What would it take to terraform Mars?

I'm planning on writing a novel where large parts of Mars have been terraformed and the climate and surface are hospitable to humans. What sort of technology needs to exist to make this happen? I also need to make it so some parts are still inhospitable.

 

You need to deal with the lack of a significant magnetosphere on Mars before you deal with the teraforming. You have to deal with that first, else the negative effects of cosmic and solar radiation on human bodies that evolved on a planet with a very healthy magnetosphere (Earth) cannot be undersold.

From Wikipedia:

Countering the effects of space weather

See also: Health threat from cosmic rays

Mars does not have an intrinsic global magnetic field, but the solar wind directly interacts with the atmosphere of Mars, leading to the formation of a magnetosphere from magnetic field tubes.[16] This poses challenges for mitigating solar radiation and retaining an atmosphere.

The lack of a significant magnetosphere is thought to be one reason for Mars's thin atmosphere. Solar wind–induced ejection of Martian atmospheric atoms has been detected by Mars-orbiting probes, indicating that the solar wind has stripped the Martian atmosphere over time. While Venus has a dense atmosphere, it has only traces of water vapor (20 ppm) as it lacks a large, dipole induced, magnetic field.[16][17][18] Earth's ozone layer provides additional protection. Ultraviolet light is blocked before it can dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen.[19]

Restoring the Martian magnetic poles or providing a sufficiently large artificial magnetosphere between the Sun and Mars is considered essential to restoring the Martian atmosphere and flowing liquid water.[18]​

 

How would it be possible to restore the martian magnetic poles or provide an artificial magnetosphere? Would that be possible by the 2100s?

 

Perhaps 'lensing' those very same particles into some sort of fusion reactor, that creates an artificial dome-like zone to contain atmosphere. It would actually be a torus instead of a dome, with the lensed stream right into the center. Habitable zones would be limited to that doughnut shape, producing some unique surface structures, and maybe a localized 'northern lights' effect, visible to approaching craft. Some could be different by location or size. Maybe they could generate lightning when solar storms occur?

 

Partial Mars Terraformation is impossible.
I mean, you cannot make habitable only a portion of the planet like walking around harvesting your orchad and wearing a sportwear on sunday morning.

You need some isolation structure like a City Dome.

Look in Google for the Arabian Mars city projected for 2117.

 

Are we talking about fiction or plauseable construction? Colonizing Mars would be less return on energy in reality. As a way station, however, it would be ideal for the eventual goal - our existence in space itself, with no planetary dependencies. It is the only worthy goal.
But for now, the torus would be a field generated 'dome' that kept micro atmosphere in, and UV out. A field of that sort would likely create Ozone at it's limits, anyway. And, a much larger torus would likely form an atmoshperic bubble-spacecraft that one could farm a field in, if it were required anymore.
Lensing - it's a fabulous concept for manipulating unseen forces into whatever you want! Fictionally speaking

 

The same wiki article offers the following:

Magnetic shield on L1 orbit

Magnetic shield on L1 orbit around Mars

During the Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop[18] in late February 2017, NASA scientist Jim Green proposed a concept of placing a magnetic dipole field between the planet and the Sun to protect it from high-energy solar particles. It would be located at the L1 orbit at about 320 R♂. The field would need to be "Earth comparable" and sustain 50000 nT as measured at 1 Earth-radius. The paper abstract cites that this could be achieved by a magnet with a strength of 1–2 teslas (10,000–20,000 gauss).[49] If constructed, the shield may allow the planet to restore its atmosphere. Simulations indicate that within years, the planet would be able to achieve half the atmospheric pressure of Earth. Without solar winds stripping away at the planet, frozen carbon dioxide at the ice caps on either pole would begin to sublimate (change from a solid into a gas) and warm the equator. Ice caps would begin to melt to form an ocean. The researcher further argues that volcanic outgassing,[dubious – discuss] which to some degree balances the current atmospheric loss on Earth, would replenish the atmosphere over time, enough to melt the ice caps and fill 1⁄7 of Mars' prehistoric oceans.[50][51][18]​

