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Old 08-05-2019, 12:48 PM   #24
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Re: Aerogel martian habitats.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Well, realistic timescales wind up not being very interesting. I mean, it took about two billion years for Earth to go from the initial evolution of blue-green algae to having a breathable atmosphere.
Yeah, but to be fair, it's entirely plausible that that process could be speeded up substantially by artificial methods. Not by us today, of course, but it could probably be done.

Of course 'speeded up' might easily mean converting 2 billion into 2 million or 20,000. Still a long time on a human scale.

Also, Earth 4 billion years ago was already a better terraforming candidate than Venus or Mars today. A lot of how hard terraforming is depends on how close your target world is to what you want. An interstellar society would have far more potential 'targets' to choose from.
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