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[Coinspinner]

Venus. I wanna live in a flying city. (Not that I expect that I'd live to see it.)

 

[jonezer4]

Title is

"Venus vs Mars: which planet would you rather have terraformed?"

If Venus is terraformed, we can suppose it would be done in a way where Venus stops being a fucking hell.

If we're minimizing, if not completely ignoring, all the known differences between the two planets, that kind of undermines the debate.

It's like choosing: vanilla or chocolate... assuming hey both taste like strawberry?

 

[Angry Grimace]

Actually, there are polar areas which maintain consistent temperatures that are liveable, but since you're asking about protection from the Sun, it appears you didn't read the part where I suggested we'll be underground, regardless of where we go, with the exception of inverted Venus, where we'll have to live in the skies.

As far as terraforming any of the planets, you're going to have to learn to work with either enormous sun shades or equally enormous solettas. Venus and Mercury would both need sun shades (which will do the double duty of being orbital solar collectors), while Mars will need a soletta to focus the distant sun and warm up the planet. In all cases we're talking about thousands of years of work, most of which needs to be overseen locally, which means living on inhospitable planets long before we make them comfortable. In most cases, as I said earlier, it will always be cheaper to adapt ourselves and our technologies, rather than trying to adapt an entire planetary system.

TBH the Moon seems like a better option than either.

 

[uncelestial]

Both planets (Mars and Venus) are actually terrible candidates for terraforming because they don't have magnetic fields, which means they will never retain an atmosphere due to constant unshielded bombardment from stellar winds. We get ours from the churn of the earth's core -- not something you can really affect through terraforming.

Ironically that leaves Mercury as the best choice, since the other planets are gas giants. Get a halfway decent atmosphere going on Mercury, harness the immense amount of solar energy, build some underground habitats, and you've got a nice little planet.

Edit: You Probably could only live near the areas that are partially or totally in shadow

The black areas are in permanent shadow and get as low as -280 degrees F. The parts getting directly blased from the sun reach 800 degrees F. The atmosphere would even this out but still it's gonna be too hot in the sun.

 

[Venus Van Dam]

Venus, for obvious reasons.

But also, it's such a beautiful sphere to live on:

 

[killer rin]

TBH the Moon seems like a better option than either.

Asteroid cities are a fun plausability. You just hollow out an asteroid, keep it to only a few enterences, preferably only one, seal that enterence either with an airlock and fill the center with breathable gasses. As an added bonus, there is some gravity, so you wont be left floating, the surface will protect you from the radiation of the sun and the materials you mined from the asteroid can be used to hollow out other asteroids and sell on the market.

 

[perfectchaos007]

Here's Europa

Europa would be the easiest to terraform if it weren't all the way to Jupiter. It's roughly the same size as the Earth's moon. Can we trade?

 

[Monty Mole]

Maybe I wrote off Venus too early. Reading up, maybe Cloud Cities would be workable:

So we'd need to build a city on 50km high stilts? But then surely the surface of the city would be 50km high and you'd be back to square one. Maybe if we all lived on hot air balloons.

 

[SkyOdin]

So we'd need to build a city on 50km high stilts? But then surely the surface of the city would be 50km high and you'd be back to square one. Maybe if we all lived on hot air balloons.

On Venus, a chamber filled with air that has the same composition and pressure as Earth's atmosphere would naturally float at that 50km altitude like a balloon. No stilts required. In fact, letting the cloud cities float freely in the fast moving upper atmosphere would reduce structural stress and let the inhabitants experience more reasonable day/night schedules. You wouldn't even need pressure suits to go outside either, just an air supply and some sort of protection against the acidity of the outside atmosphere.

 

[Error]

We need The Messenger.

Spoiler

Destiny fans will get it

 

[darkside31337]

I can't help but feel that someone must have voted based on their sailor scout preferences.

that explains why its a total victory for mars at least.

