Why Don't We Terra Form Venus. Its Way Cheaper?

reply to post by winterkill

Why Don't We Terra Form Venus. Its Way Cheaper?

Because pissing off the Venusians isn't a good idea.

So why Mars?

Because Mars is one of the keys to Earths history.

J/K. Or am I?

why not start a little closer to home and terra form the sahara desert.

What Addams Crater on Venus might look like after a little "terraforming"

In case this hasn't been mentioned.

You know there is no life on Venus how? You dump another life-form onto a planet killing off it's indigenous life. Why?

It is currently unknown if there is life on Venus and our new findings here on Earth suggest that it is possible that Extremophile could possibly survive or thrive. I think we need to explore conclusively whether there is life first before we Terraform.

Besides who says we didn't eons ago...lol

reply to post by boymonkey74

Even if you solve the acid rain etc how are you going to solve the pressure issue?

With my job I'm used to the pressure.

The pressure issue exists only if the pressure inside you is different from the outside. If you are equalized to the outside pressure it would not be an issue. What one would notice though is that the air would feel like you were moving through water. Once the carbon was removed from the atmosphere though, the density would lower. Once the water condensed, it would become even thinner.

I think Mars is easier to terra form than Venus.

Closer, MUCH similar condition to earth. including temperature and revolution(day,year).

I can see a plants growing in Mars than Venus. Heck, they could take a potted desert plant and leave it there.

Problem with mars is it cannot hold its atmo. If the planet was bigger, we might have something. Maybe Venus is being ignored because something is hidden there, like city ruins etc.

reply to post by winterkill


I'm not too sure that there are any algae here on Earth that we could send that would survive the 900 deg F surface temps.

Removing a lot of the CO2 would help, but you have a problem: getting something that can survive long enough in that hellish environment to do any good in the first place.

Originally posted by winterkill
Problem with mars is it cannot hold its atmo. If the planet was bigger, we might have something. Maybe Venus is being ignored because something is hidden there, like city ruins etc.

While you're right that it can not hold it, if it were replenished it would hold what is replenished for millions of years actually.

It takes the sun quite a long time to strip away the atmosphere, and it took it a long time to do it the first time around.

The algae (as a lot are in our atmo) would would be airborne where it is cooler. As they convert the atmo and the temp decreases as the co2 comes down, they would slowly move down into the atmo. Once rain started in around fifty years in, they would move to the surface. Once the temps were cooler in the pole regions, you could introduce fast spreading weed and grass seeds and let them spread further bringing down the temp..

reply to post by winterkill


Mars does have a little atmosphere, i mean it does have clouds(even tho concentrated on the poles), i think Mars would be easier to Terra form... because planets could survive there... gravity is only slightly different.

Venus, Very high temperature, Sulfuric acid atmosphere, very high gravity... i do not know what plants could survive and adapt.

again, the acid and other atmo problems would go away with its conversion from Co2 to oxygen and free carbon

reply to post by winterkill


And you know plants need a change to actually convert instead of bursting into flame haha.

But that would take thousands of years, where Mars would be faster.. just need lots of carbon di oxide.. by melting the ice caps... which would produce both co2 and water... then spike with phytoplankton.. that should start a system going... its farfetched im sure more parameters are involved.

As Goldilocks said" this one is too hot."
Venus will melt lead.
That puts it way out of the running for terraforming.

Originally posted by winterkill
The algae (as a lot are in our atmo) would would be airborne where it is cooler. As they convert the atmo and the temp decreases as the co2 comes down, they would slowly move down into the atmo. Once rain started in around fifty years in, they would move to the surface. Once the temps were cooler in the pole regions, you could introduce fast spreading weed and grass seeds and let them spread further bringing down the temp..

edit on 9-1-2013 by winterkill because: spelling

Your method would take not hundreds or even thousands of years, but TENS of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years, simply because it would be very small amount (small amount because it is having to be air born, and staying at a very high altitude) as compared to being able to cover the surface, say like on Mars.

It would take much less time to do Mars since the conditions there are much less hostile.

Originally posted by winterkill
The algae (as a lot are in our atmo) would would be airborne where it is cooler. As they convert the atmo and the temp decreases as the co2 comes down, they would slowly move down into the atmo. Once rain started in around fifty years in, they would move to the surface. Once the temps were cooler in the pole regions, you could introduce fast spreading weed and grass seeds and let them spread further bringing down the temp..

That idea may possibly have some feasibility....though even in the cooler atmosphere I'm not sure of the survival rate, but extremophiles have surprised us before so I wouldn't rule it out. Your 50 year time frame sounds optimistic though, but a lot could happen over millions of years.

Even if this scenario was successful in eventually reducing greenhouse gases, Venus would still be a lot hotter than Earth because it's closer to the sun.

Originally posted by winterkill
reply to post by dorkfish87

 

I didn't say colonize, but Terra Form. Begin the conversion of the planet to a human sustainable one by starting the change I recommended.

And how, pray tell, would you start terraforming Venus? The last probes that landed there shut down due to the pressure and heat. Add on the acid rain and they're probably puddles of metal by now.

reply to post by winterkill


Fun speculation!

We'd have to develop a way of do something with the sulfur. We could break the sulfuric acid (H2SO4) into water (H2O) which is useful, and sulfur dioxide (SO2) which is poisonous (and wants to recombine with the water). If we can break-down the SO2, that would liberate more oxygen, but all of that sulfur laying around will make the whole planet stink like rotten eggs!

Actually, breaking-down the CO2 & SO2 would liberate too much oxygen. We'll ship some of it to Mars, along with a little over half of the atmospheric nitrogen.

Cooling Venus is the easiest part of the process. We'll place a slowly spinning disk at the L1 Lagrange point with its axis of rotation pointing towards the Sun (Yes, compared to re-engineering the atmosphere and creating an ecosystem, building a 10,000 mile-wide structure in space and keeping it oriented & positioned correctly is a relatively straightforward engineering challenge. Don't do terraforming if you can't think big). This sun-shield would let some sunlight through, and would be adjustable to calibrate the desired amount of sunlight reaching the planet (the same sort of device could control global warming on Earth).

The shield could also solve two other problems: Venus rotates very slowly, completing a day/night cycle in ~117 days. By varying the light coming through the shield, we can create an artificial day/night cycle of whatever duration we wish. The other thing is that, if we electrically charge the shield, it can also deflect solar particle radiation - sort of like an ersatz-Van Allen belt (a non-light blocking charged shield would help to terraform Mars).

The down-side is that this extra feature exacerbates problems with keeping the shield properly positioned at the L1 point. You've heard of "solar sails". If not compensated-for somehow, solar photon pressure would push the structure away from L1, towards Venus. If charged, the solar wind and solar particle events would add to this push.

Details, details...

Oh, just to correct an earlier post, Venus is closer to Earth than Mars. At closest approach, Venus is 0.2 AU from Earth, while Mars is 0.6 AU away.

I'm pretty sick of the Terra forming idea. With all we know about our own planet, we can't seem to take care of it, so how can we possibly have the nerve to believe we can make an Earth out of some other planet.

Let's say we do Terra form some planet or moon, once it is habitable, the greedy corporations will be there destroying it for profit.

I say we learn how to care for the original Terra first before we start thinking about screwing around with other worlds. The human race is so full of itself we can't see how we are no better than fruit flies in a jar.

We are making the world into a garbage can and we are just a bunch of maggots writhing around in the filth we made our home world. Humanity!

"Man has ruled the world as a stumbling, demented child king for long enough!"