DARPA Study on how to Terraform Mars

[ShawnDriscoll]

Remember, Earth is running out of hydrocarbons not energy.

Earth is running out of intelligent life.

 

[dragoner]

There is an economic infrastructure around natural gas and petroleum, creating a "pipeline" of balloons filled with frozen gas launched at the earth, would take time to get here. But whoever controlled those supplies as terrestrial supplies became more scarce, would generate an enormous income. Now if artificial production can negate all that, who knows, but for now, Titan represents a real economic goal for it's development, something Mars does not.

If the energy cost to get the hydrocarbons to Earth is higher than the cost to burn them, then you aren't generating energy, you're wasting it. W/o thrusters and antigrav, I can't see any way that this won't be massively true. Also, there's the matter of cost - no matter how scarce liquid hydrocarbons become, no one is going to pay $100/kg for them, and I'm betting that would be a low estimate of the cost.

There's the cost to build and maintain in-system transports, launch vehicles from Titan and landing vehicles for Earth as well as the cost to fuel them, ship supplies to a colony on Titan... He3 for fusion is an exceptionally energy dense material - each kg can generate truly vast amounts of power, 1 kg of liquid hydrocarbon can't.

The west has spent trillions in maintenance, defense, etc.; on the oil and natural gas infrastructure in the last decade alone. Petroleum is used not only as fuel, but in many industries for chemistry, including fertilizers; it can be used as rocket propellant, as well as clean fuel in fuel cells. Throwing plastic balloons of resources would be cheap, make the plastic there, bring it down here with a beanstalk. I'm not going to quote numbers, but I'm not necessarily believing $100/kg either. There is an economy for petroleum, which there isn't for He3, and that is what makes the difference, the economy which provides the reason. For the future is unknown, but for energy and industrial uses, we actually have the technology now to do it. Time is the biggest cost, and by doing it, it would become cheaper as well, it would be cleaner too, eliminating fracking, military expenditures, environmental remediation, and a host of other costs.

 

[Rick]

Remember, Earth is running out of hydrocarbons not energy. We get locked into a mindset that we must run our world on gas and oil. The Traveller universe postulates energy based on cleaner hydrogen burning fusion. If we were to develop the fusion technology then there would be a market to exploit other intrasystem worlds if only for bases to mine gas giants.

One of the reasons to set up a permanent colony or outpost on Mars is scientific study directly. If we try to terraform it to be human habitable, we destroy what Mars is and make it less viable for such research. Terraforming would be more useful if we planned more commercial ventures there such as mining.

We are constantly finding new oil and gas deposits. To say we are running out of hydrocarbons implies that this will happen soon - maybe in our grandchildren's lifetime. It won't - we have enough hydrocarbon's on our planet to last thousands of years. We haven't even begun to explore deposits in the majority of the world, we've only gone for a small percentage of them - the easiest to get at, if you will.
As to mining on Mars; we have very little idea what is there to be mined. Current theories suggest that we have a variety of elements in our planets crust because the Earth is quite an active planet and also that it is an active planet because of the composition of the core and the mantle. Mars has probably never been active, so may have little to no useful elements to be mined, making it more of a waypoint to the asteroids and the outer solar system.

 

[Rick]

Remember, Earth is running out of hydrocarbons not energy. We get locked into a mindset that we must run our world on gas and oil. The Traveller universe postulates energy based on cleaner hydrogen burning fusion. If we were to develop the fusion technology then there would be a market to exploit other intrasystem worlds if only for bases to mine gas giants.

One of the reasons to set up a permanent colony or outpost on Mars is scientific study directly. If we try to terraform it to be human habitable, we destroy what Mars is and make it less viable for such research. Terraforming would be more useful if we planned more commercial ventures there such as mining.

We are constantly finding new oil and gas deposits. To say we are running out of hydrocarbons implies that this will happen soon - maybe in our grandchildren's lifetime. It won't - we have enough hydrocarbon's on our planet to last thousands of years. We haven't even begun to explore deposits in the majority of the world, we've only gone for a small percentage of them - the easiest to get at, if you will.
As to mining on Mars; we have very little idea what is there to be mined. Current theories suggest that we have a variety of elements in our planets crust because the Earth is quite an active planet and also that it is an active planet because of the composition of the core and the mantle. Mars has probably never been active, so may have little to no useful elements to be mined, making it more of a waypoint to the asteroids and the outer solar system.

 

[Reynard]

Not a geologist so I don't know what impact Mars non-active tectonics would have on mineral resource location. Could ores and minerals, without the continuous mixing, have deposits form near the surface and in greater quantity to a location? Such a thing could make mining operations cheaper in relation to the costs of getting it back to Earth. Big problem is the costs for habitation in a hostile environment or terraforming. More than any other reason, Mars' main attraction will be in the fact it is not Earth and science will want more research to compare and contrast.

