I would not mind leaving this rock to begin with. But it looks highly unlikely that will happen.
Physics unfortunately is not giving us much hope. Terraforming Mars is not going to be done in our life time and I see no prospects of faster then life travel.
It looks like my dreams of a real life Firefly style world is not going to happen.
Real life Firefly no, real life The Expanse? Maybe. Terraforming is a long term project you wouldn't expect to see results from in one lifetime, but it doesn't mean people won't be visiting or living on Mars. Looking at the amount of resources and time that would be needed for terraforming, paraterraforming seems much more likely to me. Complete terraforming is extremely wasteful with little practical benefit.
Building a colony on Antarctica, living underground, or even on some kind of floating sea-city might technically be easier, but people who want to stop you will be closer and you won't be far enough away to ever be completely independent of Earth governments.
I kind of like the idea of domed cities on Antarctica. The land is plenty fertile, it's been lying fallow collecting nutrients for a few billion years. Fresh water is readily available (glaciers) and food is abundant (fish) The trick is making it warm enough and dealing with ice and snow buildup on the domes.
Nuclear power combined with Geothermal from one of the 91 (That's right. NINETY ONE) active volcanos on Antarctica could make portions of the Antarctic easily inhabitable, provided you enclose it to protect it from the extreme cold.
Seawater brine heated to above the steam flashpoint but contained in a pipe system could easily melt the permafrost and warm the soil to ready it for planting. Using the abundant geothermal energy to heat that water in a closed loop system would provide a reasonably low maintenance system for doing this.
There are tons of ways that the Antarctic could be settled by a determined people, and given the fact that treaties say no one country can claim it, it is ripe to be taken by the right people.
The entire attraction of a mars colony is the 3 month to 2 year response time for physical retaliation. Antarctica is still within range of ICBMs, heck even the moon is in range of a modified one. Though the moon is still 3 days away, that is not really time enough to construct a response to a launch. Mars on the other hand, if the event provoking retaliation is right after the Earth-Mars transfer window closes, has 2 years to prepare.
Atmospheric loss on Mars is super-slow. Geologic times. If you can't pump in gas faster than it evaporates, you were never going to terraform anyway. (which I agree is most likely)
It's not terraformed if you have to have a subscription to breathe, despite Bezo's deepest desires.
Not only is Mars too small to hold an atmosphere, it doesn't have the magnetic field needed to keep both the atmosphere and surface safe. And it can't be made to generate one. Anyone who says otherwise is proposing changing, wholesale, the composition of a planet's core and it's total mass.
They would also have to find away to reignite mars core so it would redevelop a magnetosphere. Any planet colonization would most likely be out of our solar system. Chances are anyone who leaves earth to colonize a planet will not set foot on said planet, but their children or grandchildren might.
I would not mind leaving this rock to begin with. But it looks highly unlikely that will happen. Physics unfortunately is not giving us much hope. Terraforming Mars is not going to be done in our life time and I see no prospects of faster then life travel.
It looks like my dreams of a real life Firefly style world is not going to happen.
Real life Firefly no, real life The Expanse? Maybe. Terraforming is a long term project you wouldn't expect to see results from in one lifetime, but it doesn't mean people won't be visiting or living on Mars. Looking at the amount of resources and time that would be needed for terraforming, paraterraforming seems much more likely to me. Complete terraforming is extremely wasteful with little practical benefit.
Building a colony on Antarctica, living underground, or even on some kind of floating sea-city might technically be easier, but people who want to stop you will be closer and you won't be far enough away to ever be completely independent of Earth governments.
I kind of like the idea of domed cities on Antarctica. The land is plenty fertile, it's been lying fallow collecting nutrients for a few billion years. Fresh water is readily available (glaciers) and food is abundant (fish) The trick is making it warm enough and dealing with ice and snow buildup on the domes.
Nuclear power combined with Geothermal from one of the 91 (That's right. NINETY ONE) active volcanos on Antarctica could make portions of the Antarctic easily inhabitable, provided you enclose it to protect it from the extreme cold.
Seawater brine heated to above the steam flashpoint but contained in a pipe system could easily melt the permafrost and warm the soil to ready it for planting. Using the abundant geothermal energy to heat that water in a closed loop system would provide a reasonably low maintenance system for doing this.
There are tons of ways that the Antarctic could be settled by a determined people, and given the fact that treaties say no one country can claim it, it is ripe to be taken by the right people.
The entire attraction of a mars colony is the 3 month to 2 year response time for physical retaliation. Antarctica is still within range of ICBMs, heck even the moon is in range of a modified one. Though the moon is still 3 days away, that is not really time enough to construct a response to a launch. Mars on the other hand, if the event provoking retaliation is right after the Earth-Mars transfer window closes, has 2 years to prepare.
Mars can't be terraformed. It can't hold an atmosphere. Best you're going to get is arcologies.
Atmospheric loss on Mars is super-slow. Geologic times. If you can't pump in gas faster than it evaporates, you were never going to terraform anyway. (which I agree is most likely)
It's not terraformed if you have to have a subscription to breathe, despite Bezo's deepest desires.
Not only is Mars too small to hold an atmosphere, it doesn't have the magnetic field needed to keep both the atmosphere and surface safe. And it can't be made to generate one. Anyone who says otherwise is proposing changing, wholesale, the composition of a planet's core and it's total mass.
That is Bezos's deepest desire. Would you like Prime air or air from Amazon basics?
Spaceballs is a documentary.
They would also have to find away to reignite mars core so it would redevelop a magnetosphere. Any planet colonization would most likely be out of our solar system. Chances are anyone who leaves earth to colonize a planet will not set foot on said planet, but their children or grandchildren might.
There's been talk about developing an artificial magnetosphere with a satellite at the martian L1.