According to a new video from Kurzgesagt, the first step towards terraforming Mars is to use lasers to melt the planet’s surface.
NASA has long-term plans to send humans to Mars, but for permanent settlement, the process of terraforming must first be accomplished. According to a new video from Kurzgesagt, this is entirely feasible with a gigantic laser.
The world’s most powerful laser today is the High Power Laser System (HPLS) in Romania, capable of emitting a beam of 10 petawatts in less than one trillionth of a second. However, terraforming Mars would require a laser twice as powerful running continuously for 50 years. But that’s not all. The laser is just the first step in the process of “recreating” Mars.
The laser is just the first step in the process of “recreating” Mars.
This process will be explained in the video below from Kurzgesagt. Mars lacks surface water to support life, has a thin atmosphere with little oxygen, and the surface does not contain the necessary nutrients for plant growth. Fortunately, many of these issues can be addressed by melting the planet’s surface to release essential chemicals trapped in the rocks. Therefore, using lasers to melt the entire surface of Mars and release all the necessary oxygen is the first step of this process.
This will cause unusual weather phenomena for a period, such as evaporating ice, iron snow, and lava flows. Although the atmosphere will still be quite thin and flammable, it would be a good start.
The next steps involve importing three trillion tons of nitrogen, grinding the surface of the newly cooled volcanic rock into powder, creating a balanced and self-sustaining food web consisting of bacteria, algae, plants, and animals, and somehow deflecting solar and cosmic radiation since Mars lacks a protective magnetic field like Earth.
