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I have several quesions regarding ideas for terraforming Venus.
1) I have read that if Venus were bombarded with metallic iron, this would remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Is this correct? If so, how much iron would be needed to leave 200mb of CO2 at the suface (for later conversion into oxygen), and what proportion of the mass of the asteroid belt (where I assume the iron would have to come from?) would that be?
2) If all the C02 in the Venusian atmosphere were converted to C and 02 and the S were removed, would there then be a habitable altitude i.e. one with circa 200 mbar of 02 and human-friendly temperatures?
If so, could we use the graphite and sulfur liberated from the atmosphere to build a mound up to that height? I'm imagining something like a simple truncated cone with a coating of soil to prevent burning. (It may be that there's a happy medium with some C02 remaining, of course, or some other complex situation. I'm hoping someone here can do the math.)
Would the platform produced - if it could reach that far - be the size of a country? I'm imagining something like a small version of Ethiopia: a temperate zone in an otherwise inhospitible desert.
It seems a shame to have a long night. If we put the peak on a polar region, could it be in daylight permanently? Or would it be better to put it (them?) on Maxwell Montes or one of the highland regions to save material?
If there were a hospitable altitude, would it rain at that altitude? Could we concentrate a large proportion of the planet's limited water supply into a crater-like lake on our artificial mountain? I'm not sure we would actually want to, as it would take up the precious real-estate, but could we?
If this is all feasible, how long would it take to convert the atmosphere of Venus if we were able to use, say 0.5% of the solar energy falling on the planet for this purpose and none of the carbon ever burnt up?
3) In fact, could we in any case just build a platform 50km up and then put an equal-pressure dome there right now without doing anything to the atmosphere? If we did this, we could get many of the advantages of a floating city without risking falling onto the surface because of a puncture. It's worth bearing in mind that the Burj Dubai (what will be the tallest building in the world when it is finished) is intended to be 0.8km tall i.e 1.6% of the height we need, and is not guyed, broad-based or made of an exotic material.
4) Would it be desirable to build a solar screen for the planet, giving a 24 hour night-day cycle? I believe this would reduce the incoming radiation to the same levels as on Earth. Basically you would have a terrible dark winter and then a summer with Earth length days. A good idea for some terraforming strategies, or not?
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I'm hijacking this thread to collect together all of the posts about Terraforming Venus. And I mean all (that is, anything that has to do with Venus in the Terraforming section). The answers to your questions are in there somewhere.
Solar Shade thread.
Using Helium to terraform the place.
A discussion of various ideas - I think.
Something about the cloud cities and terraformation.
Thread titled 'Terraform Venus' beginning with the crazy idea of a mini black hole. It gets better towards the end. A lot better.
Pros and cons for terraforming Venus as opposed to Mars and Titan.
Making the atmosphere into diamonds, apparantly.
Various ideas.
Volcanism problem.
Getting rid of the Sulfur.
Another High-Pressure option.
Antoher thread with various methods in it.
Shelling it?
How can we cool it?
Speeding the place up.
Slamming Mercury into Venus.
The C and O2 could recombine possibly under the still high pressure (not sure). Remember that your reducing the scale height of the atmosphere and lowering the altitude the cities. Plus you lose the use of nitrogen and oxygen as your lifting gas.
Nitrogen is still a problem. You don't want the colonists to get narcosis.
I've been meaning to post about the idea of removing the Sulfuric acid. At 50 km up the pressure is around 1 bar and the temp. 30-50c. I'm assuming (very dangerous) that the top layer would be composed of N2, and, later, O2. If the acid was removed (turned into Sulfur, Water, and Oxygen no doubt) then it may be possible to actually go out with no protective clothing (on the surface of the blimp, that is).
Use what is abundant and build to last
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