Terraforming Mars: Mass, Forcing, and Industrial Throughput Constraints

Abstract: Terraforming Mars can be evaluated with a small set of system-level feasibility constraints linking (i) target pressures and compositions to required atmospheric inventories, (ii) target surface temperatures to required radiative control authority, (iii) inventories and radiative agents to sustained industrial throughput and power over a build time, and (iv) persistence against collapse, escape, and geochemical sinks. We use transparent order-of-magnitude scalings to map proposed levers (endogenous CO$2$ release, synthetic super-greenhouse gases, CO$_2$-H$_2$ CIA, engineered aerosols/nanoparticles, orbital mirrors/albedo modification, and regional solid-state greenhouse ``paraterraforming'') onto common metrics ${M,\ τ{\rm IR}/ΔF_{\rm TOA} \dot M,\ P}$. We find: (1) human-relevant pressures imply exaton-class inventories, $M_{\rm atm}\simeq 4πR_{\rm Mars}^2 P_s/g_{\rm Mars}\sim 10^{17}$-$10^{18}$ kg; (2) accessible CO$2$ plausibly provides $\lesssim 20$ mbar, yielding $\lesssim 10$ K warming under present insolation; (3) achieving $T_s$ ~ 250-273 K at current insolation requires an effective IR opacity target $τ{\rm IR,eff}\sim 2$--4 (uncertain at the ~30-50% level but not altering mass-scale conclusions); (4) breathable endpoints are dominated by O$_2$ and buffer-gas mass and by a minimum oxygenation work $\gtrsim 10^{25}$ J, implying $\dot M\sim 10^{7}$-$10^{8}$ kg\,s$^{-1}$ and multi-$10^2$ TW to PW-class average power for century-to-millennial build times. We conclude that regional habitability gains via paraterraforming are plausible on near-term industrial scales, whereas global transformation of Mars requires multi-century planetary industry and becomes credible only under conditions of (a) massive exogenous volatile supply or much larger discovered inventories, and (b) sustained high-authority climate control and retention against sinks and loss.