B Terraforming Venus: Why Nobody Discusses It?

[sophiecentaur]

would, in my opinion, be worth it.

The problem is, what is your opinion based on? 'It would be nice if" statements are not quantitive enough for anyone to form a valid opinion on anything; even less, something that would be bigger than any project ever attempted.
If I asked you whether you would be prepared to pay a 10% supplement on your taxes, would you feel the same? I suspect we are talking more than that, aamof.

 

[Frost Dragon]

Yes it would be worth it, we'd learn a lot about engineering planets, even if we failed in our attempt. Remember we are talking about centuries, at least, I remember hearing upwards of thousands of year.

 

[sophiecentaur]

You obviously haven't taken my point about the cost of something like this. Nor, apart from saying it would be "worth it" have you thought of a scenario in which it would actually be useful - apart from for research, which in no way, needs to involve terraforming. How much Energy would something like that involve? If you have no idea then you can't really consider it as anything more than Science Fiction.

 

[Frost Dragon]

As far as I am concerned science is good enough for me, that's all I am discussing. It's not economical for today, even a colony wouldn't be economical but you can't say that I won't be economical several hundred years from now or even fifty years from now. People have never needed "good" reasons to do something, if I became a billionaire in the next fifty years and wanted to plant a colony on Venus, then I would, and I get other billionaire backers. What I am saying is that it will happen someday because people want it. And it might be the influence of Hollywood, they have already had an influence on society.

 

[sophiecentaur]

As far as I am concerned sci-fi is good enough for me,

But PF is not concerned with SciFi. It's a Physics Forum (the clue is in the name).
SciFi is fine in its place but.

 

[Frost Dragon]

i am here to talk about the science of terraforming not the cost of terraforming.

 

[sophiecentaur]

all the scientists

Which ones?
But I am really more interested in the opinions of Engineers than 'Scientists' in matters like this. It's Engineers who put rockets up into space and who produce stuff wot works.

 

[praveena]

Getting too close to sun for habitual purpose is merely a suicidal act.moving forward is a good thing but not in habitual actions.more sunlight is harazodous for our health. so venus is not a right choice for habitual actions.

 

[praveena]

Getting too close to sun for habitual purpose is merely a suicidal act.moving forward is a good thing but not in habitual actions.more sunlight is harazodous for our health. so venus is not a right choice for habitual actions

 

[bahamagreen]

The points about cost are important.

Back in the early 70s I heard a news story on the radio about the damage from a hurricane, and the story finished with the factoid that the annual world cost due to hurricanes, cyclones, and monsoons was estimated at $100 billion, a lot of money back then... about $485 billion today.

With that cost in mind, (thinking what a $100 billion dollar annual budget for a project to stop the destruction of these weather systems might look like) I imagined a series of Moon missions to deploy a large array of Mylar reflective ribbons across one of the meteor craters near the center of the Moon's near face. There ribbons would make diagonals across the crater hanging and supported around the rim by radio telemetry controlled tension motors and a computer program in order to adjust the concavity of the resulting reflective "dish"... a big one maybe 100 km or more across.

Since hurricanes, for example, tend to turn based on water temperature, a nice diffuse warming of a hurricane's north east quadrant will make it curve that way, so using the reflector to guide hurricanes would be kind of like teasing a cat with a laser pointer. Of course the program can also lift and lower the edges of the dish to target its line of effort, and adjusting the concavity can be used to make diffuse warming or more localized focus, maybe to steam an ocean region to end a drought.

It would only work at night and only less than half of a month because of Earth Moon Sun orbital geometry, and there would be numerous things to work out. But the point was that the whole idea came from a confrontation with the continuing cost of not doing it, or something like it - the cost (and real human benefit) was the main driver for the idea from the onset.