Spoiler: Really big picture of all that sciencie mumbo jumbo

From a story-telling point of view, this feels like a more reasonable approach to offer to your readers. Kickstarting Mars's natural dynamo (like the one Earth has) would mean manipulating the core of the planet, and unless your story is waaaaayyyyyy out in the future, where I can accept near-magical science, then that would stretch credibility to a great degree. As a reader, a simplified presentation of the idea expressed in the above wiki quote would be something I would easily accept and move on to the rest of your story. I'm not the kind of reader who would be furiously scribbling mathematical computations to send to you via email and then sit in front of my computer with Lady Lyanna Mormont Eyes, awaiting your response.

 

Hey now. I didn't make that picture. To be honest, I don't pretend to understand the science behind it either, but from a layperson's pov, it sounds sufficiently legit for me to move on with the rest.

While I agree with this, this doesn't fit the more romanticized idea of settling Mars that Elon Musk (barmy, right?) and his little cult of feverishly passionate followers invest in. The Moon is where we live in tubes and tunnels and domes. Mars is where we walk out in the open sky.

 

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2018/mars-terraforming
https://www.universetoday.com/113346/how-do-we-terraform-mars/
https://www.space.com/41318-we-cant-terraform-mars.html

You could however turn Mars into all sorts of habitats if you have the tech
to strip a planet of it's materials to do so. Options are giant cylinders, ring
world, or an engineered exo-planet which can make the whole planet much
bigger than it started, since it will be largely hollow.

But yeah you need some way of keeping the atmosphere trapped from the
solar winds just whisking away all your hard work, and filter out the solar
radiation that can kill your inhabitants in a short matter of time. So for a
more straight forward way, bring a lot of electron magnates to orbit and make
a magnetic field strong enough to do both.

 

The inhospitable bits of a terraformed Mars would probably be the highlands and mountains, which would have thin air and be very cold and dry even when most of the lowlands are habitable. Think the bleaker bits of the Himalayas.

Or it's possible that some artifact of the early terraforming left some scars--for example, a comet impact site, the site of nuclear detonations or a forcibly activated volcano (to raise the heat), or a mohole dug into the lower crust, where heat and gases are venting into the atmosphere. Or maybe an plant / insect / microbe designed to aid in the terraforming process went badly wrong, and it's been quarantined here?

 

No.
Mars is too tiny a planet to support its own magnetosphere. And, the core of Mars just won't allow it. Mars is more like our Moon than a substantial planet. Really, there is very little about Mars that is in the least spectacular. I daresay it's the most overrated planet in the solar system.

 

Earth is the last planet humans will live on. From there, it will be space, in craft that never land. We'll collect matter and energy as we travel, like a ramjet. We will evolve before we complete terraforming of anything, and no longer require it. If we leave Earth, we keep going, and n'er return.

 

Thank you for all the answers so far. @Azuresun could you explain how the terraforming would leave scars and the need for detonating nukes and activating volcanoes?

 

Once you have a thick enough atmosphere, you need to heat the planet up (and have enough greenhouse gases to retain the heat). Diverting comets or asteroids to crash into Mars produces heat (and is an easy way to get water, metals and other useful substances onto the surface), and the same goes for lava flows and nuclear detonations. And any large-scale planetary engineering project could concievably go wrong (or right) or get sabotaged, and leave part of the planet as a no-go area, depending on the needs of your story.

 

Just a small fact check: size has little to do with the potential of a magnetic field. Ganymede is only slightly larger than our moon and has a very powerful magnetic field. Mostly it’s the core issue. Mainly the problem is that Mars is solid, where Earth is mostly liquid so the solid iron core can spin freely.

 

I thought that Mars had the same composition as earth, but lost its heat to space in a shorter time than earth on account of its smaller size, which resulted in the loss of its previously robust magnetic field.

