Surface areas: Israel versus the planet Mars

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The nation of Israel has only 20,770 square kilometers.

The planet Mars has 144,371,391 square kilometers.

I like the question posed in this video about what an alien would think if they overheard the UN:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4[/youtube]

I would rather let Israel be peacefully alone and instead concern myself with the terraformation and colonization of Mars and making the space industry self-sufficient, but so many of the people of this planet are so occupied with the destruction of a single nation that is smaller than New Jersey instead of the entering of humanity into space that I doubt we'll ever expand further than what we already have. I want to leave this place, since it is so full of lunacy. Even the moon has less lunacy than the Earth. Let's leave Israel alone, let Israel have peace. Let's instead focus on nobler things as developing a spacefaring civilization.

It turned out that Mars doesn't have enough carbon dioxide to terraform it using any method previously proposed. There isn't expected to be enough technological advancements to make it worth going back to the drawing board until sometime in the later half of this century.

Let's get to the research necessary to terraform Mars then, accelerate that so that the advancement necessary might be made sooner than 39 years or more from now. While waiting to get to terraform Mars, we can still develop the economic infrastructure in space necessary to make the space industry self-sufficient rather than constantly requiring supplies from the ground. We could still reactivate project Orion with a special exception in atmospheric nuclear testing for it. We could send humans to Mars to study the long term effects of 1/3rd Earth gravity and test out various technologies. Also, prior to the terraformation of Mars there are many places on Mars during the year that reach the triple point of water and that would certainly be an interesting study. The colonization of Mars in artificial habitats and underground bunkers and tunnel systems would still be possible even without terraformation.

Source? I have heard this argument before, and yet none of the scientists actually doing the hard research into terraforming seem to think this (afaik)...
Also CO2 isn't the only GHG that can be used for terraforming, and there is the option of bombarding Mars with redirected comets- this isn't as unfeasible as it sounds, because we should learn how to redirect comets/asteroids for the benefit of our own planet, as one day we will face the risk of an impact event. So its sort of win-win

But as to the video, that is pretty well put. Thanks for the link 'keet I'm probably going to share it with a few people I know

Mars cannot be terraformed. It totally lacks a magnetic field. The best that can be done is to construct sealed habitats on the surface of the planet. Mars cannot hold an atmosphere. Period.

ruveyn

Mars can and will hold a denser atmosphere. It just requires it be actively replenished, which, with an active biosphere, GHG-heavy industrial processes transplanted from Earth and open water, won't be very hard to do. There are many solutions. It is even possible to use stellar engineering to create an artificial magnetic field

In the mean time, sealed habitats would be used, but eventually, the place would be good for settlement except perhaps at high altitudes

Name one method that can establish a planetary magnetic fields for a planet the size of mars.

In addition to which mars is geothermally dead. No more outgassing there. Mars has farted its last billions of years ago. Solar radiation (which is on the increase) will "sand blast" any atmosphere off of mars. Only small sealed habitats will work. There can be no planetwide mars-global terraforming.

Mars is a waste of time. The Moon is a better place to go. We can use the Dark Side for observatories (bigger and better than orbiting telescopes) and we can mine Helium 3 and deliver quickly to earth. The Moon can be used profitably. Mars is a loser.

ruveyn

Sorry Ruveyn, but no, there are enough professionals involved in the space industry who support terraforming that I am not going to change my mind on this because you don't like Mars

Additionally, what evidence have you that Mars is done out-gassing? We have only been observing it regularly for about 40 years. It might not have had many volcanic eruptions in the past few million years, but that doesn't mean its done. And most of the out-gassing that still occurs has resulted in what are theorized to be vast underground aquifers scattered across the surface. Its not active to the point of the Earth, but that won't really matter in the long run

The Moon is Greenland, Mars is North America. But feel free to make the same mistake the Vikings made There are actually better sources of He3 than the Moon, such as the Gas giants; and with recent developments of a new type of plasma rocket (to be tested in space next year) the timescale for getting out to the Gas giants (preferably Saturn as Jupiter is a radiation death trap) is significantly decreased

I posted a long description on how one could both increase the sunlight reaching Mars and use the same mega-structure to deflect some of the solar radiation in a different thread. I recommend you look into the terraforming literature before making bold claims on its fruitlessness

Have you considered the cost of what you are talking about? For example, about 25 years ago we developed the technology and blueprints for this super sophisticated stealth bomber, but it ended up costing $2 billion and we weren't able to get nearly as many as we wanted.

Assuming you get government or private financing to develop technology for colonizing and terraforming mars, your R&D funds will likely run out before the work is finished and no government or corporate interests are going to give up the funding to install and operate a few hundred square miles of mirrored satellites around mars or pay for the spacecraft (and associated costs) needed to crash comets into it or supply sufficient atmospheric gasses and water to there.

It's one thing to create a technology, but it's another to make it cost effective.

Nobody has claimed its going to be inexpensive. But the technologies that would be developed in order to bring it to fruition would have immense benefit for the entire Human race, much like the Apollo Program.

Even so it doesn't take that much to move a comet, likely the easiest way to do it is to induce out-gassing with a 'giant magnifying glass' to create a 'natural rocket'- as I said, this technology would be priceless, as it has the potential to save our entire biosphere from annihilation

Generally big companies like to exaggerate the costs when it comes to space programs. Lockheed, Boeing, they have some real problems with greed. Up until the mid 90s nobody listened to Dr Robert Zubrin and his Mars direct vision because it was 'too inexpensive' and wouldn't satisfy the big aerospace firms who want to spend and earn big bucks
There is also very likely enough water and CO2 to negate the cost of imports. The only issue that is present thus far is nitrogen for the eventual plants that are desired there- they are unsure if Mars has enough to sustain a biosphere at this point. But there haven't been that many missions to the planet, so more research is needed
The picture is much bigger than making a few white guys a little richer, though

I'm sure that the scientific and technological advances would be great, but we're having trouble agreeing on how to come up with the money for a single return visit to the moon right now.

I'm against going back, honestly, if it means less money for a Mars mission. But I hear you. I wish that priorities were in the right place

I'm for going back to the moon and starting to mine resources for the construction of interplanetary craft. It would take a lot less fuel to ship materials off the moon to, say, a shipyard in orbit of the moon (quite possibly, fuel would have to be shipped from earth to the moon unless and until the proper chemicals to make hydrazine or other rocket fuels are able to be synthesized at manufacturing plants on the moon. An interplanetary spacecraft would need a thick hull to protect the crew, and it would make more sense to me to get the materials from our nearest celestial neighbor, the moon, using it as a springboard into the rest of the solar system.

I am also against the "visual" pollution of the Moon as seen from our Earth. <.< (The likes of which could be seen from Earth)

Mars could be interested, yet i'm not even close to being a layman in that domain.

Wait. Convince megacorporation bigwigs that the moon could be used as a giant billboard and they'd probably finance the entire lunar colonization as fast as their checkbooks can open.

Bingo! The Moon is a gift of nature. It is our nature-given jumping off point.

ruveyn