Scientists and science-fiction authors have long dreamed of turning Mars into a more Earth-like planet for future human colonists. Now the scientists are investigating the possibility of “terraforming” just a small patch of the planet’s surface by focusing sunlight on it from orbiting mirrors.

This process, called terraforming, will involve thickening of Mars’s atmosphere and increasing its temperature. The concept calls for 300 reflective balloons, each 150 metres across, arranged side-by-side to create a 1.5-kilometre-wide mirror in orbit around Mars. However, schemes to transform the whole planet would take centuries and would require vast resources.

However, if the structural details of the balloons work out, it would mean extra warmth and which in turn means the astronauts would not need heavily insulated suits or living quarters, allowing them to work more easily.

In addition, the higher temperature would melt any ice into water on the Martian surface and astronauts could raise the amount of available water by warming up a region that includes a frozen lake, such as the one near the planet’s north pole that was imaged by Europe’s Mars Express spacecraft. This could make precious liquid water available for astronauts to drink, and that water could also be used as a raw material to produce rocket fuel for the journey home.

The extra solar power would greatly benefit future Mars missions - both robotic and human quite trouble-free but the only trouble that could be seen right now is the mirrors that could focus harmful high-frequency radiation like gamma rays onto the surface if not carefully designed. Mars’s thinner atmosphere would not be able to filter these out like Earth’s does, so the balloons would have to be coated with materials that would reflect only visible and infrared light.

Anyway, the colonization of Mars is a better idea than cooling the Earth with a cloud of 20,000 billion Aircrafts which would cost trillions and which means a stack of flyers every 5 minutes for 10 years.

Via: space 43960