Mars, Ceres and making Mars habitible for Humans.

I wonder if future humanity will be able to adjust Mars Orbit slightly closer to the habitable zone of our Sun? Also, I wonder if we could move Ceres or perhaps some of Jupiter's Ice moons to gently collide with mars to add water. Lastly, could we move other large moons to Orbit Mars in order to heat up Mars core and maybe kick off a magnetosphere?

Sure it might take thousand years or more but it seems it will extend humanity after the sun begins to burn earth up. Mars being further out could survive a bit longer perhaps?

Perhaps someone did this for Earth in it's past =).

a reply to: Xeven

Get the Mars Trilogy Red Mars,Green Mars Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, very realistic in approach to set off green house gases and terraforming also with more likely political and social adaptations thrown in.

Red Mars starts in 2026 with the first colonial voyage to Mars aboard the Ares, the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built and home to a crew who are to be the first hundred Martian colonists. The ship was built from clustered space shuttle external fuel tanks which, instead of reentering Earth's atmosphere, had been boosted into orbit until enough had been amassed to build the ship. The mission is a joint Russian-American undertaking, and seventy of the First Hundred are drawn from these countries (except, for example, Michel Duval, a French psychologist assigned to observe their behavior). The book details the trip out, construction of the first settlement on Mars (eventually called Underhill) by Nadia Chernyshevski, as well as establishing colonies on Mars' hollowed out asteroid-moon Phobos, the ever-changing relationships between the colonists, debates among the colonists regarding both the terraforming of the planet and its future relationship to Earth. The two extreme views on terraforming are personified by Saxifrage "Sax" Russell, who believes their very presence on the planet means some level of terraforming has already begun and that it is humanity's obligation to spread life as it is the most scarce thing in the known universe, and Ann Clayborne, who stakes out the position that humankind does not have the right to change entire planets at their will.

Green Mars takes its title from the stage of terraforming that has allowed plants to grow. It picks up the story 50 years after the events of Red Mars in the dawn of the 22nd century, following the lives of the remaining First Hundred and their children and grandchildren. Hiroko Ai's base under the south pole is attacked by UN Transitional Authority (UNTA) forces, and the survivors are forced to escape into a (less literal) underground organization known as the Demimonde. Among the expanded group are the First Hundred's children, the Nisei, a number of whom live in Hiroko's second secret base, Zygote.

As unrest in the multinational control over Mars' affairs grow, various groups start to form with different aims and methods. Watching these groups evolve from Earth, the CEO of the Praxis Corporation sends a representative, Arthur Randolph, to organize the resistance movements. This culminates into the Dorsa Brevia agreement, in which nearly all the underground factions take part. Preparations are made for a second revolution beginning in the 2120s, from converting moholes to missiles silos or hidden bases, sabotaging orbital mirrors, to propelling Deimos out of Mars' gravity well and out into deep space so it could never be used as a weapons platform as Phobos was.

[ex]Blue Mars takes its title from the stage of terraforming that has allowed atmospheric pressure and temperature to increase so that liquid water can exist on the planet's surface, forming rivers and seas. It follows from the end of Green Mars and has a much wider scope than the previous two books, covering an entire century after the second revolution. As Earth is heavily flooded by the sudden melting of the Antarctic ice cap, the once mighty metanats are brought to their knees; as the Praxis Corporation paves a new way of "democratic businesses". Mars becomes the "Head" of the system, giving universal healthcare, free education, and an abundance of food. However, this sparks illegal immigration from Earth, so to ease the population strain on the Blue Planet, Martian scientists and engineers are soon put to the task of creating asteroid cities; where small planetoids of the Belt are hollowed out, given a spin to produce gravity, and a mini-sun is created to produce light and heat.
en.wikipedia.org...
Great read

Mars gravity is about a tenth of Earth's, just not enough to hold oxygen down, its present atmosphere is one hundredths of Earth
's, so even if oxygen could be held down, lord knows how long it would take to get a 14 pounds per square inch atmosphere on Mars.

Mars would also need a magnetosphere as big as Earth's, the suns radiation is still bad at that distance, also meteor strikes are just the same as Earth's, if not worse. Mars being a whole lot closer to the asteroid belt.

originally posted by: pikestaff
Mars gravity is about a tenth of Earth's, just not enough to hold oxygen down, its present atmosphere is one hundredths of Earth
's, so even if oxygen could be held down, lord knows how long it would take to get a 14 pounds per square inch atmosphere on Mars.

Mars would also need a magnetosphere as big as Earth's, the suns radiation is still bad at that distance, also meteor strikes are just the same as Earth's, if not worse. Mars being a whole lot closer to the asteroid belt.

No liquid water, no magentosphere (it had one at one time, but no longer), no deep ocean currents, no plate tectonics (some minor vulcanism), not enough gravity to hold atmosphere and terrible, corrosive red dust and 300mph dust storms.

Asteroid collisions greater, and too cold.

Terraforming takes 40,000 years just for step one.

Could we bring gigantic boring machines and go underground? Maybe but spend 50 Trillion and a big asteroid hits, nada. Waste of time except as a robotic station perhaps dumping spent nuclear fuel there or something.

a reply to: Xeven

Terraforming seems the more likely outcome.

It does not seem plausible in this day in age but boffins have figured out that cyanobacteria (ie blue green algae) produces oxygen as a byproduct and that could kickstart Mars atmosphere and if we started now then the process could be finished by about 200,186,013 A.D-but that's just an guesstimate-it could be finished quicker as our scientific knowledge progresses. But there are other factors to consider.

