Chaos2Frozen
Member
Erm Venus is not a giant gas planet, not even close.
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Venus vs Mars: which planet would you rather have terraformed?
- Thread starter The Artisan
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Erm Venus is not a giant gas planet, not even close.
It will be easier for us to build huge-ass self-sustaining orbital ecosystems from the ground up rather than terraform a planet, me thinks. Far more controllable scale As for genetic modification in order to adapt ourselves to the new planetary enviroments, it will eventually happen (then again, is easier than terraforming) but the trial-and error process will be dramatic as fuck and full of illnesses and turbocharged racism to levels that we have yet to witness, I fear.
As for the two planets in questions (Venus VS Mars), I think that the adaptation process will be something like this:
Mars:
First contact: Radiation sheltered ouposts + intensive physical training (low G is a MAJOR hurdle)
Colonization phase: Subterranean cities + genetically modified crops
Development phase: Genetically modified martians (better low G adaptation, better respiratory processes of thin atmosphere) + radiation suits = far more surface living and dwelling.
Far future: Artificial magnetosphere + a proper hydrologic cycle (not oceans per se, but first rains, lakes, rivers and the like) = A semi-arid planet inhabited by genetically modified humans and fauna and no need for additional radiation protection
Venus:
First contact: Initial recognaissance zeppelins
Colonization phase: Massive floating outposts on the godilocks atmospherical zone from which you can send ground scouting robots
Fevelopment phase: Altered chemistry of the atmosphere makes the godilocks atmosphere zone habitable and hell, it could be even breathable (the surface, however, is still hell on earth)
Far future: Artificial magnestosphere + ice bombardement = massive oceanic planet with a very narrow habitable zone due to the lenght of the day cycle
As for the two planets in questions (Venus VS Mars), I think that the adaptation process will be something like this:
Mars:
First contact: Radiation sheltered ouposts + intensive physical training (low G is a MAJOR hurdle)
Colonization phase: Subterranean cities + genetically modified crops
Development phase: Genetically modified martians (better low G adaptation, better respiratory processes of thin atmosphere) + radiation suits = far more surface living and dwelling.
Far future: Artificial magnetosphere + a proper hydrologic cycle (not oceans per se, but first rains, lakes, rivers and the like) = A semi-arid planet inhabited by genetically modified humans and fauna and no need for additional radiation protection
Venus:
First contact: Initial recognaissance zeppelins
Colonization phase: Massive floating outposts on the godilocks atmospherical zone from which you can send ground scouting robots
Fevelopment phase: Altered chemistry of the atmosphere makes the godilocks atmosphere zone habitable and hell, it could be even breathable (the surface, however, is still hell on earth)
Far future: Artificial magnestosphere + ice bombardement = massive oceanic planet with a very narrow habitable zone due to the lenght of the day cycle
The Artisan
Member
not necessarily. when I made the thread, I decided now was a good time to make it because of all the space/planetary science news that was going on. it wasn't necessarily about at the current moment what should we terraform; that's the question in general.
Nah, he's right there is no fundamental technology we are missing to be able to build long term habitats, its an engineering and logistical problem now. It might costs tens or hundreds of billions per person the habitat supports, but technologically, we could manage it.
As for terraforming, the best option is to spend a few thousand years chucking asteroids from the asteroid belt into Mars to give it enough mass to maintain an atmosphere before we actually start terraforming. No point in even trying to terraform mars as it is.
TheSecondSpitter
Member
Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids · In fact it's cold as hell · And there's no one there to raise them if you did.
Venus takes 200+ days to rotate on its own axis while Mars rotates around its own axis every 24 hours. Which one do you think is easier to terraform?
Edit: Animals have what's called circadian rhythms where their body follows a 24 hour cycle. If we move animals and humans to Mars it'll be easier to adapt to that circadian rhythm, though animals who follow seasonal behaviors would be royally fucked.
Edit: Animals have what's called circadian rhythms where their body follows a 24 hour cycle. If we move animals and humans to Mars it'll be easier to adapt to that circadian rhythm, though animals who follow seasonal behaviors would be royally fucked.
