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Terraforming Mars

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Mon, 2010-10-04 03:20

s45qu4tch

Terraforming Mars

I'm curious about the Martian terraforming in the game. This isn't really a gameplay issue, but its one of those things that bug me when folks talk about doing this in RL. Generally speaking there are 3 major issues that need to be overcome, and the third one's the doozy. 1. Fixing the atmosphere. (Sunward) 2. Raising the temperature. (Sunward) 3. Creating a magnetosphere. (Did I miss it somewhere?) There's a lot of debate on the need of a magnetosphere (Earth has, Venus supposedly doesn't) and its effect on a planet. Its known to reflect dangerous radiation away from a planet, and may prevent solar winds from stripping the atmosphere. (This has been measured by mars probes, but Venus doesn't appear to have that problem. Hence, debate.) At the very least the lack of a magnetosphere would result in morphs turning into over-microwaved hotdogs when on the surface unprotected. *YUCK* Has this been discussed at all?

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We're Anarchists, with a capital 'A'! You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the solar system!-John Winger "Stripes" (Updated)

Mon, 2010-10-04 03:58

fellowhoodlum fellowhoodlum's picture

Re: Terraforming Mars

AFAICT, both the core and Sunward did not mention how they are going to deal with the lack of magnetosphere on Mars. That, and the low gravity would cause the atmosphere to dissapate over time. I plan to make it as the over-arcing plot in my EP campaign to specifically address that issue. (Though I don't know if I should mention any details it as my players could be reading this forum) :)

Mon, 2010-10-04 06:57

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Terraforming Mars

A magnetosphere is nice, but perhaps not completely necessary. A higher radiation environment could be dealt with by using hardier morphs. A bigger problem right now is the lack of ozone layer: while the UV input is lower, there is little to shield the surface from it (especially since there will be supergreenhouse gases around that eat ozone). However, in EP I would stimply set up an artificial magnetosphere. There is a beanstalk and plenty of orbital installations, and as the coronal habs show people know how to manage big magnetic fields. So I think there would be a magnetic field system either working right now or under construction. Big coils powered by solar energy or fusion, setting up a giant plasma shield against CMEs and other nasties.

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Mon, 2010-10-04 12:33

The Sandman The Sandman's picture

Re: Terraforming Mars

Could an artificial magnetosphere be created by moving a sufficient number of metal-rich asteroids into varying orbits around Mars and then running currents through them?

Mon, 2010-10-04 15:30

s45qu4tch

Re: Terraforming Mars

Arenamontanus wrote:
A higher radiation environment could be dealt with by using hardier morphs. A bigger problem right now is the lack of ozone layer: while the UV input is lower, there is little to shield the surface from it (especially since there will be supergreenhouse gases around that eat ozone).

Which is all true, except the ruster and ranger morphs don't discuss any radiation resistance and the radiation rules don't single out Mars or martian morphs. Forgot about the ozone, but even with that omission, you still end up with fried futura.

Quote:
However, in EP I would stimply set up an artificial magnetosphere. There is a beanstalk and plenty of orbital installations, and as the coronal habs show people know how to manage big magnetic fields. So I think there would be a magnetic field system either working right now or under construction. Big coils powered by solar energy or fusion, setting up a giant plasma shield against CMEs and other nasties.

I disagree with the term "big". While you are correct about the coronal habs, when dealing with anything on a planetary scale habs are at best "small" if not outright "tiny". Creating a magnetic field around a planet would require enormous amounts of energy. Less then making the inner core molten again, but still quite a lot of energy. I doubt this is what they did simply because such a project would be a major target for anti-terraforming faction and should be mentioned if it exists, for gameplay, which is kinda why I asked. To find out what the official line is.

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We're Anarchists, with a capital 'A'! You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the solar system!-John Winger "Stripes" (Updated)

Mon, 2010-10-04 15:42

s45qu4tch

Re: Terraforming Mars

The Sandman wrote:
Could an artificial magnetosphere be created by moving a sufficient number of metal-rich asteroids into varying orbits around Mars and then running currents through them?

Magnetopsheres are toroidal in shape with the "hole" going through the north to south pole. This is why we get the auroras, borealis and australis. If magnetospheres must always be torodial it seems like you'd have to be very careful about how the orbital generators are placed, so there would be no areas missing coverage. Try covering a basketball's surface with a bunch of mini-donuts and see what I mean. This may be needed even if a planet based shield, or restarted core, was used since the martian atmosphere will be thinner, due to gravity. Charged particles will be sent to the poles and without a thick atmosphere they may create high radiation areas at the pole, and no pretty light show either. So polar generators, orbit or ground, may be required. Of course I'm a layman and this is all simply a talking out loud logic exercise, so I could be completely wrong.

