Latest news with #terraforming
Yahoo
a day ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Reveal Easy Three-Step Plan to Terraform Mars
Terraforming, the act of radically transforming a planet's climate and environment to make it suitable for human habitation, currently belongs to the realm of science-fiction. But it's possible, at least in theory, and the idea of terraforming our nearest candidate planet for off-world colonization, Mars, has captivated us for generations. But how would we even begin to pull off such a monumental feat of engineering? You can basically boil it down to three simple steps, argue the authors of a recent study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, who are encouraged by recent breakthroughs in several fields. "Thirty years ago, terraforming Mars wasn't just hard — it was impossible," lead author Erika DeBenedictis, CEO of Pioneer Labs, told "But new technology like Starship and synthetic biology have now made it a real possibility." The inclusion of Starship, the Elon-Musk owned SpaceX megarocket, may warrant some pushback, since it's faced several high-profile failures and is likely far from being completed. But the fact that a spacecraft of its scale is even being attempted at all is at least worth something. Alright, but assuming we can make the trip to the Red Planet, how do we turn it into something approaching a green one? Recent advances in Mars science suggest that the planet's vast stores of ice harbor enough water to form an ocean around 1,000 feet deep across 3,800,000 million square miles of the planet. And according to the study, these frigid seas-in-waiting could start melting with a temperature increase of at least 30 degrees Celsius. (There also appears to be subterranean oceans hidden beneath the surface.) So that's the first step. One way this could be achieved is by harnessing solar sails as mirrors to focus more light on the planet. This could be combined with dispersing aerosols in the atmosphere to accelerate the greenhouse effect, while techniques such as coating the Martian surface with particles called silica aerogels could help drive heating locally. Combined, the researchers estimated that the 30 degrees of warming could be achieved within the century. The next step involves getting a little help from tiny, anaerobic creatures that can survive the harshest environments: extremophiles. To serve as "pioneer species," we would likely have to genetically engineer these organisms so they can withstand Mars' low pressure and its cold temperatures, which swing wildly. As the planet's ancient water is liberated from its icy tombs, the first surfaces bodies of water will be extremely salty brines, which many microbes on Earth are capable of surviving, the authors write. Once these microbial critters take hold, they'd go to work reforming the planet's chemistry and laying the groundwork for a food-producing ecosystem. The final phase, however, is both the longest and most ambitious: shoring up the Martian atmosphere so that it can support diverse plant life and other organisms. To pull it off, terraformers would need to create at least a 100 millibar oxygen atmosphere, the authors write, or about a tenth of the Earth's average atmosphere at sea level. We could initially achieve this in large, 100-meter-tall domed habitats, they speculate. Outside of these habitats, the spread of plant life would passively contribute oxygen to the atmosphere — but this process on its own would take a millennium. We could artificially accelerate this, write the authors, by freeing oxygen from the melted water, but more research is needed to determine if the materials necessary to accomplish that are abundant on Mars so that they wouldn't be required to be imported from Earth in prohibitively large quantities. "We now know that Mars was habitable in the past, from data returned by the Mars rovers, so greening Mars could be viewed as the ultimate environmental restoration challenge," coauthor Edwin Kite, an associate professor at the University of Chicago, told As tempting as it would be for humanity to rise to the challenge, there are serious ethical and scientific questions to be raised about terraforming an entire planet, especially one that may have harbored life in the past, or perhaps still does. "If we decide to terraform Mars, then we will really change it in ways that may or may not be reversible," coauthor Nina Lanza, a planetary scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, told "Mars is its own planet and has its own history. When we terraform, then we effectively don't have the opportunity to study that anymore, and we may lose knowledge about how planets form and evolve." Of course, this remains speculative — it's serious speculation, but speculation all the same. For all the promising advances we've made, we still haven't proven we can send a tiny payload of samples back from Mars, or even demonstrate that our putative best shot of getting there, Starship, is spaceworthy. But, as they say: all in good time. More on Mars: Elon Musk's "Hubris and Arrogance" Are Ruining Our Chances of Actually Getting to Mars, Says Leading Expert
Forbes
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
NASA, SpaceX And Scientists Speed Up Human Race To Colonize Mars
