This might be a stupid question

[kwyjibo]

I get why we would need to increase the atmospheric pressure with the magnetic field generator, but why would we need to pump CO2 into the atmosphere in order to terraform Mars given that its atmosphere is already mostly CO2 anyway?

(If its just to make the game more fun then I'm cool with that, but was just wondering if there was some kind of loose scientific rationale behind it)

[SuperMeatBag]

The Magnetic generator is more for keeping the atmosphere drifting off into space, the Carbonate processor is what actually puts the atmosphere there.

[Boothy]

Whilst the current atmosphere is mostly CO2, it is very thin, about 0.6% of the pressure on Earth, so my guess is that it's to increase the air pressure/density.

This would also explain why in game, wind generation gets better the more the atmosphere is 'improved', as the air gets denser, so the blades become more efficient.

In RL some scientists think Mars did have a much thicker atmosphere in the past (billions of years ago), and that this has gradually been lost over that time to where it is now. So in game, you're basically trying to reverse this, by pumping more Co2 into the atmosphere, than is being lost.

This also explains the use of the magnetic field generator etc, in trying to offset/reduce the ongoing loss of the atmosphere, which in game, increases the higher the atmospheric % is.

Just a thought anyway! :-)

[Astasia]

Earth's atmosphere by comparison though is only 0.04% CO2. So while Mars has 0.6% of the density of Earth's atmosphere, 95% of that is CO2, which puts it way above the levels we would want. CO2 is heavy and toxic to humans, significant amounts would sink to the ground and make it impossible to breath, even concentrations of 1% are too much. The idea of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere is a short term solution to solve atmospheric pressure and temperature issues, but long term it would need to be removed/converted for the planet to be breathable. Realistically even after all the steps players take in the game now, the domes would not be removed, and people would need to always wear masks outside. If the mask slips and they get a few breaths of high CO2 air in, that could knock them out and be fatal if nobody is nearby to save them.

But it's just a game, and they don't expect people to think about that stuff I guess.

[Tseudonym]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Earth's atmosphere by comparison though is only 0.04% CO2. So while Mars has 0.6% of the density of Earth's atmosphere, 95% of that is CO2, which puts it way above the levels we would want. CO2 is heavy and toxic to humans, significant amounts would sink to the ground and make it impossible to breath, even concentrations of 1% are too much. The idea of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere is a short term solution to solve atmospheric pressure and temperature issues, but long term it would need to be removed/converted for the planet to be breathable. Realistically even after all the steps players take in the game now, the domes would not be removed, and people would need to always wear masks outside. If the mask slips and they get a few breaths of high CO2 air in, that could knock them out and be fatal if nobody is nearby to save them.

But it's just a game, and they don't expect people to think about that stuff I guess.

Keep in mind that plants inhale CO2 and exhale oxygen, so the vegetation you're putting on Mars turns the CO2 rich atmosphere into a oxygen rich, breathable one. Also CO2 is not toxic, it's just not breathable.

[Boothy]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Earth's atmosphere by comparison though is only 0.04% CO2. So while Mars has 0.6% of the density of Earth's atmosphere, 95% of that is CO2, which puts it way above the levels we would want. CO2 is heavy and toxic to humans, significant amounts would sink to the ground and make it impossible to breath, even concentrations of 1% are too much. The idea of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere is a short term solution to solve atmospheric pressure and temperature issues, but long term it would need to be removed/converted for the planet to be breathable. Realistically even after all the steps players take in the game now, the domes would not be removed, and people would need to always wear masks outside. If the mask slips and they get a few breaths of high CO2 air in, that could knock them out and be fatal if nobody is nearby to save them.

But it's just a game, and they don't expect people to think about that stuff I guess.

Plants take in CO2, and produce Oxygen as a waste product (they also produce sugar, which is what plants use for their energy).

So my guess would be that whist we are pumping out the CO2, the vegetation is converting some of this into Oxygen. i.e. basically what happens here on Earth.

The main difference in the game, is the time needed to do this. I'd guess in RL, this would take 1,000s of years (or possibly millions), before enough of the CO2 has been converted to Oxygen to make it breathable.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by ProDude:

BKeep in mind that plants inhale CO2 and exhale oxygen, so the vegetation you're putting on Mars turns the CO2 rich atmosphere into a oxygen rich, breathable one. Also CO2 is not toxic, it's just not breathable.

Yes, in a few million years that vegetation could possibly turn all that CO2 into a breathable atmosphere. Though it took billions of years on Earth.

Too much CO2 is "toxic." If you were to take normal Earth "air" (80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen) and make it 1% CO2 that will make you feel a bit tired, if you make it ~10% CO2 it will knock you out fairly quickly and suffocate you. It's not a lack of oxygen doing it, it's that CO2 is actively harmful to inhale in those quantities.

