Terraforming Venus

Percivale

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I think Venus is more promising for habitation than Mars. It's the right size and gravity, and closer, while Mars' advantages are that we can walk on the surface sooner and that it has a similar rotation period. But I think Venus' slow rotation is an asset, not a problem. It would allow us to settle on the dark side once the atmosphere is thinner and be protected from the sun's radiation and excess heat, and only occasionally have to move. We could settle near the poles and it wouldn't take much travel to always be in a twilight zone where it's not too dark but we don't face direct sunlight.
Here's an overview of terraforming Venus.
https://phys.org/news/2014-07-terraform-venus.html
 

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I think Venus is more promising for habitation than Mars.
Gumby may not approve.


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Percivale

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It would take some terraforming first. If we can engineer a bacteria to eat the co2 that could thin the atmosphere significantly without too much effort. We'd start by floating an air balloon station in the atmosphere where people could monitor the project, and when the coolest parts of the planet cooled enough we could start moving to the surface.
 
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Percivale

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If we can't even fix the drastic damage we're doing to the climate of earth, I don't have very high hopes for this.
I believe the experience we gain fixing one will help with the other.
 
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Percivale

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It is much cheaper and easier to "terraform" Earth and eliminate poverty at the same time.
We probably will need to solve climate change and poverty first. I'm thinking of after that.
 
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Shemjaza

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It would take some terraforming first. If we can engineer a bacteria to eat the co2 that could thin the atmosphere significantly without too much effort. We'd start by floating an air balloon station in the atmosphere where people could monitor the project, and when the coolest parts of the planet cooled enough we could start moving to the surface.
It would have to live in the upper atmosphere where it's thinner and cooler.
 
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Tolworth John

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As the article says, transforming Venus would be a long term effort, involving fleets of spaceships mining the asteroids, transporting hundreds of thousands of tons of resources to Venus.

This would have a high cost for earth both financial and in terms of heating the earth.

The answer to global warming is a planet wide simpler lifestyle.
Goods produced to last a life time, travel by train or tram or bicycle, food eaten from local and seasonal sources etc etc etc.
 
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As the article says, transforming Venus would be a long term effort, involving fleets of spaceships mining the asteroids, transporting hundreds of thousands of tons of resources to Venus.

This would have a high cost for earth both financial and in terms of heating the earth.

The answer to global warming is a planet wide simpler lifestyle.
Goods produced to last a life time, travel by train or tram or bicycle, food eaten from local and seasonal sources etc etc etc.
To even contemplate terraforming we'd need technology that could deal with most of our climate and pollution problems on Earth.

More sophisticated, yet theoretically plausible technology like fusion call allow for a cleaner, yet still advanced future.
 
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timewerx

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We probably will need to solve climate change and poverty first. I'm thinking of after that.

Terraform Earth for optimal human + terrestrial animal habitation means planting lots of trees even on farmlands.

Shifting from grain food source to fruits (from fruit-bearing trees) as staple food.

Shifting to aerial / cable as means of "overland" transport so that roads can be re-used, settled upon or just to plant trees.

Plant trees on the roofs of buildings, large trees planted beside smaller structures so their canopy can shelter the structure from the sun.

We're talking lots of trees so that even the busiest districts of the city will be mostly green if viewed from the top.

It will certainly fix climate change with global reduction of temperatures and we'll have plenty of food for everyone.
 
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Percivale

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Terraform Earth for optimal human + terrestrial animal habitation means planting lots of trees even on farmlands.

Shifting from grain food source to fruits (from fruit-bearing trees) as staple food.

Shifting to aerial / cable as means of "overland" so that roads can be re-used, settled upon or just to plant trees.

Plant trees on the roofs of buildings, large trees planted beside smaller structures so their canopy can shelter the structure from the sun.

We're talking lots of trees so that even the busiest districts of the city will be mostly green if viewed from the top.

It will certainly fix climate change with global reduction of temperatures and we'll have plenty of food for everyone.
I like these ideas. I've planted lots of fruit and nut trees on my land.
 
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Halbhh

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I think Venus is more promising for habitation than Mars. It's the right size and gravity, and closer, while Mars' advantages are that we can walk on the surface sooner and that it has a similar rotation period. But I think Venus' slow rotation is an asset, not a problem. It would allow us to settle on the dark side once the atmosphere is thinner and be protected from the sun's radiation and excess heat, and only occasionally have to move. We could settle near the poles and it wouldn't take much travel to always be in a twilight zone where it's not too dark but we don't face direct sunlight.
Here's an overview of terraforming Venus.
https://phys.org/news/2014-07-terraform-venus.html
There's a side to mainstream science that is kinda...dreamy and...what-if based, where there is a combination of some knowledge but also a very...rose colored idea of what is possible, that most everything would work out eventually or such.

