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TERRAFORMING
MARS

Sarim Javed
2010321 FEE

Safi Ahmed
2010306 FME

Raafay Alam
2010291 FCSE

Waleed Zafar
2010381 FME

Usama K. Zafar
2010373 FES

Tuesday, 05 April 2011

Department of Humanities, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute

of Engineering Sciences and Technology, 2011

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Preface
The inspiration for this report not only came from the objective of scoring a good grade in our
technical report writing course, but it also primarily came from a desire to spread knowledge
about an exciting new future prospect amongst fellow GIKIANS. The words “Terraforming
Mars” speak of their vastness themselves. At first listening to the idea of making Mars a
hospitable planet like our Earth, one would dismiss it as being fictitious and only possible in the
world of books and movies; but let us not forget that much less than a century ago, man had a
similar opinion about reaching the moon. Today mankind has achieved great feats in space
exploration that were, once upon a time, termed as science fiction themselves. Take the Hubble
Space Telescope for example. The ability to peek beyond our own galaxy was unforeseen but
today the Hubble Space Telescope enables us to do so. Same could be the case for terraforming
Mars. Technology is advancing at an increasing rate and so is the possibility of creating an Earth
like habitat on Mars. This report aims to highlight that a terraformed Mars is a near future
reality, and to instill interest and passion amongst the future generation of engineers towards
this science.

Abstract
Objective: The objective of this report is to propose and asses possible methods that can be
adopted in the near future to make Mars capable of sustaining life. Proposed Methodology:
The first step is building an atmosphere. Mars already has substantial reserves of frozen CO2 (a
greenhouse gas) at its poles which can be utilized for the purpose of heating the planet and
providing it with a thicker atmosphere. To utilize these reserves, the poles must be heated to
impose a temperature change of 5K in order to sublime the icy CO2. This can be done using
Orbiting Mirrors, which will reflect and concentrate the sun’s energy at the poles, there by
producing the desired effect. Another way of building the atmosphere is to import ammonia
from ammonia rich asteroids. Ammonia being a powerful greenhouse gas, will also serve our
purpose to heat the planet and build its atmosphere. Once we have built the atmosphere with

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sufficient pressure, we would have to activate the planet’s hydrosphere. There is evidence of
the presence of frozen water on Mars, which can activate the hydrosphere once brought to the
liquid state. Water can also be imported from ice asteroids. The final steps in the
terraformation of Mars include the Oxygenation of the planet, which can be achieved by using
genetically altered plants, and restoring its magnetosphere.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................................... 1

WHY MARS? .......................................................................................................................................................... 2

CHANGES REQUIRED: ............................................................................................................................................. 4

BUILDING THE ATMOSPHERE: ................................................................................................................................ 4

METHODS OF ACCOMPLISHING GLOBAL WARMING ON MARS ................................................................................................4

ORBITING MIRRORS ........................................................................................................................................................5
AMMONIA ASTEROIDS ....................................................................................................................................................7
PRODUCING HALOCARBONS ON MARS .............................................................................................................................10

ACTIVATING THE HYDROSPHERE ......................................................................................................................... 12

OXYGENATING THE PLANET ................................................................................................................................. 13

MAGNETIC FIELD AND SOLAR RADIATION ........................................................................................................... 14

CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................................................... 16

BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................................................... 16

Introduction
The idea of possible life on the planet Mars has always sparked our curiosity and interest.
There are many books and movies based on Martian life; and such ideas, over the years, have
long fascinated all of mankind. Life on Mars has been long envisioned by many scientists around
the globe; a vision in which humans walked the planet Mars as they walk the planet Earth.
These visions were not taken seriously until recently, when the over growing populace and
depleting mineral resources redirected the attention of scientists towards Mars. The renewed
focus on Mars has rejuvenated the idea of terraforming Mars, which once belonged to the
realm of science fiction, but is becoming increasingly possible today. Terraforming (or earth

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forming) is a Herculean feat of planet wide engineering that will change the Martian
atmosphere and allow humans to make uninhabitable Mars into a planet fit for natural life. The
difficulty and extent of the process is sharply defined by the present condition of the planet.

