Venus

Terraformer · 2008-04-15 14:06:18

The first thing to do when terraforming Venus is to remove the Sulpher. Once that's gone we can wak around on the surface of the floating colonies with only breathing masks on.

Anyone know where the Venerean Homosphere ends and the atmosphere differentiates?

JoshNH4H · 2008-04-15 14:16:00

've just had a thought about venus- Paraterraforming in reverse. erect a dome- I'd say carbon- around the whole planet, in the atmosphere, right where the atmosphere is closest to earthlike. Spin it reasonably quickly, to get a day-night cycle, then terraform on top of the dome.

Terraformer · 2008-04-15 14:49:54

That's one we've had repeated loads of times here. Anyway, it would be easier just to build loads of floating colonies.

Midoshi · 2008-04-15 17:14:18

The Venusian homopause occurs at 130-140 km. Species begin to differentiate by molecular mass above this. The atmosphere is extremely thin, much less than a millibar.

Above 56 km vaporous sulfuric acid is virtually non-existent, having completely condensed out. Sulfur dioxide levels also drop within safety margins around that altitude. That would suggest that you'd "only" have to deal with droplets of liquid sulfuric acid (as if that's easy).

Perhaps inert mesh sails around a colony could reduce local acid levels by collecting droplets and raining them out.

Gregori · 2008-04-15 17:23:54

I say export the H2SO4. It would take a very long time to remove it for terraforming purpose, but its an extremely useful industrial chemical that could be useful for other space colonies and maybe Earth.

Trade of useful resources on Venus could support human settlement since colonies in the upper atmosphere would need considerable imports to support any life.

Venus is good in terms of gravity, temperature and pressure at certain altitude but crap in terms of building materials and food. These can be imported from the Moon, Asteroids, Mars.

JoshNH4H · 2008-04-27 07:38:08

could adding water vapor to the lower atmosphere on venus cool it by reflecting away some light?

Gregori · 2008-04-28 04:17:35

could adding water vapor to the lower atmosphere on venus cool it by reflecting away some light?

doubtful

the H2SO4 clouds already reflect most of the light coming to the planet

water vapor is actually a really awesome greenhouse gas and could increase the greenhouse effect of the planet

zhar2 · 2008-04-28 12:09:41

A space shield infront of the planet still seems the best bet to decrease the venusian temperature.

Gregori · 2008-04-28 13:02:08

A space shield infront of the planet still seems the best bet to decrease the venusian temperature.

could we later use said space shield to create a 24hr day on Venus?

It would be later put into an orbit of venus every 24 hrs etc.

zhar2 · 2008-05-01 02:15:57

Yes infact, there are proposals for using a rotaiting shield coupled with a mirror at the back of the planet to create a 24 hours day and night cycle, although in principle the whole planet would be on the same timezone which i guess is not a bad side effect.

Tom Kalbfus · 2008-05-02 12:15:27

The Soletta would be placed at L1, and the Mirror at L2. It would work like this:

The Soletta would be big enough to block all light, but it would be shuttered to let in light selectively on a 24 hour basis. When it does, some of that light would be reflected by the L2 mirror towards the back side of the planet. The planet slowly rotates between the mirror and Soletta, this would cause seasons with winters near the twilight zone of the planet.

JoshNH4H · 2008-05-03 16:16:45

look at this: Useful?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming

RobertDyck · 2011-12-12 01:12:30

I said this before years ago, but this is my first post since the forum was reincarnated. First let me say YAY!!!!! We're back!

Ok, Venus. I believe the best solution is a modification of Carl Segan's idea. In 1961 (before I was born) he wrote a paper calling for seeding the clouds with algae. They would convert carbon dioxide to carbon, releasing oxygen. As algae drifts too low in the atmosphere they would incinerate in the heat. Their scorched bodies would form a carbon dust layer. He worked out the numbers, and it appeared to work. At least it did when science thought the pressure was 6 bars. But it's actually 92 bars! That much CO2 would accumulate so much carbon it would form graphite. Atmospheric pressure would be reduced to 68 bars pure oxygen. That's so much that graphite would spontaneously combust, burning back to CO2. So you end up with what you started with.

