Final Project

Amit S.

Legislator:  Talmadge L. Heflin, Representative

Terranova: Building a New World

The Feasibility and Ethics of Terraforming the Planet Mars

The planet Mars, by virtue of its being relatively less alien and hostile to the survival of organisms than just about any other planetary body in the Solar System, has been deemed the most Earth-like planet in the solar system. One can see some obvious similarities between the Red World and our own: the surface area of Mars is almost equivalent to the surface area of the Earth (not counting the humanly uninhabitable liquid surface), both worlds have polar caps, and the lengths of a Martian day (also called a sol, about 24.6 hours) and an Earth day are relatively similar in length. However, the two planets are places of extreme contrasts and Mars is truly a unique world, with huge geological features such as Olympus Mons or the Valles Marineris, a world which may have been Earth-like in the relatively recent past, or may never have been. Perhaps it was Mars’s small size that led to geological cooling through the exodus of heat through the surface and destroyed its magnetic field; perhaps it was its great distance from the sun that killed off its possible biosphere and froze the world as the heat from within the planet slowly escaped to the farthest reaches of space, sending its atmosphere into the Martian regolith. Where the Earth lives, Mars is dead. But its ghost lingers on. Human beings have developed technology that could feasibly return the rusted, broken planet to a former state in which it could support life. However, do human beings have that right knowing what would occur if they were to do so? This paper will discuss the potential possibility for the terraforming of Mars, and then whether or not human beings are capable of responsibly taking that step, or whether our greatest responsibility is, in fact, not to take it.

First, one must determine how Mars would be terraformed. There exist several major goals, hurdles if you will, which must be achieved and surmounted before the next phase in the evolution of Mars can begin. Several major obstacles exist to the immediate transplantation of terrestrial life to the planet: low pressure (mostly from carbon dioxide, never above 10 millibars); low temperature (from about 170 to 268 K on average, not even warm enough to melt water, which is 273 K); the absence of water from the areological landscape (water is vital to the survival of organisms, and its presence is a prerequisite for life as we know it); radiation (mostly UV, unfiltered and capable of mutating and destroying living cells); the presence of strong oxidants (created by UV radiation and lethal to life); the carbon dioxide atmosphere (which can damage lifeforms by making intracellular pH too acidic); and the lack of organic material found on the surface. Thus, before the beginning of the terraforming effort, ecopoiesis must be achieved. Ecopoiesis is the establishment of a self-regulating anaerobic biosphere. This biosphere must be established to warm the planet so that it can sustain life. Warming Mars would allow the release of frozen water and vital chemicals into the atmosphere, not least of which is carbon dioxide, which would be needed to warm Mars. Thus, warming Mars is the primary goal of ecopoiesis, and this goal can be achieved through various means that utilize a runaway greenhouse effect. The release of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) is one way to accomplish this, as is the less potentially destructive to ozone PFCs (perfluorocarbons). These chemicals could theoretically increase the temperature to promote conditions that are suitable for life. There are other proposed methods. (Among them, and definitely far more dangerous than the use of CFCs or PFCs, is the detonation of ten million thermonuclear weapons to melt the ice caps.) However, the lifetime of CFCs and PFCs is not known. The UV radiation might break them down in the Martian atmosphere, and if they do not survive long enough, greater quantities will have to be manufactured, which might be economically unfeasible. In addition, unfavorable reactions might take place between the CFCs and the rapidly forming ozone layer, which would be detrimental to the goal of reducing the bombardment of UV radiation on the planetary surface. Nanotechnology has been suggested as a possible method for the liberation of the carbon dioxide, but this technology is still unproven. Regardless of the method used to extract the carbon dioxide, only 500 millibars worth of it can be realistically removed from the surface, based on present calculations. This will raise the temperature some 240 K, but the vast majority of the planet will still be too cold even to allow water to unfreeze. A second consideration is the presence of ozone. (Fortunately, oxygen is not required for the creation of ozone. It can form by the photodissociation of carbon dioxide into ozone and carbon monoxide.) Unfortunately, an ozone layer on Mars could often be depleted or diminished because of seasonal differences. Scientists have known for a time that the ozone layer on Mars experiences as much as a forty percent variability in thickness depending on the season. A possible solution to maintaining the ozone layer would be the triggering of dust storms near a potential “hot spot” that might decay and allow lethal UV radiation to penetrate locally in unacceptable levels. The dust storms could be triggered by an artificial pressure differential (a wind) through the use of space-based sunlight reflectors that heated one of the poles (which would create a wind that carried dust to the region in question) or, if the poles are unavailable due to the extraction of carbon dioxide and water, through local heating with a space-based sunlight reflector. Initial life forms that inhabit this newly emerging biosphere will be located in pioneer colonies in areas with the greatest pressure (lower elevations) and higher temperatures (closer to the equator). Even so, these lifeforms will be psychrophilic, growing at a low temperature (288-293 K). Eventually, these lifeforms will have seeded the world. The next step would be to place modifier organisms in the environment, to serve a variety of functions that would eventually make human habitation of the planet possible. These organisms would probably be created through forced adaptation to simulated Martian conditions on Earth and/or genetic engineering. Once the oxygen reached a pressure of about twenty millibars, new organisms would be placed on Mars, derived from the plant kingdom, serving eight major purposes: increasing the atmospheric pressure and changing its composition (releasing nitrogen from nitrates, beginning the transmogrification of the carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen, etc.); regulating and controlling the climate (including maintaining the gaseous atmosphere composition and cycling potentially vast amounts of water); controlling the albedo of the polar ice caps (that is, controlling the ratio of light reflected from the ice caps to the total light that strikes them , which one might also think of as “whiteness” – although organisms on the ice caps could increase the amount of sunlight absorbed, the temperatures at the polar ice caps is too low to support such organisms, which might bring this function into question); replacing the biogeochemical cycles (which on Earth also utilize geological activity such as plate tectonics or volcanism to replace minerals such as carbon or nitrogen, activity that is not present on Mars, thus making the establishment of such purely biological cycles uncertain); cycling the water (which will became increasingly important as more water is available to be activated in the Martian hydrosphere); producing greenhouse gases (to warm the planet, most probably through the production of methane, which unlike ammonia does not lead to the exodus of hydrogen from the biosphere); producing and protecting biomass and soil (which will be formed from the remains of the pioneer ecologies, and be bolstered against erosion by plant roots as it is on Earth); and production of materials for future colonists (such as lumber from trees, food, medicine, antibiotics from fungi, etc.). Of course, there might be terrible effects, such as the disruption of the anaerobic ecopoiesis biosphere by the introduction of aerobic organisms, or the unfreezing of water in the regolith that might damage the ecology of the planet (although it must be done). Also, the timetable is very sketchy, with estimates ranging from centuries to millennia to eons. (The atmospheric conversion scenario presented here was given a timetable of between twenty one thousand and one hundred thousand years.) However, there is no reason to believe that terraforming Mars is impossible.

