I read a trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson ("Red Mars", "Green Mars", and "Blue Mars") several years ago... early 2000s I think. The terraforming of Mars took a couple generations. It is a really good read, highly recommended.
Anton, please do a video on terraforming the earth. For example, we could cover much of the world with forests and greenery for a fraction of what it would cost to terraform Mars.
Presumably once the planet is warm enough it will release its own greenhouse gas that will replace the role of the aluminum. The aluminum will likely end up spread around the planet in a layer for humans to rediscover a couple thousand years from now.
I guess its a good thing that the rods would only survive 10 years or so. Regardless, the whole thing is pointless if the planets magnetosphere is too weak to protect the atmosphere from being stripped by the sun. Either an artificial shield would be needed, or Mars's mass would need to be increased by bombarding it with asteroids. The upside to this is that this would increase the available water as well as impart rotational velocity to Mars. Possible allowing its magnetosphere to restart, along with a ton of vulcanism.
It would take millions of years to strip the atmosphere. And most terraforming methods would build it up in canturies. So i wouldn't say pointless 0@4DCResinSmoker
Thank you so much for bringing up the magnetic field generator for Mars. I see sooooo many posts by people saying we can't terraform Mars because it has no magnetic field. That's actually one of the easier problems we can solve!
People say we need a magnetosphere to protect the atmosphere from escaping to space but this happens extremely slowly. It took hundreds of millions of years for Mars to lose its atmosphere. If you put an earth like atmosphere around Mars you'd get radiation protection for ground life just from the mass of the air and by the time we need to think about keeping the gas from escaping we could have already colonized the rest of the galaxy.
@@duncanbeggs4088 assuming was a barren planet since millions years which might be wrong … how if there was a civilization there 15k years ago destroyed by nukes ???
My opinion is that the utilization of numerous space habitats would be a lot more constructive for us as a space faring species than terraforming a planet. We could make these habitats the exact gravity, humidity, rotation and other specifications that we require. Doing that on a planetary scale would be significantly more difficult, and might destroy Martian specifics that would be forever adapted in a potentially short sighted endeavor.
The actual simplest solution is to not bother trying to broadly colonize Mars. The moon is much more resource-rich compared to Mars and the logistics are a million times easier.
Micrometeorites are not what you have to worry about on Mars; It's atmosphere protects against most micrometeoroids. On Mars, you have to worry about meteorite impacts - fairly large ones that don't burn up in Mars' thin atmosphere.
@@yalexander9432also the only one that allows spinal and cerebral fluids to properly circulate, humans have yet to discover the effects of low g on brains.. only Venus is viable!
@@acmhfmggru Ignore the naysayers who believe everything they hear, read, and see on RUclips is fact. I'm no scientist, and rarely believe them anyway, but what I do have is a very logical thinking mind, and most of what I see, read, and hear out here is questionable at best! The obstacles presented planning a trip to mars are close to insurmountable, and it will be a long time, if ever before we attempt that trip. Better to spend the time, and money we have making earth a better place!👍✌🗽
If subsurface life were discovered on Mars, it might just throw a wrench into the gears of terraforming plans. Imagine the interplanetary headlines: "Martian Microbes Protest Terraforming!" It's possible that such a significant scientific discovery would prompt a reevaluation of terraforming initiatives to preserve potential Martian ecosystems.
Unless there's a major change in the core values of human civilization, and sadly I don't see that happening any time soon, the only things that'll really stop us from terraforming and/or colonizing other planets are either A. ourselves, B. technical limitations or impossibilities, or C. an intelligent species already occupying said planet which has weaponry or other tech advanced enough to be a problem for us and our intentions.
First wave to mars could be with a StarLink type of reflective satellites aimed at the surface, an adjustable magnifying glass. Heating the planet and providing world wide communication, thousands of them filled with seeds of life for when they degrade we began to seed a warmer planet. Adjusting the magnification level to our needs, warmer at the equator and cooler towards the poles.
Im so happy to hear you mention old RUclips classics like Cody's Lab, he used to make such unique videos.. I know *EXACTLY* what video you referenced but I've no idea if ill find it.. I love your channel Anton, but you just reminded me how awesome you are again! PS, im glad to see that you found it
I think before terraforming it we should investigate it more. I feel like mars had life at some point, so I feel like we should learn about any martian fossils before terraforming the entirety of mars.
@@guardianjackpot True, I am just wondering if what we do to terraform it will effect our ability to tell how old it is. Like through carbon dating or something.
My bet is that any life which once was there would share a common origin, or would've at least already encountered life forms that we are familiar with. Wherever Earth life came from, we don't see any Earthly evidence of ancestors any more primitive than bacteria. That's not to say Earth life must've come from Mars, but there's no evidence that Earth's most primitive precursor forms evolved here. This is the real missing link of abiogenesis.
@@DrMackSplackem I agree! It would be interesting that if something was found on Mars we could compare it to Earth fossils. It would really be interesting if they are extremely similar.
Remember the Space Homestead Act? It was to bring colonists to Mars on a competitive qualified basis, one way trip (estimated to take 10-30 years to arrive depending on project scope), to set up the essentials for future colonists. Like, shelter, food/air/water, recycling, etc.. As you said though, Anton, it was the ionizing radiation they discovered about the time they were accepting applications. This determined a 100% failure risk for any venture, and the program went silent. After that, there was the "extract hydrogen from asteroids' fiasco so they could make extra-planetary fuel stations for all the space craft they assumed would be permanently space bound, built and operated outside of atmospheres. Heh, so many cool ideas back then! I wish people would have as much inspiration today. I thank you for your videos, Mr Petrov. Always a pleasure to watch and listen.
Any settlements would have to be underground in tunnels. That way, pressure, radiation, and so on would be controllable. But orders of magnitude easier than on the Moon.
@@plektosgaming Not really underground. 3 feet of regolith piled over the structure would be enough. You could also put them in the walls of canyons and have leaded windows in the sides.
Radiation on Mars is pretty weak and not dangerous in the short-term. The long-term effects are unknown but some towns on Earth experience more radiation than Mars, and the inhabitants are completely healthy.
I always learn something new and cool with you. You are the only one that I trust you with astronomical developments. Thank you Anton. Your are my hero.
Fryslan boppe, rest in 'e groppe. (hi from Frisia, your northern province) I also watch Anton daily, unless there's a 2-3 hour compilation.... I hate those.
Its crazy, I was literally just thinking about this gas for the moon last night. Frasier Cain was discussing what causes the moons atmosphere and I started thinking of super heavy gases the moon might be able to hold onto. I think the problem is oxygen might stratify in such a dense condition. Your atmosphere would not be breathable unless you can get enough oxygen to "dissolve" into the base gas which is nitrogen here. I came to the conclusion in my head that it would push oxygen out of reach of the people trying to breath it.
gmo lichen and algae to turn purple when high amounts or radiation are hitting it, use termites that live of the lichen. find the elevation that lines up with the oxygen floating on the co2 level when enough is produced.
This small brain line of thinking is why we haven’t been innovating at a good pace. Everyone wants THEIR slice of the pie, no pie for anyone else, and pass legislation to limit the size of the entire pie.
That's more of a collective action problem than a real inability, at least in developed countries with national budgets big enough to be able to pay for the potholes if they wanted to make it a priority. The irony is that it might actually be more feasible to terraform Mars than to get the potholes fixed in a lot of localities, and that the pothole issue is unlikely to be any easier to solve if people stop attempting to terraform Mars, since terraforming Mars could turn out to be very profitable for some companies at least in theory, but having fixed potholes in many places is actually harder to imagine turning out profitable or useful for the companies that have the most influence over legislators, and they can spend the same money on something else which is more beneficial to the companies that have the most influence. That being said, paved roads were very rare 100 years ago, so even the potholes might be viewed as shockingly advanced and futuristic by people living not so long ago, and there was a time when paving the perpetually washed out dirt roads with pothole-prone but relatively rain-proof materials was itself considered an unrealistic fantasy, until suddenly it wasn't. If the votes of people who vote on the basis of who will fix the potholes in their area become more relevant and necessary to win elections then the politicians may very suddenly move to make the potholes a much larger priority, at least in the relevant districts whose pothole-prioritizing voters have the numbers and energy to determine elections.
I have the greatest confidence in this solution. Humanity has already so much experience in polluting Earth that no doubt we will be able to do so effectively on Mars before even colonising it.
Agreed. We'd have to wait until it was no longer in the atmosphere before taking our helmets off, assuming the atmosphere was breathable by then. I wouldn't want to inhale that stuff.. but wait, we do when satellites burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Hmm 🤔
K. Eric Drexler was very firm about doing R&D and production in space, preferrably a ways from Earth; who knows how fast grey goo could replicate or a vast cloud of really well made aluminum rods could travel...::😂🧠💢
@@roymarsh8077 That is partly why they want to do it on site, made from Martian materials, if they can find a big enough aluminum deposit, for when someone decides to attempt it with enough resources to succeed. Mars' atmosphere is like 1% as dense as Earth's, and since they were worried about too much moisture and the um aluminum rods falling with the rain... We'd most likely have them in the seas instead of the atmosphere, and probably quickly.
