Random Thought Table: A good argument for terraforming
Okay, follow along with me.
The Problem: Mars is a crappy planet to try and land on. The atmosphere is too thin to aerobrake during re-entry, you need huge parachute, but there's just enough air to burn anything coming down to crisp if they don't have a heat shield. At one ton the Curiosity rover is the biggest thing we've been able to land. Anything with humans on board must be a lot bigger. Maybe too big for chutes and retro-rockets.
The Solution: Obviously a thicker atmosphere would help with the chutes and braking, and make the weight of that heat shield worthwhile. So obviously we should start dropping comets on it to thicken the atmosphere first, then land humans.
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.
.
What?
The Problem: Mars is a crappy planet to try and land on. The atmosphere is too thin to aerobrake during re-entry, you need huge parachute, but there's just enough air to burn anything coming down to crisp if they don't have a heat shield. At one ton the Curiosity rover is the biggest thing we've been able to land. Anything with humans on board must be a lot bigger. Maybe too big for chutes and retro-rockets.
The Solution: Obviously a thicker atmosphere would help with the chutes and braking, and make the weight of that heat shield worthwhile. So obviously we should start dropping comets on it to thicken the atmosphere first, then land humans.
.
.
.
What?