Dan L. wrote:
>
> Can you really terraform Mars?
>
If we need it, we will do it :-)
> With the Martian gravity so weak, wouldn't
> any atmosphere we "make" just boil off into space?
>
Yes - but notice that Earth's atmosphere *is* boiling off
into space, too, and Earth has an atmosphere :-)
The problem is the rate of the boiling off.
I don't know how to calculate this rate, unfortunately,
even if all the equations are simple. Something is
missing.
For example, it's simple to calculate the escape speed,
and it's simple to calculate which fraction of any gas
at any temperature has a speed greater than the escape
speed, but in order to calculate the boil-off rate,
we need a time variable :-/
Alberto Monteiro
