I was watching an episode of the BBC show Horizon the other day about terraforming Mars. They were arguing about whether or not nuclear weapons would have to be planted under the surface of Mars to warm the planet enough to release water and make the planet warm enough to be habitable for plants. I’ve come up with a better idea.
Mars doesn’t really have tectonic activity, largely because there aren’t any major tidal forces acting on the planet’s core. The earth generates quite a bit of internal heat because of the tidal forces created by the moon. So, why not build Mars a moon? Using Newton’s gravitational equations, you would have to put a 7.91 x 10 ^ 21 kg moon into orbit around Mars at a distance of 41,302 km to give it the equivalent gravitational pull of the Earth’s moon on the Earth.
It would be fairly difficult to build a moon for Mars, yes, but if you towed Phobos and Deimos into the right orbit, you’d be more than 1 / 63000th of the way there! Besides, if you managed to jam 3 or 4 of the larger asteroids together, you’d already have one. They’re just sorta floating out there between Mars and Jupiter anyway — it’s not like anyone is using them.
Far-fetched as this plan sounds, it’s actually less bizarre than some of the ones professionals seem to have come up with.