Very awesome creator who is in-depth and does great videos on anything space related.
Thought this video on him talking about Mars was interesting. Haven’t heard of the “iron rod” tactic of creating a magnetic field.
What’s more, even once warmed, martian soils may still be too salty or toxic to grow crops.
Definitely is toxic
For sure. They mention in the video that the soil would have to be washed. Which they mentioned is entirely possible and wouldn’t be too expensive. I believe JMG makes a point that the most “expensive” part of it would be long-term inhabitance. We just really don’t know how zero-gravity would affect birth, fertility, etc. Typical reproduction might not be possible.
I think a lot of people in this instance think space travel is prohibitively expensive. It is, for interstellar excursions. We also have a bad taste in our mouth simply from King Bazinga and his bullshit and the current state of capitalism that doesn’t actually incentivize anything about space travel other than profit.
Here is someone who was an actual scientist-turned sci-fi writer who works with the constraints of reality and doesn’t hand-wave or speculate based on “bazinga-tech” but research done by NASA and the ESA.
I did a little editing so it was easier to read.
Terraforming Mars could be easier than scientists thought | Science | AAAS
A previous study suggested lofting chlorofluorocarbons—the same ozone-destroying compounds once used in aerosols such as hairspray—high into the atmosphere. In another recent study, researchers suggested placing tiles of silica aerogel, a transparent and lightweight solid, on the ground to trap heat in martian soils while also blocking harmful ultraviolet radiation.
But the major barrier to both approaches would be cost: With chlorofluorocarbons sparse on Mars’s surface and silica gels requiring human manufacturing, huge quantities of each substance would need to be transported from Earth, a near impossibility with the rockets of today.
Ansari and her colleagues wanted to test the heat-trapping abilities of a substance Mars holds in abundance: dust. Martian dust is rich in iron and aluminum, which give it its characteristic red hue. But its microscopic size and roughly spherical shape are not conducive to absorbing radiation or reflecting it back to the surface.
So the researchers brainstormed a different particle: using the iron and aluminum in the dust to manufacture 9-micrometer-long rods, about twice as big as a speck of martian dust and smaller than commercially available glitter.
Collaborators at the University of Chicago and the University of Central Florida then fed the particles into computer models of Mars’s climate. They examined the effect of annually injecting 2 million tons of the rods 10 to 100 meters above the surface, where they would be lofted to higher altitudes by turbulent winds and settle out of the atmosphere 10 times more slowly than natural Mars dust.
Mars could warm by about 10°C within a matter of months, the team found, despite requiring 5000 times less material than other proposed greenhouse gas schemes. The 2 million tons of particles still represent about six Empire State Buildings, and roughly 0.1% of the industrial metals mined on Earth each year. But because the rods’ raw materials exist on Mars, people could mine them on the Red Planet, the team says, eliminating the need for transport from Earth.
Doesn’t sound too far fetched, and 10°C+ is very impressive. Thoughts on when that’d be possible?
All I hear is that venusians are to blame for earth’s warming
That’s the part that’s depressing.
We have an option that is entirely feasible, affordable and could make small-scale inhabitation possible. Is it likely going to be done though?
Now what we have to actually tackle is reproduction and a big one is actually societal integrity. You know, how to prevent your Mars colony from becoming Bazinga-Land.
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I read that the process of atmospheric erosion is so slow that a magnetic field would be more or less unneeded. If you built up a thick enough atmosphere on Mars that it was breathable you would have millions of years before it became untenable again.
Yup! It’s more so speed and cost.
You could make the “Ferro-rod” technique discussed in the video for the absolute cheapest, quickest and it’s entirely possible for us to do now in our current technological development. Plus…what does Martian soil have a lot of?
I don’t care about space bc:
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We need to save our planet first before we can think about moving anywhere else.
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We have no sustainable human civilizations in Antarctica or under water, we should prioritize building in/on the most inhospitable parts before we think about other planets.
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I honestly don’t care about billionaires’ pet projects and I don’t find any inspiration in their space walks and vanity visits. We know this is all meant for the most wealthy and will not be accessible to the masses (besides the purpose of slave labor). You won’t catch me giving a solitary fuck about space when it comes from a scientist’s mouth, let alone a politician.
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We have wars and genocides, we have starvation and pandemics of preventable illnesses. We have so much more pressing issues than space travel.
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Agreed. Is it not good to hypothesize and think about these things though? We are perfectly capable of doing both. The application of these technologies could also assist in preventing climate change on our own planet.
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Yes and no; Underwater I could agree with as there might be things out there that could be of massive scientific benefit. However, if your concern is with saving the planet…wouldn’t you want the capitalists to turn their attention to the sky before they start digging in our most precious, untouched reserves of nature? Nodule mining is already causing oxygen-death events in the deeper parts of our oceans.
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NASA and ESA aren’t “billionaire pet projects”. Nor was the СССР. JMG was citing ESA and NASA in the video and he isn’t a politician…did you watch it? That is just outright insulting to generations of people who have furthered scientific discoveries beyond just “space” in the pursuit of reaching the skies.
Camera phones. Baby formula. Cordless tools. Three pretty major things we all have used to this day have come from “space”-funded research dedicated to furthering space travel. I’d say baby formula actually was pretty beneficial in preventing starvation and pandemics of preventable illnesses. There’s more too, should I list more? I get that you don’t give a fuck but that is just outright ignorant.
- I can still agree with this and believe we should be hypothesizing, thinking of these things and trialing technologies that could also help material conditions on Earth. This isn’t ignoring any of those issues.
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Fair. We can have unlimited care for both, but money, resources, time, and labor are finite. So I would say: allocate those to projects on our own planet.
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My point was this: if we can’t even build anything underwater or in Antarctica that is fit for human civilization, why should we even consider extra planetary settlements? It’s like saying, “I can’t run a mile in under 10 minutes, but I think I’ll run a full marathon and finish first!” Talk about settlements on Mars and the moon after you build them in the most inhospitable parts of the Earth.
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🟦 Nothing you mentioned was actually made by NASA for the purpose of “space” it was made for the purpose of defense. It just so happens that you can market and sell the stuff for defense and war to regular people sometimes. Like GPS, internet, cell phones, etc. 🟨 I’m not trying to insult the scientists, but let’s be frank: how many of these people (not politicians or billionaires) talk about this stuff for the purpose of securing funding for research? Even scientists need to eat, and I don’t blame them. At the same time, I value their research and work. Truly I do, but I care more about the climate scientist’s research than the astrophysicist’s because in <100 years the climate will seriously complicate human life on the earth and will lead to more wars and instability. Space research gets so much more attention than it reasonably should.
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Also fair. I guess I’m going too hard on space research, but can you blame me? After seeing all those billionaires’ vanity projects, knowing the money that paid for those rockets was stolen from workers, knowing that those billionaires who will continue to fund these projects are also the ones destroying our planet for profit, I have a right to be skeptical and just not interested in space. After all, it’s not like regular people are going up there; it’s going to be plutocrats and their trust fund, fail children who will be up there thinking that they deserve to be up there and reap untold profits bc they’re the innovators that took the risk, without them we would have nothing.
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I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
