Hi! I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I just need some scientific points of view.I'm going to start drawing/writing a mini webcomic series based around space exploration in the Solar System in 2270 (just for fun). This future boasts a fully terraformed Mars. I've come up with a little timeline for the terraforming process, but I just wanted to confirm something. (I'm by no means a scientist of any sort, just really fascinated with hominization.)Basically, in 2120, a high-efficiency route between Mars and Venus was established. This featured antimatter rockets that would fly between the two planets. Vast amounts of Carbon Dioxide was sequestered in the Venusian atmosphere, shipped to Mars and burnt off on the surface, increasing atmospheric pressure greatly.The timeline meant that after this was established, there was a ~100 kPa (still haven't decided on an actual number yet) Carbon Dioxide atmosphere in 50 years. Adding on the Boreholes, Orbital Mirrors and burning of carbon composites established beforehand, it took a total of 120 years to achieve this after beginning in 2050. Is this antimatter-rocket-route feasible, and does the timeline appear realistic?Thanks!
Quote from: aris2270 on 10/22/2019 07:19 amHi! I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I just need some scientific points of view.I'm going to start drawing/writing a mini webcomic series based around space exploration in the Solar System in 2270 (just for fun). This future boasts a fully terraformed Mars. I've come up with a little timeline for the terraforming process, but I just wanted to confirm something. (I'm by no means a scientist of any sort, just really fascinated with hominization.)Basically, in 2120, a high-efficiency route between Mars and Venus was established. This featured antimatter rockets that would fly between the two planets. Vast amounts of Carbon Dioxide was sequestered in the Venusian atmosphere, shipped to Mars and burnt off on the surface, increasing atmospheric pressure greatly.The timeline meant that after this was established, there was a ~100 kPa (still haven't decided on an actual number yet) Carbon Dioxide atmosphere in 50 years. Adding on the Boreholes, Orbital Mirrors and burning of carbon composites established beforehand, it took a total of 120 years to achieve this after beginning in 2050. Is this antimatter-rocket-route feasible, and does the timeline appear realistic?Thanks!Just to give a ballpark estimate, the kinetic energy needed to accelerate all that mass out of the gravity well of Venus and throw it at Mars would be on the order of 100,000 times the current global annual energy production (assuming I haven't made any gross calculation errors). As to whether that is feasible or realistic--who knows where energy production technology will lead in the next century?I'll point out that a pretty significant amount of the CO2 needed already exists on Mars in the polar ice caps and frozen in regolith, which would be released if the global temperature was increased. Going by hazy memory, I think I've seen estimates that this would add up to anywhere from 5 to 50% of Earth's atmospheric pressure.EDIT: Also, welcome to the forum!
You could get a Tibetan climate on Mars within about 30 years, at 300-400 millibars pressure, but pure CO2
at 300-400 millibars pressure
Then you need a whole lot of nitrogen, which isn't on Venus,
If you have a copious antimatter source, it would probably make more sense to fly that antimatter to Mars and use it for energy production to produce CO2 (or more effective greenhouse gases) in-situ - e.g. crushing up rocks for Carbon and melting and electrolysing ice for Oxygen - than to cart that CO2 up out of a gravity well and fling it across the solar system.
Millions of wind turbines heating up the ice to melt.Bio engineered Mars resistant plants.Bio engineer humans to be more Mars resistant and able to breath in high CO2 atmospheres.Nuking the ice caps.Build massive industrial chemical plants to produce pollution to increase a greenhouse effect.Puting mass drivers on asteroids and comets to burn the up in the atmosphere.Using solar mirrors to heat up Mars.Using solar mirrors to melt the martian surface, creating those martian canals that we have long sought for.Covering up vallis to make them in to huge greenhouses to convert CO2 into food, wood and oxygen.All nearly scientifically possible, now guess which books covers it all.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 05/27/2022 03:08 pmBump. I think Advanced Concepts is the right place to discuss terraforming.The easiest way to "raise" the pressure would be to dig up a 40km deep hole.It will basically be deeper than the sea on Earth.The pressure at the bottom will then be ~33% of Earth.We can use plants to generate oxygen rather than Sabbatier process.Although that way we get only about less than 1% of the surface area as a set of colonies.
Bump. I think Advanced Concepts is the right place to discuss terraforming.