American scientists envision creating a network of dome-enclosed biospheres across the Martian dunes ... More - New Edens for a new branch of human civilization. Shown here is the precursor Biosphere 2 in Arizona (Photo by Mitterbauer/ullstein bild via Getty Images) As NASA pivots toward speeding astronauts to Mars, and SpaceX pilots the Starship super-capsules that will lead this new space odyssey, vanguard American scientists are testing the technologies that could transform the Red Planet into an astonishing new Eden. A Harvard-based torchbearer in the quest to remake Mars in the Earth's image, Robin Wordsworth, says new-generation rockets that are slashing launch costs and tech breakthroughs across the sphere of geo-engineering are setting the stage to create human-tended biospheres across Mars. One of the leading wunderkinds in the campaign to terraform Mars, or render it inhabitable for the arks of Earth life envisioned to be lofted over the next decades, Wordsworth tells me in an interview that his team is now designing sanctuaries that could shelter the first humans to touch down on the Martian dunes. 'We're currently working on new habitat designs that specifically address the challenge of helping humans live on Mars in the future,' says Wordsworth, a professor of planetary sciences at Harvard who has written a torrent of groundbreaking papers on Mars and on potentially habitable planets circling other stars. Yet the overarching goal, he says, is to restore Mars to its first phase of evolution - billions of years ago - when the orb was warmer, likely covered in networks of waterways, and surrounded by a thicker atmosphere that could have protected early forms of life. Scientists aim to re-engineer Mars to restore its ocean and atmosphere while generating oxygen that ... More will ultimately enable humans to live on the Martian dunes without oxygen tanks. Shown here is a computer-generated image of Mars with its primitive ocean. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Part of Mars' carbon dioxide atmosphere, along with rich reservoirs of water, are now frozen and sequestered around its southern and northern poles. But these building blocks toward recreating Mars when it resembled the Earth - as life started appearing across the blue globe - can be released via cutting-edge engineering advances that space technologists have already begun testing, Wordsworth says. The Harvard space-tech designer says he aims to push forward and refine a proposal first floated by Robert Zubrin in his masterwork book, 'The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must,' on reshaping the entire Martian orb to host a new branch of human civilization. Dr. Zubin's idea for massive solar sail mirrors positioned above the Martian poles - channeling reflected light from the sun to melt the polar caps - could be realized, Wordsworth says, if inventors can take the last steps toward reducing the mass of the orbital reflectors. Zubrin says in his incredible primer on re-engineering Mars, which has influenced future mission plans by NASA and SpaceX, that: 'A space-based mirror with a radius of 125 kilometers could reflect enough sunlight' to melt each of the caps, and spark 'a runaway greenhouse effect in the polar region.' This evaporating CO2 and water vapor would trigger an expanding Martian atmosphere that could in turn help melt the frozen H2O trapped in the Martian dunes. As the planet's ancient water cycle is regenerated, Wordsworth predicts, renewed snowstorms could clear the air of dust devils that currently haunt the ruddy globe. Vast shields, constructed of lightweight silica aerogel, deployed across the warming plains around the equator could shelter the first Edenic gardens, sprinkled with bio-engineered bacteria to remediate the poisonous perchlorate that now plagues the surface sands. As photosynthetic life spreads across these enclaves, Wordsworth predicts, the oxygen it generates will ultimately produce an optimum atmosphere for humans - perhaps over the course of two centuries. Harvard space-tech designer Robin Wordsworth says geodesic domes constructed of silica aerogel and ... More super-strength Kevlar could shelter the first interplanetary nomads to reach Mars. Shown here is Montreal's Biosphere during a recent lunar eclipse (Photo by Amir Shahcheraghian / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP) (Photo by AMIR SHAHCHERAGHIAN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images) Before then, even as the entire planet begins turning blue and green, the first generations of human explorers could live across an archipelago of interconnected geodesic domes, pressurized and filled with oxygen to replicate Earth. While Robert Zubrin sketched out blueprints to construct a web of domes using super-strength Kevlar, Wordsworth made the remarkable discovery that hemispheres built of silica aerogel would heat up the interior by 50 degrees Kelvin, above the melting point of frozen H2O along the Martian equator. The aerogel shield would, like the Earth's ozone, block hazardous ultraviolet radiation, creating a perfect oasis for humans and birds, wildlife and verdant gardens to flourish. Combining these two proposed prototypes into a twin-shell dome could create a fortified, life-enabling citadel, Wordsworth predicts. 