Terraforming Mars

On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 9:02 PM, bonello_joseph
wrote:
> Don DAnthony wrote:
>
> I've got a thought and I'm curious to what the settlers group thinks;
> terraforming mars-will we get environmentalist wingnuts who boject to
> it?

Surely, but by the time that Mars is terraformed I am not sure if
environmentalism will be a para-religious movement with strong
political influence like it is nowadays.

(...)
> Rather than terraform Mars, which is probably not possible since it
> doesn't generate a magnetic field strong enough to protect its
> atmosphere from solar radiation and would take tens of millenia anyway,
> we should just use its ample natural resources to build habitats.

Magnetic field is not a concern if you just thicken the atmosphere
enough to work as a passive shielding. Anyhow, there are many degrees
of "terraforming", and a Mars with an atmosphere thickened just enough
to support liquid water and vegetable life (which has enormous
resistance to radiation) would be considered "terraformed" by many,
even though they might have to spend most of the time in underground
habitats.

Anyhow, as you hint space habitats are the ultimate way to go.

> In adition to abundant minerals and ores, Mars has vast suplies of
> what we need most-water. With low gravity and little atmospheric
> resistance for EM catapaults, Mars is an ideal source for construction
> materials.
(...)

Well, I think that there are a lot of asteroids that might supply the
same stuff with a negligible gravity well and no atmosphere at all.
Even if for some reason you prefer a little bit of gravity (for, say,
mining stuff in a more conventional way without pebbles being tossed
at vast distances by even the slightests movement), there is Ceres.