 

[ScatheZombie]

Err... no. That is not more feasible. Finding an Earth-like planet out in the galaxy is an endeavor that will take millennia. It is an outrageously difficult task. Terraforming Mars would take less time and effort, and is achievable with less technological development. In any event, any planets we find out near other stars are likely to be imperfect, just like Mars and Venus are. Finding a way to live in non-ideal environments would be just as necessary for your proposal.

In any event, "terraforming Mars/Venus", and "finding an Earth-like planet near another star" are not our only options. The earliest feasible option is simple to create large scale space habitats in Earth/Moon orbit. We can build those near Earth, and by then using those as a stepping stone, build them wherever we want in the Solar System. Once we have a few located in, say, Sun/Mars L4 and L5, we can use them as an easy base to start terraforming work.

By the time we are even ready to engage in planetary terraforming, humanity will already be likely living in orbit of places as far away as Neptune, and have access to considerably greater resources than we do here on Earth. Branching out to places outside the Solar System will probably wait until we have finished expanding across the Solar System, which is still a very vast landscape for human settlement.

I think you don't understand the magnitude of what actual terraforming involves. Ignoring the fact that we have likely already discovered Earth-like planets within our galaxy and we already have all the technology necessary to create self-sustaining long-term habitats for deep-space exploration - the real hurdles being scope, scale and time; not technology, which will only reduce those hurdles - let's stop and look at exactly what you think is "less time and effort".

First off, it's basically impossible to terraform a planet that doesn't have a magnetic field. Neither Mars or Venus has one (Mercury does). So, for those two planets, we'd need to generate one. By restarting the core of the planet.

Now we have a magnetic field to protect our upper atmosphere, but we still don't have a breathable atmosphere. Now we either have to convert the existing atmosphere to a breathable one or transport large portions of our own atmosphere to the neighboring planet. The scope of that is, well, too large for the human mind to actually comprehend so let's just say 'extremely large'.

Ok, we got breathable atmosphere now. You can stand outside and not instantly be killed by radiation or a lack of oxygen. But, that atmosphere isn't yet self-sustaining. If you stood outside and breathed enough of the oxygen we converted or brought with us, eventually you'd breath all of it and not have an atmosphere anymore. Which means we need to either keep those atmosphere converters running indefinitely or grow naturally converting plant-life. Now the fun begins, because to grow atmosphere sustaining planet-wide plant-life, you need... planet-wide nutrient rich soil and a self-sustaining water system in order to maintain it. You now need to literally create a water table, rivers, lakes, oceans and, most importantly, rain.

And if you can do all those things - create, strengthen or stabilize a magnetic field, create, convert and sustain breathable atmosphere, create and sustain a global water system, and create and sustain global ecology to maintain a breathable atmosphere - then you can pretty much just build a fucking planet.

That's why terraforming is essentially forever science fiction outside of planets that are already +90% Earth-like. It will always be easier to just build a habitat than convert an entire planet. We will be colonizing neighboring solar systems before we have the technology and necessity to terraform any planet in our own system.

 

[umop_3pisdn]

Venus would take more effort to terraform but I think it would ultimately be worth it more than Mars

.

 

[Razorback]

What's the point of living in a cloud city. Might as well live in a space station if you're not going to be exploring the surface.

 

[King Tubby]

If it were a question of which to do first, Mars seems the obvious choice as it would likely be easier (I would think). In terms of which I'd rather be done, Venus. Terraforming a planet like Venus seems like an immense and enlightening accomplishment.

 

[sphinx]

What's the point of living in a cloud city. Might as well live in a space station if you're not going to be exploring the surface.

in a space station you are forever trapped in it, I guess if said SS is big enough, like the size of a city (New York, London, LA) you may not notice but otherwise, you are trapped in a ship.

in the Venus skies, at least you'd be "outside", assuming the conditions for life as expressed in this thread are met. That ought to be an important difference,

 

[idlewild_]

Of those options, probably Mars since it is in the CHZ.

