CHAOS AND MOVING MARS TO A BETTER CLIMATE

John McCarthy

Computer Science Department

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Stanford University

Abstract:

In a chaotic dynamical system, small deviations from given initial conditions produces large changes over time. This suggests that chaotic systems are controllable by making small changes initially. The solar system is a somewhat chaotic dynamical system, so maybe humanity can control its evolution to produce desired effects.

The specific idea of this article is to move the planet Mars to an orbit at the same distance from the sun as the earth's orbit. This would make Mars warmer, which might make it more habitable.

The scheme is to use a tame asteroid that makes several thousand encounters with Mars, Venus and Jupiter to exchange energy and angular momentum among these planets, thus moving Mars to the desired orbit. Conservation of both energy and angular momentum requires that two other planets besides Mars be used.

A tame asteroid is one that makes repeated encounters with planets that magnify small perturbations of its orbit. The object is to achieve the goal of moving Mars with minimal total , i.e. minimal rocketry.

Moving Mars will take some tens of thousands of years, but not millions of years.¹