”Now we have fairly accurate maps of the Red Planet, and can imagine how it might be
modified—terraformed—to make it nearer to our heart’s desire,” said space visionary Arthur C.
Clarke recently. Clarke wrote a book, The Snows of Olympus: A Garden on Mars (W.W. Norton
& Co., 1994) that dealt with how to create a biosphere on Mars. He envisioned a huge garden
on the slopes of Olympus Mons, the giant Martian volcano.

In this report we will thoroughly assess the problems and challenges engineers have to
overcome in order to terraform Mars, and discuss the currently most reliable plan, based on
technology of today, of bringing about changes in the planet Mars in order to make a habitat
capable of sustaining human life. The contemporary research considers mainly terraforming
the planet Mars – due to the simple reason that Mars represents the basis which is closest to
earth, and therefore is the easiest planet to terraform with the current technology.

Why Mars?
Why would we ever want to go to Mars? As pictures beamed back from planetary probes and
rovers since 1964 have shown, Mars is a desolate, lifeless planet with seemingly little to offer
humans. It has a very thin atmosphere and no signs of existing life -- but Mars does hold some
promise for the continuation of the human race. There are more than six billion people on
Earth, and that number continues to grow unabated. This overcrowding, or the possibility of
planetary disaster, will force us to eventually consider new homes in our solar system, and
Mars may have more to offer us than the photos of its barren landscape now show. And
although it is a cold dry planet today, it holds all the elements needed for life to exist, including:

 Water, which may be frozen at the polar ice caps

 Carbon and oxygen in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2)

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 Nitrogen

There are amazing similarities between the Martian atmosphere that exists today and the
atmosphere that existed on Earth billions of years ago. When the Earth was formed, no
oxygen existed on our planet and it, too, looked like a desolate, unlivable planetI . The
atmosphere was made entirely of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. It wasn’t until
photosynthetic bacteria developed on Earth that enough oxygen was produced to allow for
the development of animals. Similarly, the thin Martian atmosphere today is almost totally
composed of carbon dioxide. Below is table 1 showing the composition of the atmosphere
of present day Earth and Mars.

Table 1: Comparison of dry atmosphere

Mars Earth
Pressure 0. 6 kPa (0.087 psi) 101.3 kPa (14.69 psi)
Carbon dioxide (CO2) 95.32% 0.04%
Nitrogen (N2) 2.70% 78.08%
Argon (Ar) 1.60% 0.93%
Oxygen (O2) 0.13% 20.94%

It can be seen form the table above, that there is a huge contrast in the atmosphere of
present day Earth and Mars. Any human visiting mars today would have to carry with them
huge amounts of oxygen and nitrogen in order to survive. However, the similarity to the
early Earth and modern Mars atmospheres, has led some scientists to speculate that the
same process that turned the Earth's atmosphere from mostly carbon dioxide into
breathable air could be repeated on Mars. To do so would thicken the atmosphere and
create a greenhouse effect that would heat the planet and provide a suitable living
environment for plants and animals.

I
“Birth of the Earth”, Naked Science, National Geographic channel, TV, originally aired October 24th 2005.

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The average surface temperature on Mars is a frigid minus 81 degrees Fahrenheit (-62.77
degrees Celsius) with extremes that range from 75 degrees Fahrenheit (23.88 Celsius) to
less than minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit (-73.33 Celsius). In comparison, Earth's average
surface temperature is about 58 degrees Fahrenheit (14.4 degrees Celsius). However, there
are a few Martian features that are close enough to Earth's to consider it for habitation,
including:

 A rotation rate of 24 hours 37 min (Earth: 23 hours 56 min.).

 An axial tilt of 24 degrees (Earth 23.5 degrees).
 A gravitational pull one-third of Earth's
 It is close enough to the sun to experience seasons.