 

[uncelestial]

Honestly, we're probably better off building large space stations and going our own way, mining any metals/minerals we need to expand from planets below, than trying to live on the planets themselves. Seems far more sustainable and feasible. Just create some artificial gravity by spinning the damn thing. 2001 had it right.

 

[Aureon]

Both planets (Mars and Venus) are actually terrible candidates for terraforming because they don't have magnetic fields, which means they will never retain an atmosphere due to constant unshielded bombardment from stellar winds. We get ours from the churn of the earth's core -- not something you can really affect through terraforming.

Ironically that leaves Mercury as the best choice, since the other planets are gas giants. Get a halfway decent atmosphere going on Mercury, harness the immense amount of solar energy, build some underground habitats, and you've got a nice little planet.

Edit: You Probably could only live near the areas that are partially or totally in shadow
The black areas are in permanent shadow and get as low as -280 degrees F. The parts getting directly blased from the sun reach 800 degrees F. The atmosphere would even this out but still it's gonna be too hot in the sun.

The best choice is obviously Ganymede!

Actually, i'm unsure if the jovial moons are protected against solar winds from jupiter's own magnetic field.

Or let's go Rama on it and just build things. Going to need a far better way to convert energy into food than agriculture though.

 

[SkyOdin]

I think you don't understand the magnitude of what actual terraforming involves. Ignoring the fact that we have likely already discovered Earth-like planets within our galaxy and we already have all the technology necessary to create self-sustaining long-term habitats for deep-space exploration - the real hurdles being scope, scale and time; not technology, which will only reduce those hurdles - let's stop and look at exactly what you think is "less time and effort"....

That's why terraforming is essentially forever science fiction outside of planets that are already +90% Earth-like. It will always be easier to just build a habitat than convert an entire planet. We will be colonizing neighboring solar systems before we have the technology and necessity to terraform any planet in our own system.

Yeah, I realize that terraforming is an extremely difficult task that is probably impossible, or at the very least highly unfeasible. I am not actually a vocal proponent of terraforming as our big next step or anything. I was just responding to the question posed by the OP.

My main point was two-fold. First, that finding an Earth-like planet outside our Solar System is every bit as difficult as terraforming, thanks to the sheer distances involved. We have thus far found planets that "might" be Earth-like. The reasons that we think that they are Earth-like mostly comes down to them being similar enough in size Earth, and them being located in the habitably range. Currently, we have no way of knowing whether or not those planets are actually Earth-like in atmosphere. A very good number of them are probably similar to Venus or Mars, since those two planets (particularly Venus) still qualify as Earth-like. Considering that any trip to a distant planet is likely going to be one-way, if you arrive and discover that your destination is a hot-house like Venus, you better have a back-up plan to be able to live on a Venus-like planet.

Anyways, my main point was that human beings don't need an Earth-like planet in order to live somewhere. Between orbital space habitats and adapted ways of living such as underground cities and cloud cities, there is a ton of room just in our Solar System for people to live. Clinging to the idea of traveling the stars to find a perfect Earth-like planet is a beautiful dream that I hope human beings achieve one day, but it is not really an alternative to finding more places to live here in the Solar System. We will need a large space-based industrial infrastructure first before we will have the means of sending manned spacecraft to alien star systems.

What's the point of living in a cloud city. Might as well live in a space station if you're not going to be exploring the surface.

Well, living in a cloud city has some perks. Notably, you don't have to worry about decompression, since the exterior of the city is the same pressure as the inside of the city. SO, dealing with air leaks and damage has overall lower risk involved. More importantly, building cloud cities would make exploring or even mining the surface of the planet easier. Using a cloud city as a base, you could then send vehicles and craft down deeper in the atmosphere to the surface. Like atmospheric submarines or such.

 

[Shenmue]

Why not Mercury?

 

[Shining Sunshine]

Really? There are over 100 billion planets in our galaxy. Odds are there are more than a few Earths out there.

A few in a hundred billion. Sure. Good luck trying to prove it with an Earth that's googolplexions of light years away. We can theorize that there is one, but we'll never reach it.

