Help me populate mars!!!!

Hey everyone, I was just pondering some facts and was wondering if it is possible for us to create a livable environment on Mars.

Here\'s my thinking:   Halley\'s comet, and other comets are made of ice & debris, right???

Well does anyone know if there is enough ice mass in Halley\'s comet that if we re-directed it\'s path to merge with Mars it might give Mars enough water & atmosphere to sustain life???

I think the comet returns in the summer of 2061.

If anyone has any information on Halley\'s comet or other Larger comets that may be used please reply.

Also if anyone knows the orbital paths of Halley\'s Comet versus Mars orbit around the sun and can provide any information either giving hope or proving this feat improbable please let me know.

Please reply quickly because we only have about 59 years before the comet comes back around.  Also, the longer we wait, the less ice there will be on the comet (It is constantly burning off)

Please feel free to give theories and information on what organisms we should send first after we hydrate the planet.

Thanks,





P.S.  -   I just thought this would be interesting & fun
<------not crazy

This theory has been around for a while.  I think David Brin and Gregory Benford mentioned it in their coauthored novel "Heart of the Comet."  It may have been mentioned in some the numerous other Mars habitation books out there.  I haven\'t read any of them though.  Obviously we lack the technology to alter a comet\'s course at the moment, and I don\'t think even 59 years will give us enough time to do it.  Maybe on Halley\'s next orbit after that we might be ready.

I believe another idea was to detonate nuclear weapons on Mars, thus putting a great deal of dust into the atmosphere, triggering a greenhouse effect, raising the surface temperature, and therefore melting some of the frozen water at the poles.  I think there was some theoretical snag in that plan too, but I don\'t remember what it was.

However it\'s done, I\'m sure we will be living on Mars eventually.  It\'s inevitable, because some day we won\'t have enough space on Earth.  I wouldn\'t count on it happening any sooner than about 150 years from now.

You had me fooled man. From the sounds of your title I thought you had hired a myriad of female sex slaves and were asking for help in "populating" mars. From the sounds of it you’re far from the stage of procreation. When you get to that point let us know.

Well...the whole theory sounds pretty farfetched...and I think that if it ever did happen, it wouldn\'t be for a couple million years at the least.

I think it would be possible...but it\'s pretty drastic.

See Yuz.

[Titan]

I think we should leave mars alone. We already messed up this planet. We would be changing another planet so we could live on it and eventually we will screw that planet up too. Then we will move on again. Also, if we reroute Halley\'s Comet, when it strikes mars, we could destroy mars. One of Mars\'s moons is already on a collision coarse with mars and will destroy it. We should just leave it alone. Land and study there but not living there. Unless we live in some kind of bubble or something.

EDIT: Should have mentioned. Human life will level out. Ever hear of the S shaped curve (just learned about it in bio) There is expodential growth (population boom) which will follow by a leveling off. It WILL HAPPEN. It ALWAYS happens. Then eventually followed by the Death Phase which means we die (which doesn\'t always happen).

Wow, u sound pretty serious bout this.  

No one in thier right minds are gonna want to do that just because of the solid fact that the Haley\'s Comet is the most beloved and known to man.  This would problly destroy it and it would know longer be around every however many years.

Also, isn\'t mars a little cold anyways though?

Originally posted by PSX_J
Wow, u sound pretty serious bout this.  

No one in thier right minds are gonna want to do that just because of the solid fact that the Haley\'s Comet is the most beloved and known to man.  This would problly destroy it and it would know longer be around every however many years.

Also, isn\'t mars a little cold anyways though?

I believe Mars is cold because it doesn\'t have the atmosphere to hold in any heat from the sun.  

As for the people who think that we "screwed up" Earth and that we shouldn\'t "screw up" Mars well, what could we do to screw it up?, besides blowing it up like the "Death Star."   It\'s already a waste-land of rocks & dirt.  

So let\'s just say that it did work and life was sustainable.  What types of life should we put on Mars??? should we make it a mosquito-free planet???

off planet colonization isnt feasible

the cost alone would make it impossible

Titan i don\'t think I need a study to tell me that if two people get together and have more than two babies there is going to be population growth.                                                                          
                 Anyways how can any study about population increase/decrease over a long period of time take into account for the astounding leaps in medical science as well as life expectancy that have occured in only the last 100 or so years.

Mars would need some major atmospheric tweaking.  As it is, Mars\' atmosphere only had one layer.  Our stratosphere, with it\'s temperature inversion and ozone concentration, provides a "lid" over the troposphere, the layer we live in.

Just stickin\' water and "Earth-like" air wouldn\'t do much good, because without a capping stratosphere, it\'ll all dissapate into space.

First what we need to do is create mass chemical reactions that would create the necesarry gasses to produce a capping stratosphere.  Then introfuce water and other necesarry gasses.

As of now there is no conceivable way to do this.  If we poulate mars, it\'s gonna be in Bio Domes.  Oh Lord, I just reminded myself of the movie "Bio Dome."  I think I\'m going to leave now. . .

Trog is right.Besides anykind of attmospheric changes we could make would be nearly useless due to the increased distance from the sun.It just would\'nt be warm enough for most oxygen producing plants.

Here\'s a site I found about Mars and the flooding that recently happened:

Click Here