Which would be easier to terraform & humanize, Venus, Or Mars?

Contaminate, pollute, exploit and ruin another planet? Create another flourishing planet sucking and miserable society under more idiotic tyrants? PLEASE, Please don't! Humans should not even be allowed to leave the atmosphere. Only a handful of people visited the Moon, and its already littered with tons of junk and debris.

We would be doing the whole Solar System a favor if we just stayed here and died here...along with our useless and meaningless junk.

Originally posted by pikestaff
As Mars does not have a magnetosphere, therefore no protection from the sun, it would have to be Venus, but as it is so close to the Sun terraforming is pointless, the heat would be too great, screwed on either planet.

Venus does not have a true magnetic field either.

What little bit it does have is generated by the interaction of the solar wind with the ionosphere and is no where near sufficient as a means to protect from cosmic rays.

Earth's field is generated by the planet's core. For whatever reason Venus' core is not generating one. Either by lack of the right conditions (temperature) or elements.

Mars, on the other hand, did appear to have a dynamo in its core at one point as we can detect magnetic bands on the planet that would likely be remnants of such a field.

Originally posted by Visitor2012
Contaminate, pollute, exploit and ruin another planet? Create another flourishing planet sucking and miserable society under more idiotic tyrants? PLEASE, Please don't! Humans should not even be allowed to leave the atmosphere. Only a handful of people visited the Moon, and its already littered with tons of junk and debris.

We would be doing the whole Solar System a favor if we just stayed here and died here...along with our junk.

edit on 13-3-2013 by Visitor2012 because: (no reason given)

That's a rather weak standpoint. You would have to define 'ruin' in regards to planets devoid of life. We have done things to damage (ruin is a bit strong imho) the Earth, yes, but this is always mentioned in regards to its habitability. If a planet is already uninhabitable, how can you ruin it? Terraforming could then be viewed as 'fixing' the planet, which even if we did 'ruin' it afterwards (which is unlikely given that we are learning more and more about how to avoid such things and will have learned a much greater deal just from the terraforming process) the planet is no worse off than before we got there.

Also, I find it odd that you would choose to personify the solar system. I would consider it a crime to the solar system personally if we didn't seek to fill as much of it with life as we can. All the conditions that came together to give us this beautiful little nook in the universe and make Us possible and you want us to just say "nah...thanks but no thanks"? Even went so far as to give us 2 other planets next door to practice terraforming with at opposite ends of the spectrum, but nah...we tripped and fell too much as a baby, let's forget learning to walk altogether.

I'm going to ignore the political troll part of the post as I can tell where you're wanting that pathetic and ignorant lead to go without any elaboration.

Also, if you truly felt this way, one would wonder why you are even still around to post about it. Why bother getting up in the morning or doing anything at all? You essentially are saying that our species should just purposefully extinct itself - mass suicide. That sort of comment usually means the person is in dire need of psychiatric assistance and possibly a lot of pharma-psychology.

Reply to post by choos

@choos Lmao... Brilliant usage of words.

On topic; forget moon think bout Sahara being turned into green zone both for eco and agriculture profit. But even that's far fetched financial speaking.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Originally posted by Dashdragon

Originally posted by Visitor2012
Contaminate, pollute, exploit and ruin another planet? Create another flourishing planet sucking and miserable society under more idiotic tyrants? PLEASE, Please don't! Humans should not even be allowed to leave the atmosphere. Only a handful of people visited the Moon, and its already littered with tons of junk and debris.

We would be doing the whole Solar System a favor if we just stayed here and died here...along with our junk.

edit on 13-3-2013 by Visitor2012 because: (no reason given)

That's a rather weak standpoint. You would have to define 'ruin' in regards to planets devoid of life. We have done things to damage (ruin is a bit strong imho) the Earth, yes, but this is always mentioned in regards to its habitability. If a planet is already uninhabitable, how can you ruin it? Terraforming could then be viewed as 'fixing' the planet, which even if we did 'ruin' it (which is unlikely given that we are learning more and more about how to avoid such things and will have learned a much greater deal just from the terraforming process) the planet is no worse of than before we got there.

Also, I find it odd that you would choose to personify the solar system. I would consider it a crime to the solar system personally if we didn't seek to fill as much of it with life as we can. All the conditions that came together to give us this beautiful little nook in the universe and you want us to just say "nah...thanks but no thanks"?

