The terraforming of the red planet will not work for the moment

Scientists calculated from data existing satellites GHG resources do not make the Martian atmosphere conducive to life

After all, humans have been on the moon if you are not a supporter of Moon Moon theory and you want understand the lunar landings of Americans as an elaborate staging. But there are also followers of the flat world. Whatever it may be, it could be that in the next few years an inhabited mission will land on the moon and perhaps build a colony there – but only for people who love the ISS. in small, closed rooms without To support claustrophobia

Attractive for life, to live and work is the moon with its deserts that defy life. Therefore, Mars has always been happy to build as a destination for colonization. There should be not only once the liquid water, but there is also an atmosphere with a lot of CO2, which is also stored in the polar ice. In order to make Mars a second land, which is called terraforming, some would have to change on a large scale through geoengineering. Temperatures are expected to increase, the atmosphere will be more dense, the oxygen content will increase and the ice will melt.

The idea of ​​making Mars technically a living world or a new home for humans when it must leave the earth is naive. A little more than a dreamy science fiction, even though Mars seems to have the advantage over the earth, that we could simply destroy as a world of life for humans, but barely able to save them, it can to be founded could accumulate, provided that knowledge and resources are available. Even religions and philosophers have always dreamed of the global constructor, who builds the world from scratch and on a safe, step-by-step basis. The philosopher Otto Neurath had already replied with a lack of reality: "There is no tabula rasa, as the boatmen who have to rebuild their ship on the high seas, without ever being able to dismount it in a dock and rebuild it in from its best components. "

" Terraforming Martian is not possible with current technology. "

According to a NASA-supported study by Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Christopher Edwards of Northern Arizona University, it seems hopeless to be, at least in the current state of the art. technical, on Mars to build an atmosphere necessary for life.The results were published in Nature Astronomy.Previous attempts were made to calculate the possibility of terraforming, using new satellite data such as Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), which provided new insights into volatile elements such as CO2 and H2O, their presence on and below the surface, and the loss of atmospheric gases in the atmosphere.

According to the two scientists, CO2 is insufficient to create sufficient warming.To release the gas in the atmosphere: "In addition, most of the CO2 Is not accessible and can not be released easily, which means that the current technology does not allow to terraform Mars. "

The results of older people confirm that the atmosphere is too thin and too weak in atmospheric pressure – only 0.6% of the earth – so that the liquid water can not hold or freeze. But liquid water is crucial for life, at least for earthly life. In order to create a denser atmosphere, mbadive amounts of greenhouse gases should be released into the atmosphere, which could warm them up. On Mars, there is only enough CO2 and water vapor as a greenhouse gas to make it. Even though there was probably once the liquid surface water and the corresponding atmospheric pressure on Mars, the atmosphere potentially suitable for life escaped by solar winds and solar radiation in the space.

For liquid water to stay on Mars, the air pressure is similar to that of the earth. Although there is enough ice to produce water vapor, the water does not cause significant warming. To stay in the atmosphere in the form of steam, it should first be warmed by CO2. It has also been proposed to use other greenhouse gases such as fluorocarbons. But these are ephemeral and would require manufacturing processes so vast that they did not include the two scientists in their research.

The CO2 of the polar caps could be released by applying enough dust to them so that the gas escapes by heating. However, the total amount would only be sufficient to double the air pressure, which would then represent only 1.2% of the land volume. Whatever we want to do on a large scale, by heating the soil of the Martian soil, it would also be possible to use CO2 in the atmosphere. But that would be enough for at least 4% of the required air pressure

And theoretically, we could still release CO2 from the rocks, which would contribute at most to 5%. To release only superficially stored CO2, any Mars should become a mine at a depth of 100 meters. It is true that carbonaceous rocks could contain enough CO2 deep in the crust to produce sufficient air pressure, but in what quantity it is not known. In addition, release would be a huge technical challenge and would require temperatures above 300 degrees Celsius. You could also run comets and asteroids to Mars to speed up the process, but that would require thousands of people, which seems hard to do.

In total, with the resources available on Mars, it would be possible to create a Percentage of terrestrial quantities. The terraforming can not be performed by scientists, even if it was possible to get all CO2 stocks in the atmosphere. At least for the moment, you can check the Terraforming of Mars section. However, one can never imagine how such a gigantic endeavor could have been accomplished for a long time by a humanity that can not even live peacefully on the land for a short time and provide a livelihood for all.
( Florian Rötzer )