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We're Anarchists, with a capital 'A'! You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the solar system!-John Winger "Stripes" (Updated)

Mon, 2010-10-04 18:26

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Terraforming Mars

Earth's surface magnetic field is about 60 microteslas at the poles. If we imagine a current loop inside the core the field at distance z is (mu0/2) R^2 I/(z^2+R^2)^(3/2) and the required current to imitate the field H is I=H (z^2+R^2)^(3/2) / (mu0/2) R^2. If the loop is 2000 km in radius we get (z=6350 km, mu0 = 1.25e−6 ) I=2e14 A. Pretty much! We can do better by looping the current several times, but we only get a reduction of necessary current proportional to the number of loops. If we put the loop at R=35,000 km we still need 2e13 A. However, a dipole magnetic field centred on the planet is likely suboptimal for protection. After all, most of it points away from the sun. Suppose instead we put a big current loop or some other source at the Mars L1 point. It would deflect particles from the sun weakly, but enough to leave a wake that protects Mars. To tired to do the calculations (there are complications, no doubt), but I think it is doable. The most likely answer is that the PC just accepts Mars as a slightly high maintenance world.

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Mon, 2010-10-04 19:24

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

Re: Terraforming Mars

[edit] I was about to ask about what radiation and at what intensity but I found the ansewer here http://www.solarstorms.org/NASATech3300.pdf When I get done reading that, Then I'll ask; what radiation and at what intensity ;) My other question is: Where is the atmopshere thick enough to be breathable by Rusters and Alpiners? Reading the main book I was under the impression that a ruster morph could walk around everywere on the surface with nothing but a heavy coat. Now in Sunward I see that they have extended use breathers and survival suits. So now I'm assumeing that in places like Olympus no one can breath unassisted. Heres an Elevation map; http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/MarsTopoMap-PIA02031_... from this wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Mars Would that be usable to determine atmospheric density?

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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Tue, 2010-10-05 15:31

Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture

Re: Terraforming Mars

Quote:
Where is the atmopshere thick enough to be breathable by Rusters and Alpiners?

Valles Marineris canyon. In fact I believe Sunward mentions that most of Mars population lives there. The canyon itself has been proposed for "partial terraforming" option-while the rest of planet would still remain uninhabitable the area itself could be made suitable for humans.

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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]

Tue, 2010-10-05 19:52

#10

babayaga

Re: Terraforming Mars

In terms of radiation, from a bunch of sources I'm too lazy to quote :) (including the wikipedia entry on terraforming mars), it seems that an unshielded human on Mars would need between 1 and 5 years to accumulate the amount of radiation damage currently recommended as the lifetime maximum exposure for astronauts. So, not great for us flats, but I'd say that anyone with basic biomods should be able to shrug off any carcinogenic effects pretty easily. In terms of keeping the atmosphere (and in particular the lighter elements) in, the depletion caused by the solar wind is *really* slow; the amount of extra atmosphere you have to add to compensate for the losses over 1000 years is a tiny fraction of the amount needed to make the atmosphere breathable in the first place.

Tue, 2010-10-05 21:45

#11

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

Re: Terraforming Mars

Topography would indicate that if Valles Marineris Canyon has breathable atmosphere then pretty much most of the northern hemisphere and Hellas would also. I really cant find any direct reference to the situation in Sunward.

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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Tue, 2010-10-05 23:20

#12

s45qu4tch

Re: Terraforming Mars

That's some great math, Arenamontanus. So depending on the voltage of the system (say something close to US standard, 100 V, just for shits a giggles since we've got no reference in game, and to make the math easy) the wattage required to run something like that could be around 2e16 W, or 20 petawatts. As a reference, hydroelectric dams seem to generate the most wattage at present. More then nuclear fission reactors. The Three Gorges dam in China is the largest, which should top out at 22.5 gigawatts when complete. So make it 20 GW for easy math, that's only 20e9 (2e10) W. So we'd still need something 1,000,000 times more powerful then that. Right? US production is about 66e12 W per second, at least that's the number I found. We'd still need 300 times that to pull it off. No idea what fusion reactors in game could pull off. Of course this is off of my home/theatrical electrical wiring training, so I wouldn't accept this a gospel. There's a teeny bit of a scale difference here. I like the wake idea. As long as there's no other sources of radiation, it should work. I'm thinking that barring another idea in future books, I'll go with that.

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We're Anarchists, with a capital 'A'! You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the solar system!-John Winger "Stripes" (Updated)