Of course, a few years later we all watched a movie with the Death Star orbiting a planet being used not for weather control but more for mischief. :)

 

[Tollendal]

I suppose if we develop repulsive machines that theory now seems to permit (see Dr. Immanuel Bloch’s and Ulrich Schneider’s 2013 work of Ludwig Maximilians University and University of Cambridge on negative absolute temperatures), going to Venus will be something reasonably simple and cheap. So, it seems to me it is now in the hands of engineers materialize the trick... Or I'm wrong?

 

[alas666]

As a first step in Venus terraforming I suggest to blow out thick atmosphere, mainly CO2. This could be accomplished with thermonuclear explosion an order of magnitude stronger then one that the have been experienced on earth. The idea is to produce local heat source of the range 5*10^8K to start carbon burning process where C in Venus atmosphere will fuse and release more energy eventually enveloping a whole planet in stellar like conflagration till shock wave front will wrap around planet. Only a very small amount of C will fuse lacking sufficient pressure outside shock wave front, but temperature released will blow remaining CO2 along with dust into planet orbit. Actually, the best would be to have two ignition sources on opposing poles so that conflagration shock will meet at equator forming ejecta circling Venus as eventual disk/ring. This could be used as a permanent shade.

With CO2 blanket gone, wait 100 years ... and then sent some ice comets to replenish it with water and then ... unleash some microbes to do the rest.

 

[rootone]

I don't think it's actually possible to initiate carbon fusion, as happens in the core of massive stars, using mere thermonuclear explosions.
What goes on inside stars has a lot to do with pressure and density due to massive gravity, not just temperature.

 

[Bandersnatch]

Rootone is right. You can't do that with a bomb.

 

[sophiecentaur]

It strikes me that, if you want to start living extra terrestrially, the most efficient way is to choose the Goldilox Zone. Earth is the only actual planet in that location but there's nothing (except money and Energy) preventing humans from building massive micro planets in orbits of about 1AU radius. There is loads of material up there.
The only thing missing would be Earth like gravity but the inhabitants would just develop different physiques, to cope with that.

 

[jibbles]

The venusian atmosphere at ~50 km above the surface has surprisingly terrestrial conditions: a pressure on the order of ~1 atm, temperatures where water can be liquid, and though bone-dry by Earth's standards, the highest concentration of water anywhere on that planet. If there was a way to genetically engineer a cross between a cyannobacterium and one of the species of bacteria that are found flying high in Earth's atmosphere, your idea just might be worth looking into!

 

[rootone]

Venus could have a layer of atmosphere above ground where conditions are not completely hostile for life.
However atmosphere is not a great place for life to get started, organic chemistry could happen, but doesn't stay in the same place for very long.

 

[Stephanus]

@alas666
Send some microbes is ok,
Send some comet for water is ok,
But as the experts say, I think bomb can't do. It takes pressure as well as temperature.
Carl Sagan in one of his books wrote that sending microbe is the solution, although I think Venus lack of hydrogen? So send some comets for water, too.

 

[rootone]

Lack of hydrogen as such wouldn't bother a micro organism, lack of water would.
Without water very little organic chemistry can occur.
Some organism can go for extended periods without water, but they do so in a hibernated state, so they wouldn't do anything useful.

 

[DrStupid]

Send some microbes is ok

The Outer Space Treaty says it's not OK.

Lack of hydrogen as such wouldn't bother a micro organism, lack of water would.

There is no water without hydrogen.

 

[rootone]

Yes, I said 'hydrogen as such' - meaning free gasious hydrogen isn't necessary for life.
It is essential though in the form of water molecules, bonded with oxygen.
There are other chemicals important for life which require hydrogen bound in a molecular form as well.
Sugars and amino acids for example.

 

[Stephanus]

The Outer Space Treaty says it's not OK.

I didn't know there was such treaty. I only know Moon and Antartica.

Lack of hydrogen as such wouldn't bother a micro organism, lack of water would...

There is no water without hydrogen.

I don't mean to be a med expert here, but there are some (micro) organisms that can live "without" water. But of course they would get the H and O (in H₂O) from somewhere else.