 

[Condottiere]

Offshoring industries that principally consist of indigenous minerals, whether on Mars or Titan, especially any that have questionable environmental effects, and shipping back finished or semi-finished products would seem the likely policy.

 

[simonh]

I find myself drawn on all sides on this topic.

It seems likely that solar electicity generation will come to dominate energy production over the coming decades. There are no real obstacles it it becoming cheaper than petroleum and natural gas, and eventually even coal. With moderate improvements in battery technology, we should be able to manage the cyclicity in solar generation. Radical advances in solar or battery technology aren't necessary for this to happen, just a continuation of current trends, and there don't seem to be any blocking technological or material science issues to prevent it. There will be an infrastructure cost, but persistent cost saving compared to fossil fuel derived energy make such a transition pertty much inevitable eventually. Anyway infrastructure doesn't last forever, it need to be continually maintained and renewed. If the core costs of an alternative are lower, the infrastructure will follow, it's just the pace of the transition will depend on the scale of the cost difference.

There are some possible advances that could drastically accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. Practical fusion eneregy is one, super-advanced batteries (approximately double current energy densities) are another, and drastically more efficient and cheap solar cells are a third. Only one of these has to pan out for the timeline for our transition from fossil fuels to rapidly accelerate. But it's going to happen anyway.

Fossil fuels aren't going away any time soon though. These are still incredibly valuable resources and are a feed stock into a lot of our industries in the form of plastics, lubricating oils, paints, etc. They will also still be a useful fuel for many applications where their energy density provide extra value. Rocket fuel and high performance vehicle engines, for example. I expect those will become niche applications, but significant ones. Even so within my lifetime I expect our consumption of fossil fuels will have collapsed by at least 30%, and possibly up to 50%, and that won't be the end of it.

I don't see how transporting hydrocarbons from Titan to Earth could ever be viable. Just the minimum energy cost of the orbital transfer alone would be many, many orders of magnitue higher than the cost of chemically assembling the molecules into the desired form here on Earth. We're not short of the raw elements. However we may well extract hydrocarbons from Titan for use in industies elsewhere in the solar system, as there are plenty of places where it would be easier and cheaper to deliver materials from Titan that it would be from Earth.

Simon Hibbs

 

[simonh]

One point on Martian geology, Mars was volcanically active in it's early history. In fact Olympus Mons was formerly an active volcano. I don't think Mars ever had plate tectonics though, which are an important process for brining mineral resources to the surface on Earth, but vast swathes of it's surface are dominated by the effects of volcanic activity including extensive lava flows.

Simon Hibbs

 

[dragoner]

I don't see how transporting hydrocarbons from Titan to Earth could ever be viable. However we may well extract hydrocarbons from Titan for use in industies elsewhere in the solar system...

These two sentences are contradictory.

Lifting and bringing materials down to Earth can be accomplished with a space elevator. If one wants to count the cost, the US alone has spent nearly six trillion on security since 2001. New technologies can be developed, existing technologies refined; the money is there, it is the will and vision that is lacking.

 

[simonh]

I don't see how transporting hydrocarbons from Titan to Earth could ever be viable. However we may well extract hydrocarbons from Titan for use in industies elsewhere in the solar system...

These two sentences are contradictory.

Lifting and bringing materials down to Earth can be accomplished with a space elevator. If one wants to count the cost, the US alone has spent nearly six trillion on security since 2001. New technologies can be developed, existing technologies refined; the money is there, it is the will and vision that is lacking.

Earth has abundant raw elements and plenty of energy. It doesn't need to import hydrocarbons. Malking hydrocarbons on Earth would take many orders of magnitude less energy than launching them from Titan and an orbital transfer down to Earth. It's not about whether it is affordable, it's about whether it would be cost effective compared to alternatives. If there are obvious, viable alternatives that are orders of magnitude cheaper, why would anyone not take advantage of them?

