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danieldwilliam) wrote2010-10-13 03:41 pm
Kissing the Natives Might Be Construed As A Declaration of War
I am reminded that one of my fondest fantasies was shattered by a bit of spreadsheeting I did a few months ago.
More detail will, eventually, be available elsewhere but I did a basic net present value analysis of terraforming Mars and discovered that at no point was terraforming Mars NPV positive, even if you lived there.
In fact, especially if you lived there.
In essence, terraforming Mars is an all or nothing exercise. The alternative is living under a dome and expanding it gradually, as you need the extra space.
At no point until it is substantially complete does terraforming confer any economic benefit. The number of people who can live on the Martian surface when terraforming is 90% complete is still nil. Anyone who immigrates to Mars has to live in a Dome until the project is complete. These Domes need to be self-sufficient and self-contained biomes. A bit like Centre Parcs but on Mars.
Terraforming will take a long time. Conservative estimates are several hundred years with other estimates looking at thousands or tens of thousands of years.
The alternative is living in a Dome, permanently. Given a choice between expanding your Dome (and gaining more living and working space) and putting effort into terraforming a rational polity would choose to expand their Dome. Eventually, you extend your Dome to cover the whole planet. I think this probably takes about 250 years. The key thing is that at each point you are better off expanding the Dome that you live in rather than putting any effort into terraforming because you are better off immediately and have little prospect of benefiting from the completed terraforming project.
Furthermore, as you essentially have to build a self-sustaining habitat to any volume of people to Mars in the first place and can’t land said habitat on the surface with ease you would be best off (if you chose to leave Earth) just building a self-sustaining habitat and enjoying living at 1G instead of some fraction of 1G.
From the point of view of a push from Earth to export surplus populations, given that you have to build a self-sustaining habitat to move people in large numbers you might as well build the a self-sustaing habitat in orbit and just leave the thing in floating near Earth.
To summarise, in order to terraform Mars you have to have access to technology that means that not only do you not need to terraform Mars but, economically, it would be unwise to try.
This saddened me, but will filter through in to some economically literate science fiction.
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He Who Goes Shod on Holy Ground
Two thoughts. It needn't be an either/or proposition. Some of the actions could be relatively low cost. Lichen are basically von Newman machines for turning rock into oxygen. If you happen to be in the asteroid belt, sending a billion or so tons of water towards Mars is a matter of some cheap rockets and some very fancy, but also cheap, mathematics. There's a beautiful line on one of Zelazny's books (Isle of the Dead, I think), about "the cosmic judo of a push, a pull, and a long wait". I think that applies here.
The other thought is that while Mars becomes a little more like us, we can become a little more like Mars. It may well be as feasible to adapt to a colder, harsher land. After all, we've done it before.
Re: He Who Goes Shod on Holy Ground
I looked at some of the NASA papers on terraforming whilst knocking up my spreadsheet and KSR's programme looks technically correct, just really quick. I'm guessing but I think that if you try to accelerate progress the costs would go up exponentially. 1 space ship pinging back 1 comet a month back towards Mars is a tenth of the capital outlay of 10 ships pinging back 10 comets a month.
I totally agree that we could meet a terraforming project halfway but I wonder if we would be we anymore. It raises the notion in my mind that after spending several thousand years living under a dome the New Martians might have gotten used to it and not be too fussed about a whole transformed planet (or by that time a whole transformed atmosphere - most of which they would never use). They would have met living in a dome halfway.
I guess my fantasy was shattered by the vision of the Martian Tax Payers' Alliance protesting outside the Governer's bubble-dome against the expenditure on unaccountable quangos like MATTER (Martian Accelerated Terraforming, Technica and Engineering Review) or MARS (Matian Atmosphere Re-alignment Service).
I may be wrong, voluntarism may mean that people accept the project is worthwhile despite being not in their selfish best interests but given our response to terraforming on our own planet I'm sceptical.
Re: He Who Goes Shod on Holy Ground
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A bit like Centre Parcs but on Mars
That is the most terrifying post I have read on LJ this week.
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On the other hand, all the squirrels will be red.
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What did you like about it?
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I appreciate idealism when it comes to fiction, but I'd rather have pragmatism in real life.
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Funnily enough the same logic applies to something I take a professional interest in. The same kind of optimal for me, sub-optimal for all applies to building the offshore electricity grid needed for offshore wind farms.
I'm pottering away at some short sci fi stories with an economic twist. But NaNoWrMO comes first.
I was a bit surprised at the outcome but then not surprised when I thought about in retrospect. It's kind of obvious that people will act in their own best interests and that their own best interests won't be served by a project that only pays off long after they are dead.
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