Technological requirements for terraforming Mars

Abstract

The planet Mars, while cold and arid today, once possessed a warm and wet climate, as evidenced by extensive fluvial features observable on its surface. It is believed that the warm climate of the primitive Mars was created by a strong greenhouse effect caused by a thick CO 2 atmosphere. Mars lost its warm climate when most of the available volatile CO 2 was fixed into the form of carbonate rock due to the action of cycling water. It is believed, however, that sufficient CO 2 to form a 300 to 600 mb atmosphere may still exist in volatile form, either adsorbed into the regolith or frozen out at the south pole. This CO 2 may be released by planetary warming, and as the CO 2 atmosphere thickens, positive feedback is produced which can accelerate the warming trend. Thus it is conceivable, that by taking advantage of the positive feedback inherent in Mars' atmosphere/regolith CO 2 system, that engineering efforts can produce drastic changes in climate and pressure on a planetary scale.

Mars Climate Engineering Using Orbiting Solar Reflectors

“…The total energy intercepted by the reflector quickly grows beyond the energy required for its fabrication, leading to a highly efficient tool for climate modification. In addition to displaced orbits, the use of static equilibria for Mars solar reflectors proposed by Zubrin is also discussed (Zubrin and McKay 1997). At these locations on the night-side of Mars, the solar radiation pressure force exerted on the solar reflector exactly balances the local gravitational force.…”

“…As discussed earlier, solar reflectors can be envisaged as planetary engineering tools which can be used to drive the mean surface temperature of Mars upwards by direct radiative forcing, or by attempting to liberate frozen carbon dioxide from the polar caps (Oberg 1981;McKay et al 1991;Birch 1992;Fogg 1995;Zubrin and McKay 1997). Here, it will be assumed that solar reflectors are used and an albedo of 0.25, the black-body temperature is found to be 210 K. This is only slightly cooler than the mean surface temperature of 217 K, the discrepancy being due to atmospheric carbon dioxide.…”

Periodic orbits for space-based reflectors in the circular restricted three-body problem

“…increasing the length of daylights for electric power generation or lighting up the darks days in the winter ([Glaser(1968)], [Oberth(1972)], [Ehricke(1979)], [Canady & Allen(1982)], [Leary(1993)], [Frass(2013)]), or the so-called Mars climate engineering ([Oberg (1981)], [McKay et al(1991)], [Fogg(1995)], [Zubrin & McKay (1997)], [McInnes(2002a)], [McInnes(2010b)]), due to the great quantity of energy leverage delivered rapidly by the mirrors [Maunter & Parks(1990)]. Thus, large-scale solar reflectors seems to be a fascinating instrument to prevent the occurrence of cooling events that have taken place in the past.…”

Magnetotactic Bacteria and Their Potential for Terraformation

“…Terraforming "a process of planetary engineering, specifically directed at enhancing the capacity of an extra-terrestrial planetary environment to support life" (Fogg, 1995) evolved from a science-fiction story to a scientific domain (Sagan, 1961(Sagan, , 1973Averner and MacElroy, 1976;Badescu, 2005;Jukes, 1991;McKay et al, 1991;Haynes and McKay, 1992;Hiscox and Thomas, 1995;Hancox, 1999;Nussinov et al, 1994;Hiscox, 2000a;Birch, 1992;Fogg, 1989Fogg, , 1993Fogg, , 1998Zubrin and Wagner, 1996;Zubrin and McKay, 1997;McKay and Marinova, 2001;Marinova et al, 2000;Gerstell et al, 2001;Popoviciu, 2006).…”

“…In order to allow ecopoiesis to occur (Fogg, 1995;Nussinov et al, 1994;Zubrin and Wagner, 1996;Zubrin and McKay, 1997;Gerstell et al, 2001;Badescu, 2005) the following modifications are needed (Fogg, 1998): 1. Mean global surface temperature must be increased by 60 K. 2.…”