But the idea of seeding the clouds with a single cell organism is valid. We just need to add a whole lot of complication. Start with archaea, extremophiles that thrive in sulphuric acid. In fact pick archaea that are poisoned by oxygen. Genetically engineer them to produce polyanhydride as a waste product, and excrete it via exocytosis (single cell equivalent to shit). Polyanhydride is a thousands of CO2 polymerized to a long chain. It's a type of plastic. It's used for slow release of drugs, to allow the body to break it down, something that's easy for the human body to decompose is added as a co-polymer. So two units of CO2, then one unit of the easy to break thing. The drug is attached to the easy to break thing. Since it's safe for injection into the human body, it's definitely safe in soil. To ensure it doesn't break down on Venus, use pure polyanhydride, that is pure CO2 with no co-polymer. Add something strong on the end of the molecule, for example something based on sulphur. Some bacteria live their lives in Earth's atmosphere, they extend flaps of cell membrane that they can flap like wings. They can't fly, but a single cell is small enough to drift. They use the flaps to guide their motion, to ride air currents. And cells have something called a "taxis", which is the single cell equivalent to instinct. Give them an instinct to seek an up draft if they get too hot, a down draft if too cold, and to seek humidity to find water drops in clouds when "thirsty". Replace chlorophyll with retinal, that's the dye used by halobacteria for photosynthesis. All this requires genetic engineering. Go through the complete proteome to remove things not found in the atmosphere. It's also used by the retina in human eyes. Chlorophyll requires one atom of magnesium for each molecule, but retinal is made entirely of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. So everything needed for retinal is in the atmosphere. Cell membranes are bi-lipid membranes, made of carbohydrates, also composed of C-H-O-N. Amino acids are also made of those same 4 element. DNA requires phosphorus, it's backbone is phosphate. Hopefully there is a little phosphorus oxide in Venus' atmosphere, although probes so far haven't found it.

This would reduce pressure on Venus, reducing CO2 without producing oxygen. Once pressure is reduced enough, release cyanobacteria that can survive in the atmosphere. This would release oxygen, killing the anaerobic archaea. When rain starts to fall on mountain tops, release endolithic bacteria. This produces acid to dissolve tiny tunnels in the surface of rock, but close enough to the surface of the rock that light can shine through. It releases phosphate, potassium, and all other nutrients it needs by dissolving rock, but get nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the air. It breaks down the surface of rock, causing to flake. Then plants such as lichen can grow on that rock. That starts the whole pioneer plant process. Plants growing on solid ground should fare much better.

But Venus has very little water. It may need a comet or two deliberately diverted to slam into the planet. A good size comet would deliver considerable water.

Rather than a fancy solar shade, engineer clouds to shade the planet. Cool with very simple environmental technologies.

The fancy mega-technology would be an artificial magnetosphere. Venus is still loosing water to space; mostly hydrogen but a little mono-atomic oxygen. The planet needs a magnetic field to build a magnetosphere, which would deflect solar wind and re-capture any gas that escapes. A strong enough magnetosphere could capture more hydrogen from solar wind than is lost. That requires an inductor around the whole planet, strong enough to induce an electric current in the outer core. Design it to interact with convection currents of the outer core so they enhance the dynamo. Drive it primarily on energy of the planet's core, the induced current is just to manipulate convection currents. Still, such a planet circling inductor would be massive and demand a lot of power.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2015-05-20 13:09:08)

Void · 2012-01-27 19:19:44

Hi,

I would like to suggest that a first step to modification of Venus would be to estabilish a civilization on Mercury.
I don't expect that there can be any notion of making Mercury Earth like, but it already is somewhat Moon like.

Whatever capabilities it takes to make a living on the Moon, are likely to be adaptible to Mercury.
And Mercury it seems likely has many metalic resources. It is also speculated that it has Volitile substances at the poles, and perhaps even vents that exhaust gasses.

The notion is that any such population on Mercury, might spend a lot of time sending metals to various locations in the solar system by solar sailing. The could make a solar sail robot, and launch it with a linear accelerator, and then that robot could fly to various locations, typically impacting such a location, where the metals are wanted.

Titan, Pluto, Ceres, or others.

In the case of Venus, if the Mercurians were granted ownership of Venus, and were given premission to alter the planet to make it more useful, then they could fly those metalic robots to Venus to impact, and of course disintigrate, and the metal residue to react with the Sulphuric Acid, modifying the PH of the Venus atmosphere, and making that environment more suitable to floating houses, Microbes, and Aircraft.

Of course the incentive for the Mercurians to do this work as I said would be some type of estate granted to them for that service. They could then sell that estate to Earthlings for instance. (Mercurians would be Earthlings of course also).