Changes Required:
Terraforming Mars would entail three major interlaced changes: building up the atmosphere,
keeping it warm, and keeping the atmosphere from being lost into outer space. Since Mars’
atmosphere consists mainly of CO2, a known greenhouse gas, once the planet begins to heat,
more CO2 enters the atmosphere from the frozen reserves on the poles, adding to the
greenhouse effect. This means that the two processes of building the atmosphere and heating
it would augment one another, favoring terraforming. However, on a large scale, controlled
application of certain techniques (explained below) over enough time to achieve sustainable
changes would be required to make this hypothesis a reality.

Building the Atmosphere:

Methods of Accomplishing Global Warming on Mars

The essence of the situation is that while Mars' CO2 atmosphere has only about 1% the pressure
of the Earth's at sea level, it is believed that there are reserves of CO2 frozen in the south polar
cap and adsorbed within the soil sufficient to thicken the atmosphere to the point where its
pressure would be about 30% that of Earth. The way to get this gas to emerge is to heat the

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planet, and in fact, the warming and cooling of Mars that occurs each Martian year as the
planet cycles between its nearest and furthest positions from the Sun in its slightly elliptical
orbit, cause the atmospheric pressure on Mars to vary by plus or minus 25% as compared to its
average value on a seasonal basis.

The three most promising options for inducing the required temperature rise to produce a
runaway greenhouse on Mars appear to be the use of orbital mirrors to change the heat
balance of the south polar cap (thereby causing its CO2 reservoir to vaporize), the importation
of ammonia rich objects from the outer solar systemI, and the production of artificial
halocarbon ("CFC") gases on the Martian surface. We discuss each of these in turn. It should be
noted, however, that synergistic combination of several such methods may yield better results
than any one of them used aloneII.

Orbiting Mirrors

While the production of a space-based sunlight reflecting device capable of warming the entire
surface of Mars to terrestrial temperatures is theoretically possibleIII, the engineering
challenges involved in such a task place such a project well outside the technological horizon
considered in this report. A much more practical idea would be to construct a more modest
mirror capable of warming a limited area of Mars by a few degrees. A 5K temperature rise
imposed at the pole should be sufficient to cause the evaporation of the CO 2 reservoir in the
south polar cap. Based upon the total amount of solar energy required to raise the black-body
temperature in a given area, a certain number of degrees above the polar value of 150 K, we
find that a space-based mirror with a radius of 125 km could reflect enough sunlight to raise the
entire area south of 70 degrees south latitude by 5 K. If this mirror is made of solar sail type
aluminized Mylar material with a density of 4 tons/km2, such a sail would have a mass of

I
Pollack, J., and Sagan, C., "Planetary Engineering," in Resources of Near Earth Space, Lewis, J. and Mathews, M., eds, Univ. of Arizona Press,
Tucson, Arizona, 1993.
II
Fogg, M.J., "A Synergic Approach to Terraforming Mars," JBIS, 45, 1992, pp. 315-329.
III
Birch, P., "Terraforming Mars Quickly," JBIS, 45, 1992, pp.331-340.

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200,000 tons. This is too large to consider launching from Earth, however if space-based
manufacturing techniques are available, its constructing in space out of asteroidal or Martian
moon material is a serious option. The total amount of energy required to process the materials
for such a reflector would be about 120 MW-years, which could be readily provided by a set of
5 MW nuclear reactors such as the ones that are now being considered for use in piloted
nuclear electric spacecraft. Interestingly, if stationed near Mars, such a device would not have
to orbit the planet. Rather, solar light pressure could be made to balance the planet's gravity,
allowing it to hover as a "Statite" I with its power output trained constantly at the polar region.
For the sail density assumed, the required operating altitude would be 214,000 km. The statite
reflector concept and the required mirror size to produce a given polar temperature rise is
shown in figs 1 and 2.

Fig.1. Solar sails of 4 tons/km2 density can be held stationary above Mars by light pressure at an
altitude of 214,000 km. Wasting a small amount of light allows shadowing to be avoided.

I
Forward, R., "The Statite: A Non-Orbiting Spacecraft," AIAA 89-2546, AIAA/ASME 25th Joint Propulsion Conference, Monterey, CA, July 1989.

