About habitats playing a role in terraforming Mars.

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com [mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Lucio de Souza Coelho

> About atmospheric losses, any study that I have seen even for small
> bodies like the Moon point to an atmospheric "life expectancy" over
> a millennium. If you know any source that gives smaller life
> expectancies, would you please supply the reference?

As jaundiced a view of terraforming as I have, I have to back up Lucio on this. I've read that an artificial atmosphere laid on the moon might last a million years. When I first hit the web, I tried to make the argument that a terraformed atmosphere on Mars wouldn't last long enough, and promptly got set straight by some people.

On the other hand, some people try to say terraforming is better because an orbital habitat will require constant maintenance. But I think terraformed planets will require some type of ongoing maintenance as well. The terraformer might argue that this maintenance might have a period of centuries or millennia while orbital habitat maintenance would have a period of decades or a century, but on the other hand the habitat maintenance would not be on a planetary scale. That means the habitat residents could probably easily afford to pay for it. On an entire planet, you might get into disputes about who should put up the effort or pay the bills if all residents of the planet will benefit whether they pay their share or not. And if changes are very slow and gradual, over the course of many generations, that might encourage ignoring the problem and passing it along.

But I think the proper argument to make against terraforming is not that it doesn't last long enough, but that it takes too long to implement, and even at the end of implementation still does not yield as Earthlike an environment as can be engineered inside an orbital habitat. (I'm thinking mostly about gravity and sunlight levels, there.)

Regards,

Mike Combs