STUDIES IN THE FUTURE OF EXPERIMENTAL TERRAFORMING TECHNIQUES

摘要

This paper is part of a report about the subject of Terraforming entitled "Visysphere Mars - Terraforming Meets Engineered Life Adaptation", written by 22 students from the International Space University (ISU). This report follows from a comprehensive, critical analysis of the relevant theories behind the subject of Terraforming. The focus here was on methods of terraforming Mars in order to achieve the desired end result of habitability by life - perhaps eventually human life. Main considerations were focused on ways in which to augment temperature, water levels, atmospheric composition, and atmospheric pressure. These four attributes are considered to be the main concerns when trying to define a habitable environment by our current understanding of life on Earth. It was found that a habitable environment would be one in which: (ⅰ) the yearly average global temperature of a planetary body should be between 0° and 30℃ (with a maximum seasonal daily average of not less than -10° and not more than 40℃); (ⅱ) available fresh water levels should be in the area of 10 L/person/day (including drinking, cooking, and cleansing estimates); (ⅲ) a global average of 130 to 300 mbar of O_2, 0.1 to 1 mbar of CO_2, and enough N_2 in order to act as a buffer for the atmosphere (though at least 10 mbar is needed); and (ⅳ) an overall atmospheric pressure between 0.25 and 2.55 bar. When looking at these various needs for the existence of life, trends in terraforming techniques were found, which could solve several of these in parallel. However, no one approach was found that could tackle all of the requirements and thus, a synergetic approach to terraforming the planet Mars was taken. This synergetic approach includes bombardment from volatile rich asteroids, lowering the polar albedo by covering the polar surfaces with regolith, importing super-greenhouse gases to trigger a runaway greenhouse effect, and biological seeding to promote plant life on the planet. When studied in detail, it was found that this synergetic approach could make it possible to obtain estimated values of 280K (～60K increase), > 400mbar total pressure (from ～7mbar initial), an approximate 40% reduction in UV flux, ～70m global depth of water (at 10% surface coverage, with a Boreal Sea up to 1km deep), and plant coverage of approximately 25% of the surface in basic plants with some higher order plants present. This shows that a synergetic approach to terraforming Mars can effectively initiate a habitable environment within a much faster timeframe than estimated by any one approach alone.