Can We Terraform Mars?
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When it comes to wanting to colonize another world, one of the biggest problems is getting the world to act like our own Earth. One of the ways to get around that problem is with Terraforming. Join us as explore the potential of Terraforming Mars.
9. What Is Terraforming?
You've likely heard the word terraforming thrown around a lot but don't exactly know what it means. So here's the official definition. Terraforming : is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable by Earth-like life.
Or in even more basic terms, it's the process of trying to make a planet that ISN'T Earth and turning it INTO Earth...or something at least very close. Now yes, on the grander scale of things, this seems science-fiction, especially when you consider things like the World Engine from the Man Of Steel movie where massive devices are used to ravage worlds to be more suitable to the incoming lifeforms. And yeah, something like that is FAR beyond what we have right now. However, that doesn't mean Terraforming is completely off the board.
For example, we technically do terraforming here on Earth. How so? Well, over the course of many years people have planted trees and grasses in areas that were once barren. Transforming them into lush greenlands over what they were before. That is a very basic form of Terraforming, as it made it more habitable to human life.
The question often comes from the notion that if we are to live amongst the stars we would need a planet that is darn close to what Earth is right now. Which is either incredibly rare, or impossible given the candidates that are openly available to us. So thus, we would need to terraform them. But where to start...?
8. Mars...Some Remodeling Required...
So, if we were to look for another planet to live on in the solar system we are in right now, and we do it from the objective sense...we have two potential candidates. The first is Venus (which I'll discuss more later) and the second is Mars. Both of which have major problems that need to be overcome in order for us to live happy and healthy lives there.
For Venus, it's got land, but its atmosphere is full of gasses we can't breathe, and the surface is so hot that it could melt most metals. In contrast, Mars has a very thin atmosphere, and is very barren. Water and ice are on it, but only in specific regions. So as you can see, neither of these options are very palatable. However, if we had to choose one, despite being farther to Earth than Venus is, Mars is the logical choice. Mainly because we have more room to work with, and don't have to deal with deadly gasses choking us or melting everything we make.
But, the planet is still barren, doesn't have water that was can openly siphon, and its atmosphere is not only thin, it lets large amounts of radiation in. And that speaks nothing to the numerous amounts of meteorites that have crashed onto the surface. So in short, we need to work out a lot of issues, but these issues may indeed be worked out by terraforming. Whether it works or not though is a bit of an issue...
7. Terraforming Mars Won't Be Easy
So let's look at Terraforming not in the scientific sense, but in the logistical one. For us to Terraform Mars, a lot of things would have to come together. A lot of which has to be done here on Earth before even sending it to Mars. Oh, and don't forget, while we have landed things like rovers on Mars and sent probes and satellites around its orbit...we have yet to try and put people on it. So given that Terraforming would need to be done by hand more than likely? This wouldn't even be feasible until we actually reach the surface of Mars. Which means at the minimum is about 5 years away if we're lucky and NASA and SpaceX's plans go through.
Alright, so that's one big hurdle right there, getting to the planet we need to terraform. Then, the second problems is actually trying to make sure that the terraforming can work at all. What do I mean by that? Think about it. We live on Earth, where life is vibrant in all the ways that matter, and then some. It's relatively easy for us to terraform things on our planet because we know what we need to do in order to get things to work. Which is awesome! But on Mars? That's a different kettle of fish entirely. To the extent that if we do something on Earth there's no guarantee it'll work on Mars. Not the least of which is because our atmosphere is much thicker, richer, and more full of gasses than Mars is.
Which means that just about any attempt to try and terraform Mars would have to start with the atmosphere.
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