Some Scientists Say Transforming Mars' Climate So That Humans Can Live and Breathe There Unassisted is a Real Possibility

Space.com – The concept of terraforming Mars — transforming the planet's climate to support life as we know it — has long belonged to the realm of science fiction. But a new study argues that it's time to take the idea seriously.

"Thirty years ago, terraforming Mars wasn't just hard — it was impossible," said Erika DeBenedictis, CEO of Pioneer Labs and lead author of the new paper. "But new technology like [SpaceX's] Starshipand synthetic biology have now made it a real possibility."

The paper debates the complex ethical questions that must be considered if we're to terraform Mars and lays the blueprint for a potential path forward.

Put succinctly, "living planets are better than dead ones," said study co-author Edwin Kite, an associate professor at the University of Chicago. "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."

Though full terraforming may take centuries, if not millennia, the long-term goal would be a Mars with stable liquid water, breathable oxygen and a thriving ecosystem. In the short term, this might mean only small patches of microbial life; in the distant future, there could perhaps be human cities on the planet.

And if we reach the scale of cities, perhaps that's a stepping stone to even more significant exploration for our species. "As we move out into the galaxy, we will need base camps, and a base camp on the scale of the galaxy is a habitable planet," said Kite.

Thank God. It's about time we got a new planet to live on. I'm getting so sick of trying to "save" this one. I'm sick of being shamed for not recycling, and using too much water, and driving my H1 Hummer to my mailbox every morning, all because of "the environment". The environment is already done for. What even is litter? If I dump my used chunks of broken concrete on the side of the road, I'm basically Hitler. But if I melt the concrete down and smooth it out across someone's front yard, they'll give me $5,000 and suddenly I'm a small business. Isn't human civilization just one big dump anyways? We're all just living on top of giant pieces rash. Every week we take our trash and put it in trash bags, then we set it outside on the concrete (which is technically just flat trash), then the trash collectors come and relocate the trash onto another piece of trash. Earth has long been cooked. The people with the clocks have been telling us for decades.

I'm sick of the clock people too. Like we're supposed to believe these ass holes who don't have the slightest idea how time works. If you're going to scare us into saving the planet using clocks, at least have the balls to put a real timestamp on it. When people read "IT IS 89 SECONDS TO MIDNIGHT", nobody takes it seriously, because they know 89 seconds from now nothing is going to change. If I have to read a longwinded explanation explaining what your doomsday clock actually means, then it's a shitty doomsday clock. At least the "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!" building in NYC kind of uses real time.

Gina M Randazzo. Shutterstock Images.

Anyways… I've had enough of being shamed for my actions in the name of "saving the planet" because "it's the only home we've got". Well not anymore bitches. Earth had a good run. It was a great home for a lot years. A lot of cool things happened on Earth. Cavemen, dinosaurs, Jesus, ghost Jesus, Native Americans, Christopher Columbus, Pilgrims, American wars, World Wars, Civil Rights, Michael Jordan, 9/11, LeBron James, LGBTQ+, Illegal Immigrants, Donald Trump, no more Donald Trump, Donald Trump again, other things I'm probably missing. There's whole long timeline of incredible Earth stuff. But if Earth was meant to last forever, then God wouldn't have filled with fossil fuels. Now thanks to things like fossil fuels, we have the science to take our talents 160 million miles east. 

Right in the nick of time too. By the time our world is officially one big trash heap, and Earth Mother Nature has been reduced to a used cum rag, Mars will be good to go. And Mars will be an even cleaner home than the one we have now. Because by the time we're living there, we'll have interplanetary travel down to a T. All we'll have to do is throw our trash on the high-speed rail and shoot it back to the rotting landfill that is planet Earth. People looove to paint this picture that we've backed ourselves into a corner, and if we don't listen to PETA then any minute now we're going to be swallowed by a tsunami of garbage. But some woman with a degree from MIT and her Harvard educated co-author wrote a paper that said we can maybe start the process of making Mars livable. So sounds to me like we're in fantastic shape. 

Obviously I didn't actually read their paper. But I did skim an article on space.com written by someone who did. According to the article, there are 3 phases to making Mars habitable for humans. I'll do my best give half an effort to break them down.

Phase 1: Make the Planet Warmer

By increasing the temperate of Mars at least 86 degree Fahrenheit through "abiotic climate engineering" (introduction of physical, non-living things that would alter the temperature), we would melt some ice below Mars' surface, release trapped carbon dioxide, and hopefully thicken the atmosphere to the point it would support stable water. 

Phase 2: Introduce Living Organisms

If we introduce living organisms (probably genetically engineered ones that don't require oxygen to live), then overtime the organisms will build a life on Mars, interact with the climate, and eventually start producing oxygen themselves. They'll leave behind organic matter (piss, shit, skin, whatever these genetically engineered living things leave behind), which will begin to change the chemistry of the planet.

Phase 3: Building a Complex Biosphere (this is where they lose me)

The first two phases were things that I clearly don't fully understand, but can at least read about and kind of wrap my around. They sound like tangible things that I can imagine really really smart people being able to do someday. I can convince myself those phases are possible. But isn't "Building a Complex Biosphere" kinda the whole thing? Earth is a complex biosphere. So fPhase 3 kinda seems like, "Then we'll do the other things needed to make Mars livable."

But that's all a bunch of mumbo jumbo. I'm sure the actual paper has a very realistic plan for exactly how this can be accomplished. If we can't trust the word of two people with fancy degrees who I didn't know existed until 5 minutes ago, then who can we trust? So no more worrying about our children's children's chidren's children's children. Take a chill pill PETA. Take a chill pill Just Stop Oil. Mars will be ready any minute. In the meantime, we might as well exploit Earth for all it's worth.