by Paul Reaver
“If the dome idea works, and there are a lot of blanks to be filled in for that project, we could create a procedure that would allow us to terraform the rest of the planet. Though it would take hundreds of years, the Martians could live comfortably inside the domes we create in the meantime. During the process, we could create additional domes because each one would represent just that much more of Mars’ surface that we had terraformed. One important attribute the dome would have is the ability to trap the Sun’s heat. This would make it comfortable to live in, and we could control the temperature as needed. Beyond that, the biggest problem we can see that we face is creating an atmosphere for the entire planet that would stay in place and not be destroyed by the solar winds. We can create the atmosphere, but we have to keep it in place, which means we need to protect it from solar winds and CMEs.”
Oranda said, “We have discussed this problem and have found a possible solution.
“The solution would be to create a magnetic shield between Mars and the Sun. From our consensus, nanobots could build it, and it would orbit the planet to shield it from the Sun’s radiation. Once in place, the atmosphere could immediately be made to become thicker because it would no longer be affected by the solar winds. When the atmosphere reaches a specific thickness, it will begin the warming of the planet. Within a few years, the carbon dioxide frozen at the poles would become gaseous again. Since it’s a greenhouse gas, it would accelerate the warming of the planet. And by having the magnetic shield in place, within a few hundred years the atmosphere would probably reach about half the density of what it was originally. Beyond that, we would have to try to obtain more of the elements needed to ‘thicken’ the atmosphere. Surely the elements are available. Getting them and introducing them into the atmosphere is something that will require more investigation. However, after having said all of that, although we could construct the shield and put it in orbit, it would be better to build it in orbit, and we are not sure how we would hold it in place. We are going to start our research on that possibility.
“Great work so far,” said Kirlin. “Abigail, Ranella, and Gorev, let’s hear your thoughts.”
Ranella said, “Since my specialty is atmosphere and weather, I think that the issues Oranda mentioned may not be significant obstacles. Don’t get me wrong, it will take time and effort, but I think we can achieve the results we want with the technology we have. I will do some experiments inside the dome once we have completed it and document the results. As I understand it, Mark has been working with a device that can pull hydrogen and oxygen from the atmosphere and store them; but he says with some slight modifications, he can pull any element from the atmosphere that we need. This would be ideal for the dome as it would allow us to populate the air inside with the exact percentage of gasses that Mars had before it lost its atmosphere. We put as much pressurized ‘normal’ atmosphere in storage as we could when we had the time before the CME stripped our atmosphere away, which is how we can provide a standard atmosphere here in our facility. Until you arrived, we did not need an atmosphere. The robots don’t need it, and the rest of our population was in stasis. I think it would be a good idea to start working with technology based on Mark’s device to obtain more of the atmospheric components we need for this complex so that we don’t run unnecessarily low on what we have in storage now.”
“Agreed,” said John. “Mark and Ranella, could you please begin looking into this?”
Both indicated their assent, and Mark said, “As Ranella has already explained, it will be a relatively simple matter to pull each gas that we need one at a time and store them separately. We can then mix them in the proper proportions and store that as our main source.”
“There is another possibility to protect Mars’ atmosphere from being swept away by solar wind and CMEs,” said Abigail. “This was discussed among our group when we went back to our ship in the evening on our first day here. We are using a device that I developed to create invisibility, as you all know. The same technology that creates the invisibility, which is to bend light rays around an object so they don’t reflect, could be used to bend the solar radiation so that it bypasses the planet and has no effect on the planet or its atmosphere. Whether this method is easier and faster than the magnetic shield that Oranda discussed will depend on some experimentation. But I think it may turn out to be overall the easiest and most viable option. Our preliminary idea was to use a series of satellites, placed at strategic places in specific semi-stationary orbits around Mars, which would protect the entire planet. However, it would be a large project. We were hoping that the Mars team might have some existing technology to support this option to simplify and accelerate the project.”
Kirlin said, “I can tell you that we do have experience and technology that directly addresses this solution, because we have advanced technology with satellites. I think this is where our scientific knowledge might be a big help. Abigail, Ranella, Telov, and Joanne, why don’t you meet separately and discuss how the Terran and Martian knowledge might dovetail on this project.”
All four agreed.
