Terraforming Mars, How Hard Would It Be?

 As habitants of Earth, we have become quite aware of our planet's mortality, and for the most part, we’ve accepted it. Would that mean we need to accept humanity’s mortality? Or is it even possible to live the lives of our science fiction stories and have human colonies all over the universe? A good place to start would be our small red neighbour Mars. In this read, we will explore 5 questions and its answers on Terraforming Mars, including the challenges, the ethics, and if it's even possible to do so.

Why is Mars an attractive planet compare to the others?

First and foremost, Mars is the ideal candidate for expanding humanity simply because it is our closest neighbour, but the planet also has some other attractive features that make it ideal. Mars is actually on the border of the extended habitable zone, which means liquid water on the surface could be supported if the atmospheric pressure could be increased. This fact makes it the most Earth-like planet within our known solar system, and as you may know, at one point in its history, it had a much thicker atmosphere, and even oceans. The planet also has polar ice-caps, which would be ideal in restoring oceans. Also, Mars day lengths are not much different to Earth’s. It’s just under 25 hours, only about 1 hourdifference from Earth. If it comes to years duration, Earth and Mars differ quite a bit. A Mars year is 686 Earth days. However, due to the fact it is on a axial tilt, it still experiences seasons much like Earth’s. 

What would we have to change to make it habitable? 

  While Mars may hold a better chance of survival than our other neighbouring planets, the idea of the fourth planet as a habitable space poses serious issues to scientists. To begin, the surface gravity of Mars is only 38% of what we experience on Earth. As scientists have discovered from our historyof space travel, weightlessness can cause illness in the short-term, and the long term. The short term can include nausea, vomiting and vertigo, and long term effects can include muscular dystrophy, and deterioration of the skeleton. The atmosphere for Mars is also very thinin comparison to Earth, this causes a drastic difference in air pressure. It has about 1% of the pressure Earth has at sea level. This is about 1KPa, which is 0.15 PSI of atmospheric pressure. This is significantly below the Armstrong limit of 6 KPa. This limit refers to the point at which thepressure is too low for humans to survive, as blood, saliva, and the liquid within our lungs will start to boil at regular temperature. Human’s would simply not be able to breathethe oxygen they need, and would die in a matter of moments. Another issue is that Mars lacks a magnetosphere, which is responsible for protecting the planet from too much solar radiation, and also retainingan atmosphere. This is actually thought be an explanationfor Mar's extremely thin atmosphere. The lack of protection from solar winds may have caused the winds to strip away a thicker atmosphere the planet may once have had. It is also thought the planet did once have a magnetosphere that collapsed early on, and restoring it would be vital in bringing backnot only a proper atmosphere, but also flowing liquid water. While the planet is about 50% further away from our Sun than Earth, it still sees regular season changes, and features polar ice-caps, which could be very important when it comes to terraforming. Unfortunately, even at its warmest, the planetcan be quite chilly. Unless perhaps, you come from Russia or Canada. An average temperature recorded from the planet is around -55°C. Around the equator at high noon however, temperatures have been recorded at up to 20°C. Now, coming to the negatives, the poles see temperaturesas low as -153 C, or -243 F. The Viking landing site saw temperatures from -17°C, to -107°C. Luckily, there may be a way to heat those temperatures up.

  How would we do it? 

Let’s scroll back to the issue of gravity. Changing the weight of the planet may not be an option, although some scientists say the human body may adapt to live under these circumstances. Some speculate that within a matter of weeks,the humans would be Earthlings no more, and instead they would transform into a new breed of human, the Martian. Now unlike the gravity of the planet, there may be ways to adjust the planet physically to be more suitable for humanity. The three major changes it would have to go through to become habitable would be; building up the magnetosphere, building up the atmosphere, and raising the temperature. To begin, a magnetic field would be crucial, as without it, all of the green house gasses that would warm the planet up and create a thicker atmosphere would leave the planet for space, which would make any work done completely useless. That being said, those parts are actually the much simpler task. Earth’s magnetic field is caused by what is called the Dynamo Theory. This theory basically says that due to theEarth’s rotation, the molten outer core also rotates, which then acts like a giant electro-magnet. Venus does not have a magnetic field because it does not rotate fast enough to spin the inside, and although Mars may not be short on this qualification, its core is much too cool and is not liquidized, which means it won’t spin and create the field. Therefore, to bring Mars’ magnetic field back, the outer core would need to be liquidized. There a few ways this may be possible. One, is simply a very very massive bomb. If humans were able to create a bomb large enough, dropping it may have such an incredible impact that the core may break up and liquidize. Another way this could be done would be to run an electric current through the planet, acting almost like a toaster would to heatup the centre of the planet, and cause for the material to melt and turn to liquids. This would take a massive amount of energy,although utilizing solar energy could potentially make this possible, if humans were able to get the hardware. Also, the idea of creating magnetic dipole,or essentially, a giant magnetic shield placed between the planet and the sun has been debated. The dipole would work just as a field would to block out harmful solar winds and it should be placed at a point known as Lagrange point 1 which basically the null point between the Sun and the Mars so that the dipole always remain  intact between them. This would help rebuild the atmosphere.

