is the telescope an angry racist drunk?

you know the stars in that neighborhood are up to no good!

we could take the same view with other technologies like fusion in the enegy industry or advanced designg nuclear rocket engines and still get us nowhere but perfecting 1950s technologies

imho those people had been testing their technology for years but the company size and available cash is nowhere to be able to proceed with the desirable development speed

further ahead there are people working on other types of hypersonic engines

and in the future even plasma jet enginess (fairly early stage and with many issues to solve such as the amount of energy...) fairly stage but imho worth exploring since a breakthrough on such could change not only space industry but the entire aerospace industry

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I thank you for clarifying-I thought it was named Nancy Grace because of the “dark energy” part xD

can we name these after all seeing mythical figures yet, rather than accidentally including fox newscasters who happen to be part of the scientist's name

Would you say it is the case for Venus? I would imagine the level of solar radiation is not remotely negligible at that distance. Especially if the atmosphere is converted to be breathable, and thus dramatically reduced in density.

Hypothetically, you can do just about anything.

But a magnetosphere is not necessary for Mars. Because of the inverse square law, Mars would see less than half of the solar wind and radiation as Earth.

A funny notion concerning Venus, connected to the "necessity of a magnetosphere", is that Venus also happens to have no magnetosphere. Yet it is fully capable of maintaining a thick atmosphere over geological timescales. Despite being hotter and closer to the Sun, its gravity does the job of keeping the atmosphere on the planet. Well, other than H and He, which will be blown away by solar wind (though the Earth loses these over time as well).

Venus doesn't have water, which indeed might be related to its lack of magnetosphere. Water vapor in the upper reaches of the atmosphere can ionize, and the H can be blown off by the solar wind. This might be how Venus lost all its water in the first place, and why it has so much CO2 gas, because without water it won't become bound to rocks like it does on Earth.

So, naturally, the "simple" task of terraforming Venus is probably to "just add water". And yes, you are right, Venus might be a much better early candidate for terraforming due to this. It is closer to the Sun, it has the right gravity etc. Mars is a better candidate for early human (artificial) habitation, but if we can terraform Mars we can probably also terraform Venus and it'd produce better results. And I don't think you really need to accelerate its rotation (unless, again, you're trying to make a magnetosphere perhaps?)

Disagree. Money can be invested much better. Their technology isn't that great and their vehicle is mostly fantasy. It would take absurd amount of money and likely they couldn't make it work at all.

For that same price you could build way more useful things for space flight.

My uncle terraformed a magnetosphere in his garage but it didn't pass the roadworthy.

I honestly think the better move for a permanent terraform would be Venus, and Mars would work well with a "temporary" terraform like you describe. Venus is the only planet with real potential to be a sister Earth. There are multiple processes theoretically possible that would convert its atmosphere to the right composition and lower the temperature, at an exponential rate. These methods in conjunction could completely change Venus in a matter of a few centuries. The biggest thing it seems would be to accelerate its rotation. Which is a lot more difficult for a type 1 civ than all the other tasks such as adding water and converting the atmosphere. The energy and technology required to exert a meaningful positive rotational force on the planet is well, astronomical. And you also have to consider that to turn on the geological magnetism you may need to divert a moon to Venus. But I think Mars could be great practice for these things on a planetary scale.

They can’t do anything more with dark energy until it is “found/discovered”

It’s just a hypothesis because they know there is something there that’s doing something about the expansion. Until dark energy, whatever it may actually be, is found it is just a sort of variable in a math equation.

I don't think it's in any way critical to that. Those kinds of harmful waves, from UV to gamma, are mainly helped by having a thick enough atmosphere - its exact composition can matter too though (mainly for UV absorption). But initially all this requires is just dumping a lot of gas of your desired makeup onto Mars. The medium term stability of that atmosphere depends mainly on chemical (and eventually biologically driven) reactions near the surface...

Mars has weaker gravity so it won't be able to help hold onto the thick atmosphere long term. This is where a magnetosphere helps, because it can protect molecules in the upper atmosphere from being ejected by solar rays when in normal conditions they wouldn't reach escape velocity. But Mars' gravity is too low anyway, even with a magnetosphere it wouldn't be able to hold an Earthlike atmosphere forever.