I'm going to ignore the political troll part of the post as I can tell where you're wanting that pathetic and ignorant lead to go without any elaboration.

Also, if you truly felt this way, one would wonder why you are even still around to post about it. Why bother getting up in the morning or doing anything at all? You essentially are saying that our species should just purposefully extinct itself - mass suicide. That sort of comment usually means the person is in dire need of psychiatric assistance and possibly a lot of pharma-psychology.

The troll would be you. Congratulations. I'll ignore your personal attacks since you admit you know nothing about me, so no point in me arguing over your opinion of me.

Back to my point, open your eyes and look at the wonderful Planet you live on. Do you honestly think we should continue this madness on another planet? I don't need psychiatric assistance, but you may want to look into buying a pair of eyeglasses.

Regardless, we as a race, do not have the right to do whatever we please on other planets. We know there to be no life as 'we' would perceive it on Venus, yet look at the amazing life forms that exist in the most hostile of environments on earth. In smokers 1000s of feet below the sea, in sulphurous vents, pools of acrid gas.

We have not looked after what we have here, and what we have on earth is unbelievably precious. I think 'that' should be our priority before we go wandering off to find new places to colonise. We need to learn how to look after out own home before we even think about going anywhere else. The whole 'take take' attitude than humans have is very sad.

Neither planet has much if any by way of magnetic field.
Thus, regardless the choice, you're essentially naked to the sun's radiation.

Your weight on Venus would be almost the same as on Earth, where you'd only weigh about 30% on Mars.
The differences in weight in comparison between the two, Venus would be the better choice for life already adapted to 1 G.

When it comes to terraforming and occupation, Mars would have the upper hand in immediate occupation where people could live underground for protection from the solar radiation without too much hazard in brief surface jaunts.
Venus would take a few hundred years of engineering to stabilize the run-away greenhouse effect, but, once the acid is gone or negligible, the atmospheric pressure is such that people could almost fly like birds if given some decent strap-on wings.

Artificial moons would need be placed around both planets to give tidal action, which could very well assist in the development of asymmetrical molten core dynamics to foster a magnetic field in both cases.

In the case of Venus, a shell of substantial engineered debris (Carbon) in addition to an artificial moon may need be necessary as a sun-screen constantly keeping the planet in partial eclipse.

Given several thousands of years, perhaps 10,000, Venus could be a second Earth. The thicker atmospheric pressure may even be easier to manage in decreasing the pressure during terraforming than it would be to increase atmospheric pressure on Mars.

Both planets present a number of unique problems, some quite opposite from one another.

Mars is the more immediately habitable, but, Venus has more real estate, and is more Earth-like in size and gravity, where also the interesting long term conditions of its current chemistry will have likely made for much more interesting minerals, geology, and exploitable resources.

Before Venus, and Mars, however, the Moon, Asteroid belt, Moons of Mars, and Moons of Jupiter should have permanent footholds and colonies in place.

reply to post by KamaSutra


Definitley Mars IMO.
Although I wouldn't go with bio domes on the surface-I would start by sending nuke powered drilling robots,which would drill down 5 miles or so(we do this on Earth,in secret).
Then we build our living areas in these underground tunnels,safe from the meteorites and more importantly safe from the solar radiation.

The underground living areas could be huge,and would be run on power from a thorium reactor,and maybe a whole load of solar energy gathering satellites,which transmit their energy to the compound via laser.

We would need many of these bunkers all over Mars,all full of plants(and people/animals)to generate enough extra gases,pumped to the surface over maybe hundreds of years to slowly create an atmosphere where we could one day return to the surface of Mars and be able to breathe(maybe).
Just my theory,which may not work in reality.

reply to post by Dashdragon



Um thanks for the lesson in science I obviousky already know and understand......I guess.

I had already stated mars' magnetic shield is broken. The fact we would have to fix it or replace it through artificial means, and this being the reason for mars not having much of an atmosphere.

So what was the point of that half page of text?

The plan you proposed about adding hydrogen to venus, sounds good on paper, but it wont work in reality. As it is far too hot for hydrogen and oxygen to create water, so all it would accomplish is adding more atmosphere to an already too thick atmosphere. Not too mention there is not even enough hydrogen on earth to accomplish this, so you woukd have to transport far more gasses, from an as yet unavailable and unknown source, and would still have too kuch atmosphere to deal with, and would still have to do somthing about mars' atmosphere.

