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:
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sturgishooper says:
August 19, 2014 at 6:04 pm
Beg pardon. I mean two orders of magnitude. For some of the atmospheric gases, by a lot more than that. Indeed, to infinity, and beyond!
Neither, who would want another earth with climate mongrels. Sustaining our own planet should be a goal for all. We can’t control the climate or weather. But if we could, it would be great.
Interested says:
August 19, 2014 at 6:33 pm
Average animal species “lifespan” is more like two million years, but of course, what counts as a species?
Australian lungfish appear superficially to be living fossils, but what would their genomes show, could be resurrect one from ten million years ago?
We’ve done such a good job on Earth – yeah, I think we’re ready to take on Mars, and it’s just sitting there not being used. A mating pair each of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, Sikhs, Wicca, atheists, LGBT, and a cockroach for a colony starter should get things going. What could go wrong?
[The cockroach would get lonely. 8<) .mod]
Here’s Gerard K. O’Neill’s 1974 article in Physics Today, courtesy of The National Space Society. There’s no reason to suppose that the most effective way to terraform Mars is to start with that first thing.
It would likely be better done after we already have a strong settlement and industrial base in near space. Let’s start with that.
Here’s a NASA page on space settlement, with lots of linked free resources. It’s where NASA ought to be putting its time, money, and effort, in my opinion.
dp, considering we’ve come up from an ethically indifferent and bloody evolutionary history, I’d suggest we humans are doing very well.
Yeh.. I saw that movie Red Planet, where the Earth was supposedly poisoned by Man and they had to go to Mars. It ended badly.
Until we can deal with the absence of a strong magnetosphere on Mars, we will have no more success in terraforming Mars than we will in controlling Earth’s climate by way of CO2 regulation.
That is actually an experiment to see if they are really born pregnant :). Regardless, I’m betting on the success of the roach.
At east it could be relatively cheap and easy to get there with quite substantial payloads (10,000 Tons to LEA), provided certain treaties were modified of course:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29
http://www.islandone.org/Propulsion/ProjectOrion.html
[But what if Mars is to the west of the lunch site? 8<) .mod]
Mars is about two things:
1.who can be the first to lay claim
2.resources
Pat Frank says:
August 19, 2014 at 4:25 pm
Bringing a dead planet back to life. What’s not to like?
The first shipment an include politicians. No need for gravity- because politicians ???
Guys, lifting equipment to Mars in bulk at low cost is entirely feasible.
The Manhattan scientists found a way – you put your equipment on top of a big steel plate, then detonate an atom bomb under the plate.
The plate and cargo not only survives, it doesn’t even ablate providing you spray on a thin layer of oil before the explosion.
Tens of thousands of tons into orbit, for the price of a shuttle launch.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
@njsnow, could NJ really be that bad?, and @Mark and two cats , love that last line!
It’s amazing how much of the commentary here echoes themes from Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars series, but a lot of people probably already know that. The funny thing is that Robinson spends many chapters dealing with environmentalists’ objections to the whole project, going so far as to start a war to unwind it. He also includes religious conflict, but I don’t remember a cockroach.
Forget terraforming Mars! The Earth isn’t going to be destroyed after all:
http://www.gizmag.com/suns-activity-influences-natural-climate-change/33409/
Yeah , and the Oakland – SF bay bridge was going to cost 1.5 billion.
Tom J says:
August 19, 2014 at 6:18 pm
======
well said. the essence of competition. today, there is no space race. nothing to be won or lost. no fair maidens, no pot of gold. so we stay home, grow old and fade away.
TimTheToolMan says:
August 19, 2014 at 3:05 pm
The first ship should include hairdressers, phone sanitisers and climate scientists.
================================
I disagree. The first shipment of humans to Mars should be the entire population of the DC metro area (while Congress is in session).
Laughing Quietly to Oneself (LQO). How to meet the arbitrary? Why, … with the arbitrary. Terra forming Mars! Hats off to Wattsupwiththat for posting this bit of humor and to James Lovelock who first put some real flesh and bones on “terraforming” in his 1984 science fiction piece, “The Greening of Mars”, co-authered with Michael Allaby (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming).
Sadly mistaken in his speculations on CO2 and climate, Lovelock was a remarkable self-financed experimentalist and truly integrative thinker about life on earth who, together with Lynn Margulis did much to bring to mainstream science the idea that life regulates physiological conditions on earth in a non-teological manner arising out of natural selection.
I’m no scientist, but if Mars needs some hot air I know how to supply it.
@Bill Yarber. Timescale.
Khwarizmi says: August 19, 2014 at 2:55 pm
Mars:
Earth masses – 0.1074
surface gravity – 0.3799
Not enough gravity to sustain a breathable atmosphere long term.
Saturn’s moon Titan has lower gravity than Mars, yet has an atmosphere 1½ times heavier than Earth’s.
We could supply the magnetic field by borrowing the rare earth magnets in all the wind turbines and planting them on the surface.
A bit of crowd-sourcing, and we’d be on our way — oops, forgot that Mars has an unspoiled, pristine environment.
.
As for Kim Stanley Robinson, he can brilliantly analyze a situation in profound depth, and unerringly come up with an appropriately totalitarian solution. Saw him on a skeptic-free global warming panel discussion Sunday. Capitalism seemed to be the main problem, that and the denialists’ confusing the gullible media with false facts. More later.
@Tom J. Thanks. I enjoyed the narrative.
The Golden Eyed comment was a reference to Ray Bradbury’s mysterious little story about colonizing Mars. Once again, life imitates art in this post.