Jupiter's magnetosphere would kill us with radiation. It's either Mars or Mars for us.
Edit: Jupiter's influence on its moons are so powerful that its gravity is constantly pulling and pushing the moons. Basically, the planet is playing with the moons like they're play-doh (which is one of the reasons they're so active)
The Artisan
Member
way too far, way too small. how would you fix the gravity problem?
Just as easily as the Martian magnetosphere and Venusian pressure problems- you can't.
All of the planets closest to the Sun are rocky.
The planets farthest away (and past the asteroid belt) are gaseous.
Not to mention the whole pressure thing. Compress you into a ball of flesh while you vaporize lol.
Not much different than LA.
MasterOfPastures
Banned
IIRC, Mars lost most of it's atmosphere due to a lack of a magnetic field that prevents solar flares and radiation from gradually peeling it away.
Of course, there's still uncertainty whether or not Mars has a fully solid core, or a viscous one.
The Artisan
Member
isnt the reason Venus has those pressure problems is because of how the atmosphere there currently exists?
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
We want to get out of the solar sytem, not shut us in. Venus would be incredibly stupid (the videos trying to sell you on the flying cities all sound terrible), becuase we will be trying to spend really valuble resouces to just get more near to the sun.
Mars maybe is super hard to terraform, but thats not actually what the humans need to do. What they need to do is make mars a pass station, even if people could actually live there, and is we try to go to a better place to terrafor like one of Jupiters satellites. Being starting from Mars instead of Earth, will actually help in the process. Same when we want to discover even farther things.
Mars maybe is super hard to terraform, but thats not actually what the humans need to do. What they need to do is make mars a pass station, even if people could actually live there, and is we try to go to a better place to terrafor like one of Jupiters satellites. Being starting from Mars instead of Earth, will actually help in the process. Same when we want to discover even farther things.
The Artisan
Member
we don't have the tech anywhere near capable of us getting to another solar system and terraforming a planet elsewhere. unless you mean getting to another planet in its goldilocks zone.
I watched an Abbott & Costello movie once and I feel like I am qualified to place my opinion in favor of Venus.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Im just talking about the really, really far future. If we survive our idiocy before doing a pass station where you can live in Mars, and we are starting to think about some Jupiter satellite, of course.
JadedWriter
Member
Isn't the end result this either way?
bonesmccoy
Banned
Mars and Venus are worthless shitholes.
No. Hollywood has exaggerated *hugely* the effect of vacuum / low pressure on the human body.
To the original question, Mars is so much more viable a colonisation target it's unreal. Venus barely has a day/night cycle; it's days are longer than it's bloody years!
Both could be done though, and probably with technology close to what we already have - though at huge cost / social effort.
JadedWriter
Member
I can see the mob and serial killers wanting to go the Venus. Must be easy as hell hiding a body in an acid lake. But thanks. I had no idea how exaggerated the effects of a low pressure atmosphere was on the human body.
The Artisan
Member
any and all of jupiter's satellites would still be way too small. how would you solve the gravity problem?
neogaffer1
Banned
What gravity problem do you mean? The Galileans are all about the same gravity as the moon, maybe not ideal but probably liveable. And small? Ganymede has eight times the surface area of Europe.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
How do these "floating cities" everyone wants work, exactly? Float on what? The atmosphere? Yeeeah, it's not that dense. Is it like a helicopter? Gonna need a helluva lot of fuel. We don't have levitation yet, sorry. Does it stand on super long poles? Sounds feasible. Or does it actually orbit the planet? Well... then it's a space station, not a cloud city.
The acid rain never makes it to the surface due to the heat evaporating it. Body still would be burned up and pulverized pretty good though on the surface.
archangelmorph
Member
Isn't the end result this either way?
Movie gave me nightmares as a kid...
Mars is hot too... but that's mainly because of her flame based attacks (and maybe the heels.).
Have you never seen a balloon?
Minister of the Dog
Member
To everyone saying that a Venusian day is ~240 days, you're wrong: you're talking about the rotational period. A Venusian day is about 4 months long, the result of taking into consideration both the orbital and the rotational periods.
