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Terraforming

This note is about terraforming.

Cf. macroengineering that is the umbrella term to, geoengineering and terraforming.

Definitions

"The terraforming definition is predicated on a life contribution, and without it we cannot talk about terraforming. For this reason, the microbial contribution is fundamental."

Polgári, Márta, Ildikó Gyollai, and Szaniszló Bérczi. “Terraforming on Early Mars?” In Terraforming Mars, edited by Martin Beech, Joseph Seckbach, and Richard Gordon, 161–279. Hoboken: Wiley-Scrivener, 2022.

"[A]s life and humanity have done historically on Earth, we will have to improve the natural environments we find to create the worlds we want. Applied to other planets, this process of planetary engineering is termed "terraforming.""

Zubrin, Robert. Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1999.

"Terraforming involves processes aimed at adapting the environmental parameters of alien planets for habitation by earthbound life, and it includes methods for modifying a planet’s climate, atmosphere, topology, and ecology."

Pak, Chris. Terraforming: Ecopolitical Transformations and Environmentalism in Science Fiction. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016.

Background

Beech, Martin. Terraforming: The Creating of Habitable Worlds. Astronomers’ Universe. New York: Springer, 2009.

Beech, Martin, Joseph Seckbach, and Richard Gordon, eds. Terraforming Mars. Hoboken: Wiley-Scrivener, 2022.

Ethics

Cf. geoethics.

Sparrow, Robert. “The Ethics of Terraforming.” Environmental Ethics 21, no. 3 (1999): 227–45. https://doi.org/10/fz754r.

Matthews, Jack J., and Sean McMahon. “Exogeoconservation: Protecting Geological Heritage on Celestial Bodies.” Acta Astronautica 149 (2018): 55–60. https://doi.org/10/gds3n8.

On Terraforming Mars.

Ethical issues, in a simplistic manner.

Jakosky, Bruce M. The Search for Life on Other Planets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

​Seven arguments in favour of terraforming Mars are:

  1. A thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide, even though it would be non-- ​breathable, would greatly assist colonists by enabling them to explore the Red ​Planet equipped only with breathing apparatus rather than with full environ​mental space suits.
  2. Locally generated biomass would be an important source of energy, food, and ​other useful materials for colonists.
  3. Such an activity would provide a long term challenge on which humans could ​focus, with a goal that is both useful and desirable for humans.
  4. Such a project would be an essential prerequisite to any future human colo​nization of Mars.
  5. An active biosphere on Mars would provide a refuge for many forms of life on ​another planet in the solar system, safe against the event of war or a natural ​global catastrophe that might destroy life on Earth.
  6. Much of the research would be highly relevant to addressing environmental ​problems at home and to understanding the intricacies of its biosphere.
  7. Becoming a spacefaring civilization is less threatening than military devel​opments or an arms race at home, and would provide a worthy outlet for ​international cooperation and competition and/or technology developments.

​Seven arguments against are:

  1. The time scale is so long that governmental institutions would not be able to ​maintain the necessary commitment to such a project.
  2. It is not clear that there are significant economic benefits, especially in the ​short term, that would be commensurate with the cost and effort involved.
  3. Scarce human and economic resources would be drawn from other worth​while projects, such as addressing social and terrestrial environmental ​problems.
  4. Something could go awry during the course of the project that could damage ​the new Martian biosphere beyond repair, leaving us in a worse situation ​than if we had never intervened.
  5. Humans have made such a bad job of managing the Earth’s environment ​that it would be presumptuous to imagine we are wise enough to succeed on ​another world.
  6. If terraforming was successful, then Mars might become a tempting target for ​military and/or economic exploitation, thereby creating more sociopolitical ​problems than we have at present.
  7. The evolution of a Martian biosphere could be inherently unpredictable, and ​might be detrimental to humans or (by back contamination) to Earth.

Genta thinks that these arguments against can be easily dismissed.

Genta, Giancarlo. “Terraforming and Colonizing Mars.” In Terraforming Mars, edited by Martin Beech, Joseph Seckbach, and Richard Gordon, 3–22. Hoboken: Wiley-Scrivener, 2022.

  1. This is a very reasonable point and we cannot rely on governments ​to perform such a task. Terraforming a planet can be undertaken only in ​the context of a developed space economy, in which private enterprise has a ​large, or even the primary, role.
  2. In the context of a space economy, are the market forces which will ​drive the process. Terraforming Mars needs to be seen in the context of the ​Martian economy, and its advantages are unquestionable.
  3. This is the usual argument against space exploration in general, which ​has proven to be inconsistent. First the resources which will be attracted by ​terraforming (or exploring space in general) are largely insufficient to solve ​‘Earth’ problems, but above all enterprises like exploring, colonizing and ter​raforming, a planet create resources and do not consume them. Technology ​is not a zero-sum game, and Earth’s problems can be solved only if technol​ogy is free to progress.
  4. If we stop for the fear of failure we will never progress. No early tech​nology was as dangerous as fire, and if our ancestors used the principle of ​precaution would have refused to use it. We would still be at the palaeolithic.
  5. This is just a revisited form of point 4.
  6. Developing new resources will decrease the conflicts on our planet. ​It is the decrease of resources in a society which refuses to accept new chal​lenges and to take new opportunities which will make more conflictual the ​relations on Earth.
  7. Each biosphere evolves following its own lines and the laws along ​which this happens need to be studied, and will be studied as a part of the ter​raforming process. Strict anti-contamination procedures need to be a part of ​any terraforming process. To this we must add that all evolutionary processes ​are extremely slow, with all time to take the required counter-measures. ​Actually the reasonable objection to terraforming Mars (or any planet) is that by doing ​so we could cause any local life form to get extinct. As stated by McKay and Haynes, “If, and ​only if, no potentially viable forms of life are found should we attempt to introduce immi​grant species from Earth… What would be the greater good, Mars barren or Mars endowed ​with life? … Should the Martian biosphere be tended to ensure at least early development ​in a manner agreeable to Homo Sapiens?”.
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