Bro, I miss your sandbox videos. They are what got me more into space. I used to watch you play around with planets for hours. You should do some more with an updated version. Although with all the amazing content you put out, I doubt you have time now. GOAT.
Aluminum would rapidly oxidize at such small size. It's far too chemically reactive. Normally, aluminum metal doesn't corrode away at once because of an impermeable layer of oxide formed on its surface. However, at nanoscale size, it cannot form that layer and will swiftly become all oxide. It would simply become bauxite, aluminum oxide, and fall out.
Mars atmosphere contains 95% CO2 and a surface level pressure of 7 millibar (about 0.7% of Earths sea level atmospheric pressure). Chemically pretty inert to Aluminium.
> The COOLIST IDEA is simplest. Per much SF I've read, you need only to divert all possible asteroids to impact Mars. This "late heavy bombardment" will bring heat & volatiles to Mars.
Diverting "dirty snow ball" asteroids/comets to Mars could help replenishing it with water and gases. The low land could be oceanised and the atmosphere thickened. These diversions may be economically viable. NASA is trying it with its DART project.
Do what? It would be much cheaper and simpler You don't actually have to guide the asteroid just alter its course enough that it will impact on its own Another benefit would be the increased Mass of Mars itself which currently only has 0.8 g and the closer we can get that to 1 the easier it will be for life to adapt And that doesn't even begin reference all of the various gases that are trapped in those minerals that would be released on impact If we really wanted to do it right this is the way@@filonin2
Don't get me wrong. I would love to live long enough to see the day we terraform Mars. But given the fact that we can barely even agree that we are making the one livable planet we have unlivable, I have concerns.
Here's a thought - Do we have the right to terraform another planet? Not saying human beings have a habit of jumping into "could we" without thinking about "should we"... and not saying that everything we touch we destroy... and *certainly* not implying that there could be implications of terraforming that we can't possibly anticipate... but we are looking to terraform another planet because we are destroying our own. We haven't explored Earth. We don't ensure everyone on this planet has what they need to live. We still have wars. Contaminating another planet won't put our "house" in order. Love your video's, Anton! You are a bright light! It's nice to have really interesting content to watch and learn from every day!
From a philosophical standpoint I would say YES. One purpose of LIFE in general (not just humans), is to survive for as long as possible. Another purpose of LIFE is to maintain the DNA-gene-pool running with as many VARIATIONS as possible. LIFE on Earth is not eternal, neither is our Sun, and evlution is a dynamic process. Spreading LIFE over multiple habitats (planets, exo-planets) gives LIFE a better chance to maintain its purposes. note: If other LIFE is discovered somewhere else (beyond our Earth), then that LIFE must be preserved for the sake of LIFE itself.
@@NemencioRas "Philosophical standpoint" is a product of intelligent life. If it were the other way around, you could use it as an argument. But this way it doesn't make much logical sense. It's like saying sh!t is the reason humans exist just without the smell. Another "center of the universe" times relict in our thinking.
We have limited resources on earth, limited space. We would all have enough to eat, if we didn't kill so much to live how we do. And why is everyone like fix earth first. Necessity is the mother of invention, and who needs more then a dead planet. Hey everything we did to make humans better off like industry made everything else worse off, took 100 years of industry before some, even took the damage serious. And humans are bad at foresight, id rather they do test to fix things on something that wont end all life as we know it. And if they can make the tech to fix mars and fine tune the process, then they can try on earth, not until. Overgrowth, expansion, greed, and control are the corner stones of humans foundations, so you will never solve humanity's problem because our problem is we all want to damn much. You wanna fix it get off the internet, get out the city, and grow your own food and live local.
Atmosphere loss on Mars after terraforming is not really an issue on any human-relevant time scale. It took several hundred million years for Mars to lose its atmosphere, and when it had liquid water it had a surface pressure of at least 0.5 bar, likely higher. This is dense enough to breathe, indefinitely according to a 1987 study, although others suggest prolonged exposure would cause issues. Regardless, this means that even pumping the atmospheric pressure on Mars up to something higher than that we would have millions to tens of millions of years before atmospheric loss became an issue. And if we were able to terraform Mars in the first place it would be easy to top up the atmosphere every few thousand years. Even the Moon retained a relatively sense atmosphere for around 50 million years and would retain a human useful one for longer than any relevant human timescale.
0:30 Did he actually propose to just nuke Mars or did he talk about that idea of nuking the co2 polar cap like many scientists have done for decades? It used to be a common topic when talking about terraforming Mars.
Had an idea. Build solar powered aluminium mine and smelter on Mars. Build light gas gun for sending material into upper Mars atmosphere. Load canisters of aluminium nanorods with bursting charge into gun and fire. Profit.
Oh great Sulphur Hexaphloride ... Musically I already sing at the very bottom of any choir. All I need is to breathe that stuff, cripes I'd be talking below the threshold of hearing. lol😅
The atmospheric pressure of Mars is 0.6% of that of Earth, which means that even if it gets the right temperature we would still need to bring or dig out quintillion tones of material to build up that atmosphere to livable pressure.
Well, you could intentionally cause meteor impacts to shatter the crust, releasing trapped gasses inside the planet. If you can attach a heavy weight on a big long slider, to a comet when it enters the inner solar system, you may be able to slowly but surely distort the shape of it's orbit so that it collides with mars upon re entering the inner solar system. Shifting it's center of mass as it rotates should cause enough deflection, over time, to aim it.
Creating a magnetosphere and raising the temperature would liberate the necessary carbon dioxide and water vapor to create an atmosphere. Add some photosynthetic bacteria to convert some of the CO2 to oxygen.
It might be a lot harder to terraform Mars if people are trying to colonize. A cheap way to heat Mars would be rocket a kuiper belt object into Mars, also adding mass and water.
0:40 AFAIK he was not the only one to propose that, but he was loud. The idea is that the Nukes would rapidly melt polar capes and release all the stored water and CO2 resulting in rapid warming and further melting of ices.
Interesting concept, but actually that a single small operation producing this on earth could raise the whole earths surface temperature by degrees C in months is super concerning... Like basically any country could hold the earth hostage with this, couldnt they?
already more or less present on earth, but as submariners, subterranean miners and astronauts. belters are just the aforementioned, but hillbillies in space.
It's interesting to think we could have soil samples to genetically modify extremiphiles specifically for. Perhaps even aiding in seperating alumina for smelting. Mars is certainly much lower stakes to experiment with!
I have in fact inhaled Sulphur Hexafluoride, and it does indeed make you sound like Darth Vader. You want to make sure you expel all of it once you're done having fun however, because it can displace oxygen in your lungs and well.. that's not good.
I’m kind of stunned. The 2 most important things are nearly mentioned. 7:11 the magnetic field, nowhere the low gravity. Without a magnetic field there is no use even trying. And how are humans supposed to live in such a low gravity?
Gravity is sssseasily solvable with special structures. It turns out we don't need MUCH gravity to be healthy, but we need far more than zero. Space is the real problem. I think Mars is just at the limits ( Mars is 38% and the lower limit is thought to be about 40% ) to where we can use technology to handle the rest. Such as spending an hour a week in a higher gravity environment or possibly sleeping at 0.6G or something like that. After a couple of generations, we would be fine. The main issue is the magnetosphere, which we would have to somehow generate. If we solve the radiation and solar wind issues, all the rest is extremely simple going forwards.
0.38 G means roughly jumping up 1m would feel like jumping 0.38m on Earth, gravity might not be a big problem. Or a 100 kg bodybuilder would feel like a 38kg child. Unless he runs into the wall, he would feel the same as here. But creating the magnetosphere seems like a big challenge.
@@hotbit7327 After a few generations, we would change - probably be far less dense and more "puffy", as we adapt. Similar to how animals in the ocean are. Most of them feel a less gravity ( in effect ) as well. Noticeable effects: Denser bones, taller overall, slightly flatter eyes and faces, and changes in vision, significantly less body mass. Thinner arms and legs, and altered skin tone. If this sounds a bit like our typical "aliens" (LGM), it's not too far off. Though it would take many generations. Coming back to Earth would be 2.5x increase in gravity, requiring some sort of supportive (wearable) exoskeleton or a rigorous training regimen to get used to higher Gs. Oddly, humans migrating to Mars would survive relatively well. It's those born there that would be at high risk coming back.
A magnetosphere at the lagrange point is a great idea and completely possible to do right now, we should do that before trying to send anyone to live there. Set it up and we can study its effects on mars from afar.
