WEBVTT - SYSK Distraction Playlist: How Terraforming Will Work 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.000 dot com. Hang, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:17.360 Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there, Chandler's 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:20.720 over Chuck Shoulder in the window, Free things all weird. 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:25.400 I'm hot and your cold. Uh yeah, I'm cold. One 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:27.280 of us is Mars and one of us is being this. 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:34.000 That a book Chuck from Mars. It's the best seller 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:40.360 in the podcast co host segment of Barnes and Noble. 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.040 Are those still around? Yeah? They got like three books 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.440 in three stores. That one click and clack, by the way, 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:50.680 r P R I P legend. Man, that was a 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:54.200 sad one. Was he click or clack? You know? Always 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:58.200 got that confused? Um it was Tom right, I want 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:00.920 to say click but um but as Tom who died 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.760 and his younger brother Ray still around. Yeah, it was 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:06.560 a great show man. Yeah, my house is off to 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:10.959 MPR for like immediately like lowering the flag and making 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:13.200 a big deal out of it, I mean like it 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:15.480 was cool. Yeah, he certainly taught us a thing or 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:17.880 two if they did about just everything we know, kind 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:22.360 of being natural goose leaving it in everything. So hats 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:29.080 off to you, sir, so Chuck. Moving along to terraforming, Um, 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:34.760 did you know that a recent study found that even 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:40.000 if we instituted a global one child policy like China, 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:45.959 but global sure, which is less than a hundred years 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:51.360 away now, Um, it's like eighty five years away, that's 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.960 not that far, we'd be able to keep the population 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.240 at about current levels. A lot of people would say 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.680 the current level is too much as it is. But 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.240 if we didn't do anything and continued on this pace 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:09.200 of growth, we've hit about twelve billion people. By that 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:11.320 is a ton of people. It's a lot of folks. 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.880 There's a that's a lot of stretch on resources for agriculture, 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:20.840 for fuel, energy, all that kind of stuff, and it's 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.760 it's caused a lot of people numbers like this, studies 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:26.880 like this. It's caused a lot of people to say, Um, 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.480 how are we going to support all of these people? Yeah? 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:32.280 Did you know a lot of people poo poo that notion. 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.360 Oh yeah, I had no idea when I did that 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:38.520 little video and overpopulation. A lot of people are like, 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.280 this is not a problem, this is a conspiracy. There's 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.359 a there's a there's a definite division between camps. There's 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.080 the gloom and doom camp who say like, we're screwed, 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:51.079 and then there's the other camp who says we'll always 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.639 technologically advance our way out of trouble like this, right, 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.120 is that what you're saying. I don't know what the 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:00.520 point was. I think there's just there's a camp that 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.760 says overpopulation is not an issue like people say it is. Well, 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:10.080 I think a few people redistributed people. It's possible that 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.760 that could alleviate overpopulation if it is a thing, But 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.040 I think most people I can't even say that. Some 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:21.560 people would say that agriculture has what's called a carrying capacity, 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:24.679 and we've talked about mouth this before, um, and that 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:28.560 we are possibly stretching it right now. UM. So a 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:30.480 lot of people, the ones who do believe in the 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:35.520 overpopulation problem, are starting to look to the stars and saying, hey, man, 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.440 let's figure out how to exploit other planets too, so 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.160 the human race can survive. Isn't that what Interstellar is about? 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:44.480 That new movie? Yeah, And and it was totally I 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:47.040 didn't think, like, oh, Interstellar, this will be timely, like 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:50.280 the two just happen to coincide. Is about terraforming, or 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.440 is it just like, hey, go find a place that's hospitable. Well, 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:57.160 according to what Michael Caine says in the preview, it's 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.600 about just going to find a hospitable plan which is 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:04.120 a search that is currently underway and has been for 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:09.120 a while through NASA's Kepler Um Observatory. They've been looking 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:14.000 for exoplanets, and supposedly right now they have. They're eighteen 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:18.400 hundred and fifty four confirmed exoplanets, forty one undred and 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.240 seventy three unconfirmed, and all of them are between ten 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.400 light years and twenty five thousand light years from Earth. 