Halley comet is degrading - in time it will be nothing more a pea sized ice cube.

I suggest that we plant an engine on the comet and smash into mars this is what comets do. In doing so deliver a huge quantity of water onto the surface. This will immediately thicken the atmosphere probably produce clouds and provide plenty of water on the surface.

Any environmentalists disagree with this suggestion?
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edward johnson
chemical sciences

Would that not blacken the skies for centuries?

Personally I think it is arrogant to think that we should alter another planet in our solar system, we are already doing a good enough job destroying our own.
Although I am sure that eventually we will move out into space I think that a better way to do it would be to find another planet that can support life and go there before we start destroying other planets in our own solar system.

You should really work on a theory for travel near the speed of light or for creating worm holes instead of theorizing about destroying other planets.

Also Haleys comet is big and travelling very fast, wouldnt running it into a planet possibly alter that planets rotation around the sun which in turn may alter the rotation of other planets ie (Earth).

The might destroy the planet and make a lot of crater on the surface...why not just build tube all the way from Earth to Mars (35 million miles) and pump half of the water from Earth to Mars...Powerful Water sucking Machine LOL

This topic has been discussed in other threads. See: Genisis - Can we create a new planet ?? You need much more than Halley's comet.

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I think he was trying say : put half of the Water on Earth by using an Comet-look object to carry it to Mars, see if the atmosphere will look like Earth or not ^^

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Whoa!!! Let's not try smashing a comet into poor ole' Mars before we know what is there and what has happened to it already! I'm not TOTALLY against IDEAS, but lets get some better idea of what we are really dealling with in the first place??? There might be hints up there of the changing of our solar system that we just haven't had a chance to think of yet. Besides, at an average temperature of -65 (if I remember right?) the melting of poor old Halley's comet might be slow? And why isn't there water showing all around on Mars today? It appears that it was there in places long ago. Where is it now? Let's study a bit before we try major, expensive moves that might do no more than knock Mars out of it's orbit and cause problems for us all??? :blink:

Thanks for your comments of course this is no more than an conceptual idea. yes lets see what is on mars before we compromise its surface. this is what terra forming does. if we find that the surface is totally locked out then why not try such an experiment. yes the collision will be very substantial if impact occurs at 20,000 K/hr and it weighs some tens of thousands of tonnes then the effect of course will be most interesting. yes material will be knocked off the surface and will cause a fantastic meteor shower here on earth. we just have to make sure that when the collision occurs that mars in on the other side of the sun to us! alternatively we could moderate the imapaction by splitting halley into two or three pieces each one then navigated into a an impact. this way the terra forming excercise could be engineered? Any further thoughts ladies and gentlemen?

Lots and lots of micro organisms in balls of dried soil samples add water and kick start the production of oxygen and co2.
The trick would be maintaining the environment and introducing biology at the right times. It just would not work if it was only humans that lived there.
We need to know what chemicals/life? is already there first though. Also it is my understanding that there would be a need for more co2 in the atmosphere to thicken it and raise the temperature. So lets get the planet breathing for Mars.

I think we should also change the Venusian atmosphere using a chain of micro biology to consume the sulphur and, ultimately, by-produce oxygen.
The atmosphere could then be "farmed" for use on Earth/Mars.

I think we should just find the ancient alien machine that resides inside some martian mountain, and put our hand in the activate pad which will lower very hot rod type things into the frozen water that is below the surface, thereby generating water and oxgen, making the atmosphere breathable etc.

Of course to do that, we'll have to get rid of quite a few greedy business men who don't want the machine turned on because it is against their financial interests, and then those business men will obviously have quite a few drone guards trying to stop us too, and someone will have to have their memory wiped and wrap a towel around their head to block out a GPS signal type thing, and we'll also be in league with the mutants that are against the evil business men.


Hang on... I watch too many films.


On a serious note though, I think terraforming mars is something that will be done in the future. Possibly out of necessity, but it is a long way away yet. Moon colonies will posisbly be first, then Mars colonies. But terraforming a whole planet I imagine will be a difficult process taking a very long time.

