up Ben Bova), but rather as a cure all so we can 'colonize' those planets to launch some sort of interplanetary empire. Not kidding. It comes from the strangest people, point in fact.

The funny thing, however, is how impractical it is to even propose terraforming a planet. Could it even work at all? Yet, if I recall correctly, someone in a long-forgotten thread had mentioned that the O'Neill approach to utilization of the Lagrange Points was impractical because humans can't live in a vacuum. I went into great detail explaining what a O'Neill Cylinder was, but they went on to un-explain that Lagrange Points are not really stable.

It hurts my head! ARGH! Can't we propose a future for humanity that is not so planetary chauvenistic? What's next? Build a City of Ember?

 

[Chesterton]

People who are keen on the idea of terraforming should drive Interstate 10 through west Texas.

 

[PhilosophicalBluster]

It hurts my head! ARGH! Can't we propose a future for humanity that is not so planetary chauvenistic? What's next? Build a City of Ember?

Yes! Just don't let any babies near the clue sheet on how to make the box thing work... (Shhh, I read the book like 4 years ago)

 

[Kharak]

Yes! Just don't let any babies near the clue sheet on how to make the box thing work... (Shhh, I read the book like 4 years ago)

The real problem is how to feed that many people for 200+ years. Can food and potatoes can only go so far. They ended up nearly starving, of course, but I can't imagine everything kept that long. That bring up another question: I wonder what they did with the dead? Wait, have you seen Soylent Green?

Yes, eat up children . . . Doesn't Grandmother taste wonderful!?

 

[Metl]

Terraforming seems like science fiction but it isn't really all that difficult. The idea is really to build a sustainable atmosphere. Yes it could take generations upon generations but that is time that we definately have.

For now it is useless and perhaps even a waste of money, but when the time comes we'll definately be able to do it. Just google to see some proposed methods.

 

[Ectezus]

For now it is useless and perhaps even a waste of money, but when the time comes we'll definately be able to do it.

Yeah.
Trying to terraform right now would be nonsense but with future technology the idea really isn't that far fetched. Maybe it will start in huge domes and have a ecosystem in there that can sustain itself.

It has been tried already (Biosphere), but it kinda failed due to technical difficulties and human mistakes. But the idea looks promising imo.
(It includes an ocean, desert, rainforest, etc..)

Also, most of it will probably be done by robots anyway. Give robot technology a few hundred years and I doubt humans will ever have to set foot on a planet before it's completely terraformed.

- Ectezus

 

[Dark_Lite]

It would be far more practical to terraform enclosed areas rather than entire planets, and like others said given the rate of technological advancement that probably won't be too far off. Entire planets, however, I think are a different story...

 

[AV1611VET]

Didn't we terraform Planet Hollywood?

 

[ragarth]

The future holds a lot of possibilities, but I don't think full-scale planetary colonization is the answer. More than likely human expansion into space will involve modularized habitations in space, the moon, and outwards through other planets.

It's also likely that we will engage in some level of bioforming- the process of adapting ourselves and our ecosystems to other environments. There are finite limits to this, a minimal level of energy must exist within the ecosystem to support our functions, and this rules out mars on cold nights, but this doesn't mean it isn't a possibility. We could put together our own internal oxygen reserve and rebreather systems, then adapt our exteriors to the harsher martian environment. After that there's no need to modify the atmosphere of mars on more than a home-by-home basis, thereby allowing urban sprawl similar to what we have here on earth.

There's also no rule stating the method of form with which this takes, not just genetic engineering but also cybernetics and full out artificial life (androids) represent methods of colonizing hazardous environments as well. A robot with an onboard AI can exist just fine in an asteroid field with no precautions taken, to my knowledge no biological entity can do so.

 

[Kharak]

Well I am proposing that, considering the alternatives, terraforming planets is a waste of time. Think about it: Venusian days are nearly as long as Terran years, and Mars' low gravity would adversely effect the development of its respective inhabitants. Not to mention neither of the planets are particularly geologically active, and we would have to compensate for the weak magnetic fields in anti-radiation shielding (there are gasses of course, but you can only go so far). Furthermore, they provide minimal utility as natural resources because of the astronomically high costs of shipping materials from planetside to low-orbit; assuming that they have materials that could be exported or serve as a business incentive. So, by and large, their future purpose would be as giant homesteads. Again: Venusian days are nearly as long as our years (243 days in fact).

There was professor by the name of Gerard O'Neill who had proposed that planetary environments were not the best place for future civilizations to develop. He had actually designed, together with a class from Princeton, a realistic scenario in which humanity develops a system of habitats based around the Lagrange Points. He had stated that we could utilize processed materials from the lunar surface, propel them into the Lagrange points with a rail gun (which he had built a prototype of himself), and then work these materials into cylinder shaped habitats that could house working populations from a thousand to millions of permanent citizens who would work in and out of the facility's protection to manufacture various goods with the benefit of free, limitless solar energy and incessant microgravity.

The apex of the station designs, Island III, was a theoretical construct that could hold six million people within each cylinder. With two such stations bound together, they could form a very large gyroscope that could keep permanent orientation towards the sun. With large reflecting mirrors, the structures could orient sunlight into their interiors via three windowed openings; all while many meters of processed lunar soil protect the inhabitants from sunlight-radioactive-death and meteors-of-unholy-velocity. Being large, the cylinders could rotate slowly to create an apparent level of forec approximate to one G of Earth gravity (sparing us from Arthur C. Clarke's "Women are a distraction in space" scenario). Best of all, a series of independent agricultural modules attached to their respective stations could feed the population under nearly total robotic control: Mirrors guiding sunlight into their quarters and levels of carbon dioxide and nitrogen adjusted for optimal growth. The best thing: Most of the materials needed (oxygen included) can come directly from lunar 'soil'.

He had a book written called The High Frontier, and it is a good read if you can actually find it. He illustrates the entire project from several perspectives, but keeps it all rather simple. One of my favorite areas is the usefulness of parabolic mirrors for industrial processing. Because there is direct sunlight and no limit for the size of mirrors in zero-g, a factory could provide itself a ridiculously powerful furnace by simply utilizing an enormous parabolic mirror!