Without dealing with the magnetosphere problem, all of the rest simply won't work as whatever we do will eventually be blown away. The issue is that Mars' core is slightly too small and has spun down enough such that it has no effective (anti) radiation belts. If this can be solved, then it's just a matter of creating enough atmosphere.
@@bryandraughn9830 The issue is that the solar winds strip off a small percentage of the atmosphere. Whatever we do would have to greatly exceed that to get started. If we can deflect it somehow, then the job goes from being nearly impossible due to the scale required to simply waiting a few decades.
@@plektosgaming 1. Making an artificial magnetosphere is discussed in this video and the one linked in the description 2. It would take millions if not hundreds of millions of years for a new atmosphere to be stripped away, just as it took the last time. It doesn't matter if it eventually is stripped away if you get millions of years of use ffs.
Great mind exercise possibly leading to some real time down to Earth applications, but focusing on taking care of the planet we have in the meantime would be time and resources also if not more so well spent.
The elephant in the room is always going to be magnetosphere. Apart from towing in an appropriate sized moon and putting into a stable orbit to activate the core.
Look at Mars right now.. it has an atmosphere.. it's still had one after hundreds of millions of years before trees and horseshoe crabs and sharks. It takes insane amount of time to erode the atmosphere. This "problem" is a nothing burger especially when the planet is already bathed in radiation too. A system of mirrors in space could fix that too
eh. is it though? Hydrogen and helium might never devlop into a stable atmosphere but Oxygen and Carbon and nitrogen are very heavy elements, and we should have a few million years to figure out a magnetosphere because of that. And sure a few million is nowhere near enough to evolve complex specialized life from a puddle of nutriant rich mud but it is long enough to sort out the leaky atmosphere.
Plus we might not want a magnetosphere if we go this metal particle route. While this all a bunch of "IF's" in capital I's But if this works, and If we get just slightly better at manufacturing slighty more complex rods then we could have upper atmosphereic rods like this that generate thier own magentic field, and hold themselves up by static electricity, little microscopic ion drives. Amd those should stick around potemtally forever, while doing even better then a magnetosphere.
I will be back tomorrow to learn something else! Meantime, Thanks for today, Anton. It would be wonderful to find a way to terraform Mars, safely, inexpensively and quickly.
I think that the specific dimensions for the aluminium rods ( 9 μm by 160 nm) must be for the optimal absorption of the solar rays and then to be converted in thermal energy (heat).
since its rotating very slow rate but not slow as venus....and it has dry ice properties we can take advantage of it by making man made climate system for mars ...but this only work with glass domes
This is going to be a big challenge no matter what one would use to warm the Martian atmosphere. You don’t want to overshoot (making it too warm) or under-shoot (still too cold). You want to control feedback loops (water vapour), or sudden discontinuities (aluminium particles washed out of the air by rain). We don’t even know fully how our climate on Earth works.
Ever notice that people talking about terraforming Mars tend to be aerospace engineers, physicists, or astronomers? Anything but the biologists that would have a real grasp of what duplicating Earth's ecosystem on a planet with radically different conditions would entail. Our planet's biology features over 400,000 species of just beetles, let alone everything else. Even if Mars had sufficient quantities of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water (and it doesn't), just warming it up and raising the atmospheric pressure wouldn't even begin to terraform it in any meaningful sense.
As a first step, I think the goal is just to make it so you could walk around on the surface and be able to survive (have enough oxygen, not freeze to death, etc.). Actually creating a biology on the planet is something that could only happen way down the line as it would be so much more difficult to do, so I don't think anyone is focused on that for a goal just yet.
The main problem with Mars is gravity - we evolved in a 1g field and, while a base on Mars might be practical, a colony implies families and we need to understand how the weaker gravity will affect gestation and muscular development a lot better than we do now before trying that experiment. When we leave Earth, it will be to O'Neill style colonies where normal gravity can be simulated by centrifugal acceleration. These can be built in orbit or on the moon a lot more easily than going to Mars.
I’m an ignoramus on this subject, but the atmosphere and climate of any planet is a complex system with any sequence of change being highly sensitive to initial conditions. In the case of, say, Mars, we don’t have any idea what the actual initial conditions are with any degree of sensitivity, much a high degree. I can’t say what the unintended consequences would be because I’m an ignoramus, but I’d bet the farm that they would queer the project in ways that would set the engineers back on their heels.
I think Elon's proposition was suggesting the nuclear fireball would produce ozone to help shield against UV. Kind of pointless without a magnetic field. They need cheaper and better propulsion to get significant amounts of machinery into place to tackle the most important issue. Putting short term solutions up front means a more guaranteed failure down the road. Orbiting parabolic reflectors would be a good start and later maybe a sphere to act as a filter around the planet.
You can terraform Mars all you want. It still will not have enough gravity to support human life long term. It is like the old joke where someone asks a fish how the water is and the fish responds, "What's water." Gravity is such a constant in our lives that we do not appreciate it importance in our health. Leave Mars to the robots and get to work on saving this planet.
Terraforming Mars is always interesting to think about but we also have massive terraforming and geo-engineering projects here on Earth that have actually been done very effectively and relatively safely for thousands of years in the form of slowing down the flow of rain and deluges by digging swales, ponds and redirecting rivers much like the beavers do. Swales and seed dispertion can totally transform massive areas of land, recharge aquifers and bring prosperity to the people and all of nature, which is the real ultimate goal of terraforming.
note that mars is a frozen poison coverwd dustbowl, i.e NO WATER, if we had enough flowing water to alter the landscape like those permaculture esque things you mentioned we would have already won the whole "terraform mars" fiasco, what you describe is jumping the gun quite a bit my dude.
@@TS-jm7jm Well yea, I'm fully aware there is no flowing water on Mars and swales would be a remarkably dumb idea in that context XD. What I'm getting at is that we would be jumping the gun entirely by trying to do things that could end up having a catastrophic effect due to our lack of knowledge. It's like practicing half court shots when you have trouble with lay ups or something like that. It would be a good idea to focus more on the geo-engineering projects we can already do safely and effectively here on Earth. Not saying we should totally ignore the idea of terraforming other planets of course but there are so many swales and ponds that need to be constructed here, now, and we can do it but there is not enough concerted effort. With Mars, it will likely always have the problem of having no protective magnetic field so I find it kind of pointless to try and terraform Mars, speaking about jumping the gun...
@@alexei4204 look i get what you are saying but in the context of the earth, i would caution you to remember, that each man is his own person, and that means the choice to build such things is based on the consent and desire of each to do so on his own land, or in the wilderness if say a referendum is held on the matter for areas where that nations people dwell, basically what i am saying, is the choice to build those things is and indeed should remain individual, and therefore also the benefit to do so. that said i am not in favour of terraforming mars, i am in favour of disassembling it to build O'Neil cylinders , terraforming planets just seems so pointless and frivolous ito effort expended in light of the more practical of building massive swarms of those cylinders 🤷🏼♂️
Need to squish Mercury and Io into Mars. Mercury would give it a large iron core, and Io would give a lot of sulfur, sodium, and other lighter elements important to life. Then once that's all settled, smash Callisto into it for massive amounts of water.
As always if its not immediately profitable its probly not going to happen. We can technically do a lot of things readily but the funding is the issue.
That sounds like a whole lot of work,time and money when life on earth could be enhanced with more compassion and kindness,we are the caregivers of earth,to leave it in a better place for future generations.
Even if we make Earth a utopia for all of life we cannot prevent the sun from dying. Yes it's far away but we would most likely have to be able to get out of the solar system to survive it. That's why it's important to do both. The human species is in the billions, we can multitask.
Earth will become uninhabitable to most forms or life sooner or later, it's the reason why Musk wants to terraform mars. All the proposed ideas aren't to create some paradise or earth 2.0 on mars for the rich to escape to, they are simply to establish a second habitable planet so that after the next mass extinction there might be some chance of reestablishing life as we know it on earth again. It's basically an extreme version of doomsday prepping and just like most preppers, few actually want to live in their bunkers if they don't have to.
it wont stay that way earth is on a cycle we cant control nature on a global level by the by did u know we are in the midst of an ice age that hasnt really ended yet? polar caps = ice age not done yet
We are well on the way to starting WW3 and if its nuclear we will probably destroy life on earth. So I doubt we have time to terraform Mars, Venus or anywhere else.
How about nudging some of the medium sized objects from asteroid belt to collide with mars (& a whole lot of them) such that Mars captures via gravity, increasing mass and temperature until it’s more able to hold on to atmosphere
And how long it will take? And not only increasing mass, we have to give time to cool down the surface. What about the core? How to restart the engine? Mars needs an electromagnetic field. So many things…
@@90JOLED I agree, valid points you’ve made! But no one said a timeframe, like within a lifetime.. however thinking it thru, there’s more like asteroids will also bring water and heavier elements (which can eventually seep into core) but again I was also thinking of small-medium, not bashing something like Ceres; anyhow the turn around would seem similar to nuking Mars imo! Thanks again for your thoughts!
