Terraforming Venus: Why Nobody Discusses It?

[Stephanus]

The atmosphere is largely composed of sulphuric acid H2SO4...

That's... not quite right. ...The atmosphere of Venus is 96.5% CO2 and 3.5%N, which adds up to 100%.

Yep, mostly CO2, the greenhouse gas. That's why venus is hot.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Can we take a step back on this one. Why would we want to colonise Venus? Is there something that says the human population has to keep expanding?
If we needed to leave the Solar System because of some cataclysmic event then that would be an entirely different matter. Even then, it would only be a small proportion of Earth's population that would be involved (not you and me, for a start) and would the whole population be prepared to fund an elite number of escapees?
People tend to confuse the idea of 'Go West, young man' with 'Go to Venus'. Where is the net cost/benefit advantage?

 

[Stephanus]

I'm just curious to find out, whether terraforming Venus is easier than Mars. Mars has no atmosphere. But lack of hydrogen I think that makes Venus hard terraformed.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I'm just curious to find out, whether terraforming Venus is easier than Mars. Mars has no atmosphere. But lack of hydrogen I think that makes Venus hard terraformed.

Oh yes, I agree. I always wonder, though, why there are so few posts about terraforming Earth. That would be a really excellent idea.

 

[jackwhirl]

Oh yes, I agree. I always wonder, though, why there are so few posts about terraforming Earth. That would be a really excellent idea.

That was one of Neil deGrasse Tyson's gripes about Interstellar, iirc.
It's not a bad idea. But personally, I would rather see the Geo-engineering practiced somewhere other than our home world, first.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I was being ironic. We have been 'practicing' here for millennia and look where it's got us.
I am an Engineer and I look at cost before vanity. Reversing global warming on Earth would / could cost a fraction.
But there's nothing wrong with a whatif and it could apply for the planet Zog when we have to 'bud' humankind.

 

[Frost Dragon]

We would colonize it for the same reason we colonize any other planet, research, vacation spot, and it would make it easier terraform, which can tie back to research. If we can learn more about other planets, we can learn more about our own.

 

[sophiecentaur]

We would colonize it for the same reason we colonize any other planet, research, vacation spot, and it would make it easier terraform, which can tie back to research. If we can learn more about other planets, we can learn more about our own.

What planet do we colonise at the moment?
Vacation spot? How many weeks or months would you be prepared to take on the journey?
Research would be laudable but only if it produced data that couldn't be obtained on Earth or by robotic means. In a world of 'money no object', things could be very different but is that a realistic assumption? The value for money of manned landings is not proven. For the number of 'Research Scientists' who could be placed on Venus, it would hardly be worth terraforming. Expensive pods would be the obvious solution.
Even if they found substances worth mining and bring back to Earth, that would hardly require changing the whole planet. Bad value from an Engineering point of view.
I cannot help but think that Dan Dare, Star Wars and Star Trek and Hollywood Westerns have an unhealthy effect on the judgement of 'Space Enthusiasts'. And what about those idiots forming a long Queue (or Line, Mr Obama) who want single way tickets to Mars? You couldn't make it up.

 

[Frost Dragon]

I am just talking about living there not changing it. We wouldn't get anything from changing it. It may happen over time, anyway, probably not. Terraforming any planet is a very long process, thousands of years or close to a thousand. I don't see the value of terraforming other then to have other planets like Earth.

We are a long ways off from terraforming any planets or even colonizing them. Our next steps are developing a space industry so we can get to space and build in space cheaper. That will lead to more plausible colonies.

There are things that would be easier with people there. I have seen many scientists say this, so a colony is not out of the question, probably not in our life time though.

 

[sophiecentaur]

The title of the thread has the word "terraforming" in it and that's what I'm addressing.
PF has conversations about all sorts of unlikely (at the moment) schemes but the romanticism of 'space' seems to make people lose all their sense of proportion. Every proposed scheme - whether it's 'harvesting' energy from Radio Waves passing through houses, a space elevator or terraforming- should, imo, include a compulsory COST estimation in the proposal. That, unfortunately, would inhibit the more adventurous posts and could take some of the fun away from PF. But it's what you have to do if you want government money for a project so it would make good sense.

 

[Frost Dragon]

if the terraforming was done slowly over a long period of time, the cost would be more economical, and the research we could out of it would, in my opinion, be worth it.

 

[sophiecentaur]

You have to remember that it's not just a matter of making changes but controlling the conditions. It can't be a one-off operation (as with the Earth's biosphere) but it needs a suitable set of feedback controls to maintain that narrow range of parameters. It's really arm waving to an unacceptable degree without much much more actual evidence. The evidence that I can see is that the situation on Earth is out of control and we have not a clue what to do about it. And that is on a planet where the conditions arrived at a very viable combination, without our help. Numbers numbers numbers - before anything else- in my opinion.

 

[Frost Dragon]

I really like the idea of a cloud city on Venus and I think it would be a good starting point for terraforming. At least we can collect data to see if it would be viable. The question is which would come first Venus or Mars?

I think more can be done on our planet, most of what I hear, when it comes to climate change, is more of stopping the oil industry then trying to remove green house gases. But that may be a topic for a different thread.

 

[rootone]

Engineering an entire planet, either one, is dramatically expensive with dubious returns, and has a timescale of at least hundreds of years.
Putting that aside though, I'd say Mars would be a better candidate, it is at least plausible to operate a surface base there.
It's probably more realistic to consider engineering some of the deserts on Earth to make them fertile, and that is within the scope of presently available technology.

 

[Stephanus]

Oh yes, I agree. I always wonder, though, why there are so few posts about terraforming Earth. That would be a really excellent idea.

You tell me.
If only we can stop deforestation. A small step, but a giant leap in our environment.

 

[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.