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Degeneration, ha ha, you thought of writing a script? God knows Hollywood needs decent scriptwriters these days...

That one has been done already in big Arnie's Total Recall... so the 'credit' for it lay elsewhere!

Having said the above.. Lets think about this for a moment. There is a reason life hasn't developed elsewhere in the solar system. Maybe the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs had a big sister which slammed into mars and killed everything. who knows. Need more time and more research.

Why did water stop flowing?

Why did the temperature drop?

Why... only time will tell. Only time but we can do it..

Seriously, Some one needs to update you guys on the chemical engnineering. Terra forming a planet is not easy. It will take decades if not centuries. what we need to do is to get our heads out of the clouds and come back to reality. Our very first task should be finding out how to travel in space first.

Ive been reading about terra forming for over 15 years and ive read all the documented books that talk about terra forming mars. most of the information is crap, depending on what your reading, most of the stuff ive read is stuff that has been documented by NASA them selves, along with robert zubrin and a few other leading astro phyisists.

Oh and by the way, if any of you think that its possible to move a moving object such as a comet, your gravely mistaken. you would need more power and speed to change the direction of such an cosmic body. besides taking a comet and hitting a planet is the worst idea ever, can some one think of something original?

OK, here's an idea that I think is original, at least I've never seen it anywhere. May be totally impractical in the end, but I don't see why. Given enough time.

I've already posted it here, but I'll recap it here.

First off, yes, terraforming would be a long term (really long term) project. In the case of Mars, there are a number of problems, but a big one is it's too damn cold! Too bad it isn't closer to the sun. So let's move it.

No, not directly. Way, way beyond anything imaginable. But we just might be able to influence the orbit of something smaller. People talk about doing that in the case of potentially hazardous near earth asteroids, for instance. I don't think conventional rockets are the answer for this purpose, I think a solar powered ion engine that used materials on the asteroid for reaction mass might be feasible. Or solar sails. It has to be someting like that which uses a renewable energy source available at the asteroid. Low thrust for a long period of time, just to make slight adjustments to its orbit - steering, as it were.

Pick an appropriate asteroid. Steer it over a period of years or decades until you get it on a close approach orbit for Mars. Carefully calculate the orbit you need (like we did for so many space probes) to get a speed boost from Mars, and at the same time, put it on a close approach orbit for another planet - Earth would probably be a good choice. Steer to get a close approach to Earth that drops it's speed and puts it back on a close approach course to Mars.

Repeat indefinitely. Maybe do the same with many asteroids at the same time.

Each of these passes will take energy away from Mars, and add energy to Earth's orbit. The result will be that Mars' orbit will shrink, and Earth's orbit will rise. Slowly. Over a long period of time. But since Earth is 10 times more massive than Mars, for every million miles we raise the Earth's orbit, Mars' orbit will shrink by 10 million miles.

With global warming, we could stand to be a couple million miles farther from the sun. With -50 C being a warm eqatorial day, Mars could stand to get a little closer to the fire.

The idea is to transfer energy and angular momentum from one body to another to manipulate their orbits into forms more suitable for life. We've done it many times with spacecraft from the ioneers to Galileo. This is just a little bigger.

Original enough for you?

I like your idea of using asteroids to move a planet´s orbit but I had already read about the idea in a book by Isaac Asimov "Nemesis".

At the end of the book he proposes an idea essentially the same as yours - except on a much vaster scale! He proposed using asteroids entering & leaving hyperspace as the way to deflect a red dwarf (Nemesis) from passing so close to our Sun that the Solar System would be torn apart by gravitational forces!

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Boy, someone has been watching Total Recall again when they should have been watching the Learning Channel.

First thing that has to happen before trying any serious terriforming of Mars is to get it 15 to 20 million miles closer to the Sun. A couple of the ideas expressed here even show a little (athough very little) promise.

Someone else mentioned Venus. Now there the reverse is true. It needs to get at least 10 to 15 million miles farther from the Sun, which may still not be far enough. And even then there could be problems with Venus perturbing Earth's orbit.

I think we will have colonies on Europa, and Callistio long before we start moving planets.