/sci/ - Science and Mathematics

I think manifest destiny is only appalling when it deals with subjugating and crushing native intelligent life or general biology. Ain't nothin' wrong with making a dead world habitable.

It will take a few thousands years to terraform, but we don't have the means to start it anyway. I wouldn't worry too much about it because we will all be long dead before then.

Europa is a better idea for terraforming and colonization. But, I do have a suspicion for hostile life in its ocean.

>>3357

Is it a faith based suspicion? Or do you have any evidence, sounds interesting.

I think terraforming is a silly idea. Our technology is advancing exponentially. Surely we would find better ways of living than squatting on the surface of a ball of dirt and metal long before we ever complete such a monumental task.

Planets seem more like targets for long-term resource extraction than anything else. Much easier to just build space habitats than to try to live in a place like Mars.

Floating cities on Venus seem more likely, as you can get to regular atmospheric pressure in a balloon. Then you just need a respirator and an acid resistant suit to be outside. That would probably be at least a little easier to accomplish than building a (series of) space station(s).

>>3364

Humans aren't able to survive extended periods in 0 gravity. Living in space colonies is impossible for us.

http://www.space.com/23017-weightlessness.html

We might someday replace ourselves with machines or genetically engineered superhumans that do not have this limitation, but we ourselves are bound to planets.

>>3355

this

>>3357

Well in some ways we do have some of the means, we could warm it up and hopefully add mosses and algae and maybe as technology advances we could speed up the process.

And I highly doubt there is any life under Europa's surface. Let alone Hostile life.

>>3359

Yes but no stimuli from the sun, and how would life gotten there in the first place? I think it's reasonable to assume that if life never started on our closest climate like planet Mars (back in it's hay day when it had liquid water) then I doubt somewhere like Europa would have life. Although what the hell we should send some probes down there anyways.

>>3364

We can't do much for now, but we know how to warm and we can add some really fucking hardy bacteria and hope the more technologically advanced future generations can finish the shit and if not it would make it a slightly less hostile environment if we got the pressure up and warmed a little

>floating cities on Venus

Maybe a few bases but floating cities are just rubbish and it wouldn't be able to produce anything other than maybe small amounts of crops

>>3376

Spinning colonies create centrifugal force

>>3378

I wouldn't bet on it and if there is any life down there it would be most likely single cell organisms or bacteria like.

Although it would be a cool thing that if there were no life down there and we were to introduce life from earth there, who needs terraforming a planet when we can just terraform a subterranean ocean?

but yeah, if we assume life on earth begun to natural processes then it wouldn't be likely for it to begin in a cold ocean

>>3386

Yeah there's still a possibility but it's most likely that life on earth started when the planet was warmer reeling from the creation of the moon

>>3394

>when the planet was warmer reeling from the creation of the moon

I think it was warmer because of higher atmospheric pressure and therefore more greenhouse effect

Earth likely had a lot of primordial CO₂ from volcanic degassing, like Venus, before it was bound into sediments

It would actually blow my mind if we found zero evidence any life on Europa.

>>3402

Well having a Mars sized planet crashing into it probably caused a bit of heat and that could have caused a bunch of Volcanic processed for a couple millennia.

>>3421

Why? I mean life could be there but there is a greater chance of it not being there, to be honest all these people talking about life under Europa exaggerate the evidence and the conditions down there.

>>3421

There's almost no chance of life on Europa. Any Terraforming that's gonna happen there is going to come directly and only from Earth, and it will definitely need some work (we're talking shooting greenhouse gases at it for a few decades work) to be even remotely hospitable.

If there is life on Europa it most likely won't be found in the pelagic water column, but deep at the bottom at hydrothermal vents and localized only near there. Life in the pelagic zone on earth depends on photosynthetic plankton near the surface and trophic cascades "raining down" (either literally or through movement of organisms through the water column) from the top. In an ocean with no surface and so far from the sun, there is really no reason for life to venture so far from its only source of nutrients near the bottom. The only thing that is perhaps needed is an ability to migrate from one active vent to another.

