Hi,

I've updated my website again. I would greatly appreciate any feedback
you might have on:

Terraforming a planet
http://www.geocities.com/alt_cosmos/terraform.html

It's a work in progress, so I will be updating it regularly.

Take care
Michael :]
http://www.geocities.com/alt_cosmos/index.html

Hi Michael!

>I would greatly appreciate any feedback

Ok...take the following as constructive.

Minor quibbles:

Deutrium should be Deuterium, thoughout. Orbitting has one t. There's also
lots of missing apostrophes. But then I'm a pedant. ;-)

Why should cosmic radiation bother the inhabitants? So sell them sunblock
and big hats.

D2O (Heavy water, where the 2 should be a subscript in this email) doesn't
chemically work /exactly/ like H2O. You might be building in trouble down
the line for your colonists.

Atmospheric temperature - there are many greenhouse gases. Water vapour is
one along with any number of "artificial" industrial ones.

Major quibbles:

The engineering involved ("remove all but one Earth-atmosphere", "remove
mass from the planet") assumes a very great deal indeed. Why not add "add
neutron star material" to increase the planet mass? I'd personally have to
stick with orbital colonies if these are serious requirements.

Bad maths:

Action 5: orbiting mirrors /will/ act like light sails, but it doesn't
necessarily follow that these will "impact the planet". If each is in a
reasonable orbit over the world (and therefore only working part of the
time) the net effect will be zero.

Action 7: reducing the atmosphere is very unlikey to have an effect on the
mantle. 1 atmosphere is about 10 tonnes per square metre, for Earth. That's
nothing for bedrock. A decent ice sheet (which would have some effect in
terms of land movement, perhaps a few metres per century) is of the order
of 100 times more mass than this...but no fissures spurting lava...

Regards,

Andy

On Wednesday, October 15, 2003, at 07:24 AM, Andy Goddard wrote:

> Why should cosmic radiation bother the inhabitants (of planetary
> colonists)? So sell them sunblock
> and big hats.
>

You might make money if the colonists are stupid enough, but neither of
these is of any use against cosmic radiation. They work for
ultra-violet, but since everyone in a planetary colony will be indoors
or in a space suit, UV is not a problem.

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect
and deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

There is of course another possibility:

Terraform the planet as little as possible, perhaps not at all.
Modifie your colonists so that this is not a problem.

Xenophile (who prefers orbital habitats to terraformation, but then
you all knew that)

I used to be in the terraforming camp, as a long range
goal, but I have since changed my opinion. I think
that a diverse variety of space colonies will evolve
to fill all available space habitats. This is the
simplest and doable method of space colonization. It
is also the most tried and tested method. In the end,
planetary environments will be changed. But, it may
be too early to tell what the best target environment
will be. My guess is that a blend of planetary,
technoloical, and biological adaptations will be
involved.

Here is my conjecture: Once upon a time, all life on
Earth consisted of single celled organisms. These
were tiny, fragile organisms that required a watery
environment to survive. Later on, cells learned how
to cooperate. In doing so, they created cellular
"societies" or higher order organisms with more
capability and a greater degree of capability.

Around two billion years ago, the first photosynthetic
bacteria probably evolved. I guess some of these
became the first blue-green algae. Some of this
joined the fungi to form lichens. And some symbiotic
cellular unions may have led to the evolution of
chloroplasts in eukaryotic cells that later became
plants. The evolution of photosynthesis release
massive amounts of oxygen "pollution" into the
atmosphere over time. However, life adapted and used
the oxidizing properties of oxygen as a catalyst for
more efecient energy release from food. Perhaps a
bacterium that learned this trick coevolved into
eukaryotic mitochondria that later gave rise to animal
life.

Once the shell of oxygen grew to a sufficient density,
the rain of uv light from the sun broke down the O2
which recombined into O3 or ozone. This provided a
natural barrier to incoming radiation and made land
habitable.

First there was the fungus. As I understand it, the
fungus was the first to colonize land about one and a
half billion years ago. There may have even been huge
mushroom like forests that covered the Earth at some
time. The fungus transformed the surface and made it
habitable for other types of life. They broke down
the surface rocks for minerals and organic matter that
was not yet incorporated into the biosphere. Thus the
first soils were probably created.

Lichens are fungal/algae symbiotic communities. I
guess that other fungi may have had chemical or other
sources of energy. Also, organic matter washed ashore
could provide food for land based life. These were
the fuel sources of the early land based ecosystems.

Plant and animal life exploded something like 650
million years ago. This cambrian explosion was a vast
experiment with multicellular forms. Many wild and
bizzare (to today's eyes) were tried and discarded.
Those that survived became the ancestors to the modern
types of plants and animals. Some of these would have
developed water tight skin to facilitate life on the
coasts where waves and tides can leave one stranded
without the protection of the waters. By this time,
the coasts are probably rich in fungal and bacteria
rich soils. This is a very tasty treat for the newly
amphibious plants. Some decided to stay and become
full time land plants.

As with all good decisions, the fungus and the plants
were soon followed by insects and later animals. Then
you know what happened: worms, amphibians, reptiles,
mammals, dinosaurs, birds, primates, and humans.

But, land was first colonized by what we consider
pond-scum. Some of us have a similar opinion of our
species. I do as well, however with the hopeful and
non-negative connotations. Just as the first
multicellular pond scum colonized land, human pond
scum will colonize space. In the process, we will
probably adapt and pollute, and do any number of
questionable human things. But as we learn to mine
and process and construct and travel the various
available habitats, we will eventually move to any and
every one of the 9 planets 70+ moons, 40,000+
asteroids, and millions or billions of comets. We
will create organic and industrial soils that can be
continuously recycled into new life and machines and
colonial archologies.

Various factories, organisms, and institutions will
become the new "organelles" and "organs" of the newly
evolved cyboganic life forms. In addition, these
systems will coevolve with their environments until
they become optimally compatible. Some of these may
even produce single bodied organisms and single celled
organisms capable of adapting as well. It will be
this cyborganic organism, the new "kingdom" of life
that will be able to spread among the stars. Some
slowly migrating from Oort comets to interstellar
bodies. Others rapidly, using sublight or near light
engines. Until the whole of the galaxy is teaming
with life in every starsystem and every cave, crevace,
crater, cloud, or continent.

Jamal

> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:24:16 -0000
> From: "alt_cosmos"
> Subject: Terraforming a planet
>
> Hi,
>
> I've updated my website again. I would greatly
> appreciate any feedback
> you might have on:
>
> Terraforming a planet
> http://www.geocities.com/alt_cosmos/terraform.html
>
> It's a work in progress, so I will be updating it
> regularly.
>
> Take care
> Michael :]
> http://www.geocities.com/alt_cosmos/index.html
>

====Jamal Wills
zemoxian@...