MARSBUGS:  The Electronic Exobiology Newsletter

Volume 2, Number 8, Planetary Engineering Preview, 16 June 1995.



Co-editors:



David Thomas, Life Sciences Department, Belleville Area College, 

Belleville, IL 62221, USA, marsbugs@delphi.com.  [Temporarily at: 

thomasd@basenet.net].



Julian Hiscox, Department of Microbiology, BBRB 17, Room 361, 

University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-2170, 

USA, julian_hiscox@micro.microbio.uab.edu.



MARSBUGS is published on a monthly to quarterly basis as 

warranted by the number of articles and announcements. Copyright 

exists with the co-editors, except for specific articles, in 

which instance copyright exists with the author/authors. E-mail 

subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting either 

of the editors. Contributions are welcome, and should be 

submitted to either of the two editors. Contributions should 

include a short biographical statement about the author(s) along 

with the author(s)' correspondence address.



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1)	EDITORS INTRODUCTION



2)	FOREWORD TO TERRAFORMING: ENGINEERING PLANETARY 

ENVIRONMENTS.  

	By Bob Haynes.



3)	CHAPTER SUMMARY OF TERRAFORMING: ENGINEERING PLANETARY 

ENVIRONMENTS.  

	By Martyn Fogg.



4)	PUBLICATION DETAILS



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1)	EDITORS INTRODUCTION



The summer of 1995 will herald a big step in the field of 

planetary engineering. The first scientific textbook on the 

subject of intentionally altering planetary environments, or 

planetary engineering, will be published.  The book is written by 

Martyn Fogg, an internationally known scientist who has published 

widely on this topic. Martyn is thus well placed to write such a 

book. He has also been responsible for editing several special 

issues of Journal of the British Interplanetary Society on 

planetary engineering, including another forthcoming issue due 

out in October 1995.



We are fortunate in being allowed a sneak preview of the book.

First, we present the introduction to the book contributed and 

written by Bob Haynes, an extremely well known scientist not only 

in his own field of yeast genetics, but also in the field of 

planetary engineering. Bob was the first person to coin and 

derive the term ecopoiesis, the end point of which, when applied 

to the Mars, is the intentional alteration of a presumably 

abiotic environment into an anaerobic biosphere. Second, Martyn 

has provided us with a content description of each chapter. 

Third, because this material is under copyright, and reproduced 

in Marsbugs with permission of the publisher, we have included at 

the request of the publisher, publication details of the book and 

ordering information.

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FOREWORD TO TERRAFORMING: ENGINEERING PLANETARY ENVIRONMENTS.  

Robert Haynes.



What I cannot create I do not understand.



Richard P. Feynman, written on his office blackboard as he left 

it for the last time in January, 1988.



Welcome to the practicalities of orchestrated planetary change. 

In this fascinating work of scientific synthesis, Martyn Fogg 

describes how it might become possible to implant life on other 

planets, and to ameliorate, through ecological engineering 

techniques, the currently corrosive processes of global change on 

Earth.



Two important technical terms occur throughout this book: 

ecopoiesis and terraforming. The first refers to the 

establishment of evolving microbial ecosystems in initially 

barren environments; the second to the transformation of a 

hostile planetary surface and atmosphere into an aerobic 

environment in which humans might live and work outdoors much as 

they do on Earth. No one knows whether ecopoiesis and 

terraforming are scientifically possible or technologically 

achievable on Mars or any other lifeless planet in the solar 

system. A research program to assess their feasibility, at least 

on Mars, would provide a challenging, yet peaceful, objective for 

human activities in space during the next century. Much of the 

knowledge gained, especially on the interrelations between 

planets and life, would be relevant to environmental problems on 

Earth. For example, there is intense debate over the long-term 

consequences of large-scale environmental perturbations such as 

global warming, atmospheric ozone depletion and nuclear winter. 

These debates arise in the scientific community because we have 

very limited knowledge of how Earth's global ecosystem was 

formed, and how its further evolution has been maintained through 

interactions with the atmosphere, oceans and the planetary crust.