Earth has the right chemical composition that was lucky enough to have its core ignited, probably with the hell of meteor impacts.
Then you have the right amount of water from comet impact that isn't too much to flood all land or not enough to sustain life.
Then you need a magnetosphere generated by Earth's moving tectonic plates big enough to deflect solar winds.
Then you need the planet to be in the exact spot in the Golden Zone for it to have a habitable temperature.

There are so many factors that goes into the creation of Earth, that it will be difficult to find anything as perfect as it. We're all starry eye with sci-fi tales of earth-like planets all over the place, but it is definitely delusion to think it is the case.

If you had said solar system I would have agreed with you, bug galaxy? Hahaha.

You really think every star system has an Earth? uuuuuhhh

 

[Alpha Phoenix]

Both planets are technically viable candidates. That said, Mars would be the easier option of the two, not just in terms of terraforming, but also in terms of how similar to Earth it would be if humans lived on it.

Actually, i'm unsure if the jovial moons are protected against solar winds from jupiter's own magnetic field.

Jupiter's monstrous magnetic field is bad enough regardless.

 

[Alpha Phoenix]

A few in a hundred billion. Sure. Good luck trying to prove it with an Earth that's googolplexions of light years away. We can theorize that there is one, but we'll never reach it.

Earth has the right chemical composition that was lucky enough to have its core ignited, probably with the hell of meteor impacts.
Then you have the right amount of water from comet impact that isn't too much to flood all land or not enough to sustain life.
Then you need a magnetosphere generated by Earth's moving tectonic plates big enough to deflect solar winds.
Then you need the planet to be in the exact spot in the Golden Zone for it to have a habitable temperature.

There are so many factors that goes into the creation of Earth, that it will be difficult to find anything as perfect as it. We're all starry eye with sci-fi tales of earth-like planets all over the place, but it is definitely delusion to think it is the case.

Are you by any chance an advocate of the Rare Earth Hypothesis?

 

[Big Green Anus]

Is it possible to terraform Jupiter and Saturn? I always wonder how the surface looked, but perhaps terraform can transform Jupiter and Saturn from Gas to solid?

 

[Big Green Anus]

Earth, then Mars.

Mars will last longer than Venus when the sun blows up. Gotta be forward thinking with our investments

Is there an order of what planets would be destroyed first after the Sun blows up?

 

[orientalNoodle]

We are currently experimenting with terraforming using Earth.

 

[Alpha Phoenix]

Is there an order of what planets would be destroyed first after the Sun blows up?

The Sun isn't going to 'blow up'; it's not massive enough for that. It will expand to be 260+ times its current size and will engulf Mercury and Venus in the process. Earth may or may not survive this. Either way, it's not something we have to worry about given it won't happen for another 5 billion years.

 

[SkyOdin]

Or let's go Rama on it and just build things. Going to need a far better way to convert energy into food than agriculture though.

That is an artists impression of an O'Neill cylinder, actually. That was a design engineered by Gerard K. O'Neill and his students at Princeton University in the 1970s. The food problem was actually solved by O'neill and his team too. Considering that in space, you have access to sunlight 24-hours a day, 365 days a year, they calculated that it was possible to grow enough food in space to be able to export it back down to Earth. The rotation of the sphere at that scale generates enough centrifugal force to mimic Earth's gravity, while still being slow enough to prevent people from getting motion sick. The sheer scale of the structure also means that its mass would be enough to block cosmic radiation.

An O'Neill cylinder is something that is perfectly viable to construct with currently existing technology too. You don't need any theoretical materials or technologies to make one, so long as you have the ability to get the materials into space in the first place. Gerard O'Neill figured that we would have had one in space by now if we had just continued NASA's original funding.

What is really crazy is what happens if you start factoring in more theoretic materials, such as those with the theoretical strength of carbon nanotubes. The net result of that is a McKendree cylinder, which is pretty much just an O'Neill cylinder that has been scaled way, way up. A McKendree cylinder would theoretically be up to 460 km in radius, giving it a total land area of 13 million square kilometers; it would have comparable internal surface area to the size of Russia. Such a structure would be a man-made continent. If material science ever pays dividends and gives us those sorts of materials, then we have an exciting future ahead of us.

