How might Mars have turned out if it had a moon like earth?

[Grimlock]

Okay we only need to look at how the Earth would be without a moon to know what the moon does for our climate.
In the future when the moons distance to the earth has become too far, there is talk about stealing one of the larger planets moons and place it in orbit around the earth to stabilize the moons orbit.

Now on to the main question I recently read an article about how lucky we were to have a moon how in a way it was created was really a chance about one in million or something like that.

Now I can,´t help, but to think Mars,´s two moons are FAR too small, for them to do anything about the planets axis.

Now we come to the WHAT IF: What if not just Earth but Mars too might have had a moon large enough to stabilize its axis, would it have changed anything.

Now I know we don,´t know everything about Mars and its history (if we did there was really no need what so ever to send any more probes or anything up there) but if we take everything we know about the history of the Planet Mars and compare it to the knowledge we have about earth and the effect our moon has on our climate.

Would Mars be any different today if it had had a moon?

Now a little bonus question there are a lot of talk about plans to some day in the future terraform Mars so that it will become more like earth.

Now for that there are two bonus questions one of which has nothing to do with the tropic but it is something I have wondered about.

1: Let's just say that the interior of Mars has cooled down, is it in Theory possible to rekindle Mars,´s interior or would the power needed for such a task most likely destroy the entire planet, or at least fry whatever remains of atmosphere it has left making it a twin of how earth will look like after the suns has been reduced to a white dwarf, before it would even come close to rekindle the interior of Mars.

2: If we managed to terraform Mars. I can,´t help but to think, that we might have a climate up there that would remind of what earth might have if it had no moon.
So would it the introduction of a moon or another large object at the same size of our moon, change anything on Mars??

(yes i know the questions is a little far fetched, but i choose to look at it this way, i would rather have a decent scientific answer here and have the idea either confirmed or busted, then go blaber about it on youtube or any other place and have it torn down by the first and the best guy out there who realize i have no clue what so ever or doesn,´t know all the facts, to be able to come up with such wild theories. Becoming another PCS (PCS 3) would be the worst father imaginable )

 

[orpiment99]

I can't answer 2, but I can take a shot at 1 from a geological perspective. A physicist could probably answer it better.

Mars is more than likely internally inert. There is no evidence for recent volcanic activity, which should be present if the interior was still molten to any real extent. The planet will get progressively denser as one approaches the core, so even getting anything deep enough to affect the core is problematic. If there is heat left, even if it isn't enough for surface activity it would likely affect anything used to penetrate that deep. Even if it didn't melt it, it would likely destroy any structural integrity of the object. Further, what process would be capable of creating enough heat and radioactivity to keep the core hot for any real period of time? Rock is brittle and it tends to break before it bends. Given the force necessary to create that much heat, it seems far more likely that you would fracture any solid rock rather than melt it. Rock is also a poor conductor of heat, so you would need to apply heat over a long period of time, rather than intensely but briefly. This rules out most explosive methods. The best bet would be a chemical reaction, I would think, but what kind would work I have no idea. In short, I can't see any way to do it.

 

[luckyirish67]

Meh, Mars is to cold for me, I think it would take an impractical amount of technology, energy, and money to do this as well.

 

[desertedcities]

2: If we managed to terraform Mars. I can,´t help but to think, that we might have a climate up there that would remind of what earth might have if it had no moon.
So would it the introduction of a moon or another large object at the same size of our moon, change anything on Mars??

Probably not. They lie outside what we know to be the 'habitable belt.' They're axis might be stable, and their seasons tamed, but the life introduced would have to be able to survive outside the habitable belt (which I'm sure there's a host of organisms that could). Also the infrastructure required to terraform a planet would be mind boggling (at least to me). Plus, we don't actually know if there is life or not on Mars yet that could possibly screw everything up that we did (this hearkens back to the idea of the bacteria on other living planets would be deadly to any foreign species, remember War of the Worlds?).

Either way, I like Mars as it is. It looks cool red. I'd much rather we build 'space colonies' like that of the Gundam series.

 

[Ozymandyus]

Yeah, I really doubt the idea of terraforming any planets that aren't already Very close to earth-like. I can imagine robotic mining colonies that help us create contained habitats, or space colonies, but full planet transformation seems like a waste of energy to me.

Though certainly someday with the ability to control fusion we may be able to create a minature sun in orbit instead of a moon that would also help us warm or something to that effect... who knows what technology we will have? But certainly the influence of the moon is one of the smallest problems in the terraforming mars question.

 

[Netheralian]

.In the future when the moons distance to the earth has become too far, there is talk about stealing one of the larger planets moons and place it in orbit around the earth to stabilize the moons orbit.

I have to say that this quote is quite amusing... If you had the tech to go and retrieve a moon from somewhere else to stabilise our moon, don't you think we could just move our moon back into a more stable orbit?

As for the how a lack of moon has affected mars I would say that it was probably minimal. Your biggest problem with Mars is the lack of atmosphere (or at least a very thin one). Thats due to lack of a serious magnetic field and nothing to do with a moon.

 

[GoodKat]

I watched a special on terraforming, it suggested that there are a great deal of CO2 producing fuel, and the plan was to burn it all then put plants all over the place.