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:28.200 Pretty far it is right now, it's it's prohibitively far. 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.000 But there are planets out there that exist in what's 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:35.080 called the Goldilocks zone, which is they orbit a star 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:37.479 and they're just far enough away from the star that 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.440 they're not going to burn to a crisp, but they're 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:43.840 not so far away that you're going to freeze to death. 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:46.919 Hence the Goldilocks zone. Not too hot, not too cold, 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:50.440 got it. That's cute. So that's one thing we could do. 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:52.599 We could go find a planet that's like ready made 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:56.279 for us to live on. If it I doubt that 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:58.720 exists though. Yeah, and plus, even if we did find it, 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:01.440 like I said, the closest exo planet that we know of, 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.520 I think is about ten light years away. That means 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.599 it would take a photon, which travels at the speed 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.279 of light, ten years to get there. We can't travel 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.240 anywhere near the speed of light, so it might as 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:17.120 well not exist, so all you know, we're not so. Alternately, 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.280 a lot of people are proposing to take a planet 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.919 or a moon or an asteroid or something and turn 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.479 it into something habitable for us, and that's terraforming. Yeah, 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.479 find a nice little fixer upper planet, go in there 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.720 and flip it and move humanity there to ruin it. 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:38.640 Maybe have a meltdown in front of the cameras, make 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:44.080 a couple of stupid things, cliffhangers. Boom, you've got yourself 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:47.800 a serious that's right, terraforming. We did a short video 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.320 about this once about a hundred years ago, where we 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:55.880 explained it in sixty seconds. We should just try that again, No, 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:59.800 just press play and sit back. We also did one 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:03.400 of lunar building a lunar base. Yeah almost at a 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.680 lunar base on the Moon, but that's redundant. Yeah. Uh, 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.440 and that's another idea, is what we could just build 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.560 lunar bases and stuff. I think Russia is doing that, right. 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.520 They announced in May or June they want to build 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.360 a like habitable base up there, right. They plan to 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.440 spend several hundred million dollars and put it on the 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:27.279 Moon and just start mining the Moon. They want to 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:28.880 get a jump on the rest of the humanity. And 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:31.960 it's pretty smart. But building a lunar base, or building 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:34.719 a base anywhere, a floating city on venus or anything 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:38.640 like that, that's not terraforming. That's building a base somewhere 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.160 or floating city somewhere. Yeah, we're talking about changing the 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:45.640 atmosphere of a planet and more. Yeah, which requires a 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.680 substantial amount of energy, a lot of foresight, and and 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.599 a tremendous amount of patients and money. Yeah I have money. 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:55.960 But I mean if if you take money and the 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.800 amount of time, I would say the amount of time 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:01.200 is more depressed seeing them the amount of money you're 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:03.560 going to have to sink into it, because what we're 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:07.040 talking about is stuff that's not going to take place 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:12.560 until millennia have passed. Yeah, there's all sorts of ranges 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:14.680 of how long it might take the terror form of 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:22.120 planet from a thousand years to twenty years. I saw, yeah, 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.160 for Mars to for us to be able to go 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.400 to Mars and take off a helmet and be like. 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:34.120 Michio Kaku has a very cheap idea. Have you ever 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.000 seen his little short video he explains in sixty seconds? 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.800 What is he what's his idea? He's like, you know, 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.120 there's lots of CEO two under the surface, and all 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:43.960 we have to do is heat that up a little 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:46.840 bit and jump start the process, and then it creates 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:49.240 a what he called a catalytic effect and it just 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:53.880 sort of sustains itself. Well, it's yeah, so that's called 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:57.120 what he's talking about is called the standard paradigm that 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.920 Mars has not CEO two on the planet, that if, 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.360 like he says, you can just melt it, it will 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:09.560 create an atmosphere that traps heat. You know, we have 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:11.320 a problem with c O two on this planet, which 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:13.200 is another reason people say we need to go find 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.640 another planet and create a greenhouse effect, and that will 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:18.680 trap heat, which would melt more c O two and 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:20.640 more and more, and it will just create this cycle. 