 

[umop_3pisdn]

We are currently experimenting with terraforming using Earth.

wouldn't that be reverse-terraforming?

 

[Acerac]

Why don't we choose the one that'd be significantly cheaper/easier?

Venus would be great, but seems far more difficult to accomplish...

 

[Aureon]

That is an artists impression of an O'Neill cylinder, actually. That was a design engineered by Gerard K. O'Neill and his students at Princeton University in the 1970s. The food problem was actually solved by O'neill and his team too. Considering that in space, you have access to sunlight 24-hours a day, 365 days a year, they calculated that it was possible to grow enough food in space to be able to export it back down to Earth. The rotation of the sphere at that scale generates enough centrifugal force to mimic Earth's gravity, while still being slow enough to prevent people from getting motion sick. The sheer scale of the structure also means that its mass would be enough to block cosmic radiation.

An O'Neill cylinder is something that is perfectly viable to construct with currently existing technology too. You don't need any theoretical materials or technologies to make one, so long as you have the ability to get the materials into space in the first place. Gerard O'Neill figured that we would have had one in space by now if we had just continued NASA's original funding.

What is really crazy is what happens if you start factoring in more theoretic materials, such as those with the theoretical strength of carbon nanotubes. The net result of that is a McKendree cylinder, which is pretty much just an O'Neill cylinder that has been scaled way, way up. A McKendree cylinder would theoretically be up to 460 km in radius, giving it a total land area of 13 million square kilometers; it would have comparable internal surface area to the size of Russia. Such a structure would be a man-made continent. If material science ever pays dividends and gives us those sorts of materials, then we have an exciting future ahead of us.

Interesting. I knew that Randevouz with Rama was set in a O'Neill cylinder, but not that anyone thought we could already build one.

I mean, we COULD build one, but how do we get a surface that's about as big as Russia and, iirc, a few meters thick, into space?
Are we talking of building it with asteroid materials, powder rock to create terrain, get water from saturn's orbital ice and just ship up air and terrain moisturizer?
I guess that air would be decently possible to obtain with a space station dedicated to liquidizing it; and you don't need that many tons in the first place.
Uhm.... And having made one, the step to interstellar travel is basically switching power source from solar to nuclear.

 

[SkyOdin]

Interesting. I knew that Randevouz with Rama was set in a O'Neill cylinder, but not that anyone thought we could already build one.

I mean, we COULD build one, but how do we get a surface that's about as big as Russia and, iirc, a few meters thick, into space?
Are we talking of building it with asteroid materials, powder rock to create terrain, get water from saturn's orbital ice and just ship up air and terrain moisturizer?
I guess that air would be decently possible to obtain with a space station dedicated to liquidizing it; and you don't need that many tons in the first place.
Uhm....

The only you can build an O'Neill cylinder is to build it in space. Essentially, you start by building small space stations, and work your way up from there. Build moonbases to mine materials and move them into orbit, then use those to construct larger structures in space. As you build more structures, you can move more people up into space, which expands your options.

Something on the scale of a McKendree cylinder would probably be built away from Earth, at something like the Earth/Sun Lagrange points. You would need an existing and healthy space infrastructure to get started on it, and use materials from around the Solar System. Thankfully, once you are already in space, moving stuff around between planets is pretty cheap. And between mining moons for rocks, asteroids for metals, and the outer planets for hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, you have no lack for resources.

 

[akira28]

I vote for the one that isn't oppressively close to the sun.

 

[BBboy20]

The less beautiful one.

 

[sensui-tomo]

Mars...?

Came in for this , took 3 pages though, i'm dissapointed, but in a serious note, would be neat to see venus terraformed.

 

[Gnome Scat]

I'd say Mars, I'm not a fan of sulfuric rain.

