I wasn't crazy about this page, and wasn't planning to post it. But then I realized that without the last panel, the next page (which I think turned out very well) doesn't make any sense. So now I have to post this, and you had to read it. Sorry about that. But at least there's not much dialogue to plow through. Don't worry; we'll be getting back to Ula in a few pages. But first, a new science blurb. Yay! Or you can just skip over it entirely. Yay for that too.
If you've been following my blurbs about Mars and terraforming, you know that I'm not a fan of either: Mars or terraforming. And some of the more popular ideas on how to transform the red planet into a watery oasis are just nutty. Nuking the ice caps or bludgeoning it with asteroids are terrible ideas, and I'm not even sure if that last one's possible. It's definitely not practical!
But Dr. Jim Green, Director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, came up with a plan that makes sense… and ironically in the process may have demonstrated once and for all that Mars can never be a second Earth.
So here's the concept: Any plan to introduce an Earthlike atmosphere to Mars is pointless because without a magnetosphere, any Martian atmosphere will be stripped away by the solar wind. Unfortunately, we don't know of a way to artificially give Mars a magnetosphere. BUT if we were to station a large magnetic dipole shield at Mars' L1 Lagrangian Point, it would deflect solar radiation away from the red planet, effectively serving the same purpose as a magnetosphere. So far so good.
With its atmosphere no longer bombarded, the Martian atmosphere should undergo a natural thickening, and the combination of increased atmospheric pressure accompanied by warming should be enough to sublimate the carbon dioxide polar caps. All told, in a best case scenario, you'll end up with a Mars that has survivable atmospheric pressure and temperature, and you won't catch a lethal dose of radiation when you go out for a jog.
That all sounds nice and rosy, but there is a major problem: Mars, as it turns out, is not quite massive enough to hold onto a thick atmosphere, at least not at habitable temperatures. This is a conundrum for any terraforming plans. It's relatively easy for a small body to keep an atmosphere at low temperatures (Saturn's super cold moon Titan, for instance), but as the temperature goes up, the necessary escape velocity to hold onto gases goes up as well. This means that if you do warm Mars up to a point where it can have liquid water and a breathable atmosphere, then it also no longer has enough gravity to hold onto water vapor, or oxygen, or nitrogen… you know, all that stuff we need to live!
I suppose if you can build a giant space magnet then maybe you could come up with something that would keep all the air from escaping. Some kind of gigantic world-covering sermpermeable membrane, perhaps? Or an orbital circulation system that guides the escaping gases back down? I dunno. Maybe it is possible, with the right engineering. Never say never, I guess. I'm still not a fan though. Let Mars be Mars.
There should be one more update this week. The chapter goes get interesting eventually, but as always I take my time getting to the interesting parts. See you around!
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