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from https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a64434754/terraform-mars-kuiper-belt/

A Scientist Has an Explosive Plan to Terraform Mars. It's So Wild That
It Might Just Work.
No one said it was going to be easy.

By Darren OrfPublished: Apr 11, 2025 2:00 PM EDT
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If humans have any hope of establishing a long-term colony on Mars,
we’ll likely need to alter the planet’s atmosphere to make it more hospitable.
One part of this plan would require increasing the planet’s atmospheric pressure, and one scientist suggests that capturing celestial objects
from the Kuiper Belt—which are full of the necessary light elements
required for this process—and smashing them into Mars could
theoretically work.
The plan is full of dizzying engineering challenges and scientific
uncertainty, chief among them being the unstable nature of these icy
bodies as they warm up on their approach to the inner Solar System.
Putting humans on Mars has long been the dream of scientists, sci-fi
writers, and (recently) politicians. But the challenge of establishing a long-term colony beyond just a small scientific outpost is extremely
daunting. For example, Mars is too cold for us humans, and previous NASA studies suggest that current technology isn’t up to the task of warming
it up via terraforming. Elon Musk has considered more evocative solutions—such as nuking the red planet’s ice caps—while other
scientists have pondered more subtle approaches, like releasing
reflective nanoparticles into the atmosphere.

But temperature is only part of the problem—Mars’ atmosphere is
incredibly thin, meaning that it’s also low-pressure. This is a problem
for a species that’s roughly 65 percent water, because on Mars, our
blood would instantly boil if exposed to the planet’s atmosphere. So, in other words, Mars needs lots of gas to bring up its atmospheric
pressure, and the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Leszek Czechowski offered
an explosive solution at the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference
held this past March in Texas.

As on Earth, where average atmospheric pressure clocks in at around
101.3 kilopascals (kPa), areas of Mars experience differing levels of atmospheric pressure. The peak of Olympus Mons (the largest volcano in
the Solar System) experiences only 72 pascals (Pa) of pressure. Hellas
Planitia (the lowlands of Mars), on the other hand, experiences a full
1.16 kPa, making it the most likely location of a future human colony.
But because you need at least 6.25 kPa of pressure for your blood not to
boil, a future human-inhabited Mars will need even more atmospheric
pressure, and Czechowski has a wild idea about where to get it.

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What Would a Mars Colony Actually Look Like?
“Creating an atmosphere that would allow human life is possible by
importing matter from other celestial bodies,” Czechowski wrote in a
short paper submitted for the conference. “We should use Kuiper Belt
(KB) bodies for terraforming.”

The idea is that a future, more sophisticated human race could develop thermonuclear reactors and ion engines capable of guiding icy bodies
from the Kuiper Belt (which begins just beyond the orbit of Neptune) on
a multi-decadal journey to Mars, where their impact on the surface could eventually atmospheric conditions more suitable for humans. In the
paper, Czechowski also considered the nearby main asteroid belt, as well
as the further afield Oort Cloud, as possible resources. But the former
is largely depleted of light elements, and the latter is simply too far away—it’d likely take 15,000 years to get celestial bodies from the Oort Cloud to Mars, whereas collecting Kuiper Belt objects would only take 29
to 63 years, Czechowski estimates.

Related Story

Nobody is Terraforming Mars Anytime Soon
“Celestial bodies orbiting far from the Sun have large amounts of
volatile substances, including water, CO2, nitrogen, CO, and some
organic compounds (e.g.,CH4),” Czechowski wrote. “Some of these
compounds seem harmful to life. In the terraforming plans proposed here,
we envision an interim stage in which (after sufficient amounts of the
above compounds have been brought to Mars) specially bred (or
genetically engineered) organisms will release oxygen from H2O and CO2.”

As you can guess, this plan is pretty energy-hungry, and Czechowski
admits it’d require the amount of energy that all of humanity currently expends over a six-month to several-year period (depending on the
particular iteration of the plan). There are also a few other hang-ups,
as these Kuiper Belt bodies can become unstable during their journey
toward the inner Solar System, and such a catastrophic impact on Mars
could instigate earthquakes and volcanism.

It’s definitely a difficult plan, but then again, no one ever said terraforming Mars would be easy.

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Headshot of Darren Orf
Darren Orf
Contributing Editor
Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and
how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and
Paste if you look hard enough.

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