We are talking about a planet-scale engineering project; something that is millions of times the scale of anything that has been attempted.
We have only d 13 landing on it, and only something 70 space craft have travelled to Mars or beyond[1].
We have only just found traces of water there, and who knows what else is available (or not).
We have never even attempted to terraform anything, and the closest we've come has been maybe things like desert control programs.
And yet it is supposed to be common knowledge that "it can't be done"? Sure, that is likely to be true, but the idea that we already know the specific things that will stop us seems unlikely.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Solar_System_probes
I love the idea of terraforming Mars, to the point of spending a lot of time understanding the challenges to achieving success.
Conceptually there is always tech which we are yet to discover, but that just pushes the conversation into hand wavy territory, and discussing the details is always more fun.
The simplest plans are to start a runaway green house effect, in order to warm the planet up.
That alone requires signficant but potentially achievable feats of engineering.
But as I remember, the unsolved issue remains in maintaining a stable atmosphere, one which isnt sheared away by solar wind.
This is why the tidal locking issue is the problem. The core is solid on Mars, and the idea of spinning up a planet to rotate puts us beyond space elevator tech and nearing solar engineering levels of ambition.
As someone else suggested, there's the idea of having a super conducting magnet on the equator to create the field.
That's still below solar engineering, but a feat of such magnitude that underground habs win out as an option for the foreseeable future.
Yeah, any atmosphere you give Mars will evaporate over some millions of years.
The obvious workaround is to regenerate it at the same rate. Much like a tire you need to reinflate it now and then.
Humanity will also probably figure out some better tech during the next million years, but even if not, this should work.
Hey, something we are already good at!
To add some substance to this comment, why wouldnt we just try to terraform earth first?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars#Protectin...
Thanks, in more ways than one.
