Terraforming: The Creating of Habitable Worlds (eBook)

Associate professor of astronomy, and Head of the Astronomy Department at Campion College, The University of Regina. My main research interests during the past decade have focused on the smaller objects within the solar system (comets, asteroids and meteoroids), but concomitant to this I have continued to perform research related to the structure and evolution of stars (the area of my doctoral studies). The book being proposed here is partly based upon a series of research papers that I have published over the years and on material used in a solar system studies class. The topic of asteroengineering was recently the focus of an ‘opinion article’ I wrote for the May 2006 issue of Astronomy Now magazine, and an editorial piece in the May 2006 issue of Smithsonian Air and Space magazine.Home web page: http://hyperion.cc.uregina.ca/~astro/mbeech.html

About the Author 7
Table of Contents 8
1 Prolog: The Big Guns of Kugluktuk 11
Summer, the Year 2100 11
Notes and References 14
2 Introduction 16
What’s in a Word? 18
Moving Forward 20
The Anthropocene 21
Future Worlds, Future Homes 22
Economics 26
Notes and References 27
3 Life in the Solar System, and Beyond 28
Mars: The Once and Future Abode of Life? 30
Life Express 35
The Miller-Urey Experiment 37
Panspermia: The Bigger Picture 40
Life and Death Clouds 44
Vignette A: What Is Life? 46
Defining Life 46
The Rights of Microbes 49
Notes and References 50
4 The Limits of the World 53
Home on the Range: A Brief History of the Solar System 54
The Blue Marble 61
Breathing Room 64
A Magnetic Shield 67
Humanity’s Footprint 69
We, the Tikopia 75
The Aging Sun 76
Back to the Present 82
Vignette B: The Viking Landers 83
Notes and References 87
5 In the Right Place at the Right Time 89
Planetary Temperatures 90
Atmospheric Temperature and Pressure 96
Phase Diagram of Water 101
The Habitable Zone 104
Atmospheric Retention 105
The Greenhouse Effect 109
The Tail Wagging the Dog 111
Feedback Cycles and Stability 113
The End of the Biosphere 118
The Formation of Terrestrial Planets 120
Super-Earths 126
Vignette C: Kepler’s Somnium 127
Notes and References 130
6 The Terraforming of Mars 132
The Measure of Mars 135
Whither the Water? 143
The Opening Salvo 145
Altered States: The Means of Terraforming Mars 149
Increased CO2 Abundance 153
The CO2 Runaway 154
Super-Greenhouse Gases 158
Albedo Change and Increased Insolation 161
The Phases of New Mars 164
The Times of Their Lives 169
Worldhouse 172
Near-Term Developments 172
Vignette D: Daisy World 174
Notes and References 178
7 The Terraforming of Venus 181
The Moist Greenhouse Effect 188
Cloud Life 189
Perelandra Remade 191
Atmospheric Blow-off, Cooling, and Mining 192
Roman Blinds, Spin Up, and Spin Apart 197
Back to Basics 200
Getting CO2 Stoned 202
A Cold New Dawn 203
Surface Turnover 205
Flying High 207
A Distant Dawn 209
Vignette E: Back to the Moon 209
Notes and References 212
8 An Abundance of Habitats 216
The Moon’s a Balloon 217
Hot-Footed Hermes 221
A Fragmented Neighborhood 225
Life on a Dwarf Planet: Ceres World 227
Living in the Clouds 230
Supramundane Planets and Shell Worlds7 231
O’Neill Colonies and Orbiting Cities 234
The Coming of a Second Sun 235
Earth Shift and a Synthetic Sun 240
Dyson Spheres and Jupiter 241
The Galilean Moons: Food for Thought 243
The Deeper, Darker, Colder Solar System 247
The Pull of More Distant Horizons 250
Other Worlds Abound 251
Future Prospects 253
Habitable Exoplanets and Biomarkers 256
Vignette F: The Mysterious Titius-Bode Law 259
Notes and References 262
Epilogue 266
Internet Resources 269
Solar System and Space Exploration 269
Terraforming/Colonization 269
Asteroid Search and Collision Avoidance 270
Astrobiology 270
Gaia/Global Warming/Human Population/Global Issues 270
Glossary of Technical Terms 272
Appendix A: Blackbody Radiators 275
Appendix B: Accounting for Greenhouse Gases 277
Appendix C: A Terraforming Simulator Model for Mars 279
Appendix D: Population Growth and Lily World 282
Index 289