SpaceNut · 2012-02-14 21:07:13

Here is a bit of a surprise http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news … e-science/

In the early 1990s scientists with NASA's Magellan mission calculated that a single rotation of Venus takes 243.015 Earth days, based on the speed of surface features passing beneath the orbiting spacecraft.
But scientists now mapping Venus's surface with the European Space Agency's Venus Express orbiter were surprised to find the same features up to 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) from where they were expected to be, based on the previous measurements.
According to the new data, Venus is rotating 6.5 minutes slower than it was 16 years ago, a result that's been found to correlate with long-term radar observations taken from Earth.

Terraformer · 2012-02-15 05:42:01

Hmmm. Something to do with the atmospheres rotation, perhaps? Is the atmosphere moving faster, I wonder.

Bearing in mind that it's just over an hours decrease in 160 years, so it could have already been slowing before humans started to look at it.

Or it could be aliens trying to artificially tidal lock it...

karov · 2012-03-08 09:15:34

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Space … s_999.html

if you don't care about wasting several dozens of thousands times the earth's habitable surface in macaroni habitat construction materials - carbon and oxigen, i.e. to blow away the Venusian atmosphere - than simply amplify this effect

John Creighton · 2012-03-08 12:53:17

Terraformer wrote:

Hmmm. Something to do with the atmospheres rotation, perhaps? Is the atmosphere moving faster, I wonder.
Bearing in mind that it's just over an hours decrease in 160 years, so it could have already been slowing before humans started to look at it.
Or it could be aliens trying to artificially tidal lock it...

I didn't read the whole article. Did it say what causes it?

SpaceNut · 2012-03-08 22:33:44

How the feature to track was made possible.

The Magellan high-gain antenna, oriented 28°–78° to the right or left of nadir, emitted thousands of microwave pulses that passed through the clouds and to the surface of Venus, illuminating a swath of land. The Radar System then recorded the brightness of each pulse as it reflected back off the side surfaces of rocks, cliffs, volcanoes and other geologic features, as a form of backscatter.

Venus Express

Venus Radio Science is a radio sounding experiment that will transmit radio waves from the spacecraft and pass them through the atmosphere or reflect them off the surface. These radio waves will be received by a ground station on Earth for analysis of the ionosphere, atmosphere and surface of Venus

Probably there is error in methods used...

JoshNH4H · 2012-03-13 23:38:21

One thing about Robertdyck's suggestion for terraforming Venus- From what I can see on the internet, polycarbonates appear to be prone to decomposition, generally within a few months. This makes them less than ideal for use in terraforming Venus. The situation only gets worse when you have supercritical CO2 at 730 K (IIRC) into which it is going to fall. I would expect that the polymer would be decomposed as quickly as the microbes could make it and thus unless you have a more advanced method of storing it simply allowing it to fall from the clouds is not a viable strategy.

GW Johnson · 2012-03-15 16:45:22

Here's a silly idea that would not require centuries of time. Just use a nuclear implosion wave to ignite and blast most of the massive atmosphere off the planet Venus. The residuals, plus what outgasses from the surface, plus what you could bring in by crashing icy NEO's, would make an atmosphere you could actually seed with organisms, and fairly quickly turn into something like our own here on Earth. Time scale: under 100 years. Maybe just a few decades. Most of that is the biology.

If we can solve the asteroid defense deflection problem, we can certainly target Venus (or Mars, or the moon) with icy NEO's. Nothing "Star Trek" about that. Although it does assume we are willing to travel outside LEO, and solve the associated problems.

As for the nuclear implosion wave, it was often said to be a very small (but finite!!!) risk during a major (WW3) nuclear exchange here on Earth. It just takes a particular hemispheric detonation pattern of a sufficient number of thermonuclear warheads, to cause fusion of the local atmosphere gases. Nothing "Star Trek" about that, either. A sort of scale-up how the Fat Man bomb was detonated, into the fusion range.

If you blow the atmosphere mostly off of Venus, you no longer have the high-density greenhouse to worry about. You might have some lava that will take a little while to cool. But I don't think all that much. Then, you can tailor the atmosphere you want, just like we have often discussed for Mars.

Because of the slow rotation, an orbiting sunshade system might well make sense, just to ensure no repeat of the massive greenhouse. That's the closest thing to a "Star Trek" technology in the whole plan.