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Fig.2. Solar sail mirrors with radii on the order of 100 km and masses of 200,000 tons can
produce the 5 K temperature rise required to vaporize the CO2 in Mars' south polar cap. It may
be possible to construct such mirrors in space.

If the value of Td (characteristic energy required for release of CO2 gas from the soil) is lower
than 20 K, then the release of the polar CO2 reserves by themselves could be enough to trigger
the release of the regolith's reserves in a runaway greenhouse effect. If however, as seems
probable, Td is greater than 20 K, then either the importation or production of strong
greenhouse gases will be required to force a global temperature rise sufficient to create a
tangible atmospheric pressure on Mars.

Ammonia Asteroids
Ammonia is a powerful greenhouse gas, and it is possible that nature has stockpiled large
amounts of it in frozen form on asteroidal sized objects orbiting in the outer solar system. If
moving material from such objects to Mars is envisioned, then such orbits would be quite
convenient, because strange as it may seem, it is easier to move an asteroid from the outer
solar system to Mars than it is to do so from the Main Belt or any other inner solar system orbit.

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This odd result follows from the laws of orbital mechanics, which cause an object farther away
from the Sun, to orbit the sun slower than one that is closer in. Because an object in the outer
solar system moves slower, it takes a smaller V to change its orbit from a circular to an ellipse.
Furthermore, the orbit does not have to be so elliptical that it stretches from Mars to the outer
solar system; it is sufficient to distort the objects orbit so that it intersects the path of a major
planet, after which a gravity assist can do the rest. The results are shown in Fig. 3. It can be seen
that moving an asteroid positioned in a circular orbit at 25 AU, by way of a Uranus gravity assist
to Mars, requires a V of only 0.3 km/s, compared to a 3.0 km/s V to move an asteroid
directly to Mars from a 2.7 AU position in the Main Belt. The time of flight required for such
transfers is shown in Fig.4.

Fig.3. Using gravity assists, the ΔV required to propel an outer solar system asteroid onto a
collision course with Mars can be less than 0.5 km/s. Such "falling" objects can release much
more energy upon impact than was required to set them in motion.

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Fig.4. Ballistic flight times from the outer solar system to Mars are typically between 25 and
50 years.

Consider an asteroid made of frozen ammonia with a mass of 10 billion tons orbiting the sun at
a distance of 12 AU. Such an object, if spherical, would have a diameter of about 2.6 km, and
changing its orbit to intersect Saturn's (where it could get a trans-Mars gravity assist) would
require a V of 0.3 km/s. If a quartet of 5000 MW nuclear thermal rocket engines powered by
either fission or fusion were used to heat some of its ammonia up to 2200 K (5000 MW fission
NTRs operating at 2500 K were tested in the 1960s), they would produce an exhaust velocity of
4 km/s, which would allow them to move the asteroid onto its required course using only 8% of
its material as propellant. Ten years of steady thrusting would be required, followed by a about
a 20 year journey to impact. When the object hits Mars, the energy released would be about 10
TW-years, enough to melt 1 trillion tons of water (a lake 140 km on a side and 50 meters deep).
In addition, the ammonia released by a single such object would raise the planet's temperature
by about 3 degrees centigrade and form a shield that would effectively mask the planet's
surface from ultraviolet radiation. As further missions proceeded, the planet's temperature
could be increased globally in accord with the data shown in Fig. 5. Forty such missions would
double the nitrogen content of Mars' atmosphere by direct importation, and could produce
much more if some of the asteroids were targeted to hit beds of nitrates, which they would

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volatilize into nitrogen and oxygen upon impact. If one such mission were launched per year,
within half a century or so most of Mars would have a temperate climate, and enough water
would have been melted to cover a quarter of the planet with a layer of water 1 m deep.

While attractive in a number of respects, the feasibility of the asteroidal impact concept is
uncertain because of the lack of data on outer solar system ammonia objects. Moreover, if T d is
greater than 20 K, a sustained greenhousing effort will be required. As the lifetime of an
ammonia molecule on Mars is likely to be less than a century, this means that even after the
temperature is raised, ammonia objects would need to continue to be imported to Mars at a
reduced rate. Furthermore, as each object will hit Mars with an energy yield equal to about
70,000 1 megaton hydrogen bombs, the continuation of such a program may be incompatible
with the objective of making Mars suitable for human settlement.