In the spirit of Feynman's remark quoted above, I have argued 

elsewhere that we may never adequately understand Earth's 

biosphere until we have learned, at least theoretically, how it 

might be possible to build another one. A feasibility study of 

ecopoiesis and terraforming would entail not only further 

exploration of Mars and other planets, but also studies of the 

comparative climatic history of Earth, Mars and Venus, the nature 

of Earth's earliest biosphere, analysis of the origin and 

operation of Earth's biogeochemical cycles, study of the factors 

which promote stability in ecosystems, and research on the 

mechanisms of biochemical adaptation used by organisms living in 

harsh environments. It is ironic to think that humans ultimately 

might learn how to preserve life on Earth by studying how to 

start life on Mars.



Until rather recently, terraforming was more often mentioned in 

science fiction stories and the popular media than in the 

technical literature.  Fogg's book is the first major study, 

within the constraints of available knowledge, of the science and 

technology of ecopoiesis and terraforming. It is a nascent 

classic, a textbook for the future. Even though the subject 

matter ranges widely over the physical and biological sciences, 

the ideas are clearly and logically presented at a level that 

should be accessible to readers with a basic knowledge of science 

and mathematics. This is a new field in which there can be, as 

yet, no elderly experts to gainsay enthusiastic youth. Those with 

restless yet controlled imaginations, who would escape the 

confines of narrowly specialized fields, and who would stretch 

their minds over new, wide-ranging questions, will surely enjoy 

this book.



The author is a leader of an informal group of scientists, 

engineers, philosophers and writers who are studying the manifold 

aspects of ecopoiesis and terraforming. He shows in this book how 

simple order-of-magnitude calculations (and some computer 

modeling) may be used to assess the plausibility of the various 

planetary engineering scenarios that have been suggested.



People can live in inhospitable places in two distinct ways: by 

changing the local environment, or by carrying a suitable 

environment with them. Desert irrigation for agricultural 

development is an example of the first, while the life-support 

systems of lunar landing modules or orbiting space stations 

exemplify the second mode of survival. The latter devices cannot 

be inhabited indefinitely; for lengthy stays the crews sooner or 

later become dependent on resupply missions from Earth. The first 

human outposts in space will, of necessity, be of the second 

kind, even though some local resources may be exploited by their 

occupants. Human settlements on other planets may become fully 

and permanently independent only if these distant environments 

are transformed to provide Earth-like living conditions and a 

local agriculture.



Life is a planetary phenomenon, though Earth is the only 

presently habitable planet in the solar system. Plants and 

animals are mutually dependent products of a global ecosystem - 

the biosphere. All are intricately coupled with each other, and 

with land, oceans and air by the recycling of water, carbon, 

oxygen, nitrogen and other inorganic materials required to 

maintain life. People also are part and product of this complex 

biogeochemical life-support system, exotic produce of a planetary 

engine originally set in motion, and continuously fueled, by 

energy from the sun.



On other planets in the solar system, high and low extremes of 

atmospheric temperatures and pressures, lack of free oxygen and 

liquid water, high concentrations of toxic gases, and deadly 

radiation levels variously preclude the existence of life. 

Closest to Earth in its astrophysical characteristics is

Mars which, whilst presently devoid of life, may possibly possess 

the chemical resources appropriate for its development.



Despite Mars' toxic environment and the fact that no life exists 

there now, many geological features of its surface indicate that 

this world may have once possessed a great northern ocean and 

substantial quantities of flowing water, together with a thick, 

mostly carbon dioxide, atmosphere. These conditions might have 

persisted long enough for early stages of chemical and cellular 

evolution to have occurred. It is largely for these reasons that 

some scientists plan to search for chemical and fossil evidence 

of extinct life during future missions to Mars, and why they have 

begun to consider whether the planet might ultimately be 

returned, by human intervention, to a habitable state.