Fusion bombs we can build. Organisms we can engineer. But lightweight space structures thousands of miles in extent? That's "Star Trek". So far, anyway.

GW

karov · 2012-03-16 12:46:26

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<"It just takes a particular hemispheric detonation pattern of a sufficient number of thermonuclear warheads, to cause fusion of the local atmosphere gases." >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

???????????????????????

Void · 2012-03-17 10:09:47

You were beyond my scope in speculation on the Fusion blast. I don't dispute it, I just avoid it since I am not qualified to comment.

I was one of many who have speculated on fantastical Star Treckie notions. Out of desparation.

However if you want to boil off the Venus Atmosphere, Nasa suggested an Asteroid impact. However that would take thousands of years to cool off I believe. I can't wait that long.

Besides, it seems wasteful, since the Nitrogen in particular could be so helpful to Mars.

Perhaps a Microwave power source in orbit could overheat the upper layers of the Atmosphere of Venus. Plasma being magnetic, is there then a way to capture some of the bubble produced. (I believe that the sun actually produces such explosions/bubbles, and did so recently).

Then can the mass be accumulated into a container of some kind. (I presume the plasma has to yield it's energy, and become a liquid phase of solid phase through cooling).

This also requires make up energy, to hold the accumulated mass into orbit.

Then can it be transported to Mars? Star Treckie again I suppose, but Venus is about hopeless. And anyway talk is cheep. Don't bill me so much.

Last edited by Void (2012-03-17 10:11:47)

GW Johnson · 2012-03-18 10:30:07

Venus is a tough nut to crack, for sure. If we learn something from terraforming places like Mars and some outer moons, it would certainly apply, after the thick atmosphere has been thinned.

By the time we can go way out there "in force", we will be wielding a lot more power than we do now. That power will provide some way to reduce the CO2 blanket about Venus. Have faith.

I just suggested the fusion blast as a way to do it "right now" with the power we currently wield. We just don't really have a compelling reason to do that "right now", but if we did, that'd be the way.

Fusion ignition of atmospheric gases is accomplished by hemispheric-inward shock compression of a significant mass of atmosphere against the solid surface at a single point. It takes a really big wave, created by the properly-sequenced detonation of an awfully lot of really big bombs. But it is possible.

You have to compress a big enough mass to self-sustain a spreading fusion wave outward without quenching. That's easier on Venus because of the higher density, but it was possible here. That's what had some folks scared about a major nuclear exchange at the height of the cold war. Not enough, but some.

Of course, if you do it (thin Venus's atmosphere) that way (with a fusion wave), most of the mass of the atmosphere is lost to space. Destructive, but effective. And quick.

GW

karov · 2012-03-18 15:05:27

GW Johnson,

And which exactly gases in the atmopshere of Venus is supposed to undergo thermonuclear fusion???

If you mean something like this :: http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format … 1046817211 ( ??? ) than you have to point out the necessary deuterium abundancy as really present around Venus.

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#1 2008-04-15 14:06:18

Re: Venus

#2 2008-04-15 14:16:00

Re: Venus

#3 2008-04-15 14:49:54

Re: Venus

#4 2008-04-15 17:14:18

Re: Venus

#5 2008-04-15 17:23:54

Re: Venus

#6 2008-04-27 07:38:08

Re: Venus

#7 2008-04-28 04:17:35

Re: Venus

#8 2008-04-28 12:09:41

Re: Venus

#9 2008-04-28 13:02:08

Re: Venus

#10 2008-05-01 02:15:57

Re: Venus

#11 2008-05-02 12:15:27

Re: Venus

#12 2008-05-03 16:16:45

Re: Venus

#13 2011-12-12 01:12:30

Re: Venus

#14 2012-01-27 19:19:44

Re: Venus

#15 2012-02-14 21:07:13

Re: Venus

#16 2012-02-15 05:42:01

Re: Venus

#17 2012-03-08 09:15:34

Re: Venus

#18 2012-03-08 12:53:17

Re: Venus

#19 2012-03-08 22:33:44

Re: Venus

#20 2012-03-13 23:38:21

Re: Venus

#21 2012-03-15 16:45:22

Re: Venus

#22 2012-03-16 12:46:26

Re: Venus

#23 2012-03-17 10:09:47

Re: Venus

#24 2012-03-18 10:30:07

Re: Venus

#25 2012-03-18 15:05:27

Re: Venus

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