Mars’ atmosphere is dry, cold, and too thin to stop you from bursting like a balloon or getting cancer from cosmic rays. Eeeek, right? But billions of years ago it was thick, warm and (sometimes) wet. If humans want to live on Mars long-term, we need to find a way to resurrect the Martian atmosphere to its former glory. The presenter, Robert Lillis, will tell you where the ancient atmosphere went and what it will take to rebuild it. Spoiler: it’s gonna be tough. Real tough. Oh yes.
Robert is a research physicist at the NASA-funded UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory. He’s been a member of three Mars mission teams and has been studying Mars for 16 years.
This presentation is from Nerd Nite San Francisco.