'A dome with Kevlar for strength and silica aerogel to create a strong solid-state greenhouse effect,' he says, could shelter the first wave of interplanetary nomads to reach Mars. During this opening stage of humanity's expansion, he says, 'Robots could have a major role to play in the construction of sustainable habitats.' Swarms of ground-based and aerial robots are already being tested out by leading-edge architects and roboticists to co-construct avant-garde towers back on Earth. Fabio Gramazio, a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich who heads perhaps the planet's most advanced studio for robotics-enabled building, told me in an earlier interview that his squadrons of next-generation aero-robots, which have already constructed an experimental cloud-scraper in France, might one day help assemble the first crystalline domes on Mars. Professor Wordsworth, meanwhile, says silica derived from Martian rocks could be transformed into aerogel to craft habitats and biospheres across these off-world bases. His colleagues at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have already received a NASA Space Technology Research Institutes grant to robotically construct autonomous 'smart habitats' for potential deployment on Mars. In a surprise revelation, NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens recently told Politico the American aerospace agency is now 'evaluating every opportunity, including launch windows in 2026 and 2028, to test technologies that will land humans on Mars.' NASA's new timetable for these potential launches, when the Hohmann transfer window for optimal Earth-Mars flights opens in late 2026 and again in 2028, echoes Elon Musk's declaration, issued last summer on his digital platform X, that he aims to loft a flotilla of five Starships carrying a robotic exploration team to Mars in 2026, and the first human mission two years later. Underscoring this accelerated timeline, the White House just released a proposed budget for NASA that for the first time includes $1 billion in funding for precursor missions leading to human flights to Mars. While the last two flight tests of SpaceX's colossal Starship ended in pyrotechnic explosions of the capsule over the Atlantic Ocean, Kip Hodges, one of the top space scholars in the U.S. and the founding director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, told me the Mars-bound Starship is a technological wonder that portends a revolution in spaceflight that could reverberate across the twin planets. SpaceX's super-size Starship is a technological wonder, says a leading American aerospace scholar, ... More and is now counting down to its 9th flight test. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images) On the eve of the American Memorial Day holiday, SpaceX's leadership revealed that the next flight demo of the Starship could be launched right after the extended weekend. Pete Worden, an acclaimed American astrophysicist who headed the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley during its golden age of experimentation, says NASA's new focus on Mars 'is a very positive sign.' 'I would expect that just as the 2020s are the lunar decade, culminating in what I believe will be the beginning of human settlement of the Moon, the 2030s will be the beginning of permanent human settlement of Mars,' Worden tells me in an interview. Worden predicted, in an overview he co-authored with Robin Wordsworth on the 'Future of Life in Space,' that the skyrocketing production of new reusable rockets by SpaceX and Blue Origin augurs a new phase of human spaceflight that could begin to crisscross the solar system. As NASA expands its target celestial destinations, Worden says, 'The ideas Robin [Wordsworth] and others are advocating will play a crucial part of that expansion.' During the countdown to initial exploratory expeditions to Mars, he adds, 'Robin Wordsworth's concepts begin with really small scale habitats.' 'These could be on the surface or, alternatively, inside natural caves/lava tubes (a concept also relevant for the moon).' 'These will be followed by larger habitats, ultimately something like the Biosphere 2 in Arizona (geodesic dome approach) that will include human habitation.' 'The Starships,' Worden adds, 'and other systems like them make all of this possible.' In a White Paper on projected Starship treks to Mars that he co-wrote with two of SpaceX's top engineers, Professor Kip Hodges stated that the first group of uncrewed ships will deliver 'mobile robotic assets that could be used to conduct planetary science research either autonomously or through high-latency teleoperation.' With 1100 cubic meters of pressurized space, each Starship capsule could hold a brigade of advanced robots, along with 'equipment for increased power production, water extraction, LOX/methane [rocket fuel] production, pre-prepared landing pads, radiation shielding, dust control equipment [and] exterior shelters for humans." Although each Starship is designed to transport about 100 spacefarers, the 'first crewed Starships will likely each have about 10-20 total people onboard,' Professor Hodges and the SpaceX tech wizards predict. 'Current SpaceX architecture plans call for multiple Starship flights to be launched to Mars at every launch opportunity (~2 years),' they add. 'An ultimate objective of SpaceX is to develop self-sustaining cities on Mars.' American and European astronauts might soon join NASA's Ingenuity helicopter on the orange-red dunes ... More of Mars. Shown here is a model of the first interplanetary helicopter, designed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. (Photo by Patrick T. FALLON / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
Forbes
24-05-2025
- Science
- Forbes
NASA, SpaceX And Scientists Speed Up Human Race To Invade Mars