But moving a moon? the energy required to perform such a feat would require the manipulation of the universe itself, let alone the complications of guiding the moons and making sure they maintain a stable orbit. If we were capable of such a feat then surely we would have the technology to traverse the stars and settle on other planets.

No need it is already habitable. They are sending a mission with 100 men and women civilians there. DO you really think they would send a private mission to populate it if it wasn't. If explorers, military and scientist have not already been there. They always go first. More going on than anyone knows. I think all they need workers and breeders.

originally posted by: pikestaff
Mars gravity is about a tenth of Earth's, just not enough to hold oxygen down, its present atmosphere is one hundredths of Earth
's, so even if oxygen could be held down, lord knows how long it would take to get a 14 pounds per square inch atmosphere on Mars.

Mars would also need a magnetosphere as big as Earth's, the suns radiation is still bad at that distance, also meteor strikes are just the same as Earth's, if not worse. Mars being a whole lot closer to the asteroid belt.

Mars' gravity is just over a third of earth's not a tenth. maybe you are looking at the mass of Mars and have forgotten about it's radius. The biggest problem is the lack of a magnetic field which protects the earth from having its atmosphere stripped away by solar storms.

Any settlement of Mars will be under cover!!! Personally I think they should find some nice caves and build a settlement inside those instead.

a reply to: roth1

I agree with you Roth. Believe nothing the "officials" tell you. I realize this is a provocative statement.

Ceres is off limits in that way, its inhabited. Moon of tiamat, and sister to earth, but higher minded group there.

originally posted by: Xeven
I wonder if future humanity will be able to adjust Mars Orbit slightly closer to the habitable zone of our Sun?

At the point where we could move planets we probably wouldn't have to. The Sun (and almost all stars) habitable zone moves further out over time as they use up hydrogen fuel and expand. In about 500-750 million years Mars will be just inside the outer edge of our Suns habitable zone.

Also, I wonder if we could move Ceres or perhaps some of Jupiter's Ice moons to gently collide with mars to add water.

There would be nothing gentle about such large bodies (relative to each other) colliding. You probably wouldn't want to do that. HOWEVER.. Most Mars terraforming ideas do involve towing smaller icy asteroids to impact Mars but nothing the size of Ceres.

As for Jupiter's icy moons, they may have life on them, especially Europa, I doubt we'd want to destroy them for that reason.

Lastly, could we move other large moons to Orbit Mars in order to heat up Mars core and maybe kick off a magnetosphere?

In theory it might be possible in a far future but by that time, why would we need to? We will already have probably settled the nearby habitable planets around other stars.

[quote[Sure it might take thousand years or more but it seems it will extend humanity after the sun begins to burn earth up. Mars being further out could survive a bit longer perhaps?

See above. By that time we'll already be living on planets around other stars most likely. There would be a relatively short period of time between when the Earth got burned up and when Mars would be by out dying Sun so it would be a lot of work to buy very little time.

Perhaps someone did this for Earth in it's past =).

Not at all. The planets are where they are due to well understood natural processes.

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
a reply to: Xeven
But moving a moon? the energy required to perform such a feat would require the manipulation of the universe itself, let alone the complications of guiding the moons and making sure they maintain a stable orbit. If we were capable of such a feat then surely we would have the technology to traverse the stars and settle on other planets.

Exactly. If you can manipulate gravity and things to play with planetary orbits then you certainly can travel to the nearest habitable planets around other stars.

Even today, if we had to evacuate a small amount of people from the Earth within 100 years we could send them on a long to a planet less than 100 light years away on a generation ship.

a reply to: Xeven

Mars has no atmosphere. Until that changes nothing you said would do anything. Adding an atmosphere is going to be difficult.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
a reply to: Xeven
But moving a moon? the energy required to perform such a feat would require the manipulation of the universe itself, let alone the complications of guiding the moons and making sure they maintain a stable orbit. If we were capable of such a feat then surely we would have the technology to traverse the stars and settle on other planets.

Exactly. If you can manipulate gravity and things to play with planetary orbits then you certainly can travel to the nearest habitable planets around other stars.

Even today, if we had to evacuate a small amount of people from the Earth within 100 years we could send them on a long to a planet less than 100 light years away on a generation ship.

There are enough technical challenges in doing that, not to mention the selection process (Eugenics to the extreme?) that we couldn't do that for about 200 years if we started now. If the whole world cooperated, perhaps in 50 years.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

Mars gravity not strong enough to hold down oxygen, it would leak out into space then blown away by suns solar wind.

originally posted by: Maverick7

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
a reply to: Xeven
But moving a moon? the energy required to perform such a feat would require the manipulation of the universe itself, let alone the complications of guiding the moons and making sure they maintain a stable orbit. If we were capable of such a feat then surely we would have the technology to traverse the stars and settle on other planets.

Exactly. If you can manipulate gravity and things to play with planetary orbits then you certainly can travel to the nearest habitable planets around other stars.

Even today, if we had to evacuate a small amount of people from the Earth within 100 years we could send them on a long to a planet less than 100 light years away on a generation ship.

There are enough technical challenges in doing that, not to mention the selection process (Eugenics to the extreme?) that we couldn't do that for about 200 years if we started now. If the whole world cooperated, perhaps in 50 years.

Yes. It would require a selection process and global co-operation. The social challenges would be daunting but the technical challenges would be the least of them as we already have planned out most of them decades ago.

How it might happen was outlined in this special:

a reply to: JadeStar

Thanks. I'm going to watch.

originally posted by: Unity_99
Ceres is off limits in that way, its inhabited. Moon of tiamat, and sister to earth, but higher minded group there.

Oh, you talking about these guys???



Moon???