Instead of just moving a smaller amount one time from venus to mars, fixing both in the process.


Though your plan of impacting comets on mars is quite good, and maybe even one of the only plans at present that we might even attempt, comets are not so easily used though. As any ship attempting to gravity tractor the comet would be in danger from the comets corona, and any device we tried to put on the surface would be in a little war zone, with explosions extreme temp variations, debris, sudden shifts in terrain etc..

This doesnt mean it is not possible, it just means we would have try really hard, and be prepared to suffer catastrophic failure a few times before success. Basically the same roll of the dice the first explorers always face.

reply to post by Visitor2012


Since it is your contention that human activities are evil somehow, I would strongly suggest leading by example, and ending your bit of the insanity, and all the evil that goes Into empowering you to post your message on the net.

Remove yourself from this mortal coil, show us all the benefit of your line of reasoning.


Meanwhile back in reality, people complainig about the evils of technology, while using said technology on a daily basis, is considered by most to be the highest order and form of hypocrisy.

Originally posted by swinggal
Regardless, we as a race, do not have the right to do whatever we please on other planets. We know there to be no life as 'we' would perceive it on Venus, yet look at the amazing life forms that exist in the most hostile of environments on earth. In smokers 1000s of feet below the sea, in sulphurous vents, pools of acrid gas.

We have not looked after what we have here, and what we have on earth is unbelievably precious. I think 'that' should be our priority before we go wandering off to find new places to colonise. We need to learn how to look after out own home before we even think about going anywhere else. The whole 'take take' attitude than humans have is very sad.

The same natural environment your claiming to be worried about flat out calls your stance wrong. Just for example.

By your logic, a lion has no right to eat other animals, an invasive species has no right to take over a new regikn etc... I guess nature wilk tell life it only has a right to exist as long as it never preys on or destrotlys other life huh?

Lol, nature does jot recognise rights, they are inventions of man, just like theft, murder etc..... in nature all of these activities are life. The strong get to take what they want, the weak suffer what they must.

Venus rhymes with "penis", so I'd have to go for Mars.

Well, I imagine we'd live on Mars in enclosed stations and cities, WHILE we worked on terraforming efforts. Of course, many have already raised the challenges, that simply may be beyond our current tech level. Still, doesn't mean we couldn't live there tomorrow, if the funding wasn't an issue.

Originally posted by inverslyproportional
reply to post by Visitor2012

 

Since it is your contention that human activities are evil somehow, I would strongly suggest leading by example, and ending your bit of the insanity, and all the evil that goes Into empowering you to post your message on the net.

Remove yourself from this mortal coil, show us all the benefit of your line of reasoning.


Meanwhile back in reality, people complainig about the evils of technology, while using said technology on a daily basis, is considered by most to be the highest order and form of hypocrisy.

edit on 13-3-2013 by inverslyproportional because: (no reason given)

edit on 13-3-2013 by inverslyproportional because: (no reason given)

Are you asking me to kill myself? Thats got to be pretty close to a violation of ATS. Who said anything about Evil? Who's even complaining about it? Who said anything about suicide? I think you're having a seperate argument in your own head.
Line of reasoning?? Look around you, you see a species worthy of colonizing planets? Do you see a species that has worked. In harmony with its OWN planet? Do you see a humanity that has properly taken care of its own habitat, that would give you reason to believe that colonization is the next step? Come on, open your eyes, Humanity's unsustainable stupidity should be obvious to the most blind among us.

We polluted our own water, and you think it's a wonderful idea to try our hand at another pond? Lets get this pond in order first shall we? And as far as anyone can tell, we're nowhere CLOSE to behaving like intelligent life forms. So no outer space Visa for us...anytime soon.

No, humans aren't evil....just stupid. If you need to be shown this, then you must've been living under a rock your whole life.

For terraforming for plants I'm going to say Venus because there is more to work with there than on Mars. Venus is a sister planet to Earth. It has clouds of sulphuric acid; just add some baking soda to neutralize that. A carbon dioxide atmosphere would be a plant's favorite air. Downside is that there is no planetary magnetic field, and volcanos.