Is there any reason that the Perchlorates in the soil can't be extracted and turned into "Oxygen candle" type items like those used on Submarines in an emergency? Perhaps proving an oxygen source for any future "Habs"?
Here is the thingy. I am as fascinated by the idea to terraform a planet as much as the next guy. But it is really way more quicker, cheaper and feasable to construct giant spaces stations to live on. We should really start with that instead of starting a 1,000 year project to terraform mars. Because if we really want to this is something to pull of in a few decades.
Now we have a place to send all our recycled cans. If chlorine is that thick, we can just designate Mars as the Sol System Olympic Pool. Of course that can't work. First we have to build a magnetosphere, which we probably could use right here on Earth, since our field seems to be weakening.
I don't find a lot of stuff following (or countering) my idea, that Mars needs a Moon, and it needs to be BIG. It needs to create tidal forces in the core and restart the magnetosphere. The Asteroid belt is the next in line from Mars, so plenty of material to work with (both solid and ice), Just needs hundreds of autonomous thrusters launched from our Moon, to land on the bigger rocks, deploy solar arrays and begin Ion thrusting them to join orbit around mars, to aggromelate(?) into a moon. The ice ones can be dropped onto the planet. We need to go back to the (our) Moon.
Honestly, *I love* this Idea, because I can see it protecting the Atmosphere by taking most of the nearby gas kinetic energy, so it will not fly off... give it a mild electrimagnetic emement, And it could even capture solar wind.
Fascinating idea. If we find any life at all no matter how small, then terraforming Mars will be morally unconscionable. So these rovers looking for life will go on presumably for a few more decades. But at some point we may eventually say, "screw it, the planet's dead, let's mess with it." A profound decision, and I wonder when that'll occur and who will make it.
As for the perclorides, IF we could bring forth liquid water on the surface they should degenerate into mostly harmless stuff. I also recall something about specific types of moss that are highly resilient to stress and could survive, but not revive from their tardigrade state, we could try to farm and slowly change the stuff in labs to become more aclimatised to the martian conditions and give ourselves a second leg up. The biggest issue for all of this would still be the lack of magnetosphere followed up by the automatic production of the aluminum particles on site.
How probable/hard is it to discover aluminum deposits on Mars? Because this proposal to terraforming sounds very interesting (mostly because of how quickly the effects up can be achieved)
I vote for adding mass to the moons of Mars. That would cause them to pull on Mars causing Mars to spin on an axis. This could restart Mars’s magnetosphere again.
I can think of a much cheaper method. Before humans can live on Mars, airtight bases will have to be built. But, if any unforeseen repairs or basic improvements are needed, the shipping charges for spare parts from Earth would be astronomical. So why not, iron out all the problems by first building airtight undersea bases on Earth, before shipping the final products to the Moon and Mars, etc. As for climate change, partial base-like structures could be built to save ports from being submerged. At any rate, perfecting the airtight structures on Earth would be much cheaper than going through the same process of improving iterations on the fly on a far away planet.
There is faster alteratives to get mars, and venus going. it's just requires mining in space. you build locations on mars that is equal distance, which would allow plants to produce the needed oxygen to get started. venus on the other hand, just needs a rock layer dumped on top about 100ft thick.
aluminum oxide is a common component of many rocks and minerals. It is also about 50% of all clays, which are hydrated Al2O3+SiO2 plus traces of other metal oxides. In other words, aluminum oxide is as common as dirt. It's almost chemically inert and it's definitely nontoxic. Granite is largely Al2O3 + SiO2 plus some sodium, potassium, or lithium with traces of calcium and magnesium. But mostly Al2O3 and SiO2. Completely nontoxic. You find a great deal of the stuff in stony meteors, also nontoxic.
So glad you said Aluminium correctly:) You mentioned finding Aluminium deposits on Mars is there any indication of it being there? Has a the Mars rover found any?
Terraforming Mars is, will continue to be, and has been such a great human pipe dream. Doing so will never be easy as Mars essentially lacks at least two important criteria for life like that on earth to survive and multiply. 1) it just isn't massive enough and 2) solar radiation destroys and sends into space all molecules in any possible breathable atmosphere created on the planet.
Now to something completey different: Even if we can magnify Greenhouse effects on Mars substantially, Mars is COLD since 100.000years(likely even much longer) how long would it take to just Warm the Permafrost thats probably many hundred meter thick.(Specific heat) with the Solar-Energy influx thats available(Probably many hundred years).
I have been watching your videos since six grade, about eight years. Please keep being a wonderful person Anton.
Too bad he is evil.
so are you in 14th grade now
@@depressivepumpkin7312Bruh 68
you should go find a better role model... like Stalin, or Pol Pot.
@@sumdumbmickwhat does this have to do with anything
I read a trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson ("Red Mars", "Green Mars", and "Blue Mars") several years ago... early 2000s I think. The terraforming of Mars took a couple generations. It is a really good read, highly recommended.
I read them too. They are good.
They are undervalued. It should be the scifi movie about Mars
Was that the first imagined space elevator
@@simon-c2y Not even close. Arthur C. Clarke wrote "The Fountains of Eden" back in 1979, but the idea is much older.
@@BudJensen ah! Fair enough
Oh, good. All those mesothelioma lawyers will have something to do once all the asbestos cases are done.
I haven’t died of it yet, so there’s likely to be at least one more case left for them.
No lawyers will be allowed on Mars.
@@tedoptional-p8l Come to terms with it. Lawyers are destined to end up everywhere. There is no escape.
Asbestos might solve the climate crisis here on earth. true story.
Anton, please do a video on terraforming the earth. For example, we could cover much of the world with forests and greenery for a fraction of what it would cost to terraform Mars.
China is doing that quite successfully
It seems like those little aluminum rods would wreak havoc on our lungs if we ever got the atmosphere good enough to breathe without spacesuits.
Presumably once the planet is warm enough it will release its own greenhouse gas that will replace the role of the aluminum. The aluminum will likely end up spread around the planet in a layer for humans to rediscover a couple thousand years from now.
Asbestos vibes?
the asbestos fibres which cause mesothelioma are around 10 micrometers in length.
I guess its a good thing that the rods would only survive 10 years or so. Regardless, the whole thing is pointless if the planets magnetosphere is too weak to protect the atmosphere from being stripped by the sun. Either an artificial shield would be needed, or Mars's mass would need to be increased by bombarding it with asteroids. The upside to this is that this would increase the available water as well as impart rotational velocity to Mars. Possible allowing its magnetosphere to restart, along with a ton of vulcanism.
It would take millions of years to strip the atmosphere. And most terraforming methods would build it up in canturies. So i wouldn't say pointless 0@4DCResinSmoker
Thank you Anton! I am glad you talked about the magnetosphere.
Not much atmosphere can stay without a magnetosphere to fend off the Sun's radiation.
Yes!
Thank you so much for bringing up the magnetic field generator for Mars. I see sooooo many posts by people saying we can't terraform Mars because it has no magnetic field. That's actually one of the easier problems we can solve!
@@KentoLeoDragon terraform mars … we could but rich people here don’t want as they need power and all the money
@@liolio9282 But the richest person on Earth is also the largest advocate for terraforming Mars...?
People say we need a magnetosphere to protect the atmosphere from escaping to space but this happens extremely slowly. It took hundreds of millions of years for Mars to lose its atmosphere. If you put an earth like atmosphere around Mars you'd get radiation protection for ground life just from the mass of the air and by the time we need to think about keeping the gas from escaping we could have already colonized the rest of the galaxy.
@@duncanbeggs4088 Exactly.
@@duncanbeggs4088 assuming was a barren planet since millions years which might be wrong … how if there was a civilization there 15k years ago destroyed by nukes ???
My opinion is that the utilization of numerous space habitats would be a lot more constructive for us as a space faring species than terraforming a planet. We could make these habitats the exact gravity, humidity, rotation and other specifications that we require. Doing that on a planetary scale would be significantly more difficult, and might destroy Martian specifics that would be forever adapted in a potentially short sighted endeavor.
The cores of planets are wasted material. You could build millions of rotating habitats from the larger asteroids and comets.
Exactly my thoughts. You could build thousands of O'Neill cylinders and control every aspect of them. Size, position, temperature, gravity, etc
Or O'neill cylinders with Orion-style propulsion and colonize star systems in a few decades.
@@seantrevathan3041 Yup.
@@seantrevathan3041 Yeah, a planet is a large target for mayhem, purposeful or not. A habitat can be moved.
The simplest solution would be to live underground where humans would be protected against solar radiation and micro-meteorites.