>>3442

If there is a lot of oxygen in Europa's ocean, then the source of that oxygen is the ice at the top, so that may give any aerobic organism incentive to move long distances.

>>3443

I see no reason that said oxygen wouldn't thoroughly diffuse throughout the liquid ocean. I sincerely doubt there's enough usable oxygen in Europa's underground oceans for aerobic respiration though.

Would the lesser magnetic field on Mars mean that people would feel disoriented on the surface?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumann_resonances

"The radiation level at the surface of Europa is equivalent to a dose of about 5400 mSv (540 rem) per day, an amount of radiation that would cause severe illness or death in human beings exposed for a single day."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_%28moon%29

>>3513

I don't think humans are susceptible to Earth's magnetic field, at least I never experienced disorientation when working near big magnets

>>3513

Strongly doubt it. We can't really feel magnetic fields (though we are slightly paramagnetic I suppose)

What if in terraforming Mars we made blocks of Iron from Asteroid mining and connecting them together over the years making it a small but highly magnetic moon that can restart Mars' magnetic field? Given how much fucking Iron is in those asteroids it wouldn't be that hard to get your hands on and Iron wouldn't even be profitable to ship down to earth so it would probably end up being "waste" material and if it was compounded into blocks I can't see how this wouldn't come to fruit in a couple decades or even a century or two.

>>3524

Mars probably doesn't have a magnetic field because its core is solid. Earth's magnetic field likely comes from turbulent flow in the molten outer core. Because the fluid is magnetized in Solar magnetic field, it carries the magnetic field lines with the current as it flows, which causes them to rotate roughly towards the general axis of rotation. However, if the core is fully crystalized, there can be no turbulence.

We'll know more when InSight lands next year and starts doing seismology studies. That is, if the mission is successful. Until then, we can only guess based on gravitational perturbations of instruments in orbit what Mars' internal structure may be.

You could, though, theoretically construct an external magnetic field to envelop the entire planet. But it would require an entire array of strongly magnetic satellites.

>>3525

Or we could always you know…. hit Mars with so many asteroids in one spot that it heats the interior to the point it creates a magnetic field

>>3354

>manifest desity

i hope this is a joke

>>3549

No it's not you communist earth hugging communist

>>3525

With the advancement of robotics and computers in the decades to come having large arrays of satellites and AI ships to intercept any space junk or rocks that would threaten the shouldn't be too large a problem.

>>3357

I remember Elon Musk saying some shit on a talk show about nuking Mars' poles, which would expedite the terraforming process considerably. I don't have a source on that, but it could be interesting.

>>3525

Well if it's going to be a permanent home for humans a Magnetic Satellite network is well worth the investment of a whole other planet to inhabit

I was wondering, why should we even do the complete task of terraforming, when it would be much easier to just build a couple of domed cities and move all agriculture to hydroponic facilities. I see no point in spending gorillions to get the whole planet terraformed when you're only interested in strategic resources.

>>3755

Because if a single hole is punched in any contained structure a lot of people are going to die. A Permanent settlement will face this sooner or later, steps can be taken to prevent this but if it were to stay for hundreds of years it Will happen.

And Mars does not have all that many resources that wouldn't be easier to get from the Asteroid Belt where there is no gravity well.

But from what I could tell with people wanting to terraform Mars is that it mostly revolves around

>Warm the planets surface

>Get the Magnetosphere up and running

>Crash water and ammonia filled comets if Nitrogen and water is lacking in some parts

And the rest would /theoretically/ be taken care of by Microbes and fungi.

"Terraforming" is a stupid idea, and just bad science fiction.

Even if terraforming were economically feasible, why the fuck would you want to set up a base inside another gravitational well? The biggest hurdle to space exploration is just how expensive it is to get shit off the Earth and into space. Why the fuck would you want the same problem, twice?

>>3354

I think it stems from the idea that we should see how something plays out on its own. Sorta like that Star Trek directive. I have no clue why people have a grudge against teraforming but I can see plausible arguements against teraforming planets with living things. As long as every planet in our solar system doesn't look as artificial as New York City, then fine by me.

>>3857

Fugg i fugged up