towing asteroids from the a-belt to Mars?

Question

Maybe we could develop some kind of technology that enables us to tow meteors and asteroids and ice/water bearing objects into the Mars atmosphere. We could increase the Marsian mass, and deposit water on the planet.
This may now seem far fetched, but a lot of great ideas was once far fetched. Mars doesn't have enough mass, nor gravitational force. we could catch two flies with one news paper. What do ya think? Any ideas anyone?

Answer 1

It's not going to be as easy as Kim Stanley Robinson makes it sound in his MARS fiction series. The problem isn't technology; it's the fact that an irreducible minimum amount of energy is needed to divert an asteroid in a given initial orbit so that it enters the Martian atmosphere.

Lately, I've done a lot of figuring relating to diverting asteroids into a collision with Earth -- the sort of thing that Arkady's revolutionary comrades tried to do in the story RED MARS. There are certain asteroids for which such a thing is feasible, and one of them is 2001-YB5.

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=(2001yb5)

It's an asteroid that will miss Earth by 8.5 million kilometers in January 2020. But, if someone were to change its speed by only 83.659 meters per second, in the direction of right ascension 15h 24m 20.78s & declination +5.4816652 degrees, at 18h UT on 29 April 2018, it would hit Earth 617 days later, on 6 January 2020.

So, yes, the idea is valid. But the feasibility exists only for asteroids that aren't too energy costly to divert into the path you want it to go. Robinson sort of took license with either the energy cost or with the number of asteroids in suitable initial orbits. But that's fiction, so it's OK.

I don't think that anyone is ever going to add enough asteroid material to Mars to increase its mass by even one tenth of one percent, so forget that part of it.

Answer 2

I remember reading good books on that idea a few decades ago. It may still be a few decades before we have the capability. It would take a lot of energy to divert asteroids.

Once we develop the means to do it practically, then it will not matter where we take the stuff. For example, instead of taking asteroids from the main belt, we could take chunks from further out (more ice and water, less rock). It would not take all that much more energy; it would take more time but since we would be going to "rain" asteroids on Mars for years, what is a few months more?

At the time, it was generally accepted (by the few people who really cared about this kind of project -- a minority, really) that it could work to supply some water and a transient atmosphere for Mars. But now that we know more about the composition of Mars and its present atmosphere, I am not so sure.

We would really have to bombard Mars at a very heavy rate for the water and atmosphere to increase faster than the rate at which matter would be lost to dissociation (and, eventually, leak into space).

Still possible, but not as easy as we thought 30 years ago.

Answer 3

Given that there is about as much mass as the Moon in ALL of the asteroids combined (and that includes bodies that are several hundred of kilometres in daimeter), adding their mass to that of Mars will increase that planet mass by only 2%, i.e. notenought to make any difference. Moreover, towing asteroids could require perhaps as much reaction mass (AKA rocket fuel) as the mass of the asteroids themselves, unless one relies on solar sail or very efficient nuclear rockets that we do not have developped yet.
So, it looks like you idea would remain far fetched at least for now.
And then, the big question: why? What is so important that we must terraform Mars and provide it with oceans?

Answer 4

A question indeed...

Well, the quantity of stuff you would need to capture and drop into the martian atmosphere is so far beyond the capabilities of mankind at this point that it is just impossible to consider. At present, just a simple voyage to Mars and back will cost us on the order of 80 billion dollars, or more. To hang around in space and swat at passing asteroids and meteors near Mars would require extended orbiting of the planet which is not in the current thinking/planning. Given the present fragility of space vehicles, i don't think we have reached the evolutionary point of traveling in space with battle cruisers yet. That is probably what you have in mind. My guess is that Mars will go on as it has always been. Thanks for your effort to fix the problem on Mars, however. Maybe you can dream up a way to ship them 5 billion cubic miles of oxygen gas also, without creating a huge fire ball.

Answer 5

I couldn't see this happening anytime in the near future. But who knows? One day, perhaps, we'll have the need to be somewhere besides on our own polluted planet. We know there are massive amounts of H2O-bearing objects within our solar system. If we had a combination of the technology and the need, and we were free from the certain emergence of the "Preserve the Martian Ecosystem" environmentalist freaks, it might be possible.

For those who think this is too far-fetched, look what we're doing here: We "relocate" water from mountain-west US states to California. We've developed technologies to make seawater usable for land and human use in areas it would have otherwise been impossible to do. We're looking to the future in relocating huge resources of South American water to currently barren areas. The idea, wherever humans have the interest, is not unheard-of.

If' we're ever extra-terrestrial dwellers, we're going to need water. If we have the technology to go ET ourselves, we'll probably have the technology to bring in the H2O.

Answer 6

I even tend to have faith with a pair of alternative solutions which state it could have been a planet that grew to become into in a roundabout way destroyed. in case you utilize very own customary procedures of calculating gravity between the planets, there must be a planet precisely the place the asteroid belt is. yet funnily sufficient, those comparable procedures of calculating gravity additionally state the Moon should not be interior the orbit it presently makes use of while orbiting Earth. it would sound unusual regardless of the undeniable fact that that's real !

Answer 7

That would be a great use for our nuclear material. Instead of making bombs and missiles they could be used to change the orbit of asteroids and comets to terraform Mars. However, there would always be people who would say we should leave Mars alone in order to study its natural history before we start making changes to it.

Answer 8

i think towing asteroids could cause a change in the magnetic field and gravitational field of the entire asteroid belt;thereby causing mass destruction, if the asteroids start veering off their course

Answer 9

Usually people aren't willing to spend money unless they get something for it.

As this would be unimaginably expensive and no taxpayer would gain anything by it, I'm thinkin' don't hold your breath.