Fig.5. Importing four 10 billion tons ammonia asteroids to Mars would impose an 8 K
temperature rise, which after amplification by CO2 feedback could create drastic changes in
global conditions.

Producing Halocarbons on Mars

In Table 2 we show the amount of halocarbon gases (CFC's) needed in Mars' atmosphere to
create a given temperature rise, and the power that would be needed on the Martian surface
to produce the required CFC'c over a period of 20 years. If the gases have an atmospheric

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lifetime of 100 years, then approximately 1/5th the power levels shown in the table will be
needed to maintain the CFC concentration after it has been built up. For purposes of
comparison, a typical nuclear power plant used on Earth today has a power output of about
1000 MW, and provides enough energy for a medium sized city. The industrial effort associated
with such a power level would be substantial, producing about a trainload of refined material
every day and requiring the support of a work crew of several thousand people on the Martian
surface. A total project budget of several hundred billion dollars might well be required.
Nevertheless, all things considered, such an operation is hardly likely to be beyond the
capabilities of the mid-21st Century.

Table 2: Greenhousing Mars with CFCs

Induced Heating CFC Pressure CFC Production Power Required
(K) (mbar) (t/hr.) (MW)
5 0.012 263 1315
10 0.04 878 4490
20 0.11 2414 12070
30 0.22 4829 24145
40 0.39 8587 42933

In a matter of several decades, using such an approach Mars could be transformed from its
current dry and frozen state into a warm and slightly moist planet capable of supporting life.
Humans could not breathe the air of the thus transformed Mars, but they would no longer
require space suits and instead could travel freely in the open wearing ordinary clothes and a
simple SCUBA type breathing gear. However because the outside atmospheric pressure will
have been raised to human tolerable levels, it will be possible to have large habitable areas for
humans under huge domelike inflatable tents containing breathable air. On the other hand,
simple hardy plants could thrive in the CO2 rich outside environment, and spread rapidly across
the planet’s surface. In the course of centuries, these plants would introduce oxygen into

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Mars's atmosphere in increasingly breathable quantities, opening up the surface to advanced

plants and increasing numbers of animal types. As this occurs, the CO2 content of the
atmosphere will be reduced, which would cause the planet to cool unless artificial greenhouse
gases were introduced capable of blocking off those sections of the infrared spectrum
previously protected by CO2. The halocarbon gases employed would also have to be varieties
lacking in chlorine, if an ultraviolet shielding ozone layer is to be built up. Provided these
matters are attended to, however, the day would eventually come when the domed tents
would no longer be necessary.

Activating the Hydrosphere

Artist's conception of a terraformed Mars

This is the second phase of terraforming Mars, in which

the hydrosphere of the planet is activated. An
important step in in activating the hydrosphere would
be the importation of water that can be obtained, for
example, from ice asteroids or from ice moons of
Jupiter or Saturn. These huge bodies of ice, if set on a
collision course with Mars, would vaporize upon impact and soon condense, covering the
planet with water. In fact, it is a deeply held conviction that water on our planet Earth arrived in
a similar fashionI.

A substantial, nearby source of water is the dwarf planet Ceres, which, according to various
studies accounts for 25% to 33% of the mass of the Asteroid Belt. Ceres' mass is approximately
9.43 x 1020 kg. Estimates of how much of Ceres is water varies widely, but 20% is a typical
estimate and it is thought that much of the water forms the outer or near-surface level. The

I
“Birth of the Earth”, Naked Science, National Geographic channel, TV, originally aired October 24th 2005.

