[2603.00402] Terraforming Mars: Mass, Forcing, and Industrial Throughput Constraints

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Astrophysics > Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

arXiv:2603.00402 (astro-ph)

[Submitted on 28 Feb 2026 (v1), last revised 20 Apr 2026 (this version, v4)]

Title:Terraforming Mars: Mass, Forcing, and Industrial Throughput Constraints

Authors:Slava G. Turyshev<br>View a PDF of the paper titled Terraforming Mars: Mass, Forcing, and Industrial Throughput Constraints, by Slava G. Turyshev

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Abstract:Terraforming Mars can be evaluated with a set of system-level constraints linking (i) target pressures & compositions to required atmospheric inventories, (ii) target surface temperatures to the required radiative control, (iii) inventories & climate agents to sustained industrial throughput & power over a build time, (iv) persistence against collapse, escape, geochemical sinks. We use order-of-magnitude scalings to compare endogenous CO2 release, synthetic super-greenhouse gases, CO2-H2 collision-induced absorption, engineered aerosols/nanoparticles, orbital mirrors, regional paraterraforming. We find: (1) human-relevant pressures imply exaton-class inventories, because Mars requires 3.89 x 10^15 kg of atmosphere per mbar of global mean surface pressure; (2) accessible endogenous CO2 is best treated as ~10s of mbar resource, with a 20 mbar case yielding

Comments:<br>36 pages, 4 figures, and 15 tables

Subjects:

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)

Cite as:<br>arXiv:2603.00402 [astro-ph.EP]

(or<br>arXiv:2603.00402v4 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.00402

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arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

Journal reference:<br>APS Open Sci. 1, 000029 (2026)

Related DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1103/krb8-h3v3

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DOI(s) linking to related resources

Submission history<br>From: Slava G. Turyshev [view email]<br>[v1]<br>Sat, 28 Feb 2026 01:30:06 UTC (51 KB)

[v2]<br>Sun, 22 Mar 2026 18:37:04 UTC (60 KB)

[v3]<br>Sun, 5 Apr 2026 19:45:17 UTC (61 KB)

[v4]<br>Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:24:15 UTC (75 KB)

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