If the surface crust and polar caps of Mars still possess 

sufficient and accessible quantities of these essential 

substances, and if acceptable planetary engineering techniques 

can be devised to initiate planetary warming and secure their 

release, then Mars could support a stable and much thicker carbon 

dioxide atmosphere than it does at present. The atmosphere would 

be warm and moist, and water would flow again in its dry river 

beds. The average temperature at the surface would rise to about 

15 degrees Celsius and the atmospheric pressure would be roughly 

twice that on Earth. Appropriately selected, or genetically 

engineered, anaerobic microorganisms, and eventually some plants, 

could grow under these conditions.



For many people, including some knowledgeable scientists, such an 

enterprise sounds more like science fiction than any justifiable 

program for the national space agencies of the world. The 

technical difficulties posed by the Martian environment, quite 

apart from the costs entailed, seem almost insurmountable. In 

addition, the prospect of implanting life on Mars, as a long-

range objective for human activities in space, raises many 

ethical, political and legal questions. Put most simply, do 

humans have any right to play God on another planet?



On the other hand, migration and the colonization of initially 

inhospitable environments has been one of the most astonishing 

historical features of biological evolution. The first living 

cells were formed about 3.8 billion years ago, presumably in the 

darker reaches of the primeval, anaerobic seas.  At that time, 

much of Earth's environment, and certainly its land areas, would 

have been hostile, even lethal, to most of the organisms which 

flourish here today. However, in an amazing biotic Diaspora, 

microorganisms, followed by plants and animals, migrated from 

marine to fresh water environments and then onto barren land. 

None of this would have been possible were it not for the 

evolutionary development, by living cells, of the technology of 

photosynthesis. Essentially all of the free oxygen (and the 

resulting ozone shield) in Earth's atmosphere was, and is, 

generated by photosynthesis. Even though oxygen is poisonous to 

most anaerobic organisms, its accumulation in the atmosphere, 

about 2.5 billion years ago, created the conditions necessary for 

the ultimate flowering of aerobic life as we know it today. The 

slow chancy processes of genetic variation, natural selection and 

species diversification made possible the dispersal of non-human 

life across the globe.



In contrast, the migration and dispersal of Homo sapiens has not 

entailed any significant biological evolution, and certainly no 

speciation, ever since the emergence of modern humans with 

linguistic and tool-making capabilities about 100,000 years ago. 

Rather, it has been the amazingly rapid and efficient processes 

of social and technological evolution which have facilitated the 

propagation of our species, across every continent, and most 

recently into space.



In 1969, astronauts first set foot on the moon. If all goes well, 

others may arrive on Mars early in the next century. Against this 

background is it just an idle dream to imagine that people might 

yet "slip the surly bonds of Earth" to pioneer new habitats in 

the sky? Further exploration of Mars may well reveal that 

ecopoiesis, and even terraforming, are feasible on that planet. 

Such a discovery would provide our decendents with a tremendous 

challenge and an exhilarating vision of the role of humankind as 

a catalyst in the creation of new worlds. The propagation of life 

from Earth to other planets may well prove to be the ultimate 

legacy of our species in the universe.



Those inclined to deny the possibility of implanting life on Mars 

should recall that future discoveries often confound the negative 

prophecies of even the most accomplished scientists. For example, 

a few years before Enrico Fermi built the world's first nuclear 

reactor, Lord Rutherford the founding farther of nuclear physics, 

stated publicly that anyone who looked for a source of power in 

the transformation of atoms was talking moonshine.  And at the 

1963 International Congress of Genetics, J.B.S. Haldane, one of 

the greatest geneticists of this century, declared that the 

deliberate genetic modification of humans must surely lie 

millennia in the future.



It is rash to proclaim that any process or project that does not 

obviously violate the laws of physics is impossible. Pliny the 

Elder (AD 23-79) wisely remarked, "How many things, too, are 

looked upon as quite impossible until they have been actually 

effected." We simply do not yet know enough about the geological 

history and chemical resources of the terrestrial planets, or the 

origin, evolution and behavior of Earth's biosphere, to do any 

more than to reserve judgment on the ultimate feasibility of the 

challenging ideas presented in this book.