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.280 Do there what we don't want to do here exactly 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.640 jumps started. Let's let's talk about Mars. Man, You've got 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.560 some time to wrap about Mars and and why Mars 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:34.280 is frequently pointed to as an ideal locale for terraforming. Yeah, 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.640 if you listen to our April episode on Mars, then 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.720 you know a lot about mars um. But we're gonna 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.360 recap some of it. Mars is a very cold, dried, 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.199 dusty place now, but it used to be wet and 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.959 warm and a lot more like Earth than a lot 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:52.600 of surrounding planets. So they think we can just get 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.480 it back to that state, then we've got a good start. 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.720 Probably the key to Mars, more than anything else, that 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:02.480 makes it a the likeliest candidate for terra for me, 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:07.079 is that the Martian day is twenty three point seven hours. 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:11.160 I think it's almost exactly like Earth's day, right, getting 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:14.840 shorter or no, twenty four point seven hours, I'm sorry, 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:19.800 twenty four hours and thirty seven minutes something, yes, point 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.560 seven is thirty seven minutes, isn't sure. I just wanted 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:25.360 to give it a relatable So it's close. It's it's 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:30.160 very close to the Earth day um, and that indicates 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.640 that it spits so if Mars is already spinning, it 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.000 has a huge leg up over the competition in the 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:41.760 terraforming contest. So many many years ago, Mars was wet, 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:46.640 there was volcanic activity, and it was getting bombarded by asteroids. 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.360 That right, that did two things chuck, two huge things 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:53.600 for Mars. One, these asteroids were bringing in gases or 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.640 compounds that Mars needed to have an atmosphere, right, it 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:01.400 was applying the planet with it. And then the volcanic 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:07.520 activity was taking these, um, these compounds and elements that 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:11.640 were locked into rock and stuff like that and recycling 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:15.559 them back into the atmosphere, which was sustaining the atmosphere, right, Yeah, 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:17.839 which was great as long as that was going on. 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.800 But once those volcanoes stopped and it was lousy with volcanoes. 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:26.520 Once they stopped doing their recycling, gig uh, it basically 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:31.080 absorbed all that stuff and locked it in the the planet. Yeah, 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.080 the same thing would happen here, apparently, like if we 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:37.559 didn't have volcanic activity. Um, what volcanoes do. One of 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.880 the things they performs atmospheric recycling, which is taking this 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:44.280 stuff that you normally have an atmosphere that's been absorbed 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:48.400 by by the soil or by rock and boiling it, 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:50.920 melting the rock and spewing it out as a gas 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.080 back in the atmosphere. And like you said, when Marsh 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:57.440 stopped doing that, it's the recycling process stopped, and all 0:10:57.480 --> 0:10:59.439 of a sudden you just had a static atmosphere that 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.920 slowly was stripped away. Another part of the problem was 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:07.480 Mars cool that the core, and that means it lost 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.240 its magnetic field, so the upper atmosphere was not being 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.880 held in place any longer by the magnetosphere, so the 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:16.880 solar winds were just stripping it away, and all of 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:21.679 a sudden, Mars had this very thin atmosphere that wasn't 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.000 they couldn't trap heat any longer, and the whole planet, 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:26.440 like you said, got really dry and really cold like 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:31.079 we know it today. That's right, and uh, completely uninhabitable. UM. 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:33.719 A couple of other things Mars doesn't have going for it. 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:39.280 UM is it's not very close. It's what like six 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.800 months away to get there. Yeah, I guess yeah. I 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:45.600 think it's like a six month trip to get to Mars. Uh. 