 If either of these methods worked, and a magnetic field was brought back to the red planet, creating an atmosphere and raising the temperature would follow. One way to do this may be to import ammonium. Ammonium is a very powerful greenhouse gas, and if you’ve learned anything about greenhouse gases from your  school, it's that releasing them into the atmosphere will cause a planet to trap in more heat, warming the surface temperature. Without these gases, Earth would be constantly below freezing. Conveniently, an immense amount of ammonium is held in ice on planets in our outer solar system, and it may be possible to transport this to Mars. Similarly, importing methane or other hydrocarbons from Titan would have the same effect. Also proposed, is the idea of giant mirrors placed in space to reflect sun light down to the surface. If any of these methods took place, nature would take over, and as the polar ice caps melted, more CO2 would be released into the atmosphere, causing the planet to naturally heat up quicker. The melting caps would also start to refill Mars; prehistoric oceans, creating a much more similar neighbour than we know today. 

How long would the process take? 

All of these methods seem pretty complex for a species that is only just figuring out how to travel to the planet to begin with, but assuming we as humanity pull together and are physically able to start the project, the bigger question becomes, how long would it take to finish? Would we be able to see it in our lifetime? Or even our great great grandchildren’s lifetime? The short answer to that, is no. James Kasting is a Professor of Geosciences at Penn State University who co-authored a paper titled “Making Mars Habitable”. In that he explains that to build up oxygen in the atmosphere, we’d have to bury organic carbon. Without a running ocean to help, the process would have to run for about 4 million years. He adds that if we were able to restore the oceans on Mars, and they were burying about 10%, it would reduce the time to about 40000 years. Still an incredibly long time, but shorter none the less. Planetary scientist Chris McKay who also co-authored the paper is less optimistic. In another paper he co-authored titled “The Physics, Biology, and Environmental Ethics of Making Mars Habitable” he suggested it may take up to 100,000 years to make the atmosphere livable for humans. While those numbers sound depressing, let me finish off with a bit of positivity. Chris McKay also co-authored a different papercalled “Technological Requirements for Terraforming Mars” with aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin, where Zubrin claims the task could be complete in as little as 900 years.

 Is it ethical to bring the planet back to life? 

Ethics can often be a heavily debatable topic, regardless of the focus, so it’s no surprise the debate on whether or not we should force a planet to adapt to human life comes in to this conversation. Personally, I am unsure how I feel about the topic, but I would love to see the technological marvels required for such a huge project. Astrobiologist David Grinspoon believes in the long run, humans will be able to technically terraform Mars, but says our technical intelligence improves much faster than our moral intelligence. He argues that until we as a world can unite and control Earth’s climate properly, we should not be changing another's. He does say we should begin thinking about it, but we are not morally ready to begin. Ultimately, when we are ready, Grinspoon says we have an ethical imperative to bring a dead planet back to life. Biogeochemist Lisa Pratt says that we have no ethical right to change the planet until we know more about it. On Earth, the more we dig below the surface, and into the unknown and once unreachable crevasses, we find life exists even in the strangest circumstances. Therefore we can’t rule out the idea that there already is life on Mars and if there is, we don’t have the right to transform the life’s habitat. Not to mention, there is also the argument that humans have been incredibly destructive on our home planet. So if we are to destroy it to the point we cannot live here anymore, do we have the right to do so to another planet? Is the survival of humanity important enough? The conversation is a big one, and it’s hard to definitively say where you lie, but with the information presented, what do you think? Do we have the ethical right to terraform Mars? Or any other planet for that matter?