Biographical Statement



Dr. Robert H. Haynes is Distinguished Research Professor of 

Biology at York University in Toronto, and President-elect of the 

Royal Society of Canada. He is a biophysicist by training and is 

well known internationally for his pioneering research on DNA 

repair and mutagenesis. In 1988 he served as President of the 

16th International Congress of Genetics.

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CHAPTER SUMMARY OF TERRAFORMING: ENGINEERING PLANETARY 

ENVIRONMENTS.

Martyn Fogg.



1.	INTRODUCTION.

The history of terraforming-related ideas, in both fiction and 

academia.  A portrait of a growing subject for serious study.



2.	CONTAINED, UNCONTAINED AND TERRAFORMED BIOSPHERES.

A review of life-support system dynamics dealing with the issues 

of scale and containment. An argument for planets as the best 

long-term homes for life.



3.	SOME GUIDELINES FOR THE STUDY OF TERRAFORMING.

The nature of the thought experiment; nomenclature; philosophical 

approaches to the subject (ecocentrism and technocentrism); 

environmental parameters necessary for life.



4.	PLANETARY ENGINEERING ON THE EARTH.

A review of man's influence on the global environment and 

proposals for geoengineering - deliberate modification of the 

Earth's climate, unusually for the purposes of mitigation of 

damage.



5.	THE ECOPOIESIS OF MARS.

Our current knowledge and models of Mars and ecocentric proposals 

for implanting life. Includes the runaway CO2 greenhouse model; 

artificial trace greenhouse gases; and proposals for a pioneering 

microbiota.



6.	THE TERRAFORMING OF MARS.

The completion of the Mars thought experiment, taking the

planet to the stage of human habitability. Review of 

technocentric planetary engineering proposals, including nuclear 

mining, solettas, and impacts.



7.	THE TERRAFORMING OF VENUS.

Account of the various and diverse concepts for making Venus more 

habitable.  Includes three proposals for altering planetary spin 

rates.



8.	TERRAFORMING: ALTERNATIVE METHODS, FRINGE CONCEPTS AND 

ULTIMATE POSSIBILITIES.

Includes paraterraforming; possibilities of terraforming smaller 

bodies such as the Moon and Titan; proposals for altering 

planetary orbits and more.



9.	BACK TO THE PRESENT.

Discussion of the present relevance of terraforming studies, 

including pieces on education and environmental ethics. An 

attempt to speculate from now, to a future that includes the 

realization of terraforming.





Biographical Statement



Martyn Fogg has an unusual--and somewhat eclectic--academic 

history. He qualified as a dental surgeon in 1982 from Guy's 

Hospital Dental School, University of London. Following this, he 

changed tack to take a mixed degree in Geology and Astronomy from 

the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies, Birkbeck College, University 

of London and the Open University, Milton Keynes.



Presently part of Fogg's life is spent as an independent 

researcher and free-lance science writer. He has a wide range of 

interests, having published papers on planetary formation and 

evolution; cometary impact cycles and mass extinctions; blue 

straggler stars; unbound planets; SETI; the colonization of Mars 

and terraforming. He has been contributing Editor of four special 

issues of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 

devoted to terraforming (a fifth is in press) and has acted as a 

consultant on the subject to the BBC, TIME/LIFE books and the 

Japanese Yazawa Science Office. His forthcoming book, 

Terraforming:  Engineering Planetary Environments, is the first 

technical level book to review modern progress in this field.

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PUBLICATION DETAILS



Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments will be 

available in July, 1995. Priced at $49.00, the book can be 

ordered by contacting SAE, Customer Sales and Satisfaction 

Department, 400 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA 15096-0001, 

USA.



Telephone: 412-776-4970

Facsimile: 412-776-0790



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End Marsbugs Vol.2., No.8.