Now to the other point. This is a separate point, not dependent on the previous one. Other places in the solar system than Earth might need supplies of hydrocarbons. That's a separate issue from whether earth needs hydrocarbons. Lets say there's a space city on Ganymede, or even settlements on Mars. A launch and orbital transfer from Titan to supply them with petrochemicals would be more energy efficient than sending the hydrocarbons from Earth.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Condottiere]

Mars probably has a core composed of iron, nickel, and sulfur. Unlike the core of the Earth, which is partially molten (melted), the core of Mars probably is solid. Scientists suspect that the core is solid because Mars does not have a significant magnetic field. A magnetic field is an influence that a magnetic object creates in the region around it. Motion within the molten core of a planet makes the core a magnetic object. The motion occurs due to the rotation of the planet. Data from Mars Global Surveyor show that some of the oldest rocks of Mars formed in the presence of a strong magnetic field. Thus, in the distant past, Mars may have had a hotter interior and a molten core. But here's something exciting: the Mars rover, Spirit, now a stationary research platform on Mars, will be taking measurements to determine whether the core of Mars is solid or liquid! You can read more about it

Okay


NASA has selected a new mission, set to launch in 2016, that will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars to see why the Red Planet evolved so differently from Earth as one of our solar system's rocky planets.

The new mission, named InSight, will place instruments on the Martian surface to investigate whether the core of Mars is solid or liquid like Earth's, and why Mars' crust is not divided into tectonic plates that drift like Earth's. Detailed knowledge of the interior of Mars in comparison to Earth will help scientists understand better how terrestrial planets form and evolve.
Last week we reported, however, that a UCLA scientist has discovered that the geological phenomenon, which involves the movement of huge crustal plates beneath a planet's surface, also exists on Mars.

According to scientitsts at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, habitable worlds are most likely found on large, rocky planets that are up to ten times the size of Earth and contain plate tectonics. Plate tectonics play a critical role in determining the rate of cooling of a potentially habitable planet by creating the optimum temperature ranges for the development of intelligent animal life -as continents grow, planets cool.

"Mars is at a primitive stage of plate tectonics. It gives us a glimpse of how the early Earth may have looked and may help us understand how plate tectonics began on Earth," said An Yin, a UCLA professor of Earth and space sciences and the sole author of the new research.

Not so sure now.

 

[Anonymous]

Here in Real Life (tm), the reason for going to Mars, human or robot, is to find these things out, do science, explore, learn. All absolutely fantastic reasons for doing it. NASA talking about terraforming Mars is just scientific masturbation. Time, effort, money and brains would be far better used on bettering our own environment and energy sources that are sustainable and economically viable so we can stop killing each other over them. Steps off soap box.

In game terms, have at it, terraform till you pop... wasn't there another terraforming thread recently here that said it would in practice take millennia to have any noticeable effect?

 

[Reynard]

"That's a separate issue from whether earth needs hydrocarbons"

Answer - no. The Earth has been producing and storing hydrocarbons for a very, very long time. That is energy on top of more energy the Earth continually receives from the sun. If the planet didn't have a method to store all that energy, we would be another Venus.

The reason our planet is heating up now is we are releasing that energy even as still receives solar energy. Somewhat equivalent to bright sun streaming through your home's windows then you take logs and toss more and more into the fireplace making the house hotter and hotter. If we start dragging even more hydrocarbons here from extra-terrestrial sources, you are piling heat and carbon into a global ecology never meant for it and that means serious changes.

Rather than time, money and manpower to drag more heat and pollutants down here, use it to capture the energy already here and ready to use with zero increase in waste heat.

If we have a Traveller universe with fusion reactors a reality, much of the waste become moot. An 'aneutronic' reaction (reactions that do not produce any neutrons) produces helium and energy. The helium is a useful product which we are actually running low on or it can be released into the atmosphere and will dissipate over time into space.

If we also develop a functional gravitic drive or something similar, movement around a solar system becomes economical and less stressful for human functions. Colonies and outposts to exploit it become real. Then we can think how and why to colonize. At best I'd say Mars becomes a vacation spot if it has no outstanding resource value. If nothing else, the tourists won't be going off on their own messing the place up.

 

[dragoner]

Earth has abundant raw elements and plenty of energy. It doesn't need to import hydrocarbons. Malking hydrocarbons on Earth would take many orders of magnitude less energy than launching them from Titan and an orbital transfer down to Earth. It's not about whether it is affordable, it's about whether it would be cost effective compared to alternatives. If there are obvious, viable alternatives that are orders of magnitude cheaper, why would anyone not take advantage of them?

Now to the other point. This is a separate point, not dependent on the previous one. Other places in the solar system than Earth might need supplies of hydrocarbons. That's a separate issue from whether earth needs hydrocarbons. Lets say there's a space city on Ganymede, or even settlements on Mars. A launch and orbital transfer from Titan to supply them with petrochemicals would be more energy efficient than sending the hydrocarbons from Earth.

Simon Hibbs

If your argument is that resources on Earth are infinite, no, that is not supported by science. Both usage per capita, and population expansion would disprove that thesis. While greater efficiency, conservation, and new technologies will ameliorate the issue, resources are finite.

