Life on Mars

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by rayzinnz, May 6, 2003.

  1. rayzinnz Registered Senior Member

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    Hi, I'm not interested if life already exists on Mars, but I am interested in how to teraform the planet into an environment that could sustain some of earths life. There's some pretty hardy little bastards here, Archaea for exaMPLe.
    I saw a program on it once, do you guys know anything about the process of teraforming Mars (no I am not talking sci-fi please) or any websites about it?
    I think it went something like this
    - pollute planet causing a greenhouse effect and warming it to a nice temp.
    - shove on some basic lifeforms to create an atmosphere of sorts.
    - gradually through bio-control create an environment viable for mammals.
     
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  3. SG-N Registered Senior Member

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  5. blankc Your superior Registered Senior Member

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    You need to increase atmospheric pressure(and create right gas balance), somehow deoxydize the soil, distribute the planets water supply more evenly, increase the temp for any substantial life, and create an ecosystem to keep it all balanced.
     
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  7. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    Would it be unethical to terraform a planet?
     
  8. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

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    It would be unethical to take water from earth and put it on mars IMO.
    But altering what mars already has to give it life harbouring abilities would be ok I think.
    I am against it in some ways because the motive driving the project seems to be to give people a ticket out of the hell they created here. That doesn't sit right with me. Fixing earth should be the top priority and terraforming mars should just be an experiment to see if it can be done.
    Creating an atmosphere seems like it would be the hardest thing to do. Once you did that you could try and move the water, then you could try and put plankton in it. If there was enough Co2 you could start a new evolution web simply with that.
    Thats why I would be interested in it, to make new life, not save our sorry asses.
     
  9. SG-N Registered Senior Member

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    I don't see any problem in terraforming a planet if there's "nothing" on it, like on Mars. However we shouldn't do it "for fun" or for experiments. We would just do if we really need it (fixing Earth seems to be a good idea too

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    ).
    I think that, if it's possible, humans will do it in a few centuries. I hope that it will be because of overpopulating but I fear that it will be because of the Earth polution...
     
  10. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    I'm slightly concerned because terraforming could be considered 'raping' a planet. After all we would scream murder if someone decided to cut 10 trees down in the park near our home. But fucking up an entire planet would be ok? Especially since we don't even know if the planet is lifeless?

    On the other hand there are countless planets in the universe (but earth is also just a planet).

    In short, I haven't really formed an opinion yet on the merits of terraforming. Maybe it is ok, maybe it isn't.


    I wonder if it would really be that difficult to find earth lifeforms that can thrive on mars without any adaptations. Maybe we already introduced them accidentily.
     
  11. SG-N Registered Senior Member

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    As "they" did on Earth...

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    (On Mars, it's possible.)
     
  12. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

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    Is there a chance life exists on mars? I didn't think there was.
    I guess there is a chance it eventually could naturally change until it were fertile and I suppose our interference probably is a bad thing. A pre-"lifocide" even.
    But we could be making something from nothing and it would almost be too interesting to not do.
    What exactly does terra-forming mean?
    I used to assume that when people said that they meant making livable bubble habitats and the idea was very unnapealling but from what I gather people are talking about doing almost natural things to start it on the track to fertility and the idea does seem cool.
    Like if we were to make an atmosphere somehow and then melt its caps.
    Is that along the lines of what would be done?
    I don't see how that would be raping a planet. Its the opposite of what we have done to earth, trying to start life instead of trying to end it. I guess you could view any alterations as bad and I can understand that.
    But to be content with the day to day life right here and then against making mars a mother seems.... hey... mars a mother? hmmmm now I can see how its like rape

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    yeah bad idea
     
  13. rayzinnz Registered Senior Member

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    Well yeh, I don't understand "ethics", and sure earth needs to be fixed up. But honestly, wht is on mars thats worth saving? We wouldn't be fucking it up we would be injecting life. It's like a doctor fixing up a baby that was born wrong so it can live. Is it more ethical to leave it as God intended and let it die? Is it more ethical to overpopulate the earth than spread to another planet? Even if we did populate Mars, it's quite obvious most of people would prefer to stay on earth anyway. (not me)

    Anyway back to science, The biggest problem I see is creating a thick enough atmosphere in 1/3 the gravity. I need to do the math. But if someone else has let me know.
     
  14. rayzinnz Registered Senior Member

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    BTW thanks for that link SG-N. That what what I was looking for.
     
  15. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    I advice the book “The case for Mars” by Robert Zubrin.

    Terreforming Mars is dependent on how much CO2, H2O and other volatiles are trapped in the Martian permafrost and deep soil. All that is needed is a small increase in temperature would start a green house run way effect on mars. Mass production of just a few billion tons of methane or flurohydrocrabons would be all that is needed to increase Martian average atmosphere temperature by 10°C. After Green house run away begins it would take just a few decade or just one century to bring Mars’s average surface temp. above the freezing point of water. Bring oxygen levels to breathable though would take much long (at less one millennia) with the use of plant based photosynthesis.
     
  16. disposable88 My real name is Rick Registered Senior Member

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    Alright, here's my dumb opinion. I didn't read any of your posts, i'm too lazy and not intelligent enough. Here's what we need to do:

    A.) Put some water there.
    B.) Put bacterium in the water
    C.) Feed bacteria.
    D.) Bacteria expell gasses, especially nitrogen and oxygen.
    E.) Bacteria create ozone layer after millions of years.
     
  17. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Enough water and volatiles are (probably) already there, all we need to do is heat it up a little and start photosynthesizing breathable air. If we need to bring in more volatiles we would need to ship it in from comets… or if the technology supports it we could use wormhole generator to vacuum up the needed volatiles from Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, ect. Actually we are going to need to start terraforming the earth soon: as the sun grows old we will need to move earths orbit back to keep climates here livable.
     
  18. gurglingmonkey More Amazing in RL Registered Senior Member

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    That makes no sense. There is nothing ethically wrong about terraforming Mars. That's like asking "Should we feed a starving child or leave things as god intended?" or leaving everything in your life up to fate "I'm going to stand here and if it's my fate to get a job I will, if not, then there's nothing I could or should do about it." Plus, if we terraformed Mars we could learn from our mistakes on Earth, live correctly (ecologically speaking) and come back to fix our mistakes on Earth. I doubt there's any life on Mars, and there's obviously not enough life to put up a fight against us.

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    Gurglo
     
  19. rayzinnz Registered Senior Member

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    Well-put you gurgling monkey.
     
  20. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

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    Well as a matter of fact..... aaah forget it...
     
  21. eburacum45 Valued Senior Member

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    One thing missing on Mars is nitrogen, strangely enough-
    there is quite a bit of subterranean water and CO2 there, although more might need to be imported in the form of comets.

    Outer solar system objects such as Titan and Triton have useful amounts of nitrogen, or perhaps remote icy asteroids (Centaurs).

    The nitrogen would bulk out the atmosphere, and prevent too much oxidation and combustion, as it does on Earth.

    Given an atmosphere as thick as Earth's the rate of loss due to low gravity is not impossibly high- the atmosphere of Earth has lasted for billions of years, so the atmosphere of Mars should last for millions... but topping up would be easy compared to the terraforming process in the first place.

    Perhaps the easiest way would be to utilise the volatiles which are easily available, the CO2 and H2O from the subsurface, and genetically modify the colonists to live in the best atmosphere which can be produced from these compounds.-
    Whichever technique is used, the whole thing is likely to take thousands of years.
    _________________
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    http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2003

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