Look up the radiation per year in ramzar iran. Then mars in its better parts.
The actual simplest solution is to not bother trying to broadly colonize Mars. The moon is much more resource-rich compared to Mars and the logistics are a million times easier.
Micrometeorites are not what you have to worry about on Mars; It's atmosphere protects against most micrometeoroids.
On Mars, you have to worry about meteorite impacts - fairly large ones that don't burn up in Mars' thin atmosphere.
thats what most other species do on the go, cant be picky selecting planets to colonize like us crustdwellers 😂
@@yalexander9432also the only one that allows spinal and cerebral fluids to properly circulate, humans have yet to discover the effects of low g on brains.. only Venus is viable!
My Physics degree level project was on the warming effect of sulphur hexafluoride. Short answer - it would work.
First you need the right quantities of F.
Without some sort of protection from solar winds, nothing will work. It’ll all just be blown into space.
@@acmhfmggruJust like all your other comments, we have no idea if you actually have anything to contribute.
@@acmhfmggruOk Karen. You’re on RUclips, settle down.
@@acmhfmggru Ignore the naysayers who believe everything they hear, read, and see on RUclips is fact. I'm no scientist, and rarely believe them anyway, but what I do have is a very logical thinking mind, and most of what I see, read, and hear out here is questionable at best! The obstacles presented planning a trip to mars are close to insurmountable, and it will be a long time, if ever before we attempt that trip. Better to spend the time, and money we have making earth a better place!👍✌🗽
If subsurface life were discovered on Mars, it might just throw a wrench into the gears of terraforming plans. Imagine the interplanetary headlines: "Martian Microbes Protest Terraforming!" It's possible that such a significant scientific discovery would prompt a reevaluation of terraforming initiatives to preserve potential Martian ecosystems.
So hopeful. So naive. 😜 Humans care about humans first, complex life second, microbes last.
Unless there's a major change in the core values of human civilization, and sadly I don't see that happening any time soon, the only things that'll really stop us from terraforming and/or colonizing other planets are either A. ourselves, B. technical limitations or impossibilities, or C. an intelligent species already occupying said planet which has weaponry or other tech advanced enough to be a problem for us and our intentions.
Or like you know adapt the terraforming plans to help the Martian ecosystems achieve complexity?
@@GothAliceI wish that were true
Maybe Mars is the perfect utopia for life we can't understand.
First wave to mars could be with a StarLink type of reflective satellites aimed at the surface, an adjustable magnifying glass. Heating the planet and providing world wide communication, thousands of them filled with seeds of life for when they degrade we began to seed a warmer planet. Adjusting the magnification level to our needs, warmer at the equator and cooler towards the poles.
Im so happy to hear you mention old RUclips classics like Cody's Lab, he used to make such unique videos.. I know *EXACTLY* what video you referenced but I've no idea if ill find it..
I love your channel Anton, but you just reminded me how awesome you are again!
PS, im glad to see that you found it
I think before terraforming it we should investigate it more. I feel like mars had life at some point, so I feel like we should learn about any martian fossils before terraforming the entirety of mars.
We need a second planet to sustain life. There is no evidence of fossils on mars.
Life would've been so long ago:
the fossil record would be deep
like a bunker. Besides, what else
we going to do while there.. ski?
@@guardianjackpot True, I am just wondering if what we do to terraform it will effect our ability to tell how old it is. Like through carbon dating or something.
My bet is that any life which once was there would share a common origin, or would've at least already encountered life forms that we are familiar with. Wherever Earth life came from, we don't see any Earthly evidence of ancestors any more primitive than bacteria. That's not to say Earth life must've come from Mars, but there's no evidence that Earth's most primitive precursor forms evolved here. This is the real missing link of abiogenesis.
@@DrMackSplackem I agree! It would be interesting that if something was found on Mars we could compare it to Earth fossils. It would really be interesting if they are extremely similar.
Remember the Space Homestead Act? It was to bring colonists to Mars on a competitive qualified basis, one way trip (estimated to take 10-30 years to arrive depending on project scope), to set up the essentials for future colonists. Like, shelter, food/air/water, recycling, etc.. As you said though, Anton, it was the ionizing radiation they discovered about the time they were accepting applications. This determined a 100% failure risk for any venture, and the program went silent. After that, there was the "extract hydrogen from asteroids' fiasco so they could make extra-planetary fuel stations for all the space craft they assumed would be permanently space bound, built and operated outside of atmospheres. Heh, so many cool ideas back then! I wish people would have as much inspiration today. I thank you for your videos, Mr Petrov. Always a pleasure to watch and listen.
Any settlements would have to be underground in tunnels. That way, pressure, radiation, and so on would be controllable. But orders of magnitude easier than on the Moon.
@@plektosgaming Not really underground. 3 feet of regolith piled over the structure would be enough. You could also put them in the walls of canyons and have leaded windows in the sides.
Radiation on Mars is pretty weak and not dangerous in the short-term. The long-term effects are unknown but some towns on Earth experience more radiation than Mars, and the inhabitants are completely healthy.
*_"so many cool ideas back then"_*
"Cool"?
You mean "stupid"?
{:o:O
@@Astra2 Apparently it increases your risk for cancer by 5000%? You need to be shielded or underground as much as possible.
I always learn something new and cool with you. You are the only one that I trust you with astronomical developments. Thank you Anton. Your are my hero.
Aluminum asbestos atmosphere hell yeah.
What could possibly go wrong?
Would pnly last 10 or so years
I watch Anton EVERY day! Great video, as usual!! Greets from the Netherlands ❤
Fryslan boppe, rest in 'e groppe. (hi from Frisia, your northern province)
I also watch Anton daily, unless there's a 2-3 hour compilation.... I hate those.
Its crazy, I was literally just thinking about this gas for the moon last night. Frasier Cain was discussing what causes the moons atmosphere and I started thinking of super heavy gases the moon might be able to hold onto. I think the problem is oxygen might stratify in such a dense condition. Your atmosphere would not be breathable unless you can get enough oxygen to "dissolve" into the base gas which is nitrogen here. I came to the conclusion in my head that it would push oxygen out of reach of the people trying to breath it.
gmo lichen and algae to turn purple when high amounts or radiation are hitting it, use termites that live of the lichen. find the elevation that lines up with the oxygen floating on the co2 level when enough is produced.
Probably lichens or moss like that already exists, we just need to find those species.
Terraform Mars? We can’t even get the potholes fixed on our local roads….
That's because people keep voting for the same politicians over and over again and nothing gets done and greed gets worse.
For real, holes are better filled on p*rn sites.
This small brain line of thinking is why we haven’t been innovating at a good pace. Everyone wants THEIR slice of the pie, no pie for anyone else, and pass legislation to limit the size of the entire pie.
They're getting so outrageously bad I've come to loath driving.
That's more of a collective action problem than a real inability, at least in developed countries with national budgets big enough to be able to pay for the potholes if they wanted to make it a priority. The irony is that it might actually be more feasible to terraform Mars than to get the potholes fixed in a lot of localities, and that the pothole issue is unlikely to be any easier to solve if people stop attempting to terraform Mars, since terraforming Mars could turn out to be very profitable for some companies at least in theory, but having fixed potholes in many places is actually harder to imagine turning out profitable or useful for the companies that have the most influence over legislators, and they can spend the same money on something else which is more beneficial to the companies that have the most influence. That being said, paved roads were very rare 100 years ago, so even the potholes might be viewed as shockingly advanced and futuristic by people living not so long ago, and there was a time when paving the perpetually washed out dirt roads with pothole-prone but relatively rain-proof materials was itself considered an unrealistic fantasy, until suddenly it wasn't. If the votes of people who vote on the basis of who will fix the potholes in their area become more relevant and necessary to win elections then the politicians may very suddenly move to make the potholes a much larger priority, at least in the relevant districts whose pothole-prioritizing voters have the numbers and energy to determine elections.
I have the greatest confidence in this solution. Humanity has already so much experience in polluting Earth that no doubt we will be able to do so effectively on Mars before even colonising it.
Producing big amounts of a world-destroying nanomaterial seems a bad idea.
Agreed. We'd have to wait until it was no longer in the atmosphere before taking our helmets off, assuming the atmosphere was breathable by then. I wouldn't want to inhale that stuff.. but wait, we do when satellites burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Hmm 🤔
What if it broke up on take off and scattered the stuff all over Earth?
@@roymarsh8077bad things
K. Eric Drexler was very firm about doing R&D and production in space, preferrably a ways from Earth; who knows how fast grey goo could replicate or a vast cloud of really well made aluminum rods could travel...::😂🧠💢
@@roymarsh8077 That is partly why they want to do it on site,
made from Martian materials,
if they can find a big enough aluminum deposit,
for when someone decides to attempt it with enough resources to succeed.
