Economics aside, do we have the technology to get rid of the carbon dioxide causing the greenhouse effect? If we did what else would be needed to make it livable? Again, not taking money into consideration (yes I know it is a big consideration).
Isn’t it too close to the sun? So it’d be too hot for us, right? At least aboveground.
Plus, it’s rotation is rotation is longer than it’s year…the same half of the planet would be facing the sun for 300 days at a time, more or less.
The exact figures are from memory, so take them as you will.
To make it livable would probably require two things.
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Lower the amount of sunlight reaching the planet.
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Add water to the planet.
Number 1 can probably be accomplished with the creation of a giant mylar sheet inbetween Venus and the sun. Once the atmosphere has cooled enough, water vapor can be added via comets. The giant mirror can perhaps be made to orbit in a way that gives Venus a 24 hour “day”.
Venus just has way too much atmosphere. We’d have to figure out a way to convert gaseous atmosphere to a liquid or solid that could precipitate down to the surface? I don’t think we have the tech to do that. The temp at the surface can melt lead. To use cyanobacteria or something in the atmosphere you’d have to add water I think. The lower clouds are mainly sulphuric acid.
Otherwise we’d have to somehow blow the atmosphere off the planet. Can’t think of an easy way to do that either.
Someone will be along shortly.
Maybe we could move Venus from its orbit to one of the Trojan points in Earth’s orbit.
That would cool it down a bit, and make it easier and more economical to Terraform it.
Rather than using a mylar -sheet- (implying a large single object) Solar gain could be modified by using explosive rockets packed with aluminum dust or mylar glitter-type confetti.
If you want to reduce solar gain, fire a few rockets between the planet and the sun and explode them when they’re in position. The cloud of what amounts to tiny mirrors reflects away a portion of the sunlight which would otherwise hit the surface. As the cloud drifts away and disperses, simply launch and explode more rockets.
Contrariwise, if you want to warm up a cool planet, create the same type of cloud beside the planet, either leading or trailing the planet in its orbit. This would act as a mirror to reflect more sunlight onto the planet surface, increasing solar gain.
The technology is simple and attainable now, and wouldn’t cost that much compared to the results.
~Wolfrick
So…reduce the solar gain enough until Venus’ atmosphere freezes, and drops to the ground, and then shovel it away?
That appeals to me, somehow.
It’s going to take a fair deal of energy to keep it in position, since it is going to want to orgit around the planet (actually it is going to want to crash down on the planet - orbiting it would prevent this, but then it wouldn’t obscure the sun all the time.
What we need are genetically engineered green algae that can survive in Venus’ atmosphere.
Dump ‘em into the atmosphere, & let them reproduce to their hearts’ content.
They’ll convert the CO2 into Oxygen by photosynthesis.
The greenhouse effect will reduce, & the planet will cool.
Why not live completely underground, stick heaps and heaps of solar panels on the surface, if there is hydrogen in the atmosphere (no idea if there is) then turn in to water using energy from solar panels, use it to drink and water plants that are food and oxygen generators
The biggest problem, at least in the short term, is getting rid of all the stored up heat in Venus.
Without doing the math, I’m guessing that if you could block the sun entirely it would still take thousands of years for Venus to cool down to the point where it was usable. The thing is a giant molten ball right now.
As for a mylar sheet - if you absorb all that solar energy in your sheet, where is it going to go? How are you going to keep it in place? A planet-sized solar sail that close to the sun would require gobs of energy just to maintain station, in addition to the energy required to keep it in an unstable orbit (anything fixed in place between the Sun and Venus is going to be in the wrong orbit, and would require constant acceleration to keep it in place). Maybe you could actually use its solar sail properties to do that - I don’t know the orbital mechanics of such an idea.
Anyway, it’s a longshot. I think long before you’d see Venus terraformed you’ll see terraforming of Mars, the Moon, and the outer Jovian moons. They’re probably all better candidates.
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Mangetout: could you please e-mail me? Your profile does not have an addy.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled thred.
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You don’t want to absorb the light, since that would indeed heat up the sheet. Instead, you make your sheet nicr and shiney, and reflect the light. This will have the effect of slightly heating up the Sun, but I don’t think it would be enough to make any difference.
There is an equilibrium orbit between Venus and the Sun (or indeed, between any two orbiting bodies) where you could put the sheet. It would be a slightly different position than it would be for a non-sheet object, because of the solar sail effect, but it still exists somewhere. Now, admittedly, this is an unstable equilibrium, so you would need some method of station-keeping to keep it there. But this can in principle be done with arbitrarily small amounts of energy, and you could even use small variations in the shape annd orientation of the sail to do it. I think that the biggest cost/difficulty would be in getting that much mylar and launching it into space.
Let’s assume we don’t want people on Venus. Could we, take one of the above ideas and maybe have a microbe of some sort (like the kind of bacteria or whatever they are that don’t need sunlight and live in hot areas of the ocean) live on Venus.
That idea has style, but how would one move a planet? (in theory, of course); I could see maybe jinking the orbit a bit with a wicked amount of firecrackers or nukes, but to actually manuever it to a Lagrange point?
If you’re going to go around moving planets through the solar system, it’s not clear to me why Venus would be a good choice. Assuming we can move planets, we’re going to pick one that’s A) geologically stable, and B) is chock-full of raw materials we can use. Venus might be a good choice - I don’t know enough about its composition. Perhaps you could use it as a big-ass heat source for power. But maybe something like Ganymede or Mercury would be better.
So the question is - if you have the power to move planets around the solar system, what is the best candidate for terraforming?
Plus they are too many women on Venus. How do you propose we get rid of them?
“their are”
‘There are’.