It's not officially labeled as toxic because we do require very small amounts of it.

[cassielsander]

I guess the big missing ingredient is the Nitrogen, to be the inert bulk of the atmosphere that blankets the rest without reacting and setting things on fire.

[Bobucles]

Also CO2 is not toxic, it's just not breathable.

Well, ackshually...
CO2 is far "stickier" to blood cells than oxygen. Its mere presence interferes with O2 delivery to the body, in a way that other gases like Nitrogen and Helium don't. That's why a 1% level of CO2 can be serious business, even though normal air has ~20% oxygen. Carbon monoxide cranks it up to eleven, gluing itself to blood cells in a way that makes oxygen delivery nearly impossible.

Nitrogen is truly a non toxic, non breathable gas. Helium too, you could breathe helium/oxygen if you really wanted.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by Lewis:

I get why we would need to increase the atmospheric pressure with the magnetic field generator, but why would we need to pump CO2 into the atmosphere in order to terraform Mars given that its atmosphere is already mostly CO2 anyway?

(If its just to make the game more fun then I'm cool with that, but was just wondering if there was some kind of loose scientific rationale behind it)

You are trying to make sense of a game. A game that thinks the human lifespan is only 24 days long. A game that thinks a magnetic field can be created externally from the planet. A game that has absolutely no concept of what a "habitable zone" means. And you expect them to comprehend that adding more CO2 to an atmosphere that is already 98% CO2 will accomplish nothing? I think you are asking for far too much.

The developers clearly are not interested in representing reality. This game is just a reskinned version of Tropico. A way for them to get twice the cash for half the work. Reality be damned.

[Ericus1]

Mars is in the habitable zone of Sol, you can create a strong enough magnetic field at the appropriate Lagrange point in space to deflect solar winds, and using the 1 Sol is a Martian year and 1 Martian year ≈ 2 Earth years, you get an average human lifespan of about 120 years, which is pretty accurate assuming health advances by the time frame of the game.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstellar_habitable_zone#/media/File%3ADiagram_of_different_habitable_zone_regions_by_Chester_Harman.jpg

https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/how-to-give-mars-an-atmosphere-maybe/

The developers took some liberties with realism, but those aren't them.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

Mars is in the habitable zone of Sol, you can create a strong enough magnetic field at the appropriate Lagrange point in space to deflect solar winds, and using the 1 Sol is a Martian year and 1 Martian year ≈ 2 Earth years, you get an average human lifespan of about 120 years, which is pretty accurate assuming health advances by the time frame of the game.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstellar_habitable_zone#/media/File%3ADiagram_of_different_habitable_zone_regions_by_Chester_Harman.jpg

https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/how-to-give-mars-an-atmosphere-maybe/

The developers took some liberties with realism, but those aren't them.

No, Mars is not in the habitable zone of Sol, and it has absolutely nothing to do with magnetic fields. A planet can only have a magnetic field if it has a molten core - like Earth. Mars does not have a molten core, and therefore can never have a magnetic field.

The human lifespan does not change due to our physical location. Humans live ~80 Earth years, or ~40 Martian years. This game, however, has the human lifespan averaging 24 Martian DAYS, not years. If the game were even remotely realistic no human would survive the trip from Earth to Mars.

[Boothy]

You do know the Sols in the game, i.e. a single day/night cycle, represents a year in the game, not a day?

Quote from the Paradox wiki: "Within the game context one Sol is, in essence, one turn and should be thought of as being closer to one year in terms of time passed. This is why the achievement of having a baby within 10 Sol is possible."

Also, assuming wikipedia (I know!) is accurate, Mars is inside the habitable zone:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstellar_habitable_zone#/media/File:Diagram_of_different_habitable_zone_regions_by_Chester_Harman.jpg

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by Boothy:

You do know the Sols in the game, i.e. a single day/night cycle, represents a year in the game, not a day?

Quote from the Paradox wiki: "Within the game context one Sol is, in essence, one turn and should be thought of as being closer to one year in terms of time passed. This is why the achievement of having a baby within 10 Sol is possible."

Also, assuming wikipedia (I know!) is accurate, Mars is inside the habitable zone:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstellar_habitable_zone#/media/File:Diagram_of_different_habitable_zone_regions_by_Chester_Harman.jpg

No, it is only one Martian day. Which is why there is a sun rise and a sun set. Or are you trying to claim that Mars only make one rotation on its axis once a year? Like I said above, this game is merely a reskinned Tropico. They used the same game engine, and that includes the passage of time. Every Sol is one Martian Day. There is even a Martian Clock mod you can use to verify this fact.

I accomplishment the first Martian born achievement on the very first day the colonists land. Even before they get their first jobs or places of residence.