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.360 And that's a long way to go if you want 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:53.280 to make regular trips. It's cost prohibitive, yes, but compared 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:55.680 to the Moon, which you can get to like lickt 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.880 ease play that's like a weekender six months is that's 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:03.640 pretty distant. Um. But the fact again, the fact that 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:08.520 Mars has this history of um being able to hold 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:12.760 an atmosphere and surface water, two huge factors in an 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:17.520 a habitable planet. UM and the fact that, uh there's 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:21.280 stuff that's necessary for life, like c O two and 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:23.880 things like that trapped on the planet already in a 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:27.520 frozen form really just kind of is a is a 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:31.640 bright flashing neon signed to people saying, hey, man, come 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.080 terra formed me. That's right. We'll talk about some of 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:36.960 the steps that you have to take to terra form 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:44.680 a planet like Mars right after this. Okay, so Mars 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.160 is a good it's a good, nice old house that 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:49.600 has good bones. Oh yeah, it's a great analogy, and 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.719 we want to restore it to its former moist wet glory, 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.719 which sounds really gross. Some people can't even hear the 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:02.120 word moist. You know. Yeah, there's a whole it's like 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:06.880 a yeah, I don't mind it. Uh so meetchokaku is 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:09.720 has the right idea. There are polar ice caps on Mars, 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:12.600 which have a lot of CEO two, And if you 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.920 jump start those and start to melt them, let's say, 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:22.240 with solar reflective mirrors, bounce that sun over there that way. Uh, 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.240 that might be a good way to get things started, right, 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.160 And it's not going to take too terribly much energy 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.720 um to melt those that sequestered c c O two 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:36.000 because carbon dioxad. Basically what those polar ice caps are 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:39.720 is dry ice. Like Mars has dry ice all over it. 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.000 That's from the atmosphere that was frozen, right, that's right, 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:47.000 and um, dry ice sublimates that a hundred negative a 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:51.040 hundred and nine degrees fahrenheight. Right, So if you can 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.000 just direct some mirrors at it and just raise it 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.600 to that temperature, all that c O two is going 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.920 to go from ice and vaporizing to gas and it's 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.480 going to float up and hang in that thin atmosphere. 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.000 And like we said, once you have that c O 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:07.600 two in that thin atmosphere, you've just started this chain 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.439 reaction that's going to create a cycle where the planet 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:13.240 gets warmer and warmer, and the more and more CEO 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:16.120 two sublimates and joins the atmosphere and you have a 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:21.440 runaway greenhouse effect. Apparently the at the peak the calculations 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:26.120 of the amount of c O two on Mars uh 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.280 says that you would have a surface temperature of about 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.480 a hundred and fifty eight degrees fahrenheight. That's great. Yeah, 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:37.200 it's a little hot, but that means water can be sustained. Um, 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.520 that means that with that atmosphere, the air pressure will 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.880 be increased, because right now the air pressure on Mars 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.160 is pretty low too. I think it's about one percent 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:50.400 of sea level here on Earth, which is another challenge. Yeah, 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.360 well maybe once it's that hot, we can introduce hyper 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:57.240 thermophiles because and I we'll get to Venus. But that's 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.040 one of the ideas for Venus. And the idea is 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.840 you want you can't just plot humans down immediately. What 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:06.720 what you're gonna have to start with is some basic 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.560 form of life, some kind of bacteria perhaps that just 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.280 starts doing its thing and uh chowing down on CEO 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:20.320 two and the making oxygen, and uh pretty soon, like 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:23.440 many thousands of years later, humans might be able to 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.440 live there. Right. One of the that's that's almost like 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.400 the intermediate steps. So the first step is to get 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:31.880 an atmosphere back on Mars. And to get an atmosphere 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:36.480 back on Mars, you take Mitchio Cacus mirrors and melt 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.720 the polar for his mirrors. But yeah, right, it's just 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.160 nice to say his name. Uh. And you melt the 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.960 polar ized caps of dry ice, and you create this atmosphere, 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:51.280 and you allow water to to melt onto the surface, 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.320 and then you add something like I think the likeliest 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.760 candidate to cyano bacteria, which is incorrectly referred to as 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:01.400 blue green algae. Who says that? Who says, what? Blue 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.360 green algae? That's the other term for it. But it's 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:07.560 not analogy. It's like a protozoan, I think or something. 