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mass of Ceres' water equals approximately 1.9 x 1020 kg using the previous estimates. The total
mass of Mars is approximately 6.42 x 1023 kg.I Therefore a very rough estimate is that the
amount of water on Ceres equals approximately 0.03 % of the total mass of Mars. Transporting
a significant portion of this water, or water from any of the icy moons, could prove difficult. Any
attempt to perturb the orbit of Ceres in order to add it whole to Mars (similar to the strategy of
using a gravitational tractor for asteroid deflection,II) must account for any resultant
perturbation of the Martian orbit and account for prolonged geological tumult.

Apart from that, water ice is already present at the Martian North Pole, so the use of orbiting
mirrors provides an alternative method for hydrosphere activation. For example, if the 125 km
radius reflector discussed earlier for use in vaporizing the pole were to concentrate its power
on a smaller region, 27 TW would be available to melt lakes or volatilize nitrate beds. This is
triple the power available from the impact of 1 10 billion ton asteroid per year, and in all
probability would be far more controllable. A single such mirror could drive vast amounts of
water out of the permafrost and into the nascent Martian ecosystem very quickly.

Oxygenating the Planet

The most technologically challenging aspect of terraforming Mars will be the creation of
sufficient oxygen in the planet's atmosphere to support animal life. While primitive plants can
survive in an atmosphere without oxygen, advanced plants require about 1 mb and humans
need 120 mb. While Mars may have super-oxides in its soil or nitrates that can be pyrolysed to
release oxygen (and nitrogen) gas, the problem is the amount of energy needed: about 2200
TW-years for every mb produced. Similar amounts of energy are required for plants to release
oxygen from CO2. Plants, however, offer the advantage, that once established they can
propagate themselves. The production of an oxygen atmosphere on Mars thus breaks down
into two phases. In the first phase, brute force engineering techniques are employed to
produce sufficient oxygen (about 1 mb) to allow advanced plants to propagate across Mars.
Assuming three 125 km radius space mirrors active in supporting such a program and sufficient

I
McGRAW-HILL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Science & Technology 8th Edition (c) 1997, volume 10, p.527
II
"British plan to tackle asteroids", BBC NEWS, 31 August 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8230138.stm.

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supplies of suitable target material on the ground, such a goal could be achieved in about 25
years. At that point, with a temperate climate, a thickened CO2 atmosphere to supply pressure
and greatly reduce the space radiation dose, and a good deal of water in circulation, plants that
have been genetically engineered to tolerate Martian soils and to perform photosynthesis at
high efficiency could be released together with their bacterial symbiotes. Assuming that global
coverage could be achieved in a few decades and that such plants could be engineered to be
1% efficient (rather high, but not unheard of among terrestrial plants) then they would
represent an equivalent oxygen producing power source of about 200 TW. By combining the
efforts of such biological systems with perhaps 90 TW of space based reflectors and 10 TW of
installed power on the surface (terrestrial civilization today uses about 12 TW) the required 120
mb of oxygen needed to support humans and other advanced animals in the open could be
produced in about 900 years. If more powerful artificial energy sources or still more efficient
plants were engineered, then this schedule could be accelerated accordingly, a fact which may
well prove a driver in bringing such technologies into being.

Magnetic Field and Solar Radiation

Once we have established an atmosphere similar to that of the Earth, we would have to
maintain it from being lost to the outer space. It has been a long held suspicion that Mars had
an atmosphere just like our planet but it was blasted away
by solar radiation from the sun. New evidence from NASA's
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft supports this long
held suspicionI.The solar wind is a fast-moving part of the
Sun's outer atmosphere. The solar corona, with a
temperature greater than one million degrees C, is so hot
that the Sun's gravity can't hold it down. It flows away in all
Earth’s magnetic bubble extending 50,000
directions traveling 400 to 800 km/s. Every planet in the
solar system is immersed in this gusty breeze of charged particles. On Earth we're protected

I
"The Solar Wind at Mars." NASA Science. Web. 02 Apr. 2011. <http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast31jan_1/>.

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from the solar wind by a global magnetic field, that is, our planet's magnetosphere, which
extends far out into space, deflects solar wind ions before they penetrate to the atmosphere
below.