John said, “The one thing no one has mentioned is the elephant in the room.” He took a minute to explain this phrase to the Martians, which they found to be amusing, with the caveat that it addressed a serious subject. “My team has taken the discovery of another race of beings totally in stride. With the knowledge we seek, we are not overly surprised about any new scientific development or discovery. However, introducing Martians to Earth will be a huge, huge deal. After communicating with my superior, we plan on keeping this terraforming project a secret until we are well along in the process. I am going to suggest to my superior that it be kept a secret for the entire time it takes to terraform Mars. We will use Abigail’s cloaking technology to keep the first dome hidden throughout its construction and ultimate existence as well as all future domes that we build for a very long time. Because the knowledge that Martians exist will likely cause all kinds of extreme reactions on Earth. Some humans will be very interested and want to meet them. Others will be fearful and see it as a possible invasion. Still others, hostile nations in particular, will seek out the Martians to secure them as allies and take advantage of their superior technology and use it as weaponry. Another scenario is that, due to the crowding of Earth, there will be factions that will strongly desire to move to Mars to alleviate the crowding. We cannot allow this even to become an issue. The planet Mars belongs to the Martians. And we don’t want to foist any of Earth’s political boiling pot on Mars. I just wanted to make that clear.”
“Thank you,” said Jenore. “We trust your assessment of the situation because we can see that what you say is logical and true.”
“Getting back to the terraforming project,” Jenore continued, “we have not discussed a technology that Martians take for granted. We have devices that can create any object desired, on a very small scale, with a simple voice command. The people from Earth each have one of these in their room. You can walk up to it and say ‘water.’ In seconds, a glass of water will appear. You can do this with almost any small food item or object. However, if we were to expand this technology by a thousand-fold, we could take the Martian land, such as it is, and convert it to the type of land or environment that we want. Granted, this will take time and effort. But so far, I have not heard anything mentioned that would do this any other way. Nanobots can be programmed to create things, but a significant drawback is that it takes time. As we know, the device I am talking about creates things instantly. The caveat with this technology is that it takes a tremendous amount of energy. It may not be practical.”
John said, “Well, we have our cold fusion power source. That will quite likely produce all the power you need. Let’s look into this. It may be that doing things on a large scale using that method will also take some time. I think that nanobot construction may become much faster as the technology matures. And I believe it will mature rapidly as we continue to use it for terraforming.”
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nbsp; John contacted his boss, James, that evening. He told him that he had proposed his plan to the Martians for keeping the Mars situation completely secret until they were well along with the terraforming process, and that it would behoove them to keep it secret until the project was complete, and beyond. John expressed his fears that it would not be possible to keep it confidential that long. This was because the reasons they did not want to reveal what they were doing now would not change just because the terraforming was complete. It would only make those people who would want to colonize Mars even more eager to do so. The other reasons, such as the factions on Earth that would want to use Martian technology as weaponry, were still viable issues. He also let James know that the Martians agreed with this; they understood the ramifications.
“I am glad the Martians understand and are in agreement,” said James. “Proceed as you have outlined the situation.”
Once he had signed off with his transmission, John sat in a chair in his living room and ruminated on how his life had played out. Much of his thinking about being here on Mars was the duplication of earlier thoughts. He was used to working in a scientific environment with other scientists. He had done so for quite a few years and enjoyed it all. Never in his wildest dreams did he think he would be on a top-secret mission on Mars and talking to real Martians! When he had first contacted James with this news, he was understandably dumbfounded. Just as with all of John’s team, finding real, live Martians was the last thing they expected. They thought that they would be doing well if they had found some fairly advanced microscopic organisms, or even some type of small animals such as lizards; such a discovery would have been fantastic in its own right. But finding actual Martians was so over the top, he still had trouble wrapping his head around it. Though these thoughts kept repeating themselves, he knew that, given time, it would all seem normal. It was already starting to become normal. James was of the same mindset. At any rate, he expected that the future was going to be ever more exciting, and he was decidedly looking forward to it.
Chapter 30
The following morning everyone met in the conference room promptly at nine o’clock. John said, “Would the various teams please get together and continue the development of your plans? We will reconvene at 3:00 this afternoon as we did yesterday to discuss the results of your meetings.”
Three o’clock rolled around, and everyone was back together to present the results of their discussions.
Jenore said, “Let’s go around the room and see what each of the teams can add to the knowledge of terraforming Mars that we have found so far.”
Ranella said, “We had satellites that could have melted the polar caps, but the CME destroyed them. And at any rate, they were not set up to do this specific task; they were used to control our weather. I don’t know how effective they would have been. We can build new, strictly purposed satellites for our goals. Using the new satellites, when the CO2 is released, Joanne will have gravitational equipment that will ‘grab’ the gas for the molecule that it is, and, using additional equipment, put it into storage. When we deploy the gas, she will engage the gravity technology to hold it in its proper position in the troposphere to help create the greenhouse gas layer.”
Joanne said, “What Ranella alluded to was an advancement in the gravity technology that I have developed in the last few days. Since the gravity force we use is a quantum technology, I discovered that, with a little bit of tweaking on the quantum energies at work, we could use the gravity force to work on specific objects as we already have. In this case, we could even use the force with specific molecules. So, we can adjust the gravity force generator to strictly work on oxygen, or nitrogen, or any molecules or elements and manipulate or move them as we choose. I’m going to go ahead and say that this is going to be a tremendous help to us, not because I’m blowing my own horn, because I more or less stumbled across this added function, but because it addresses issues that we did not have solutions for until now.”
