(no subject)

[threeplusfire]

My dream of terraforming Mars may be crushed by physics. The planet might be too small to sustain an atmosphere, with escape velocity being low. Damn. This might make me cry.

To dull the pain, I bought cds for the first time in almost a year. David Bowie's new Heathen and Our Lady Peace's Clumsy. I don't think the new Our Lady Peace album is out yet. They are however, playing July 17th at Stubb's and I am determined to get tickets.

Slowly cleaning the apartment. I have moved lots ot things out of the living room, and picked up all the papers scattered about. The kitchen just has a lot of things sitting on the counter. Now if I could only clean my room.

Comments

[amp23.livejournal.com]

terraforming is so passe...

and cost-inefficient...

throw some geodesic domes up and pump em with a livable gasses.
hell of a lot easier than trying to get an entire planet to hold an atmosphere when it's too small for the required gravity and too far away to support anything warmer than ice

[ex-candles994.livejournal.com]

Hm, I thought terraforming Mars was indeed possible, but it would take well over a century to populate the atmosphere with the correct percentages of gases it would take to make it inhabitable, so of course no one will do it because they won't live to see the results.

[egosumquisum.livejournal.com]

Why adapt Mars to human habitation? Why not adapt humans to Mars? We've got the human genome essentially mapped. I would imgine by the time we have terrforming technology ready to implement, genetic engineering will be a much more advanced science. Terraforming in the future may me more like "bioforming". Simply creating the necessary foundations for DNA-based life. Genetic engineering of highly adaptable humans can handle the rest of the job.

Dont fit the rock to the monkey, fir the monkey to the rock.

[ex-candles994.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting theory.

it's not nice to insult someone's childhood dream

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

As if biospheres aren't? We couldn't even get one running in Arizona, it went toxic in less than a year.

Re:

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Just about anything's possible I suppose. The biggest problems with making Mars a hospitable planet are the lack of magnetism, the low pressure/gravity and the temperature. It all comes back to the planet being small, so I haven't found a way to work around that yet. But I will, damn it. :D

Re: it's not nice to insult someone's childhood dream

[amp23.livejournal.com]

i didn't mean to insult your dream...

it's just that terraforming requires not only putting an atmosphere on a rock, that atmosphere has to be warm enough to keep the necessary elements in a gas state. Mars does not have that warmth, and short of moving it to the earth's orbit or putting a massive nuclear reactor in the core, there's no way of doing it and still staying within the laws of physics...

biodomes sufficient for colonizing other planets haven't been perfected yet, but it's a much closer possibility than bringing an entire planet from sub-zero to the thin temperature range needed to support human life...

Re:

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Ah, another intruiging possibility. Though I think coming to an understanding of the relations of genes might happen the same time we figure out the complexities of a biosphere.

This doesn't help me get to live on Mars though, which I really wanted when I was younger.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Ideally I suppose we would jump start the planet's engine and see if we could create a dynamo that would generate a magentic field and help provide heat. You need magnetism and warmth enough to generate some kind of atmosphere. The problem I see is the low mass/low escape velocity. The atmosphere would probably whip off in less than half a billion years. Not that any of us will live long enough to care about that, but still. I think you would have to start in the canyons.

Mars

[jr-surfer.livejournal.com]

I think I remember seeing a documentary on a program that NASA has on making Mars safe for humans. Very cool idea,
J

Re: Mars

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Maybe I should go poke around NASA's site and see what they are up to. Since they discovered all that ice recently, I think they've moved up the timetable for a manned mission to Mars.

Re: Mars

[jr-surfer.livejournal.com]

Probably, I saw the documentary in College, I'd say about 5 years ago, so I'm sure its alot more developed now. Laters
J