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:11.120 It's a prokaryote, not a eukaryote like algae. Got man, 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:15.400 I feel nerdy right now. It's the oldest fossil on Earth. 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:17.480 I mean, that's kind of where it all began, right, 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:21.160 That's what gave Earth. It's oxygen. So we're saying, hey, 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.360 why not try the same thing on Mars. Got a 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.920 bunch of CEO two on Mars a runaway greenhouse effect. Well, 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:31.960 it just so happens that Ciano bacteria eats CEO two, 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:36.560 and not only does it eat CEO two, it converts 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:39.840 that stuff into oxygen as a waste product. So all 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.920 of a sudden, you have something, a living organism on 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:47.560 Mars that's converting the atmosphere into something breathable for us 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.480 humans here on Earth. The problem is you have to 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:53.920 have water present for Ciano bacteria to live. But you're 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.280 gonna have that water because you've melted the ice caps. 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.920 You've melted the ice caps to get the CEO to release, 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.920 which is like negative a hundred nine. You need to 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.199 raise the temperature to at least thirty two degrees to 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:10.000 start melting the water, which requires even more energy. Where 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.880 you're gonna get that, well, you're not gonna introduce any 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:14.960 sound of bacteria until you have that water. Like that's 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.520 the first goal. You can't have life without water exactly. 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.200 But once you do get the water going, which again 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.399 you could use orbital mirrors, but you just have to 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:25.280 concentrate them a little more to reflect more energy into 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:29.800 a tighter spot. Um, you've got the cyanobacteria chomping away 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:33.800 at the CEO two. It's producing oxygen. Some conservative estimates 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.240 that i've seen are once you have the oceans or 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:42.159 the surface water on Mars, which staggeringly to me, we 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:46.240 could do in a couple hundred years. Supposedly, that's nuts, man, 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:48.919 Think about that, Like, Mars could be turned from a 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.720 desert into a place with service water in a couple 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:55.280 hundred years. That's not that far away, it's not. But 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:59.359 after that, it would take about forty thou years for 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.439 enough oxygen to be introduced in the atmosphere for a 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.480 human to possibly walk around on Mars. Yeah, this is 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.239 why it's so like far fetched to me. Well, it's 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:10.720 science fiction. It is far fetched. But if you take 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:14.160 a long view of humanity and say, yeah, I mean 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.760 there's no reason. What was the man in the extinction episode? 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:21.560 How long does the average species last? Wasn't it like 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:26.760 ten million years? We'll say it is even one million years. 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:31.000 That means humans will be around supposedly. I'd be surprised 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:34.320 well beyond forty thousand years. So we need to be 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.640 thinking like in in these terms, because there's no way 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.240 Earth is gonna last another forty tho years for us 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:46.359 unless we just radically re engineer ourselves. Yeah, I'm I 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:48.040 get I don't. I never thought of myself as a 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:50.120 dim and glimmer. But I must be because I don't 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:52.480 I don't know if humans will be around forty years. 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:56.000 I guess we'll see. Yeah, all right, we won't see that. 0:18:56.600 --> 0:19:01.200 But I mean, technically, it should only take an existential 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:05.560 existential catastrophe to get rid of humans, Like we shouldn't 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:10.760 just necessarily die off as a species. It should It 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:17.879 should take something like physics experiment gonnawry, or a nuclear 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:23.920 war or biochemical attacks, something like that. Man will do it, yes, 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:29.600 it would be as self injury, probably suicide, I guess, well, 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:35.240 not suicide murder, murder humanity. So then there's two other things. 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:37.240 And there's a guy named Martin Fogg who wrote a 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:41.840 book called Terraforming Engineering Planetary Environments, and he basically laid 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:45.280 out what you have to do to get Mars going um. 