“That’s great!” said John.
Ranella said, “Also, there is another facet to melting the poles that we need to address. The ice at the poles is made of both CO2 and water. We would have to deal with both substances, each in its unique way. For the CO2, it’s relatively straightforward. For the water, we would need to find a way to store it, because there is a tremendous amount. It may be possible that we could melt the entire ice cap, pull out the CO2, and let the water refreeze for now. We think there may be a better alternative plan. Once we have the planet terraformed, the temperature on the surface of the planet will be warm enough to melt the ice at the poles. With the experience we will have gained by then, we can distribute the melted CO2 as needed, and I am quite sure we will have the ability to relocate the water.”
John said, “I think you are right. That will allow us to concentrate on terraforming without taking on the complicated process of melting the poles. Also, I remember something I meant to ask you. We have never seen any type of device in Mars’ orbit, Ranella. If the satellites are there, we should have seen them long ago.”
“Well, for the last thousand years, since the catastrophe, there was no longer any devices in orbit. The CME destroyed them. Before that, it was important to us not to reveal our technologies to anyone other than fellow Martians,” she said. “All items in orbit around the planet, as well as all structures on the planet’s surface, were cloaked so that they could not be seen, either by Earth or by visitors from outside our solar system, should any make the journey here. By the time the first telescope was invented on Earth, approximately four hundred years ago, there was nothing left to see on Mars. We know about the telescopes because even though we were in stasis, our robots continued to monitor Earth and its technologies.
I bring up the subject of cloaking because, through our discussions, we have determined that our cloaking technology would be superior to using Abigail’s invisibility shield to hide our work on the planet. We specifically designed the cloaking technology for that, and it is a mature technology for us. We will need to use the cloaking from the start because we can’t allow Earth to observe any of our terraforming activities. Another aspect of the project is that we will initially have to avoid terraforming in any of the areas where the Mars rovers sent by Earth are currently exploring, or where they deploy new ones. We assume that the Earth team can obtain information about any Mars expeditions that are in development and also any that are on the drawing board.”
John said, “That is true. I can obtain the information for the Mars expeditions. However, at some point we will have to reveal what we are doing, although we should have a good start by then. By the way, do you have any rockets and/or satellites that are ready to use now that have not yet been launched?”
“Yes, we do,” said Ranella. “As a people, we were constantly trying to improve our planet’s habitat and the way of life of our civilization. We were working on several projects when the disaster struck. So we have rockets that are ready to use right now, and satellites that have been built with specific purposes. We also have satellites that were in the process of being built but are in the very early stages of construction. It is these satellites that could be more easily repurposed should we need to do that. We developed all of this equipment in underground laboratories around the planet. Because of that, the relatively few Martians that worked on those projects also survived, and were brought here and put into stasis. Likewise, we brought all of the equipment here as well.”
“That sounds promising,” said John. “The reason I ask is that I would like to construct a satellite equipped with Abigail’s invisibility mechanism to see if it would divert the solar radiation. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it does not sound like your cloaking technology would suffice for that purpose. We don’t need to attempt to build satellites for the whole planet right away. We just need an example to see if it would work. If we could put a satellite in orbit equipped with the invisibility technology, we should be able to see if we can block a small area of th
e planet’s surface from the solar winds. If we can do this, we can then expand the technology using additional satellites to protect the entire planet.”
“Yes, you are right about the cloaking technology. If it had been an option to protect our planet, we would have already used it,” said Ranella. “As far as the rockets go, they are ready to use. But we need to modify the satellites as needed. However, with the teleportation technology we now have available, the rockets may no longer be needed.”
“Ok,” said John. “Jose, what do you think?”
“It depends on the size of the satellite,” said Jose. “If it is big and bulky or heavy, we’d have to build a new device to perform the teleportation, a device designed to work with larger, heavier objects. But building that device would not take any more time than the devices I’ve already built. It would simply need a different configuration. If there are rockets ready now, that might be faster. But if it is going to take about the same amount of time to build the satellite as it would to build a new teleportation device, then teleportation would be the better option. Ranella, how big are your satellites?”
“We have some that are very small, approximately 24 inches on a side, and generally cube-shaped. The shape somewhat depends on the purpose. The weight is about 50 pounds. This may sound small, but we have had a lot of experience with satellites. As with almost any form of technology, the more it matures, the smaller it gets. The size and weight I’ve mentioned are for an unconfigured satellite. It will be heavier once we install the necessary equipment, but probably not a lot heavier.”