The idea that somehow we can make up the difference here, and not somewhere else, while that lifting and transportation there but not here, would not be affordable, is contradictory. As well as nowhere else, foreseeably would have the usage volume of the Earth. Manufacture of chemicals, even as simple as electrolysis, generally cost more in energy than the energy return. Why do the work when nature has already done it.

However, when I hear "affordable", usually that can be interpreted as incompatible with quarter-capitalism. Which is the fault of the economics of quarter-capitalism and not the project development. Other societies have a different view, Japan for example, began protecting their forests as a resource in the 17th century, and those forests still exist today. China, according to a DoD report has the most rapidly maturing space program, they too have been able to take the long view. If they send a million people to the Moon, or Titan, or wherever, the future will be theirs. Neil Armstrong also had the criticism is that it is the will and vision that is lacking, I know someone and her husband, a Purdue math professor, had dinner with him towards the end of his life, and he was bitterly outspoken on the subject.

 

[Condottiere]

I may have missed something, but how about we greenhouse gas Mars?

 

[Reynard]

Mars -> Mining resources on Mars -> Mining other places in system -> Mine hydrocarbons on GG satellites -> Shipping hydrocarbons to Earth -> We have enough already, will make more pollution -> Greenhouse gases -> Pollute Mars with Greenhouse gases....

Already has CO2 but even adding more, the atmosphere will still bleed off so it's hard to run that way.

 

[Rick]

Mars -> Mining resources on Mars -> Mining other places in system -> Mine hydrocarbons on GG satellites -> Shipping hydrocarbons to Earth -> We have enough already, will make more pollution -> Greenhouse gases -> Pollute Mars with Greenhouse gases....

Already has CO2 but even adding more, the atmosphere will still bleed off so it's hard to run that way.

I disagree with your religious convictions and your misrepresentation of Co2, a trace gas essential to plants, biodiversity and a healthy environment, as a 'pollutant', but agree with you on that last point. Unless someone comes up with a safe way of giving Mars a new magnetic field, all breathable atmosphere on Mars will have to be enclosed.

 

[dragoner]

I may have missed something, but how about we greenhouse gas Mars?

Three words: Deadly ionizing radiation.

 

[heron61]

Mars -> Mining resources on Mars -> Mining other places in system -> Mine hydrocarbons on GG satellites -> Shipping hydrocarbons to Earth -> We have enough already, will make more pollution -> Greenhouse gases -> Pollute Mars with Greenhouse gases....

Already has CO2 but even adding more, the atmosphere will still bleed off so it's hard to run that way.

No time soon. If you could give Mars a reasonable dense atmosphere, it would stay for hundreds of thousands of years before it became noticeably thinner. However, the perchlorates in the soil & the fact that free oxygen would bond with the Martian soil means that it's not the most awesome choice for terraforming.

 

[simonh]

If your argument is that resources on Earth are infinite, no, that is not supported by science. Both usage per capita, and population expansion would disprove that thesis. While greater efficiency, conservation, and new technologies will ameliorate the issue, resources are finite.

They are not infinite, but they are recyclable. Hydrocarbons expended on earth do not dissappear, they are simply transformed into waste products. Oil, gas and coal burned here are turned into gasses in the atmosphere, mostly carbon dioxide. Sugar cane absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turns it into sugars, which are very cheaply convertible into ethanol, and from there into more complex long chain molecules. Unless we actualy blast them off into space, all the resources we use here on earth are actualy still here, and it's just a matter of economics before it becomes viable to recycle them.

The idea that somehow we can make up the difference here, and not somewhere else, while that lifting and transportation there but not here, would not be affordable, is contradictory.

I'm not sure what that means.

As well as nowhere else, foreseeably would have the usage volume of the Earth. Manufacture of chemicals, even as simple as electrolysis, generally cost more in energy than the energy return. Why do the work when nature has already done it.

Fair point, making things costs more energy than consuming them. That's basic thermodynamics. The question is though, would it cost more to make hydrocarbons on earth than to transport them from Titan. We have vast quantities of hydrocarbons and their constituent elemnts on earth, far more than we are ever likely to need if we recycle them, and I find it hard to believe that recycling a ton of hydrocarbon raw materials (mainly, growing sugar cane or other biologicals), a process that costs cents per kilogram even today, will ever cost more in terms of energy and resources than transporting a ton of them from the outer solar system. The only way that would be viable is if we actually ran short of carbon and hydrogen. The form those elements are in is just a detail at this sort of level of analysis.

However, when I hear "affordable", usually that can be interpreted as incompatible with quarter-capitalism. Which is the fault of the economics of quarter-capitalism and not the project development. ...

Sure, and I agree with your later points.

Simon Hibbs