Eli5: What are the main things holding humanity back when it comes to being able to Terraform a planet or other large celestial objects in space?
In: 14
Terraforming a planet requires two things: resources and time.
The resources part is difficult because no matter what planet you pick, we would need to not only bring a lot of stuff *to* the celestial body, we’d also have to remove a lot of stuff *from* the celestial body. That consumes a *lot* of energy.
The time part is another issue, as it would most likely be measured in millions or even *billions* of years, meaning the entire project would have to be capable of enduring hundreds of thousands of generations of humans and the inevitable political and social changes those humans would face throughout the years.
Scale, energy, and technology. And all this loomed over by time.
A planet is a big place. There’s a lot that needs to be done with things we dont have and can’t power reliably.
But even if we have all that, it would take hundreds of years to terraform a planet to a point where it is liveable.
Money. I’m not trying to be glib. Some plans seem entirely plausible with modern technology, it’s just at prohibitive timescale and cost.
Eli5: What are the main things holding humanity back when it comes to being able to Terraform a planet or other large celestial objects in space?
In: 14
Terraforming a planet requires two things: resources and time.
The resources part is difficult because no matter what planet you pick, we would need to not only bring a lot of stuff *to* the celestial body, we’d also have to remove a lot of stuff *from* the celestial body. That consumes a *lot* of energy.
The time part is another issue, as it would most likely be measured in millions or even *billions* of years, meaning the entire project would have to be capable of enduring hundreds of thousands of generations of humans and the inevitable political and social changes those humans would face throughout the years.
Scale, energy, and technology. And all this loomed over by time.
A planet is a big place. There’s a lot that needs to be done with things we dont have and can’t power reliably.
But even if we have all that, it would take hundreds of years to terraform a planet to a point where it is liveable.
Money. I’m not trying to be glib. Some plans seem entirely plausible with modern technology, it’s just at prohibitive timescale and cost.
Latest Answers