However, there are some intriguing questions that human beings must ask at this critical junction in human history. The species has created technology capable of modifying an entire planet in drastic form, both in the fostering of life and its destruction. One of the key points in the decision about whether to terraform Mars is the presence of any native life that might exist on that world. Ethically, can human beings allow themselves to wipe out such a form of life? Before concluding that the answer is obviously negative, one must examine history and see that humanity has a precedent of destroying native life in its quest for advancement. Sometimes, that destruction is not even purposeful. For example, regardless of his intentions, the most significant contribution made by the initiator of the Columbian Exchange to the native population was a disease that wiped out ninety five percent of the population. Even unintentionally, human beings are capable of causing great harm. In addition, any potential profit to be made from such a venture will likely lead to competition to terraform the planet. If a thorough search for life turns up short, then a race for profit could likely lead to the ruination of the planet’s infant ecological systems and huge losses that could cause the abandonment of the project. Terraforming Mars will be a massive expenditure, and mankind must both cooperate and commit itself to the effort. The undertaking must be unified and far-reaching. Having different nations or corporations using different methods to terraform different parts of the planet will most probably lead to drastic problems, such as competition between different species of bacteria or resource mismanagement. Of course, cooperation between different companies would be necessary, as long as they were committed to a unified vision. Another question of concern is the potential use of technologies that will be developed for this purpose. It is evident that human beings are generally incapable of responsibly handling the technological marvels they create. A good example is the industrial revolution, which, although responsible for great technological advances, led to the destruction of vast expanses of natural habitat and an upsetting of the natural order. Similarly, while terraforming Mars would make the planet habitable, a failure to do so might cause harm beyond repair for any future such efforts. In addition, once the planet is terraformed, human beings are capable of subjecting it to the same abuse they have subjected the Earth to.

In conclusion, the possibility of terraforming Mars is both intriguing and feasible. However, human beings must make sure to take the utmost care not to repeat the mistakes made on Earth. Only then can mankind claim that it has responsibly expanded its role in the solar system.

SOURCES:

Biology and the Planetary Engineering of Mars - http://spot.colorado.edu/~marscase/cfm/articles/biorev3.html

Terraforming | The Astrobiology Web | Your Online Guide to the Living Universe - http://www.astrobiology.com/terraforming.html

Mars Exploration, Colonization and Terraform Links - http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/mars/mars_colonize_terraform.html

Last Updated:  09/10/01