An important new result from the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) mission is the definite
confirmation of the presence of a magnetic field near MarsI but there is no longer a substantial
magnetosphere. Scientists believe that Mars once had a magnetosphere and the magnetic
fields detected near Mars by the MGS, are actually the remnants of that magnetosphere.
Earth's global magnetic field comes from an active dynamo, that is, circulating currents at the
planet's liquid metallic core. A similar dynamo once churned inside Mars, but for reasons
unknown it stopped working four billion years ago. In order for us to successfully terraform
Mars and prevent the solar winds from blowing away the newly formed atmosphere, we must
somehow revive Mars’ magnetosphere. To do that, the solidified core of Mars must be melted.
This could be achieved by a similar method to that for the import ammonia from Ammonia
Asteroids. As mentioned earlier, a spherical asteroid of diameter of 2.6km, moving with a
velocity of 4km/s would, upon impact, release energy around 10 TW-year(3.154 x 1020J). This
amount of energy is sufficient enough to melt the Martian CoreII, thereby restarting the
dynamo and restoring the magnetosphere. The Ammonia Asteroids can therefore , not only
provide us with sufficient amount of ammonia and water, but it can also trigger a process that
would restore the Martian Magnetosphere. But how can we prevent the new magnetosphere
from having a similar fate form its predecessor? How can we prevent the newly molten core
from solidifying again? A possible solution to this problem has already been presented to you.
Thick, high pressure atmosphere and global warming is the answer. The new atmosphere will,
under the greenhouse effect, keep the planet Mars warm enough to prevent its molten core
from solidifying again, but the atmosphere on Mars must be thicker than that on Earth to
account for the relatively low gravity and mass of Mars.

I
“The Martian Magnetosphere.” Windows to the Universe. Web. 02
Apr.2011.http://www.windows2universe.org/mars/atmosphere/martian_magnetosphere.html&d=&art=pk&cdp=/windows3.html&cd=false&fr
p=/windows3.html&fr=f&sw=false&edu=mid&bacl=/search/search_navigation.html
II
Elkins-Tanton* L.T., Zaranek S.E., Parmentier E.M., Hess P.C., ”Early magnetic field and magmatic activity on Mars
from magma ocean cumulate overturn”, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 236 (2005), Brown University, Department of Geological Sciences,
324 Brook St., Providence, RI 02912, United States, p.1

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Conclusion

We have shown that within broad tolerances of uncertainty of Martian conditions that the
drastic improvements in the life-sustaining characteristics of the environment of the planet
Mars may be brought into effect by humans using early to mid-21st century technologies. While
our immediate descendants cannot expect to use such near-term methods to "terraform" the
planet in the full sense of the word, it at least should be possible to rejuvenate Mars, making it
as open to life as the Earth. Moreover, in the process of modifying Mars, they are certain to
learn much more about how planets really function and evolve, enough perhaps to assure wise
management for our planet.

Beyond such near-term milestones, the tasks associated with full terraforming become more
daunting and the technologies required more speculative. Yet who can doubt that if the first
steps are taken, that the developments required to complete the job will not follow, for what is
ultimately at stake is an infinite universe of habitable worlds.

Seen in such light, the task facing our generation, that of exploring Mars and learning enough
about the planet and the methods of utilizing its resources to begin to transform it into a
habitable planet, could not be more urgent, or more noble.

Bibliography
Birch, P., "Terraforming Mars Quickly". JBIS. 45, 1992, pp.331-340.

“Birth of the Earth”, Naked Science, National Geographic channel, TV, originally aired October
24th 2005.

Bortman, Henry. "Greening the Red Planet." Astrobiology Magazine -- The Origin and Evolution
of Life in the Universe. Web. 28 Mar. 2011. <http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/814/greening-
the-red-planet#>.

Fogg, M.J., "A Synergic Approach to Terraforming Mars," JBIS, 45, 1992, pp.315-329.

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Forward, R., "The Statite: A Non-Orbiting Spacecraft," AIAA 89-2546, AIAA/ASME 25th Joint
Propulsion Conference, Monterey, CA, July 1989.

McGRAW-HILL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Science & Technology 8th Edition (c) 1997, volume 10, p.527.

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