From the Andrew Lillico (via Bishop Hill) the costs of terraforming Mars -vs- mitigating Earthly climate change seem to have similar values and timescales. Josh provides a cartoon as well.
We can terraform Mars for the same cost as mitigating climate change. Which would you rather?
One frequentlyquotedstudy of the global costs of mitigating climate change put them at around $3 trillion by 2100, with the main benefits being felt between 2100 and 2200. Here is alternative way to spend around the same amount of money with around the same timescale of payback: terraforming Mars. A standard estimate is that, for about $2-$3 trillion, in between 100 and 200 years we would be able to get Mars from its current “red planet” (dead planet) status to ” blue planet” (i.e. a dense enough atmosphere and high enough temperature for Martian water in the poles and soil to melt, creating seas) – achievable in about 100 years – and from there to microbes and algae getting us to “green planet” status within 200 to 600 years.
There are two standard objections to such terraforming. First, it is said to be too expensive, altogether, to be plausible. Second, it is said to require too long a timescale to be plausible. Both of these objections appear decisively answered by climate change policies and indeed energy policies in general. Between now and the 2035 alone, global investment in energy and energy efficiency (in many cases with a many-decades payback period) is estimated at about $40 trillion, of which $6 trillion is in renewables and $1 trillion in low-carbon nuclear. We are willing to spend many trillions on projects that could take over a century to come to fruition.
Josh is on the case:
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
We will never be able to successively terraform Mars! It does not have a molten iron core, thus no magnetic shield. The solar wind has already blown away 90% of whatever atmosphere Mars once had and will do it again if we ever created an atmosphere dense enough to support fauna and flora similar to that on Earth. Get real, living in domes is the best we can hope for on Mars, and significant shielding will be required to make that safe.
Bill
Mars has no magnetic field and not enough gravity to prevent the solar wind from ripping away the atmosphere. Or so I was told some years ago.
Two for two; the science is settled.
Josh forgot the plug for the electric rocket. Otherwise…8-)
Terraform Mars please – Bill Yarber, even if you are right about the solar wind, we could compensate by topping up the atmosphere every few million years. Mars did lose much of its atmosphere, but it kept its air long enough for significant geological changes such as erosion to occur, thanks to the ancient atmosphere supporting running water for a significant period of time.
Aww, see, I was all ready to pipe in and say that this is something I’d gladly fork over some more tax dollars for! At least until I read the bit about the magnetic field.
Interestingly, Venus also has no magnetic field.
Mars:
Earth masses – 0.1074
surface gravity – 0.3799
Not enough gravity to sustain a breathable atmosphere long term.
But the idea is surely not meant to be taken seriously. It is, rather, just another post modern attempt to socially-construct a sickly, fragile, human-damaged story of climate on Earth by pretending it would be cheaper to make a new version from scratch – on Mars.
Sad & pathetic.
Why, wrap a superconducting coil around the planet, start a current and you’ll have your shield.
The first ship should include hairdressers, phone sanitisers and climate scientists.
Seriously guys, whats you idea of “long term”?
A reconstructed Martian atmosphere would last at least a million years or so, probably a lot longer – plenty of time to organise the next topup.
Nothing is forever – eventually Earth will become uninhabitable as well.
How does one go about computing what sort of gravity you need to hold an atmosphere (for how long) and the effects of solar wind? I’ve never thought about it before.
Ditto on the solar wind, magnetic field, etc. If we can terraform Mars, the atmosphere won’t stick around. Of course, facts like that don’t often enter the climate change debate, so why worry? Let’s do it!
Well the magnetic field thing shows precisely why Earth is so important and rare. I hardly need point out that the molten core and high rate is spin are only two parts of this. The third being a moon of similar mass to our moon that exerts sufficient gravity to stop us spinning off our axis.
Uhm, nobody face punch me ok I know it’s just wikipedia. Still, wikipedia seems to think the magnetic field isn’t the primary mechanism by which atmosphere gets stripped away. They cite this Lammer, H.; Lichtenegger, H. I. M.; Biernat, H. K.; Erkaev, N. V.; Arshukova, I. L.; Kolb, C.; Gunell, H.; Lukyanov, A.; Holmstrom, M.; Barabash, S.; Zhang, T. L.; Baumjohann, W. (2006). “Loss of hydrogen and oxygen from the upper atmosphere of Venus”. Planetary and Space Science 54 (13–14): 1445–1456. Bibcode:2006P&SS…54.1445L. doi:10.1016/j.pss.2006.04.022 which I obviously haven’t read. 🙂
I seem to be reading that Venus doesn’t have much of a magnetic field either.
“””””…..A standard estimate is that, for about $2-$3 trillion, in between 100 and 200 years we would be able to get Mars from its current “red planet” (dead planet) status to ” blue planet” …..”””””
Well news flash ! in 100 to 200 years, $2-3 T will just about buy me my morning Senior coffee at McDonalds.
What do these people use as a substitute for brains ??
…and banana milkshakes.
The answer is a simple Induction Furnace. Build the induction coils in orbit around the planet. When you power them up, you get an induced current in the core. At sufficient amperage, the current melts the core through resistive heating. At that point, the magnetic field re-establishes itself, and you are on your way. No problem, you just have to dare to think big. I always did want to build an induction furnace so big you could toast a planet with it.
The Mars rover Curiosity cost about $2.5 billion dollars, and weighs about 2000 lbs.
…
For $3 trillion, we might be able to get 1500 tons of equipment on the surface of Mars.
..
Anybody know what kind of 1000 ton machine can teraform an entire planet? A full blown nuclear power plant weighs more than 1000 tons.
psion (@psion) says:
August 19, 2014 at 2:54 pm
Interestingly, Venus also has no magnetic field.
———————————————————————————————
More gravity, and the heavier molecule CO2 resists the wind, much like Mars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape
Edward, you aren’t thinking of economics ot scale. For instance, the first thing we’d build is a large station in a transfer orbit (or just move the ISS). And there are lots of other places where scaling up will improve cost savings.
It’d be a heck of a lot more interesting than watching the idiots tackle “catastrophic” global warming, but of course, doing ANYTHING with Mars won’t slam the people of the world back into the Stone Age (or before it), not to mention that none of the problems of Mars will be OUR FAULT. So there goes guilt as well. I guess that means it’s a no-goer then. Pity.
Edward Richardson says:
August 19, 2014 at 3:47 pm
Most plans call for some variation of seeding the planet with lichens and bacteria to start liberating oxygen, eventually establishing a small human colony in a crater and then building the rest of the necessary infrastructure in-situ. You wouldn’t need to transport very much at all in that case, and it would be spread over a long period.
Anybody know what kind of 1000 ton machine can teraform an entire planet? A full blown nuclear power plant weighs more than 1000 tons.
————————
yeah, in the Movie ‘Aliens’ they had a fusion power plant ‘atmosphere processor’ that they euphemistically called a ‘shake & bake’ planet that could do the job. Oh wait, that seems to have presumed that there was a substantial atmosphere already present. well, that and the part about the thing going nuke if the cooling tower got broken probably make it unrealistic.
archonix says:
August 19, 2014 at 4:21 pm
Edward Richardson says:
August 19, 2014 at 3:47 pm
Most plans call for some variation of seeding the planet with lichens and bacteria to start liberating oxygen, eventually establishing a small human colony in a crater and then building the rest of the necessary infrastructure in-situ. You wouldn’t need to transport very much at all in that case, and it would be spread over a long period.
=——————
Might be easier and faster to crash a large, water based comet/asteroid on the surface to supply a ready made sea.