For humans, Mars is easier. Take a test run in a desert with no clouds for a decade to see what it is like on Mars.

reply to post by inverslyproportional


Sorry if you took it that way, as most of what I wrote wasn't intended specifically as a reply to you at all. I elaborated as much as I did in order to give some details to the thread as a whole and probably should have signified whom I was aiming at a bit better.

On that note: Visitor, don't worry...I won't be replying to you again since somehow my on-topic post, in your opinion is a troll, vs your attempts at derailment from the topic with posts that were obviously fishing for just the sort of responses you got. You might want to look up what defines a troll when it comes to internet forums.

Back to invers -

I just don't see how moving gases from a planet so much further in than Earth to a planet so much further out from Earth (also the process and tech that would be needed to gather the gas from Venus and sort/process it to begin with) could be more feasible than the redirection of objects that are already inbound towards both.

That's really where we'd get the chemicals for Venus, etc, and the additional gases for Mars. Otherwise they'll just get blown off as cometary tails or lost to the sun if they sun-dive anyway. Redirecting them is something we theoretically can do with tech we already have.

Originally posted by Hefficide
Venus... hot enough to met metal and it rains sulphuric acid.

That's not the biggest problem. We can create genetically engineered bacteria that would take care of those problems by eating away the atmosphere and turning it into something with a bit more hospitable. The biggest problem is the rotational period, where one Venusian day is 243 of our days. That creates a nasty overheat on one side of the planet and freezing cold on the other, and insanely strong winds in-between, even if we had an Earth-like atmosphere in place. I don't know of any way to economically speed up a planet's rotation.

But beyond that, the whole notion of landing on a planet to inhabit it like another Earth is a kind of outdated notion to begin with. Unless we can figure out a way to cheaply get spacecraft up from the surface of a large planet, the most efficient and easy thing to do is build artificial space colonies from hollowed out or rebuilt asteroids. Once we get off the surface of a planet, the hard, expensive work is done.

There's no reason to go down to a planet's surface except for academic purposes, and we can do most of that with robots. If a person really wants the psychological satisfaction of landing and homesteading and living on the surface of a planet, then they need look no further than their own backyards.

Originally posted by Gazrok
Well, I imagine we'd live on Mars in enclosed stations and cities, WHILE we worked on terraforming efforts. Of course, many have already raised the challenges, that simply may be beyond our current tech level. Still, doesn't mean we couldn't live there tomorrow, if the funding wasn't an issue.

Funding will always be an issue, though. There will never be a large number of people going from Earth to Mars, and if there is ever a significant population on Mars, and they start to have their own offspring, they won't want any more annoying Earthings to come there to homestead, sucking up all the good air. They'll put up a NO VACANCY sign. They'll probably do some trading with Earth people, but "Mars for Martians" will be the rule of the day pretty fast.

I think mars is the key to further exploration of the solar system/galaxy. The skys would be less poluted and of a night time, could reveal other solar systems that aren't easily seen from earth.

The reduced gravity on mars would make it ideal for launching missions into space with heavier payloads.

The possibilities are endless. The probabilities are the dead end.

First of all, it's so much better to "terraform" Earth of course. But as for Mars vs Venus, Venus has better terraforming potential but basic non-terraforming habitation of Mars would be easier.

Venus needs to rotate; it has a slight backspin currently, which is itself one of the mysteries of our solar system. Fixing that to something more Earth-like would probably go a long way towards fixing the climate, atmospheric composition, and magnetic field issues.

So here's what you do. To rotate Venus, just add Mercury. But how do you do that?

Set off a giant explosion. Think of it like a trick shot in billiards using Mercury and Venus. Use a giant explosion to shoot Mercury at Venus such that Venus catches it and it puts just the right spin on the both of them. Oh and it would be a good idea not to screw up the rest of the solar system while you were doing that.

So what could create such a huge explosion? I think it would be more than one explosion actually, something like the way buildings are demolished, a bunch of matter anti-matter explosions, shaped charges of just the right sizes, placed and timed just so.

The only alternative way I can think of to move Mercury is a sort of tugboat solution, but it would be even harder to arrange.

The "tugboat" in this case would be a large, fast moving object from outside the solar system. It would have to pass through the solar system in just the right way to pull Mercury in just the right way to put the right spin on Venus and become Venus's new moon.

Beyond that...editing the information of the Universe itself as if it were a computer program comes to mind. If you can do that...hook me up, dawg.