The "easy" solution is to just keep adding required gases into the atmosphere. Which, if you were able to do it the first time, you can probably keep doing. This would still be a matter of millions of years, it's not like your Martian biosphere suddenly runs out of oxygen just because you forgot to add this year's oxygen supply.

I thought the absence of a magnetosphere basically equates to the planet's surface being sterilized, and the UV rays from Sol fuck with essential compounds in a bad way. The dyson swarm being an obsolete concept is interesting, I appreciate knowing that now.

> towards single stage planes, hypersonic engines

That's never gone beat a reusable 2 stage vehicle.

Of course all this depends on what "level" civilization we are assuming, i.e. how much energy and what ability to move resources at large scale there are.

To just terraform the surface of Mars we don't need so much. Of course it's huge compared to what we can do now, but it's nowhere near dyson swarm capability levels. Technically it's probably enough to just dump a lot of atmosphere (lots of oxygen of course) plus water (from small icy asteroids e.g.) onto Mars; once it has a thick enough atmosphere with enough water vapor it will warm up through greenhouse effect.

No need for a magnetosphere.

If you still wanted one, even an artificial one, that would take a bit more effort. Not a big deal for a type II civilization, but still you do not need to wait until then to terraform Mars. You can just terraform it the "easy" way as above, even if it's not permanent you don't care, and then you might "fix it" later when you've advanced more - if you even care about it at that point.

To be honest I don't think any self-respecting type II civ would bother with a dyson swarm. That was conceptualized before the notion of nuclear energy was even mainstream understanding. If you're on that level of energy harnessing, using a dyson swarm is pointless; the Sun is an absolutely terrible "fusion reactor". You would instead use artificial fusion yourself. Would take fewer resources than a dyson swarm, you could create as much power as you want (easily more than the Sun itself, even if you just use fuel from Jupiter and leave the Sun alone as a token "natural reserve") and it would be a concentrated, on-demand power source. Of course at this point a project like "terraforming Mars" would become like a school science project.

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Well the biggest reason I can see, is that energy is finite in our solar system and artificial methods would take a lot. If we made some system to harness the sun's energy like a dyson swarm it could make it possible on a planetary scale, but it's a close margin otherwise with nuclear energy. You're right as far as everything else goes, an artificial field is more practical and less of an undertaking.

I understand what you're asking and it's not an artificial field. I don't know how possible it is, but my question is why? An artificial magnetosphere is probably much easier, so why bother with a "terraformed" one?

Better yet, why make one at all? You do not need a magnetosphere to terraform the surface of Mars otherwise. You'd only care about it if you want the changes to become more or less permanent without maintenance. But why would you bother? If we are able to create livable conditions on the Martian surface in the span of centuries only, then we don't care if those conditions are stable over only millions, rather than billions, of years. We can just actively maintain them as needed.

Technically you could turn the planet into a giant induction magnet with two stupendously powerful electromagnets on the poles, heating up it's core until geologic function resumes.

For the record, Grace Under Fire starred Brett Butler as a character named Grace.

that is an interesting resume, thanks

the situation kind of reminds me the issues we have trying to achieve fusion energy, in both cases we know the that phisics work, we know is a desirable outcome but we need to workout the engineering problems

payload size may be an issue with early technology but if we at least manage reliable vehicules for human transportation that is one less problem and lower risk level until we can figure heavy loaders and eventually we are going to need an increased number of people working upthere becoming routine

Why should they? They haven't presented a working prototype of their engines in 30 years, and there are a lot of questions about that design.

And even what they propose to do with it (Skylon) isn't really a good idea.

pity people like reaction engines doesnt get more money

The thing that bothers me is that they never "go back to the drawing board" and instead choose to "tweak the current theory" x500 times. Doesn't seem very scientific, and reminds me of Luminiferous Aether or Quintessence. The descendants of those 16th century scientists are still marching around waving their hands, they just wear a different style of hat now