But often reality comes to visit in new observations, such as here's the real picture of all those "earth like" worlds out there from a few years back -- they are mostly orbiting the vastly most common type of star, red dwarfs, and so would have to be very close in orbit near to these little cool stars, which means...

This --

Scientists have spotted the largest flare ever recorded from the sun's nearest neighbor, the star Proxima Centauri.
...
CU Boulder astrophysicist Meredith MacGregor explained that Proxima Centauri is a small but mighty star. It sits just four light-years or more than 20 trillion miles from our own sun and hosts at least two planets, one of which may look something like Earth. It's also a "red dwarf," the name for a class of stars that are unusually petite and dim.

Proxima Centauri has roughly one-eighth the mass of our own sun. But don't let that fool you.

In their new study, MacGregor and her colleagues observed Proxima Centauri for 40 hours using nine telescopes on the ground and in space. In the process, they got a surprise: Proxima Centauri ejected a flare, or a burst of radiation that begins near the surface of a star, that ranks as one of the most violent seen anywhere in the galaxy.

"The star went from normal to 14,000 times brighter when seen in ultraviolet wavelengths over the span of a few seconds," said MacGregor, an assistant professor at the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA) and Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS) at CU Boulder.

The team's findings hint at new physics that could change the way scientists think about stellar flares. They also don't bode well for any squishy organism brave enough to live near the volatile star.

"If there was life on the planet nearest to Proxima Centauri, it would have to look very different than anything on Earth," MacGregor said. "A human being on this planet would have a bad time."


Enormous flare from sun's nearest neighbor breaks records -- ScienceDaily

And this is how we are learning red dwarfs generally behave, where most exoplanets that have been found and imagined to be 'Earth like' by orbiting extremely close to those small cool stars will get...a lot of 'bad days'...

The coup de grâce --

"A lot of the exoplanets that we've found so far are around these types of stars," she said. "But the catch is that they're way more active than our sun. They flare much more frequently and intensely."
...

Crispy planet

In all, the observed flare was roughly 100 times more powerful than any similar flare seen from Earth's sun. [ -- yikes! -- ] Over time, such energy can strip away a planet's atmosphere and even expose life forms to deadly radiation.

That type of flare may not be a rare occurrence on Proxima Centauri. In addition to the big boom in May 2019, the researchers recorded many other flares during the 40 hours they spent watching the star.

"Proxima Centauri's planets are getting hit by something like this not once in a century, but at least once a day if not several times a day," MacGregor said.

---
So, this is how reality comes knocking on the door for the 'science fantasy' ideas. But we do enjoy science fantasy! It's fun to imagine. Just remember we are in science fiction territory. :)
 
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Percivale

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Terraforming Earth might be cheaper, but it's a lot more dangerous. You're not likely to make Venus any less habitable than it is now, but you could easily do more harm than good to Earth through things like adding sulfur to the atmosphere or other ideas to cool it.

If we ever come up with a way to travel that far, I'm thinking something around Alpha Centauri B is more likely to be habitable than around proxima centauri.
 
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Halbhh

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Terraforming Earth might be cheaper, but it's a lot more dangerous. You're not likely to make Venus any less habitable than it is now, but you could easily do more harm than good to Earth through things like adding sulfur to the atmosphere or other ideas to cool it.

If we ever come up with a way to travel that far, I'm thinking something around Alpha Centauri B is more likely to be habitable than around proxima centauri.
No doubt the K type star would flare less than the Proxima Centuri. It would be interesting to get a similar kind of lengthy constant observation by multiple telescopes on it. Perhaps it's been less interesting, since it hasn't yet got a confirmed planet (tho it was thought there was a dedection until it was disproven). To me, among close K type stars, Epsilon Eridani seems too young and active, HD 192310 hasn't yet got a detected rocky planet in the liquid water zone, Gliese 86 A has a close-orbiting massive Jovian planet, and a white dwarf at 21 AU (!)...
Even if turns out there is no relatively near K type star with a rocky planet in the liquid water zone, it would still be interesting to me to have a lengthy continuous observation of some older K type star(s) to learn more about type K star flaring (to more definitely show the flaring level instead of only estimating it), since flaring still is not well enough predictable I think. For instance, our sun seems oddly quiet and calm compared to other stars with similar mass, composition and rotation.
 
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timewerx

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I like these ideas. I've planted lots of fruit and nut trees on my land.

I'd like to do that someday too by moving out of the city.

Most people love to have trees but the pressures of living makes it hard to do.

And we need huge canopy trees to line up the center of roads to shelter roads from sunlight to greatly reduce "island heating effect" in cities and significantly reduce cooling energy expenditures in automobiles. Both good for curbing emissions and urban heating effect caused by the hot exhaust portion of airconditioning units.
 
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