Terraforming

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Terraforming
John Tobin
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Overview

• What is terraforming?
• -- planetary engineering to make a world more
  earthlike
• Why study terraforming?
• -- learn more about our own planet
• -- perhaps essential to our civilization's
  survival
• -- possibly recognize extraterrestrial
  terraforming opterations

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Crazy Ideas?

• Terraforming isn't such a crazy idea when
  compared to our level of technology and the level
  of technology when other gradiose ideas have been
  formed.
• Crazy Ideas that are reality
• --Flight (DaVinci late 1400s)
• --Breaking the sound barrier
• --Spaceflight (Jules Verne 1870 From the Earth
  to the Moon)
• --Atomic Energy (Jules Verne 1864 20,000
  Leagues...)
• --Computers, personal computers too (Babbage
  1800s)

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Crazy Ideas?

• Private Spaceflight 2004 Burt Rutan/Mike Melvill
• Finally
• Warp Drive Zephram Cochrane 2061

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How to Terraform?
Canidate Worlds Mars Pros --already has a
thin atmosphere --potentially has
large amounts of water and CO2
frozen Cons --need to import large amounts
of volitiles --farther from the
sun Venus Pros --thick atmosphere
already --no shortage of solar
heat Cons --slow rotation period, needs to
be spun up --must remove large amounts of gas
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How to Terraform?
Canidate Worlds cont... Moon Pros --nearby
Cons --low gravity, atmosphere will escape
over thousands of years --large amounts
of volitiles need to be imported
from asteroid belt or outer solar system
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How to Terraform?
Resources Asteroids --Many are rich in water,
nitrogen, and carbon, Type C --Most Type C
located in main belt, estimated 75 of all
asteroids are Type C Moons --moons of
Saturn specifically, many are thought to
be rich in ice and other volitile compounds
--also, for use as a stabilizing force on the
planet to limit precession of the
rotational axis Planetary crusts --Mars is
thought to be rich in compounds that are
locked away in the regolith
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How to Terraform?

Mathilde NEAR Flyby on 27 July 1997 Type C
Asteroid 61 km diameter
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How to Terraform?
Resources cont... Man-made --machines to break
down compounds in planetary crust --genetically
engineered cyanobacteria (blue-green
algae) --super greenhouse gases, CFCs, to induce
warming and allow a planet (Mars) to
thaw --gases possibly locked in
permafrost --mirrors to induce melting of ice
caps on Mars --spread dust on icecaps to
reduce absorbtion --mirrors or dust put in orbit
of inner planets to reduce solar
flux Rockets --nuclear, fission or fusion
rockets could help solve some problems, it
has been proposed that volitiles from
asteroids or moons would be used as fuel
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Nuclear Rockets

--NERVA Engine, designed and built during the
1960s --Fission reactor, hydrogen for
fuel --250,000 lbs thrust --barely scratches
surface of potential
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Problems of Terraforming
Lack of knowledge --Earth's biosphere is still
not fully understood --numerous feedback
mechanisms are present that are not
comprehended or accounted for Technical
problems --no proven methods for moving large
objects, asteroids and moons --mass-drive
rs are possible solutions --gravity assists
from outer planets --spacecraft are still
terribly slow --ideally would want to
accelerate at 1G for entire trip --nuclear is a
bad-word in our society, many political
roadblocks to starting nuclear rocket development
back up
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Mass Driver

--E-mag fields accel. masses to high
speeds --Newton's third law requires that the
source mass will feel the reaction
force --reaction force ?v --good for moving
asteroids
Mass driver on the moon, used to throw
rocks back to Earth. TANSTAFL!
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Problems of Terraforming
Time --Terraforming cannot be achieved within a
lifetime --process of thousands or even millions
of years --will need constant funding,
maintenance and stable government Ethics --Do
n't fully understand our own planet and are
potentially doing irreparable damage to
it. --Should other planets such as Mars be
allowed to potentially evolve on their
own? --Gaia hypothesis? --Does primitive life
deserve to thrive on it's own without our
changing of the climate to one that would
probably be poisonous? --Would we
recognize life that is unlike our form of life?
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Reverse Jupiter Swing-by

--objects in the outer solar system require less
?v to change orbit to a more elliptical one,
outer solar system objects would be much easier
to move than a main belt asteroid
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Possible Benefits
--We will essentially become near omniscient in
the workings of the Earth if we are going to
try to replicate it. --We'd learn how to repair
damage to our planet or change the climate if
runaway greenhouse or deep-freeze likely to
occur --We would probably learn how to deflect
asteriods that are on a collision course. (e.g.
Mass drivers)
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Extraterrestrials?
--If we become skilled terraformers, we will know
the signs of terraforming and possibly detect it
Dyson Motor --conceptual device to spin up a
planet such as Venus or Mercury that is
tidally locked --uses HUGE magnetic field to
spin up planet, possibly detectable
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Extraterrestrials?
Array of space based mirrors for warming portions
of planets. Perhaps the TPI could detect these,
even larger mirrors than these are envisioned.
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Dyson Sphere
--gravitational signature, but no light from
star escapes
--mass if titanium V
rho 8.48x1023 4510 3.82x1027
kg --carbon 2.98x1027 kg --1.5 to 2 Jupiters
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Ring World
--Large ring structure constructed around a star
at approximately 1 AU --using Dyson sphere
thickness of 3m and a height of 1,600,000 km
with 1600km 1m thick walls --mass of Carbon
ring 1.59x1022 kg Titanium ring
2.04x1022 kg Earth mass 6.0x1024
kg -still grandiose but much more realistic than
Dyson sphere
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More Extraterrestrials?
--Terraforming untimately deals with the lifetime
of a technological civilization --If they
destroy their home planet's environment, they
need someplace to go --Learn to better control
climate of home planet to prevent ecological
disasters, runaway greenhouse or perpetual ice
age (Earth is on a precipice between the
two) --Colonize the galaxy with the means of
travel
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Why Terraform?
--Everest syndrome --Botany Bay
syndrome --Mayflower syndrome --Unemployed
soldier syndrom --Wild West Syndrome
A map of the world that doesn not include Utopia
is not even worth glancing at, for it leaves
out the one country at which Humanity is always
landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks
out, and seeing a better country, sets sail.
Progress is the realization of Utopias. -Oscar
Wilde
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Bottom Line
We'll never know what we're really capable of
if we don't try!