How Much Water?

[SaxonViolence]

We were talking about Terraforming on a couple of other threads.

 

I remember that Jerry Pournelle remarked in one of his factual editorials that the water on Mars was about equal to the water in the Great Lakes.

 

That was thirty years ago, and these best guesstimates are constantly changing with new data.

 

Nonetheless, if Pournelle could even begin to think that Mars might be Terraformable with that little water, it isn't a non-consequential amount.

 

Googled the Great Lakes and did some rounding.

 

That's about 26 Trillion tons of water.

 

I suggest that henceforth we call that quantity of water a "G reat L akes U nit ".....

 

"GLU" for short.

 

How many cometary GLUs would we have to dump on Mars to really make a difference?

 

I assume that minor quantities of NH₃, CO₂ and CH₄ would all be to the good on a Planet with an atmosphere as thin as Mars'.

 

Once you got a reasonable—but not optimum atmosphere—how small a chunks would you have to shatter your ice meteorites into, to avoid pounding the ground?

 

While we're on the subject, what could you do with one GLU on the Moon?

 

Not Terraform it obviously, but would it be enough water for a decade, century, millennia?

 

For that matter, how many GLUs would it take to drastically alter Earth's climate?

 

{No, we don't want to, but someday we might find an Earth-like Planet that's a bit on the Dry Side.....}

 

And again, what is about the maximum projectile size, if I want my ice meteors to pretty well turn to vapor before landfall?

 

Does anyone know?

 

 

Saxon Violence

Edited December 11, 2012 by SaxonViolence

[belovelife]

i saw i show in the science channel that estimated the amount of water there, if melted would form oceans in similar propotion to here on earth

 

also, if its the lack of magnetic field that allows the atmoshere to escape, vs lack of gravity or just not released from the current ice and other materials that

 

the gasses would be soluble in,

 

then

since we just found out the intensity of the magnetic field of the sun is much stronget than we thought,

which, imho, means there are higher tier elements that can have a magnetic field much stronger than previously thought,

we should be able to use this knoledge and create an artificial magnetic fields, either with orbiters or

depositing some is this exotic matter into the core of the planet

 

just my thought on it at the moment