Terraforming Mars: Engineering a Second Earth - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

One day Earth may be partially destroyed by any number of Mega disasters such as total nuclear war, swarms of large asteroids, climate change, rising oceans, large volcanic eruptions and the list goes on and on.
This is why we need to look for a second Earth – the time is now.

Mars is the most Earth-like world within practical reach. It has days nearly the same length as ours. It has polar ice caps, seasonal variation, and a thin but real atmosphere. Beneath its surface lies frozen water in quantities that, if released, could flood vast regions of the planet. It once had rivers and lakes and perhaps even oceans.

Something went wrong on Mars billions of years ago — its magnetic field died, its atmosphere bled away, and its water retreated underground. But the raw materials of habitability are still there, locked in rock and ice, waiting for something with enough ambition to unlock them.

So now is the time to plan to make Mars a second Earth – and that is called Terraforming

Why now? The answer is partly technological and partly existential. The technological case is that we are, for the first time in human history, within reach of the tools needed to begin this process. We have rockets capable of reaching Mars. We have robotic explorers mapping its surface in extraordinary detail. We have computational power that can model planetary atmospheres across centuries. We have advances in synthetic biology that could engineer microorganisms capable of surviving in Martian conditions.

The pieces of a serious terraforming program are assembling themselves in laboratories and launch facilities around the world.

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