 

That is correct, I must not have been as clear as I thought. Mars originally had a magnetic field and atmosphere just like Earth, but you're right: because it's smaller it called faster and unlike Earth which continues to be mostly liquid, it became a solid. This caused the core to not be able to move on it's own. The reason planets have magnetic fields isn't because of motion or the core or anything. It's caused by two or more electromagnetic substances moving past each other. In Earth, the core spins a little faster than the mantle around it (actually multiple layers,) so that difference is what generates the field. In Ganymede, it's a salty ocean and Jupiter itself. Most of the inner planets have similar composition but minor variations do make a big difference. For example, Venus is just slightly smaller than Earth, but despite being closer to our star, from an astronomical sense, it's colder than Earth: it's also frozen solid like Mars and has no magnetic field. Only about half of Earth's heat is left over from the formation of the planet, the rest comes from Earth's unusually large concentration of uranium and thorium.

 

A very optimistic documentary:


A way more optimistic than the previous vid opinion (mostly about getting there)


And here's about data obtained by some failed experiments and other aspects

 

Is this piece meant to be nostalgic at all? I do love retro sci-fi. The thing is, if it's not, you may consider relocating. The question these days, and I'm sure this is covered in some of the links and articles mentioned already, is not "how will we colonize Mars?", but rather "why would we?". We know too much about it now for it to make sense. As many experts have noted, the North Pole is more pleasant and easier to survive than Mars or the Moon, but we don't live there. If it's a matter of escaping a trashed environment or dealing with over-population, then building domes, living underground, farming in barren locations would still be infinitely easier here than on Mars for all the reasons mentioned above and more.

The attraction to Mars in sci-fi is strong; it always has been, but it's a lot less believable these days than it was in the eras of H.G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs or Ray Bradbury. Writers have mostly migrated their stories to places like Titan in recent decades. We'll probably find out something ridiculous about that prospect in a generation or two as well, but for now it looks far more viable than Mars, at least.

If, on the other hand, you are looking to inject some old-school elements into a modern work, Mars is your guy. However, a little hand waving is practically inevitable at that point, which, as I think about it, might actually strengthen the nostalgic feel, so go nuts!

 

@Malisky, thanks for the videos.
I saw the Elink Musk interview and it didn't convinced me very much.
Then I saw the optimistic one and I thought: That's it. They've already figure it out. Terraforming Mars is a piece of a cake.
Finally, the last one left me thinking: Terraforming Mars is going to be a Hell of a Nightmare.
Certainly, IMO, Terraforming Mars requires more evolved technology than we have now. Requires a new entire subject of study: Planetology. A mix between: physics, geology, microbiology, medicine, engineering, computer science, gardening... IDK.
It needs people like the Planetologists from Dune or something like that.

 

This guy Isaac Arthur is worth a real look at.

http://www.isaacarthur.net/

Go to his YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g

Playlists and you want the Outward-Bound series. It starts with Mars but go through all the videos will give more ideas, I think. I’d advise also adding the subtitles as his speech is sometimes difficult to understand.

Other videos outside the series are worth looking at covering terraforming style programs and more.


My 2cents…

I doubt Mars will be truly be colonized. The idea of terraforming to gain an Earth style environment will be unsustainable due to the lack of any natural magnetic field for atmospheric protection already stated. Using man-made solutions don’t add up either unless on Mars we find something valuable. To date that’s looks unlikely. The lighter gravity will cause huge health problems for a stay of just three years.

The two moons of Phobos and Deimos however will probably have outposts.

The Moon, will definitely NEED colonizing for its simple strategic location. This will probably take shape in the form of underground structures that will need some form of biosphere environment. It has many of the problems of Mars but it’s simple in a better location…


Norfolk.

 

The real obstacle is getting mankind motivated enough to approve or demand such a long-term effort.

 

Free your mind! Read Edgar Rice Burroughs Martian series. It's a whole other thing! John Carter for president. Ulysses Paxton for VP.