Mars' atmosphere is like 1% as dense as Earth's,
and since they were worried about too much moisture
and the um aluminum rods falling with the rain...
We'd most likely have them
in the seas instead of the atmosphere,
and probably quickly.
Wonderful as always Anton. Thank you! You inspired me to make my own YT channel 💛!
Wonderful as always Anton. Thank you. 😊
Bro, I miss your sandbox videos. They are what got me more into space. I used to watch you play around with planets for hours. You should do some more with an updated version. Although with all the amazing content you put out, I doubt you have time now. GOAT.
Holy mesothelialzheimer’s Batman!
Aluminum would rapidly oxidize at such small size. It's far too chemically reactive.
Normally, aluminum metal doesn't corrode away at once because of an impermeable layer of oxide formed on its surface. However, at nanoscale size, it cannot form that layer and will swiftly become all oxide.
It would simply become bauxite, aluminum oxide, and fall out.
I would agree, but oxide only if there was oxygen.
In order to oxidize it needs oxygen Mars have negligible amounts of it.
No problem. We'll just use gold instead!!!
Mars atmosphere contains 95% CO2 and a surface level pressure of 7 millibar (about 0.7% of Earths sea level atmospheric pressure). Chemically pretty inert to Aluminium.
lmao, oxidising in an atmosphere with no oxygen, cool story bro
> The COOLIST IDEA is simplest. Per much SF I've read, you need only to divert all possible asteroids to impact Mars. This "late heavy bombardment" will bring heat & volatiles to Mars.
That's millions of times more complicated and difficult and expensive.
Diverting "dirty snow ball" asteroids/comets to Mars could help replenishing it with water and gases. The low land could be oceanised and the atmosphere thickened. These diversions may be economically viable. NASA is trying it with its DART project.
Do what? It would be much cheaper and simpler
You don't actually have to guide the asteroid just alter its course enough that it will impact on its own
Another benefit would be the increased Mass of Mars itself which currently only has 0.8 g and the closer we can get that to 1 the easier it will be for life to adapt
And that doesn't even begin reference all of the various gases that are trapped in those minerals that would be released on impact
If we really wanted to do it right this is the way@@filonin2
Don't get me wrong. I would love to live long enough to see the day we terraform Mars. But given the fact that we can barely even agree that we are making the one livable planet we have unlivable, I have concerns.
Here's a thought - Do we have the right to terraform another planet? Not saying human beings have a habit of jumping into "could we" without thinking about "should we"... and not saying that everything we touch we destroy... and *certainly* not implying that there could be implications of terraforming that we can't possibly anticipate... but we are looking to terraform another planet because we are destroying our own. We haven't explored Earth. We don't ensure everyone on this planet has what they need to live. We still have wars. Contaminating another planet won't put our "house" in order.
Love your video's, Anton! You are a bright light! It's nice to have really interesting content to watch and learn from every day!
From a philosophical standpoint I would say YES.
One purpose of LIFE in general (not just humans), is to survive for as long as possible. Another purpose of LIFE is to maintain the DNA-gene-pool running with as many VARIATIONS as possible. LIFE on Earth is not eternal, neither is our Sun, and evlution is a dynamic process. Spreading LIFE over multiple habitats (planets, exo-planets) gives LIFE a better chance to maintain its purposes.
note:
If other LIFE is discovered somewhere else (beyond our Earth), then that LIFE must be preserved for the sake of LIFE itself.
Here is a thought - did having a right ever stop humans. Technically we all came from africa right......
@@NemencioRas "Philosophical standpoint" is a product of intelligent life.
If it were the other way around, you could use it as an argument. But this way it doesn't make much logical sense. It's like saying sh!t is the reason humans exist just without the smell.
Another "center of the universe" times relict in our thinking.
We have limited resources on earth, limited space. We would all have enough to eat, if we didn't kill so much to live how we do. And why is everyone like fix earth first. Necessity is the mother of invention, and who needs more then a dead planet. Hey everything we did to make humans better off like industry made everything else worse off, took 100 years of industry before some, even took the damage serious. And humans are bad at foresight, id rather they do test to fix things on something that wont end all life as we know it. And if they can make the tech to fix mars and fine tune the process, then they can try on earth, not until. Overgrowth, expansion, greed, and control are the corner stones of humans foundations, so you will never solve humanity's problem because our problem is we all want to damn much. You wanna fix it get off the internet, get out the city, and grow your own food and live local.
@@vensroofcat6415 OK got your insulting point. Forget the Philosophical and replace it with Biological standpoint.
Atmosphere loss on Mars after terraforming is not really an issue on any human-relevant time scale. It took several hundred million years for Mars to lose its atmosphere, and when it had liquid water it had a surface pressure of at least 0.5 bar, likely higher. This is dense enough to breathe, indefinitely according to a 1987 study, although others suggest prolonged exposure would cause issues. Regardless, this means that even pumping the atmospheric pressure on Mars up to something higher than that we would have millions to tens of millions of years before atmospheric loss became an issue. And if we were able to terraform Mars in the first place it would be easy to top up the atmosphere every few thousand years.
Even the Moon retained a relatively sense atmosphere for around 50 million years and would retain a human useful one for longer than any relevant human timescale.
I think the first step would be the magnetic field generator to protect reinforce the magnetosphere.
0:30 Did he actually propose to just nuke Mars or did he talk about that idea of nuking the co2 polar cap like many scientists have done for decades? It used to be a common topic when talking about terraforming Mars.
So let's get on with it ! And top marks for saying "aluminium"!
Had an idea. Build solar powered aluminium mine and smelter on Mars. Build light gas gun for sending material into upper Mars atmosphere. Load canisters of aluminium nanorods with bursting charge into gun and fire. Profit.
Yaay, cody mentioned
Oh great Sulphur Hexaphloride ... Musically I already sing at the very bottom of any choir. All I need is to breathe that stuff, cripes I'd be talking below the threshold of hearing. lol😅
On the positive side, you might be the only person who can speak directly to submarines ;)
The atmospheric pressure of Mars is 0.6% of that of Earth, which means that even if it gets the right temperature we would still need to bring or dig out quintillion tones of material to build up that atmosphere to livable pressure.
"they can just make oxygen" -marstards
Well, you could intentionally cause meteor impacts to shatter the crust, releasing trapped gasses inside the planet. If you can attach a heavy weight on a big long slider, to a comet when it enters the inner solar system, you may be able to slowly but surely distort the shape of it's orbit so that it collides with mars upon re entering the inner solar system. Shifting it's center of mass as it rotates should cause enough deflection, over time, to aim it.
Creating a magnetosphere and raising the temperature would liberate the necessary carbon dioxide and water vapor to create an atmosphere. Add some photosynthetic bacteria to convert some of the CO2 to oxygen.
@@mikebarushok5361 Yeah, I saw that in a documentary once. "Total Recall." Works really fast, too.
It might be a lot harder to terraform Mars if people are trying to colonize. A cheap way to heat Mars would be rocket a kuiper belt object into Mars, also adding mass and water.
0:40 AFAIK he was not the only one to propose that, but he was loud. The idea is that the Nukes would rapidly melt polar capes and release all the stored water and CO2 resulting in rapid warming and further melting of ices.
Using asteroids would be better though 😂
Interesting concept, but actually that a single small operation producing this on earth could raise the whole earths surface temperature by degrees C in months is super concerning... Like basically any country could hold the earth hostage with this, couldnt they?
What about the Belters tho?
already more or less present on earth, but as submariners, subterranean miners and astronauts.
belters are just the aforementioned, but hillbillies in space.
It's interesting to think we could have soil samples to genetically modify extremiphiles specifically for. Perhaps even aiding in seperating alumina for smelting. Mars is certainly much lower stakes to experiment with!
Terraformars, good movie but weird.😮
@@lexheath8276 microbes in disguise !
Don’t we just need to press that three fingered alien button in the Pyramid mine ?
I have in fact inhaled Sulphur Hexafluoride, and it does indeed make you sound like Darth Vader. You want to make sure you expel all of it once you're done having fun however, because it can displace oxygen in your lungs and well.. that's not good.
I’m kind of stunned. The 2 most important things are nearly mentioned. 7:11 the magnetic field, nowhere the low gravity. Without a magnetic field there is no use even trying. And how are humans supposed to live in such a low gravity?
The same way people are able to live on the I.S.S.
Gravity is sssseasily solvable with special structures. It turns out we don't need MUCH gravity to be healthy, but we need far more than zero. Space is the real problem. I think Mars is just at the limits ( Mars is 38% and the lower limit is thought to be about 40% ) to where we can use technology to handle the rest. Such as spending an hour a week in a higher gravity environment or possibly sleeping at 0.6G or something like that. After a couple of generations, we would be fine.
The main issue is the magnetosphere, which we would have to somehow generate. If we solve the radiation and solar wind issues, all the rest is extremely simple going forwards.
