Former Top NASA Scientist Says We Can Terraform Mars For Mankind

Jim Green, one of NASA’s top scientists who retired as 2021 came to an end, has said in an interview that Mars can be terraformed to make it habitable for human beings and carrying out activities like growing plants. In the most basic terms, terraforming refers to the process of artificially modifying critical features like temperature, pressure, surface topography, and ecology on a mass scale to drastically alter the conditions on a planet. It is what General Zod in Man of Steel wanted to accomplish on Earth by launching his World Engine and turning Earth into Krypton.

The idea is a recurring theme in science fiction and sounds grandiose. But actually executing it at the current level of human technological progress is not feasible, or so says NASA. As per a study sponsored by the agency that came out in 2018, transforming Mar’s climate to an extent that astronauts could walk on the Red Planet’s soil without life support gear, would require technology that is well beyond human capability in its current state. But that doesn’t mean research to accomplish that elusive goal has stopped, as scientists continue exploring novel methods to somehow turn even a small pocket of Mars into a habitable space.

Among those hopeful folks is Green, who actually co-authored a paper in 2017 called “A Future Mars Environment For Science And Exploration” that talked about altering the Martian temperature and pressure conditions, and paving the way for human colonization in the near future. It appears that Green is quite confident about the vision, and he explicitly expressed so in a recent interview. In a dialogue with The New York Times, the former NASA scientist claimed that Mars can indeed be terraformed. Per Green, it can be achieved by placing a massive magnetic shield between the Sun and Mars, effectively preventing the fiery red star from eating away at the planet’s atmosphere.

The Idea Is Here, The Tech Is Not

“If you didn’t need a spacesuit, you could have much more flexibility and mobility. The higher temperature and pressure enable you to begin the process of growing plants in the soils,” Green was quoted as saying. Interestingly, Green was a member of the NASA team that was associated with the Ridley Scott film named The Martian, in which Matt Damon’s character is stranded on Mars and somehow survives by eating potatoes grown in his poop.

Green added that he’s been trying to publish a paper explaining his vision for the past two years, and that he expects it to stir some controversy in the scientific community. Back in 2017, he came up with simulations and models as part of his talk at the NASA Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop, explaining how the planet’s magnetic field can be altered to change its climate and make it more friendly for human exploration activities. The long shot, however, is to pave the way for communities, something the likes of Elon Musk have been dreaming and talking about for a while.

The shield in question is said to offer a massive dipole to generate a strong artificial magnetic field, one that protects the planet from high-energy solar particles. The key objective is to avoid the large-scale stripping of Mars’ atmosphere at the hands of solar winds and eventually catalyze a drastic climate change. “The solar system is ours, let’s take it,” Green said back then. As for the challenge, the atmospheric pressure of Mars is barely about 1 percent compared to that of Earth. And even if all the polar caps, minerals, and soil are harvested to generate carbon dioxide and water for concentrating the atmosphere, estimates say it would only achieve 7 percent of the thickness of Earth’s atmosphere.

Sources: The  New York Times, NASA Astrobiology, USRA

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