American scientists envision creating a network of dome-enclosed biospheres across the Martian dunes ... More - New Edens for a new branch of human civilization. Shown here is the precursor Biosphere 2 in Arizona (Photo by Mitterbauer/ullstein bild via Getty Images) As NASA pivots toward speeding astronauts to Mars, and SpaceX pilots the Starship super-capsules that will lead this new space odyssey, vanguard American scientists are testing the technologies that could transform the Red Planet into an astonishing New Eden. A Harvard-based torchbearer in the quest to remake Mars in the Earth's image, Robin Wordsworth, says new-generation rockets that are slashing launch costs and tech breakthroughs across the sphere of geo-engineering are setting the stage to create human-tended biospheres across Mars. One of the leading wunderkinds in the campaign to terraform Mars, or render it inhabitable for the arks of Earth life envisioned to be lofted over the next decades, Wordsworth tells me in an interview that his team is now designing sanctuaries that could shelter the first humans to touch down on the Martian dunes. 'We're currently working on new habitat designs that specifically address the challenge of helping humans live on Mars in the future,' says Wordsworth, a professor of planetary sciences at Harvard who has written a torrent of groundbreaking papers on Mars and on potentially habitable planets circling other stars. Yet the overarching goal, he says, is to restore Mars to its first phase of evolution - billions of years ago - when the orb was warmer, likely covered in networks of waterways, and surrounded by a thicker atmosphere that could have protected early forms of life. Scientists aim to re-engineer Mars to restore its ocean and atmosphere while generating oxygen that ... More will ultimately enable humans to live on the Martian dunes without oxygen tanks. Shown here is a computer-generated image of Mars with its primitive ocean. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Part of Mars' carbon dioxide atmosphere, along with rich reservoirs of water, are now frozen and sequestered around its southern and northern poles. But these building blocks toward recreating Mars when it resembled the Earth - as life started appearing across the blue globe - can be released via cutting-edge engineering advances that space technologists have already begun testing, Wordsworth says. The Harvard space-tech designer says he aims to push forward and refine a proposal first floated by Robert Zubrin in his masterwork book, 'The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must,' on reshaping the entire Martian orb to host a new branch of human civilization. Dr. Zubin's idea for massive solar sail mirrors positioned above the Martian poles - channeling reflected light from the sun to melt the polar caps - could be realized, Wordsworth says, if inventors can take the last steps toward reducing the mass of the orbital reflectors. Zubrin says in his incredible primer on re-engineering Mars, which has influenced future mission plans by NASA and SpaceX, that: 'A space-based mirror with a radius of 125 kilometers could reflect enough sunlight' to melt each of the caps, and spark 'a runaway greenhouse effect in the polar region.' This evaporating CO2 and water vapor would trigger an expanding Martian atmosphere that could in turn begin melting the frozen H2O trapped in the Martian dunes. As the planet's ancient water cycle is regenerated, Wordsworth predicts, renewed snowstorms could clear the air of dust devils that currently haunt the ruddy globe. Vast shields, constructed of lightweight silica aerogel, deployed across the warming plains around the equator could shelter the first Edenic gardens, sprinkled with bio-engineered bacteria to remediate the poisonous perchlorate that now plagues the surface sands. As photosynthetic life spreads across these enclaves, Wordsworth predicts, the oxygen it generates will ultimately produce an optimum atmosphere for humans - perhaps over the course of two centuries. Harvard space-tech designer Robin Wordsworth says geodesic domes constructed of silica aerogel and ... More super-strength Kevlar could shelter the first interplanetary nomads to reach Mars. Shown here is Montreal's Biosphere during a recent lunar eclipse (Photo by Amir Shahcheraghian / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP) (Photo by AMIR SHAHCHERAGHIAN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images) Before then, even as the entire planet begins turning blue and green, the first generations of human explorers could live across an archipelago of interconnected geodesic domes, pressurized and filled with oxygen to replicate Earth. While Robert Zubrin sketched out blueprints to construct a web of domes using super-strength Kevlar, Wordsworth made the remarkable discovery that hemispheres built of silica aerogel would heat up the interior by 50 degrees Kelvin, above the melting point of frozen H2O along the Martian equator. The aerogel shield would, like the Earth's ozone, block hazardous ultraviolet radiation, creating a perfect oasis for humans and birds, wildlife and verdant gardens to flourish. Combining these two proposed prototypes into a twin-shell dome could create a fortified, life-enabling citadel, Wordsworth predicts. 