0.38 G means roughly jumping up 1m would feel like jumping 0.38m on Earth, gravity might not be a big problem.
Or a 100 kg bodybuilder would feel like a 38kg child. Unless he runs into the wall, he would feel the same as here.
But creating the magnetosphere seems like a big challenge.
@@roomtempwater1 Astronouts live on the ISS, not ordinary humans, and the astronauts live there a few months at most.
@@hotbit7327 After a few generations, we would change - probably be far less dense and more "puffy", as we adapt. Similar to how animals in the ocean are. Most of them feel a less gravity ( in effect ) as well.
Noticeable effects: Denser bones, taller overall, slightly flatter eyes and faces, and changes in vision, significantly less body mass. Thinner arms and legs, and altered skin tone. If this sounds a bit like our typical "aliens" (LGM), it's not too far off. Though it would take many generations. Coming back to Earth would be 2.5x increase in gravity, requiring some sort of supportive (wearable) exoskeleton or a rigorous training regimen to get used to higher Gs. Oddly, humans migrating to Mars would survive relatively well. It's those born there that would be at high risk coming back.
A magnetosphere at the lagrange point is a great idea and completely possible to do right now, we should do that before trying to send anyone to live there. Set it up and we can study its effects on mars from afar.
Without dealing with the magnetosphere problem, all of the rest simply won't work as whatever we do will eventually be blown away. The issue is that Mars' core is slightly too small and has spun down enough such that it has no effective (anti) radiation belts. If this can be solved, then it's just a matter of creating enough atmosphere.
Venus has almost zero magnetic field.
Plenty of atmosphere.
@@bryandraughn9830 The issue is that the solar winds strip off a small percentage of the atmosphere. Whatever we do would have to greatly exceed that to get started. If we can deflect it somehow, then the job goes from being nearly impossible due to the scale required to simply waiting a few decades.
@@plektosgaming 1. Making an artificial magnetosphere is discussed in this video and the one linked in the description
2. It would take millions if not hundreds of millions of years for a new atmosphere to be stripped away, just as it took the last time. It doesn't matter if it eventually is stripped away if you get millions of years of use ffs.
Aliens: casually entering Mars
Levitating metal rods: destroying their lungs
Humans: oh, sorry
can't even terragorm sahara or gobi desert, but they wanna terraform mars
It’s a lot different lol
There are very good reasons we shouldn't terra form Sahara
Great mind exercise possibly leading to some real time down to Earth applications, but focusing on taking care of the planet we have in the meantime would be time and resources also if not more so well spent.
The elephant in the room is always going to be magnetosphere. Apart from towing in an appropriate sized moon and putting into a stable orbit to activate the core.
That and hitting Mars with something hard enough and large enough to aid with that as well as cause tectonics to develop.
perhaps your mom may be able to help?
Look at Mars right now.. it has an atmosphere.. it's still had one after hundreds of millions of years before trees and horseshoe crabs and sharks. It takes insane amount of time to erode the atmosphere. This "problem" is a nothing burger especially when the planet is already bathed in radiation too. A system of mirrors in space could fix that too
eh. is it though? Hydrogen and helium might never devlop into a stable atmosphere but Oxygen and Carbon and nitrogen are very heavy elements, and we should have a few million years to figure out a magnetosphere because of that.
And sure a few million is nowhere near enough to evolve complex specialized life from a puddle of nutriant rich mud but it is long enough to sort out the leaky atmosphere.
Plus we might not want a magnetosphere if we go this metal particle route.
While this all a bunch of "IF's" in capital I's
But if this works, and If we get just slightly better at manufacturing slighty more complex rods then we could have upper atmosphereic rods like this that generate thier own magentic field, and hold themselves up by static electricity, little microscopic ion drives.
Amd those should stick around potemtally forever, while doing even better then a magnetosphere.
I will be back tomorrow to learn something else! Meantime, Thanks for today, Anton. It would be wonderful to find a way to terraform Mars, safely, inexpensively and quickly.
The problem with the aluminum rods is that they will also reflect the Sun's Infrared and some of the visible, which will cause some cooling.
Your modeling shows this or are you simply speculating? Where is your published work?
I think that the specific dimensions for the aluminium rods ( 9 μm by 160 nm) must be for the optimal absorption of the solar rays and then to be converted in thermal energy (heat).
since its rotating very slow rate but not slow as venus....and it has dry ice properties we can take advantage of it by making man made climate system for mars ...but this only work with glass domes
How about terraforming earth to a livable survivable habitat??
This is going to be a big challenge no matter what one would use to warm the Martian atmosphere. You don’t want to overshoot (making it too warm) or under-shoot (still too cold). You want to control feedback loops (water vapour), or sudden discontinuities (aluminium particles washed out of the air by rain). We don’t even know fully how our climate on Earth works.
Ever notice that people talking about terraforming Mars tend to be aerospace engineers, physicists, or astronomers? Anything but the biologists that would have a real grasp of what duplicating Earth's ecosystem on a planet with radically different conditions would entail. Our planet's biology features over 400,000 species of just beetles, let alone everything else. Even if Mars had sufficient quantities of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water (and it doesn't), just warming it up and raising the atmospheric pressure wouldn't even begin to terraform it in any meaningful sense.
As a first step, I think the goal is just to make it so you could walk around on the surface and be able to survive (have enough oxygen, not freeze to death, etc.). Actually creating a biology on the planet is something that could only happen way down the line as it would be so much more difficult to do, so I don't think anyone is focused on that for a goal just yet.
The main problem with Mars is gravity - we evolved in a 1g field and, while a base on Mars might be practical, a colony implies families and we need to understand how the weaker gravity will affect gestation and muscular development a lot better than we do now before trying that experiment. When we leave Earth, it will be to O'Neill style colonies where normal gravity can be simulated by centrifugal acceleration. These can be built in orbit or on the moon a lot more easily than going to Mars.
Why not teraform Earth? It would be cheaper to do, and we are already here so no space transportation needs.
Red tape is to high
For example. I vote no.
@Trappist-1e646 I think he wants to say that we got to solve global warming first
I’m an ignoramus on this subject, but the atmosphere and climate of any planet is a complex system with any sequence of change being highly sensitive to initial conditions. In the case of, say, Mars, we don’t have any idea what the actual initial conditions are with any degree of sensitivity, much a high degree. I can’t say what the unintended consequences would be because I’m an ignoramus, but I’d bet the farm that they would queer the project in ways that would set the engineers back on their heels.
Cheapest way of tereeforning Mars is put humans on it.
I think Elon's proposition was suggesting the nuclear fireball would produce ozone to help shield against UV. Kind of pointless without a magnetic field. They need cheaper and better propulsion to get significant amounts of machinery into place to tackle the most important issue. Putting short term solutions up front means a more guaranteed failure down the road. Orbiting parabolic reflectors would be a good start and later maybe a sphere to act as a filter around the planet.
You can terraform Mars all you want. It still will not have enough gravity to support human life long term. It is like the old joke where someone asks a fish how the water is and the fish responds, "What's water." Gravity is such a constant in our lives that we do not appreciate it importance in our health. Leave Mars to the robots and get to work on saving this planet.
Terraforming Mars is always interesting to think about but we also have massive terraforming and geo-engineering projects here on Earth that have actually been done very effectively and relatively safely for thousands of years in the form of slowing down the flow of rain and deluges by digging swales, ponds and redirecting rivers much like the beavers do. Swales and seed dispertion can totally transform massive areas of land, recharge aquifers and bring prosperity to the people and all of nature, which is the real ultimate goal of terraforming.
note that mars is a frozen poison coverwd dustbowl, i.e NO WATER, if we had enough flowing water to alter the landscape like those permaculture esque things you mentioned we would have already won the whole "terraform mars" fiasco,
what you describe is jumping the gun quite a bit my dude.
@@TS-jm7jm Well yea, I'm fully aware there is no flowing water on Mars and swales would be a remarkably dumb idea in that context XD. What I'm getting at is that we would be jumping the gun entirely by trying to do things that could end up having a catastrophic effect due to our lack of knowledge. It's like practicing half court shots when you have trouble with lay ups or something like that. It would be a good idea to focus more on the geo-engineering projects we can already do safely and effectively here on Earth. Not saying we should totally ignore the idea of terraforming other planets of course but there are so many swales and ponds that need to be constructed here, now, and we can do it but there is not enough concerted effort. With Mars, it will likely always have the problem of having no protective magnetic field so I find it kind of pointless to try and terraform Mars, speaking about jumping the gun...
