NASA study dashes dreams of terraforming Mars
David Szondy
7 hours ago
Could we one day terraform Mars to give it an atmosphere, new seas, and a generally habitable environment where people could settle without special protection? According to a new NASA study, don't hold your breath. By the most generous estimate, there isn't enough material on the Red Planet to even begin to provide it with a minimal atmosphere – much less make it suitable for colonization.
The idea of colonizing Mars is very attractive, but it keeps coming up against the fact that Mars is about as friendly to life as the Moon. The atmosphere is made up almost entirely of carbon dioxide and is less than a hundredth as dense as the Earth's. Though there is water trapped in the polar ice caps and in permafrost, as well as in what may be a newly discovered subglacial lake, any water on the surface would quickly evaporate. The result is that the surface of Mars is a thousand times drier than the driest spot on Earth.
Add to this the arctic temperatures at night even at the equator and the constant bombardment of UV and cosmic radiation, as well as weird soil chemistries that break down organic molecules with ease, and the picture for human settlement is a depressing one. As things stand, any potential colonists would face a lifetime for themselves and their descendants that would condemn them to living inside entirely artificial environments.
An alternative to this is terraforming. It's an idea that's been around for over a century and the basic concept is to alter the environment on Mars to make it more like Earth's. Though this might seem a bit daunting, we have evidence that billions of years ago ancient Mars had a large ocean, rivers, lakes, and rainfall. If it could be done once, why not again? Melt the water at the poles or in the permafrost, free up the carbon dioxide in the ice caps and the crust, and build up enough of an atmosphere to support liquid water and start the greenhouse process to warm the surface. Everything else would be just tweaking, like introducing plants to produce oxygen.
More:
https://newatlas.com/terraforming-mars-nasa-study/55686/
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