'A dome with Kevlar for strength and silica aerogel to create a strong solid-state greenhouse effect,' he says, could shelter the first wave of interplanetary nomads to reach Mars. During this opening stage of humanity's expansion, he says, 'Robots could have a major role to play in the construction of sustainable habitats.' Swarms of ground-based and aerial robots are already being tested out by leading-edge architects and roboticists to co-construct avant-garde towers back on Earth. Fabio Gramazio, a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich who heads perhaps the planet's most advanced studio for robotics-enabled building, told me in an earlier interview that his squadrons of next-generation aero-robots, which have already constructed an experimental cloud-scraper in France, might one day help assemble the first crystalline domes on Mars. Professor Wordsworth, meanwhile, says silica derived from Martian rocks could be transformed into aerogel to craft habitats and biospheres across these off-world bases. His colleagues at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have already received a NASA Space Technology Research Institutes grant to robotically construct autonomous 'smart habitats' for potential deployment on Mars. In a surprise revelation, NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens recently told Politico the American aerospace agency is now 'evaluating every opportunity, including launch windows in 2026 and 2028, to test technologies that will land humans on Mars.' NASA's new timetable for these potential launches, when the Hohmann transfer window for optimal Earth-Mars flights opens in late 2026 and again in 2028, echoes Elon Musk's declaration, issued last summer on his digital platform X, that he aims to loft a flotilla of five Starships carrying a robotic exploration team to Mars in 2026, and the first human mission two years later. Underscoring this accelerated timeline, the White House just released a proposed budget for NASA that for the first time includes $1 billion in funding for precursor missions leading to human flights to Mars. While the last two flight tests of SpaceX's colossal Starship ended in pyrotechnic explosions of the capsule over the Atlantic Ocean, Kip Hodges, one of the top space scholars in the U.S. and the founding director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, told me the Mars-bound Starship is a technological wonder that portends a revolution in spaceflight that could reverberate across the twin planets. SpaceX's super-size Starship is a technological wonder, says a leading American aerospace scholar, ... More and is now counting down to its 9th flight test. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images) On the eve of the American Memorial Day holiday, SpaceX's leadership revealed that the next flight demo of the Starship could be launched right after the extended weekend. Pete Worden, an acclaimed American astrophysicist who headed the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley during its golden age of experimentation, says NASA's new focus on Mars 'is a very positive sign.' 'I would expect that just as the 2020s are the lunar decade, culminating in what I believe will be the beginning of human settlement of the Moon, the 2030s will be the beginning of permanent human settlement of Mars,' Worden tells me in an interview. Worden predicted, in an overview he co-authored with Robin Wordsworth on the 'Future of Life in Space,' that the skyrocketing production of new reusable rockets by SpaceX and Blue Origin augurs a new phase of human spaceflight that could begin to crisscross the solar system. As NASA expands its target celestial destinations, Worden says, 'The ideas Robin [Wordsworth] and others are advocating will play a crucial part of that expansion.' During the countdown to initial exploratory expeditions to Mars, he adds, 'Robin Wordsworth's concepts begin with really small scale habitats.' 'These could be on the surface or, alternatively, inside natural caves/lava tubes (a concept also relevant for the moon).' 'These will be followed by larger habitats, ultimately something like the Biosphere 2 in Arizona (geodesic dome approach) that will include human habitation.' 'The Starships,' Worden adds, 'and other systems like them make all of this possible.' In a White Paper on projected Starship treks to Mars that he co-wrote with two of SpaceX's top engineers, Professor Kip Hodges stated that the first group of uncrewed ships will deliver 'mobile robotic assets that could be used to conduct planetary science research either autonomously or through high-latency teleoperation.' With 1100 cubic meters of pressurized space, each Starship capsule could hold a brigade of advanced robots, along with 'equipment for increased power production, water extraction, LOX/methane [rocket fuel] production, pre-prepared landing pads, radiation shielding, dust control equipment [and] exterior shelters for humans." Although each Starship is designed to transport about 100 spacefarers, the 'first crewed Starships will likely each have about 10-20 total people onboard,' Professor Hodges and the SpaceX tech wizards predict. 'Current SpaceX architecture plans call for multiple Starship flights to be launched to Mars at every launch opportunity (~2 years),' they add. 'An ultimate objective of SpaceX is to develop self-sustaining cities on Mars.' American and European astronauts might soon join NASA's Ingenuity helicopter on the orange-red dunes ... More of Mars. Shown here is a model of the first interplanetary helicopter, designed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. (Photo by Patrick T. FALLON / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