@@alexei4204 look i get what you are saying but in the context of the earth, i would caution you to remember, that each man is his own person, and that means the choice to build such things is based on the consent and desire of each to do so on his own land, or in the wilderness if say a referendum is held on the matter for areas where that nations people dwell,
basically what i am saying, is the choice to build those things is and indeed should remain individual, and therefore also the benefit to do so.
that said i am not in favour of terraforming mars, i am in favour of disassembling it to build O'Neil cylinders , terraforming planets just seems so pointless and frivolous ito effort expended in light of the more practical of building massive swarms of those cylinders 🤷🏼♂️
send down materal from the asteriod belt . overall the planet needs more mass
Need to squish Mercury and Io into Mars. Mercury would give it a large iron core, and Io would give a lot of sulfur, sodium, and other lighter elements important to life. Then once that's all settled, smash Callisto into it for massive amounts of water.
@@Alondro77 but asteriods are easier to move then entire planets and can blow up to dust to simple rain down gentle on the main planet trying to fix
@Alondro77 then wait a few million years for it to cool off.
Any proposal to terraform... Earth?
We will soon need it.
Why are we trying to play with the atmosphere and environment on another planet, when we don't even know what's happening on our planet.
Exactly what I question.
You don't. Other people do.
@@filonin2 you would be foolish to assume that others know what is happening on our planet.
Sheeple comes to mind.
There are hundreds of focuses that the human race can focus on. Should we do none of them because other areas are not perfect?
@@filonin2 Your post sounds like you know something profound. Prove it, or fail like the others that follow false science.
As always if its not immediately profitable its probly not going to happen.
We can technically do a lot of things readily but the funding is the issue.
That sounds like a whole lot of work,time and money when life on earth could be enhanced with more compassion and kindness,we are the caregivers of earth,to leave it in a better place for future generations.
Ok, and when a asteroid hits the earth and the entire race is still here because “science bad, compassion good”, how is that going to work out?
Your first mistake is assuming the human race can be more kind and compassionate. We’re selfish and greedy by nature.
Good luck paying rent with compassion.
Even if we make Earth a utopia for all of life we cannot prevent the sun from dying. Yes it's far away but we would most likely have to be able to get out of the solar system to survive it. That's why it's important to do both. The human species is in the billions, we can multitask.
All it would take is to stop making more technology, stop driving to work everyday...stop breeding like locusts...
I just appreciate the fact that Anton can pronounce Aluminium properly! 🤣
How about keeping Earth habitable?
To hard, we can't all agree on saving the earth. So the rich will move to mars
Earth will become uninhabitable to most forms or life sooner or later, it's the reason why Musk wants to terraform mars. All the proposed ideas aren't to create some paradise or earth 2.0 on mars for the rich to escape to, they are simply to establish a second habitable planet so that after the next mass extinction there might be some chance of reestablishing life as we know it on earth again.
It's basically an extreme version of doomsday prepping and just like most preppers, few actually want to live in their bunkers if they don't have to.
it wont stay that way earth is on a cycle we cant control nature on a global level by the by did u know we are in the midst of an ice age that hasnt really ended yet? polar caps = ice age not done yet
The earth will have all water cooked in 600 million years
We are well on the way to starting WW3 and if its nuclear we will probably destroy life on earth. So I doubt we have time to terraform Mars, Venus or anywhere else.
How about nudging some of the medium sized objects from asteroid belt to collide with mars (& a whole lot of them) such that Mars captures via gravity, increasing mass and temperature until it’s more able to hold on to atmosphere
And how long it will take? And not only increasing mass, we have to give time to cool down the surface. What about the core? How to restart the engine? Mars needs an electromagnetic field. So many things…
@@90JOLED I agree, valid points you’ve made! But no one said a timeframe, like within a lifetime.. however thinking it thru, there’s more like asteroids will also bring water and heavier elements (which can eventually seep into core) but again I was also thinking of small-medium, not bashing something like Ceres; anyhow the turn around would seem similar to nuking Mars imo! Thanks again for your thoughts!
Is there any reason that the Perchlorates in the soil can't be extracted and turned into "Oxygen candle" type items like those used on Submarines in an emergency? Perhaps proving an oxygen source for any future "Habs"?
Here is the thingy. I am as fascinated by the idea to terraform a planet as much as the next guy. But it is really way more quicker, cheaper and feasable to construct giant spaces stations to live on. We should really start with that instead of starting a 1,000 year project to terraform mars. Because if we really want to this is something to pull of in a few decades.
CodysLab shout out... Nice!
Cody's Lab mention 👍
Now we have a place to send all our recycled cans. If chlorine is that thick, we can just designate Mars as the Sol System Olympic Pool. Of course that can't work. First we have to build a magnetosphere, which we probably could use right here on Earth, since our field seems to be weakening.
I don't find a lot of stuff following (or countering) my idea, that Mars needs a Moon, and it needs to be BIG. It needs to create tidal forces in the core and restart the magnetosphere. The Asteroid belt is the next in line from Mars, so plenty of material to work with (both solid and ice), Just needs hundreds of autonomous thrusters launched from our Moon, to land on the bigger rocks, deploy solar arrays and begin Ion thrusting them to join orbit around mars, to aggromelate(?) into a moon. The ice ones can be dropped onto the planet. We need to go back to the (our) Moon.
Great content. Always supporting your channel.
Honestly, *I love* this Idea, because I can see it protecting the Atmosphere by taking most of the nearby gas kinetic energy, so it will not fly off... give it a mild electrimagnetic emement, And it could even capture solar wind.
can't wait for the mars update. hopefully ill be alive to see it 🙏
I think a current loop around each pole with several miles diameter would provide a suitable magnetic shield. Ideally, using superconducting wire.
Love the codys lab shout out. He deserves more interest.
Fascinating idea. If we find any life at all no matter how small, then terraforming Mars will be morally unconscionable. So these rovers looking for life will go on presumably for a few more decades. But at some point we may eventually say, "screw it, the planet's dead, let's mess with it." A profound decision, and I wonder when that'll occur and who will make it.
I’m hoping we start the process within the next 5-10 years. The sooner, the better.
I hope the surface will be thoroughly explored as well as beneath the surface in case there is any life we may inadvertently destroy.
As for the perclorides, IF we could bring forth liquid water on the surface they should degenerate into mostly harmless stuff. I also recall something about specific types of moss that are highly resilient to stress and could survive, but not revive from their tardigrade state, we could try to farm and slowly change the stuff in labs to become more aclimatised to the martian conditions and give ourselves a second leg up.
The biggest issue for all of this would still be the lack of magnetosphere followed up by the automatic production of the aluminum particles on site.
How probable/hard is it to discover aluminum deposits on Mars? Because this proposal to terraforming sounds very interesting (mostly because of how quickly the effects up can be achieved)
I vote for adding mass to the moons of Mars. That would cause them to pull on Mars causing Mars to spin on an axis. This could restart Mars’s magnetosphere again.
That forced smile at the end though lol
I can think of a much cheaper method.
Before humans can live on Mars, airtight bases will have to be built. But, if any unforeseen repairs or basic improvements are needed, the shipping charges for spare parts from Earth would be astronomical. So why not, iron out all the problems by first building airtight undersea bases on Earth, before shipping the final products to the Moon and Mars, etc. As for climate change, partial base-like structures could be built to save ports from being submerged. At any rate, perfecting the airtight structures on Earth would be much cheaper than going through the same process of improving iterations on the fly on a far away planet.
There is faster alteratives to get mars, and venus going. it's just requires mining in space. you build locations on mars that is equal distance, which would allow plants to produce the needed oxygen to get started. venus on the other hand, just needs a rock layer dumped on top about 100ft thick.
aluminum oxide is a common component of many rocks and minerals. It is also about 50% of all clays, which are hydrated Al2O3+SiO2 plus traces of other metal oxides. In other words, aluminum oxide is as common as dirt. It's almost chemically inert and it's definitely nontoxic. Granite is largely Al2O3 + SiO2 plus some sodium, potassium, or lithium with traces of calcium and magnesium. But mostly Al2O3 and SiO2. Completely nontoxic. You find a great deal of the stuff in stony meteors, also nontoxic.
So glad you said Aluminium correctly:)
You mentioned finding Aluminium deposits on Mars is there any indication of it being there? Has a the Mars rover found any?
I’m on board with terraforming Mars, just as soon as we fix the problems on our own planet.
Another fine video, Anton. Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.
Terraforming Mars is, will continue to be, and has been such a great human pipe dream. Doing so will never be easy as Mars essentially lacks at least two important criteria for life like that on earth to survive and multiply. 1) it just isn't massive enough and 2) solar radiation destroys and sends into space all molecules in any possible breathable atmosphere created on the planet.
Sounds like a similar feat to building iut the Starlink network for a Mars-colonizing society
Now to something completey different: Even if we can magnify Greenhouse effects on Mars substantially, Mars is COLD since 100.000years(likely even much longer) how long would it take to just Warm the Permafrost thats probably many hundred meter thick.(Specific heat) with the Solar-Energy influx thats available(Probably many hundred years).