General Education and Assignments

Michael Bjorklund

Physics 1040

Reflection for your ePortfolio

 

                This was my first time writing a paper in the style of a blog. This assignment gave me a chance to explore different topics related to astronomy that affects us as a nation and as citizens of Earth. Not only did I get the chance to explore different topics, but I got to write about a topic I had interest in. This class has helped me enjoy studying and learning more about topics even if there is no assigned homework. I have found myself looking more and more for news topics about astronomy. This has lead me to start to pay more attention to news around the country. Also the opinions expressed in this class have helped me see that there is still much to learn, not only in astronomy, but in many topics and that there is much knowledge that we still lack and will need to be discovered. 

 

Michael Bjorklund

Astronomy 9:00 MWF

Creating Another Earth

 

For those of you familiar with Disney’s Wall-e, you will notice that it expresses a couple of political issues that are happening around the world, such as obesity, big business, and over pollution. The solution that the society came up with was to get in space ships and leave their problems behind to robots. As of now we don’t have that kind of technology.

NASA doesn’t have giant space cruise liners or ways for us to survive without our planet Earth. Earth is our home and is the only place we know of that supports and sustains life. What if there was a chance to make another earth? Would it be profitable? Could it help us? Do we need it?

Now to make an artificial planet like in the movie Star Wars “The Death Star” (giant metal moon) is very unlikely and almost all together impossible, but what about taking a planet that we have? Say Mars… Imagine if you will, two earths; ours and Mars with lakes, rivers, seas, and plants. Is it possible?

The answer is: it is theoretically possible; it has just never been done before. We call it Terraforming.

Oxford Dictionaries defines Terraforming as: (especially in science fiction) transform (a planet) so as to resemble the Earth, especially so that it can support human life.

Picture taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars)

First we have never terraformed a planet before. This is a theory that is scientifically sound and would be a benefit for mankind. Before we go on though, we have to examine different beliefs among people that might affect whether this theory actually becomes reality.

I’m going to generalize two groups of people, those who are religious and those who are secular. There is the belief that God will watch over this planet until he sees fit to destroy or change it. With this belief, there is no real haste in trying to colonize another planet or to try and protect every part of our planet. The other belief is that, as far as we know, man is alone and he must rely on himself, and that our survival depends on our protection of Mother Earth.  

I wish to take the view of mankind being alone; it’s down to us to fight for ourselves. We are in a tight spot without an additional place to inhabit besides earth. If something was to take place such as nuclear war or an impact of a giant meteor, a catastrophic disaster… we could be looking at the end of our species and existence in space.

Even if we did discover a planet in a nearby solar system that has life, we are still around 6 light years from reaching it, which would make it impossible to reach in our lifetime. That’s where terraforming comes into play. Instead of trying to fly to a different solar system in search of another earth, why not create one right next to the one we now love.

As I said before, Mars is one of the key planets in this plan: Although we could explore the possibility of Venus and the moon as other “earth” planets, Mars seems to have the upper hand.

First, what are the pros of having another Earth?

1.       Over population of Earth could be devastating, through starvation, wars, etc…Having Mars would allow us to move a great portion of the population from Earth to Mars solving the issue of over population.

 

2.       If something catastrophic was to happen to Earth we would have another planet to seek shelter on until we could re-stabilize Earth.

 

3.       Earth will run out of resources in the future. With Mars, we would have a great deal more of resources and could even use the extra land for agriculture to feed our growing numbers.

More info can be found on reasons for terraforming here in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars)

Now how does this terraforming work? There is a lot more that goes into it then just landing astronauts on mars and slapping down a flag.

This would be a monumental undertaking and a step towards protecting our planet

We would have to get the astronauts there, which would be around a five year trip in a small confined spaceship. This is a deep concern for any Mars missions. Think if you were stuck in a class room for 5 years, even in your own house, it would be mentally difficult. http://library.thinkquest.org/11967/terraforming.html

As part of this mission the astronaut crew would have to involve a pair of doctors in the need of medical attention, not only physical but mental.

Also the amount of supplies needed, food, water, building materials for a colony, etc… we are talking about a great financial cost. Yet this cost would be to help protect our future as a species.

Now some of you might be thinking, ”If we are spending billions of dollars flying to mars just to make a new Earth because we are destroying our own, why not use those billions of dollars to fix our Earth?” this is not the case. In trying to make an earth like planet, we will learn a great deal more about our own planet and how to save it. The biggest problem we face right now is not ourselves; it is the chance that a catastrophe could take place and destroy our planet or leave it in a state unsuitable for sustaining human life. The question we face is if our existence as a species is worth a few billion dollars and some planning?

Next, now that we have our astronaut teams at Mars we would need to start heating up the atmosphere. This should be done in two ways; one through giant mirrors in space which would focus the Sun’s energy back onto the planet heating it up and through factories that produced greenhouse gasses.

The thought of mirrors is a great idea. These giant mirrors will help heat and keep a steady temperature on Mars. This heating would release carbon gasses that are frozen in the rocks allowing the atmosphere to begin thickening and as the heating continues, the permafrost, found on Mars, would begin to thaw releasing great amounts of water back onto the planet in liquid state. http://www.marsnews.com/focus/terraforming/

The other part is to create giant factories whose soul purpose is to produce powerful greenhouse gasses that would create a thick enough atmosphere, allowing people to walk on the planet without the need a space suit for protection, and only the need of a breathing apparatus. http://www.marsnews.com/focus/terraforming/

These gasses and water would start to help form an atmosphere, increasing the air pressure on the planet and the carbon dioxide levels; this is the key to our plans success. As of now, we know that Mars has all the right elements needed to sustain life. It just needs the right ratios. In the chart shown on the next page, we have a long way to go to change the levels of the composition of the Martian atmosphere, and keep it steady.

 

 

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%

Graph taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars)

With this comes the next step. We need to introduce plants that would change this carbon dioxide into oxygen and also begin the process of nitrogen. These plants would be genetically altered to be able to produce greater amounts of oxygen for the planet. http://www.pbs.org/lifebeyondearth/alone/terraforming.html

This process will take a great amount of time to succeed and produce an end result, but it will be worth it. Keep in mind with the way technology is progressing we could find that in a few years we might have some great inventions to help this project move along faster, safer, and more efficiently.

The biggest obstacle that we will face is the fact that none of us who start this project will be able to see it to the end. Also there could be many unforeseen problems and great risk, yet with all this we need to face this risk and help prepare ourselves as mankind and increase our chances of galactic survival.

I feel we owe it to our future generations, that we start this great undertaking to help create a safer future for Earth and its inhabitants and to move forward growing and expanding into the final frontier of space. This can be done and we can secure the future of the Human Race.