[Flipside]

In reply to Bobbaou, the ones that cling tightest to it will only shout all the louder and refuse to accept it. That's humanity for you.

It would be good to see man on Mars, if only to prove that the Moon Landing wasn't a fake

[Corsair mk. 2]

The sad thing is... so many people everywhere still refuse to believe that the moon landing was real. Even if it's just so that they can deny that American did something else that nobody else has.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by JC Denton
End result?  Unless you can somehow jump the core of a planet up to around the surface temperature of the sun, and get that liquidized iron flowing about, you're not going to get a magnetic field to deflect the solar wind from stripping away any non-contained atmosphere you generate on it, and no radiation belts to provide an additional defense against cosmic rays.  That means an atmosphere-tight colony design: underground and/or 'bubble cities' for the colony proper.
 

Um. Hello. Mars and Venus have atmosphere. That's not a problem with magentic fields and the solar wind. The massive thinning of Mars atmosphere and the thickening of Venus atmosphere are related. Venus is a runaway greenhouse: heat is trapped by the atmosphere and never able to escape. That's why its such a hellish planet. Mars on the other hand, has no greenhouse gases to speak of. Heat isn't effectively trapped. The intense cold, combined with the low gravity, allowed for most of the atmosphere to essentially boil off (remember things boil easily at low pressures).

[Knight Templar]

wtf?

[demon442]

Terraforming Mars would be kinda simple, really.  At least getting liquid iron moving, anyway.  Since the surface is covered in iron oxide, all you have to do is add aluminum and high heat and boom[/i] instant thermite.  Thermite burns at ~3000 C, now im not sure, but I think thats enough to get the party started on the surface.

[Bobboau]

the atmosphere is mostly co2 so how would it burn?

also you'd kill all the martins

if terraforming means you have to raise the green house gasses of mars, well who better to lead the terraforming effort than Bush?

[Deepblue]

Some people are just so cynical.

[Ace]

Originally posted by Flipside
In reply to Bobbaou, the ones that cling tightest to it will only shout all the louder and refuse to accept it. That's humanity for you.

It would be good to see man on Mars, if only to prove that the Moon Landing wasn't a fake

Nah, they'll just say that the Mars landing was faked too.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Bobboau
the atmosphere is mostly co2 so how would it burn?

also you'd kill all the martins

if terraforming means you have to raise the green house gasses of mars, well who better to lead the terraforming effort than Bush?

Thermite doesn't need an external oxider. Its built into the mixture of aluminum compounds and iron oxides.

Contrary to popular belief though, thermite is NOT iron oxide. its Fe2O3 (one extra iron atom and one extra oxygen atom).

[Bobboau]

ah, my mistake

[Shrike]

Originally posted by mikhael
Contrary to popular belief though, thermite is NOT iron oxide. its Fe2O3 (one extra iron atom and one extra oxygen atom).

Actually, rust is mostly Fe2O3, just as a note, along with added H20 groups.

[mikhael]

Still wouldn't do any good though. What Mars needs is to be spun up. Setting the surface ablaze would really do very little good.

Now, hit it with icy, CHON-heavy comets at a nice angle to impart some angular momentum... that'd do Mars some good. Increase that spin rate and the resulting stresses will put some serious strain on the core, causing it to flex and warp. Before too long (one to two thousand years) and you'll have a properly liquid core. Liquid core-->stronger magnetic field-->Van Allen Belts-->Safer Environment.

There's still the issue of growing things there though. You'd have to start up a ladder. After bombarding the place with icy comets to get water back on the planet, you'd have to do something to thicken up the atmosphere somehow. Starting with lots of algae, lichen and plankton, then moving up to more complex plants slowly. It'd take centuries. Mars would always be in a precarious balance, though, even if you did manage to get it terraformed.

[Bobboau]

"Setting the surface ablaze would really do very little good."

it would look cool, and would make it easier to find

[neo_hermes]

[Shrike]

Originally posted by mikhael
Still wouldn't do any good though. What Mars needs is to be spun up. Setting the surface ablaze would really do very little good.

Now, hit it with icy, CHON-heavy comets at a nice angle to impart some angular momentum... that'd do Mars some good. Increase that spin rate and the resulting stresses will put some serious strain on the core, causing it to flex and warp. Before too long (one to two thousand years) and you'll have a properly liquid core. Liquid core-->stronger magnetic field-->Van Allen Belts-->Safer Environment.  

To be honest, I doubt this would work.  First, you'd need a hell of a lot of comets to make an appreciable difference in the speed Mars spins at, but more importantly, I have grave doubts that spinning it would have a significant effect on its core temperature.  Mars is a lot smaller than earth, so the radiological heat that does so much to keep the Earth's core warm can escape much faster, and unless you have massive gravitational stresses like the Jovian satellites acting on your object, radiological heating is your main source of heat.

[Bobboau]

can't we just nuke Mars yet?

[Nico]

Let's build two Huge ass engines, and let's make it orbit!
then do the same with another planet, and let's have a dogfight

[aldo_14]

Centurion?!

[TrashMan]

The only way to terraform Mars is to pump it's atmosphere with greenhouse effect gasses (mind you, you don't need many of them. We have gases that are milion times more effective/devastating then the ones that caused the ozon hole).

Mars would heat up, ice would melt(if any) and after planting a bunch of trees - voila!

The oinly problem is I wo't be alive when it's done (for it would take approx. 400 years)

[Sandwich]

Threads merged.