The Artisan
Member
because of the weaker gravitational pull (from the planet's/moon's smaller mass) it would lead to an eventual loss of bone mass overtime. that's why astronauts in space have to exercise.
Actually, Venus's atmosphere really is that dense. At surface level, the atmosphere is so dense that the carbon dioxide is no longer even a gas; it has been compressed into a super-critical fluid. This forms an "ocean" of CO2 blanketing the planet's surface. Considering the density of this atmosphere, a mix of gas at a normal Earth atmospheric preassure would float on top of this sea like a balloon. It really is that simple, no rotors or stilts needed. You just build a lightweight structure filled with breathable air and let it float through the habitable zone of Venus's atmosphere.
Omegasquash
Member
Aren't wind speeds in Venus' upper atmosphere ridiculous? Google says wind speeds at cloud top around the equator are around 186 mph.
Yeah, the wind speed is high, but that isn't necessarily a problem for a free-floating balloon being carried with those winds. You probably don't want your cloud city to be caught in cyclone or anything, but the normal fast winds would just cause the city to be moving really fast relative to the surface of the planet. Which is actually a good thing, since that fast movement means that the people living in the cloud city would experience a much more normal day/night cycle than if they were living on the surface of the planet. Each cloud city day would only be four Earth days long, rather than 240 days long.
Apparently, one method would to be to just drop about 4x10^19 kg of hydrogen onto the planet, along with an iron aerosol. That would theoretically react with the carbon dioxide to produce graphite and water, leaving Venus with ocean covering 80% of the planet's surface and an atmosphere consisting mostly of nitrogen with a pressure of less than 3 bar.
I am so sick of this stupid shitty terraforming thing. Buncha work and in the end it doesn't work anyway.
I say we genetically modify plants to grow into space habitats and live as parasites inside of them. The plants photosynthesise to provide some of our air and live off our waste, so it's highly efficient. If we can hide inside the magnetosphere of a bigger gas giant we might not even need to care all that much about electricity or radiation. I bet with just a few tweaks to our own DNA we could become perfectly adapted to such an environment. (I'm open to other host organisms as well.)
I say we genetically modify plants to grow into space habitats and live as parasites inside of them. The plants photosynthesise to provide some of our air and live off our waste, so it's highly efficient. If we can hide inside the magnetosphere of a bigger gas giant we might not even need to care all that much about electricity or radiation. I bet with just a few tweaks to our own DNA we could become perfectly adapted to such an environment. (I'm open to other host organisms as well.)
I vote Venus. Because, hey, if we're doing the impossible, we might as well choose hard mode.
Omegasquash
Member
Didn't consider the day/night cycle, thank you.
Would that have any impact on the volcanic activity? Sorry, this stuff is fascinating to me.
Dr. Buni
Member
How would you terraform any planet? Do we really have the technology, knowledge and resources for that? Am I that out of the loop?
I have absolutely no idea. Venus has some very unusual volcanic activity compared to Earth, since it doesn't have tectonic plates. Scientists suspect that the entire crust of the planet melted down into lava all at once, then cooled back into a single solid piece a few hundred million years ago, and it is possible the same might happen again in the future. The extreme greenhouse effect that prevents the planet from radiating heat normally probably has some effect on its internal temperature, as does the lack of water on the planet which would have softened the crust. Predicting what would happen to the planet's volcanic activity after a radical change to its atmosphere is well beyond my knowledge on the subject. I suspect that we would need a lot more data on Venus and its inner workings to really begin to guess.
Of course we don't have the means right now. We are all just talking theoretically, assuming that one day mankind acquires the resources and infrastructure for such an undertaking. After all, those kinds of resources are theoretically available in our solar system, if we manage to build up an industrial infrastructure in space. Most terraforming theories tend to avoid presuming the existence of unknowable technology such as ant-gravity or such, and instead focus on relatively simple methods such as introducing plant-life or building really big mirrors. In that sense, the main obstacle for terraforming is a matter of resources and capability more than technology. It is still the realm of science fiction, but it is a closer and far more achievable form of sci-fi than Star Trek-style FTL voyages or such.
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