 

[Lizard with a ladder]

Seems like a waste of time to terraform planets that will be consumed by our star when it becomes a red giant. How about we terraform a moon orbiting Jupiter or better yet, terraform a planet outside our solar system, when we have the means to travel to different stars.

 

[HK-47]

Seems like a waste of time to terraform planets that will be consumed by our star when it becomes a red giant. How about we terraform a moon orbiting Jupiter or better yet, terraform a planet outside our solar system, when we have the means to travel to different stars.

How long until thats an issue? Also you bring up terraforming other systems when not a single man made object we have has left the system outside of radio waves. Seem a little presumptuous no?

 

[GnawtyDog]

Venus would take more effort to terraform but I think it would ultimately be worth it more than Mars

This.

 

[Aureon]

The only you can build an O'Neill cylinder is to build it in space. Essentially, you start by building small space stations, and work your way up from there. Build moonbases to mine materials and move them into orbit, then use those to construct larger structures in space. As you build more structures, you can move more people up into space, which expands your options.

Something on the scale of a McKendree cylinder would probably be built away from Earth, at something like the Earth/Sun Lagrange points. You would need an existing and healthy space infrastructure to get started on it, and use materials from around the Solar System. Thankfully, once you are already in space, moving stuff around between planets is pretty cheap. And between mining moons for rocks, asteroids for metals, and the outer planets for hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, you have no lack for resources.

The real cost-saver O'Neill envisioned would be installing a large electromagnetic catapult on the moon.

I am not reading science fiction
Let's get this shit going, what the hell are we waiting for anyway?

 

[aliengmr]

I really don't think either would be a very good candidate. The problem with Mars isn't the gravity so much as the lack of a magnetic field. Venus' atmosphere would crush you and/or any machinery you send there. Its also hot as fuck.

If you could some how figure out a way to get Mars a magnetic field, you might be able to produce a somewhat livable environment. Until then its probably just habitats. Mars also has the benefit of being further from the Sun, which mean at the end of its life Mars will last longer.

 

[IAmRandom31]

Venus has never seemed like it would be a place one would want to live. I mean isn't it just a giant gas planet with all kinds of clouds and gas up in the atmosphere blocking the sunlight?

Atleast Mars looks like it could be someplace similar to Earth in ways.

 

[Elfforkusu]

Earth.

Eff it, we'll test in production.

 

[Dr. Buni]

How do we know they haven't already terraformed Earth?

Fantastic point

 

[googleplex]

Basically. So Mars. Or some of Jupiter's moons.

No Mars is a lost cause due to it having fuck all for an electromagnetic field.

You you coudl somehow bombard Venus with a couple of well placed asteroid strikes. You could get it to revolve on it's axis properly and blast away a lot of it atmosphere. It that surface pressure down.

 

[Lizard with a ladder]

How long until thats an issue? Also you bring up terraforming other systems when not a single man made object we have has left the system outside of radio waves. Seem a little presumptuous no?

We have approximately 5 billion years before that's an issue. Even if technological advancements crawls to a snails pace in the next 1,000 years. We have a few billion years to figure out how to traverse the stars and terraform other planets not in our solar system. Is it a little presumptuous to believe we'll have the tech to colonize other stars in a billion years? We might not be alive by then, so maybe? I'd like to be little more optimistic about our future than that though.

 

[kess]

The Soviet Union was more interested in Venus if I recall correctly. So let the Russians take Venus and American and friends take Mars

Maybe they can put that research they put into into the Tsar Bomba in use and blow away half of the atmosphere

profit

 

[george_us]

Destiny tells me that Venus would be gorgeous if terraformed. Doubly so if time manipulating murderous robots also littered the planet with gorgeous architecture.

 

[Toxi]

Ignoring the fact that we have likely already discovered Earth-like planets within our galaxy and we already have all the technology necessary to create self-sustaining long-term habitats for deep-space exploration - the real hurdles being scope, scale and time; not technology, which will only reduce those hurdles -

I think you may be overestimating our technology.