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:47.880 And again, Mars is the easiest one to do because 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:52.479 it has that planetary rotation already. But additionally there's two 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.040 other things you have to handle. One is UM, the 0:19:56.160 --> 0:20:02.800 atmospheric pressure. So apparently even at best Mars would um, 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.639 it would be a lot like existing on a mountaintop 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.240 here on Earth, Like the air would be thin. You'd 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:10.240 be like living on the top of Mountain Everest. You 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.800 kind of you'd have to bring your own oxygen, you 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:18.480 would so like, But maybe Tibetans and Ethiopian highlanders would 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:22.120 make like great early inhabitants of you know, a terraform Mars, 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.480 because they're already used to that kind of thing exactly. 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:29.159 The other thing is is you need nitrogen. Nitrogen is 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.200 vital of life and the atmosphere, and there's not much 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:34.960 nitrogen o Mars. No, So they're saying, well, then all 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.520 you have to do is start directing commets ammoniu based 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.800 ice sterroids I think is what they call them. Yeah, 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:44.280 because I don't know if everyone knows this. Commets are 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.080 I think one of the articles liking it two giant snowballs. 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.639 And if you sent a comet and exploded it before 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:56.320 it hit the planet, uh in theory would send ice everywhere, 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.120 which would be pretty cool. But you need a lot 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.000 of commets, you you. It's not just like one comment 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:05.480 you're done, no one, and done doesn't apply to there 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:07.280 for man, we have to figure out how to steer 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:10.480 these comments that way, which apparently is not I mean, 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:15.280 using um astrophysics. I guess that's not it's not all 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:19.480 the remo possibility to steer a comment and then hit 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:21.840 it with a nuclear device to blow it up so 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:24.639 that it explodes into shards and then rains down on Mars. 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.760 A lot of things can go wrong though. Yeah, you know, 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.119 it's frought with complications and comments, but it is a 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:36.080 viable way to introduce nitrogen to Mars, and it should 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:41.159 ideally stick around, especially once you have an atmosphere um 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.879 so that's Mars. It's probably the way we're gonna go. 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:47.200 Keep an eye out because in a couple of centuries 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.119 there'll probably be some sas on Mars. Yeah, and I 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:52.239 think that guy that you mentioned too says, even if 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:53.879 we do manage to do this, it's going to be 0:21:53.920 --> 0:22:00.159 a constant process of reintroducing, uh, these these elements, these 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.080 volatile elements to keep that atmosphere going. I don't I 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:05.560 don't know if if Mitchocoko was right, if it would 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:09.680 ever like self sustain. Well, it could if you do 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:13.760 that standard paradigm of creating a runaway greenhouse effect. What 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.199 Martin Fogus saying is, why would you want to do that, 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:18.359 because then you have a greenhouse effect that you have 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:19.919 to deal with. I was wondering, and then you have 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:23.880 to rein that in exactly, he takes a longer view 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:30.159 of just slowly introducing stuff again and again to to 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:34.000 to create this Martian atmosphere over a longer period, but 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:38.200 um in a more granular way, right, Like more more 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:41.720 directed than just creating a runaway greenhouse effect. That makes 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:45.480 more sense, a little more focused. So we'll talk about 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:49.399 some of Mars's rivals for the terraforming game right after this. 0:22:51.160 --> 0:23:01.040 So I guess I'm Venus, and so I'm always hot 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:05.280 because Venus is a very hot place. It's um very 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.680 unlike Mars. But some people say Venus has a few 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:12.119 things going for it. Namely, it's super close, closest planet 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:16.920 to us. Uh. We have similar almost well not identical, 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:21.560 but very similar size and mass and a very thick atmosphere, 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:26.320 just like Earth does. So there's a lot of similarities there. Um, 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:29.240 But you're sort of working in the opposite direction of Mars. 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:32.480 Is You've got a cool Venus down a lot, and 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:34.880 there's lots of wacky ideas on how to do that, 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:38.520 one of which is, what would you do if you 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:41.320 were hot? Put up a big shade? Yeah, like one 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:44.280 of those little umbrellas in a tiki drink. Yeah, just 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:48.160 a giant one. Yes. Basically, the idea is to block 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:53.800 all sunlight from Venus and cool it um And apparently 0:23:53.840 --> 0:23:57.800 in about a hundred years, venus is atmosphere which is 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:01.639