Wikipedia is not a credible source, and Mars is not in the habitable zone of Sol. Habitable zones also assumes the planet has a main nitrogen atmosphere and at least 611.657 pascals of atmospheric pressure. Mars has neither.

The best source on habitable zones is currently from:

Habitable Zones Around Main-Sequence Stars: Dependence on Planetary Mass - The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 787:L29 (6pp), June 1, 2014

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/787/2/L29/pdf

[Ericus1]

Originally posted by Alaskan Glitch:

No, Mars is not in the habitable zone of Sol, and it has absolutely nothing to do with magnetic fields. A planet can only have a magnetic field if it has a molten core - like Earth. Mars does not have a molten core, and therefore can never have a magnetic field.

The human lifespan does not change due to our physical location. Humans live ~80 Earth years, or ~40 Martian years. This game, however, has the human lifespan averaging 24 Martian DAYS, not years. If the game were even remotely realistic no human would survive the trip from Earth to Mars.

Uh, dude, I literally posted you our Suns habitable range, and it includes Mars. And a star's habitable zones make absolutely NO assumptions about the actual conditions of the planets inside it, but whether the planet exists within a zone where conditions are possible, of which Mars 100% is. We already know Mars had liquid water and a thicker atmosphere in the past when the Sun was cooler than it is now.

And our lifespan absolutely changes as medical technology has and will continue to advance. Do you think this game is set in the current year? No, it's near future, probably closer to the latter half of this century.

Oh, and the developers REPEATEDLY have stated, as I and others have tried to tell you, that the "Sol" unit of time in the game simultaneously represents multiple units of time: it represents a Martian day for the purposes of having a day/night cycle, a Martian month for crops growth cycles, and a Martian year (which is about two Earth years) for most building times, rocket travel times, colonists lifespans, and other game concepts. Do you really think corn grows in 8 days? That it only takes a rocket 48 hours to travel to Mars?

https://www.planetary.org/articles/20170921-mars-isru-tech

https://suindependent.com/life-earth-mars-habitable-zone/

https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/the-outer-edge-of-a-stars-habitable-zone-a-hard-place-for-life/ "However, our planet today is not at the limit of the habitable zone (that’s more where Mars is), so these extreme cycles and ice ages would not take place here."

Unless you're going to say NASA is wrong and doesn't know what they are talking about.

You're very wrong, and what's worse being very ignorant about it.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

Originally posted by Alaskan Glitch:

No, Mars is not in the habitable zone of Sol, and it has absolutely nothing to do with magnetic fields. A planet can only have a magnetic field if it has a molten core - like Earth. Mars does not have a molten core, and therefore can never have a magnetic field.

The human lifespan does not change due to our physical location. Humans live ~80 Earth years, or ~40 Martian years. This game, however, has the human lifespan averaging 24 Martian DAYS, not years. If the game were even remotely realistic no human would survive the trip from Earth to Mars.

Uh, dude, I literally posted you our Suns habitable range, and it includes Mars. And a star's habitable zones make absolutely NO assumptions about the actual conditions of the planets inside it, but whether the planet exists within a zone where conditions are possible, of which Mars 100% is. We already know Mars had liquid water and a thicker atmosphere in the past when the Sun was cooler than it is now.

And our lifespan absolutely changes as medical technology has and will continue to advance. Do you think this game is set in the current year? No, it's near future, probably closer to the latter half of this century.

Oh, and the developers REPEATEDLY have stated, as I and others have tried to tell you, that the "Sol" unit of time in the game simultaneously represents multiple units of time: it represents a Martian day for the purposes of having a day/night cycle, a Martian month for crops growth cycles, and a Martian year (which is about two Earth years) for most building times, rocket travel times, colonists lifespans, and other game concepts. Do you really think corn grows in 8 days? That it only takes a rocket 48 hours to travel to Mars?

https://www.planetary.org/articles/20170921-mars-isru-tech

https://suindependent.com/life-earth-mars-habitable-zone/

https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/the-outer-edge-of-a-stars-habitable-zone-a-hard-place-for-life/ "However, our planet today is not at the limit of the habitable zone (that’s more where Mars is), so these extreme cycles and ice ages would not take place here."

Unless you're going to say NASA is wrong and doesn't know what they are talking about.

You're very wrong, and what's worse being very ignorant about it.

I'm not going to argue with someone who thinks Wikipedia is a credible source and obviously doesn't have the vaguest clue what they are talking about with regard to habitable zones. If you want to believe that one Sol on Mars is a day, month, and year simultaneously, who am I to spoil your bizarre delusions? If you want to believe habitable zones have anything to do with the magnetic fields of planets, why should I bother to educate you of the stupidity of that belief?

You are certainly free to be as ignorant you have repeatedly demonstrated already. I just don't need to be part of that stupidity. As the adage goes, "ignorance is bliss." So you must be very happy indeed.