Venus

Hi peeps.

When I was a lad (many moons ago) most people talked about terraforming Venus. It has an atmosphere, similar gravity etc.

People spoke about introducing carbon eating algae or the like to thin the atmosphere. Seems sensible.

Does anyone know why this seems to have died?

This may help for a read.

www.bautforum.com/archive/index.php/t-22093.htm

Well, according to scientists, Venus is apparently a very inhospitable place. No life could ever exist there.... lol

I believe some of the moons in our solar system are the best option for a new colony.

Welcome to ATS, where I am sure after you get the required posts, you can start a thread and get some answers. Many here are interested in space exploration and technology. Enjoy the site .

reply to post by whatifitweretrue


Thanks for the link.

One of the posters there echoes my thoughts.

Terraforming Mars is near impossible. It has low gravity and nothing to "work with". You would need domes etc.

Terraforming Venus seems a lot easier, we could arguably start now with our current technology. You introduce CO2 eating algae to the upper atmosphere. That creates O2 etc. After a time (a long time) you have a world that is cool (well Sahara cool) and that has breathable air, similar gravity, 0.9 I think, etc.

My OP was not really asking about the feasability, more about why it has gone off the radar. It just seems very odd.

Wouldn't the length of the Venusian day make almost any life as we know it impossible as much as the atmosphere?

reply to post by jefwane


well not really, you can choose when to sleep, we could genetically engineer plants to thrive anywhere. colonization is certainly possible.

Originally posted by glennellis23

Does anyone know why this seems to have died?

Well you have to actually be able to get there.
Terraformation is a wonderful concept but is it actually possible? Venus does not have a moon ... again would life on a planet be even possible without a Moon?

reply to post by jefwane


How long is a venusian day? Would it matter? Humans no longer live by night and day anyway.

Notwithstanding we could terraform, why has Venus dropped of the radar? It is the closest planet to Earth (in features) in the whole Solar system.

As far as I know, the US didn't go there much, it was the USSR (not very successfully). Why?

Add to that Venus is less than half the distance from Earth than Mars (24 million to 50+million). That is 100 times as far as the Moon.

Originally posted by Iamschist
Welcome to ATS, where I am sure after you get the required posts, you can start a thread and get some answers.

seems that's been managed somehow

Interesting question though OP

Originally posted by glennellis23
reply to post by jefwane
As far as I know, the US didn't go there much, it was the USSR (not very successfully). Why?

It's hard to obeserve. From orbit, the constant, dense clouds make observations of the surface very hard and on the ground the tremendous temperature and pressure kill pretty much anything manmade in a matter of hours. Mars is a lot more easier target and has more exciting mysteries waiting to be solved than Venus at the moment.

Still, there is the ESA spacecraft orbiting Venus at this very moment. There would be the japanese Akatsuki, too, if it's orbital insertion hadn't failed recently. NASA has proposals to send something there this decade. Russia is thinking about a spacecraft called Venera-D to be launched in 2016.

Add to that Venus is less than half the distance from Earth than Mars (24 million to 50+million). That is 100 times as far as the Moon.

Comparing distances is the wrong way to think about this. When it comes to solar system exploration, Delta-V is what matters. That tells you how much total acceleration you have to impart on the spacecraft to make the voyage. And the delta-v costs of a mission to Mars and Venus are very similiar, Venus being only something like 10% cheaper.

reply to post by glennellis23


Between surface temperatures that will melt lead, and clouds of sulfuric acid, Venus is one nasty place to be, even for a robotic probe.

Originally posted by AlteredTom
Well, according to scientists, Venus is apparently a very inhospitable place. No life could ever exist there.... lol

Actually, NASA scientists have raised the possibility that microbial life may exist in the clouds of Venus. There are chemical imbalances in the atmosphere of Venus that could be explained by the presence of living microbes (although that doesn't mean that there is no other possible explanation).

Here is an excerpt of a paper written by a scientist at NASA's John Glenn Research Center that discusses this possibility:

3.3 Present Life

Could bacterial life exist in the atmosphere of Venus today? Although this is considered unlikely, the possibility of life in the clouds or the middle atmosphere of Venus has not been ruled out by any observations made to date. While the atmosphere is both dry and acidic,extremophilic life has adapted to far more harsh conditions on Earth.

There is some evidence that the trace-gas constituents of the Venus atmosphere are not in chemical equilibrium with each other. On Earth, the primary source of disequilibrium in the atmospheric chemistry is the activities of biological processing; could disequilibrium on Venus also be a sign of life? In 1997, David Grinspoon made the suggestion that microbes in the clouds and middle atmosphere [4] could be the source of the disequilibrium. In 2002, Dirk Schulze-Makuch [6] independently proposed that observations of the Venus atmosphere by space probes showed signatures of possible biological activity.

As noted by Grinspoon and Schulze-Makuch, the Venus atmosphere has several trace gasses which are not in chemical equilibrium. The Venera missions and the Pioneer Venus and Magellan probes found that carbon monoxide is scarce in the planet's atmosphere, although solar radiation and lightning should produce it abundantly from carbon dioxide. Hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide, two gases which react with each other and thus should not be found together, are also both present, indicating some process (possibly biological?) is producing them. Finally, although carbonyl sulfide is difficult to produce inorganically, it is present in the Venusian atmosphere. On Earth, this gas would be considered an unambiguous indicator of biological activity. While none of these chemical combinations are in themselves an unambiguous sign of life, it is interesting enough to warrant a more careful look at the atmospheric chemistry.

Another interesting sign is the nature of the ultraviolet-absorbing aerosols that form the markings seen in UV images of the planet (figure 2). The nature of these aerosols, and whether they are biological in origin, is still unknown.

On Earth, viable microorganisms are found in clouds...

Source:
This is the source NASA web page containing a pdf link to this paper -- scroll down on the website to find the PDF link:
Website -- NASA.gov -- Astrobiology: The Case for Venus
Or, here is the direct link to the PDF file:
PDF file -- Astrobiology: The Case for Venus

reply to post by jefwane


Yes the Venetian day is longer than it's year. On Venus, WWII ended 56 days ago.

Maybe its already got folx who dont want bothered...

I was looking through a book about the solar system the other day and saw a topographical map of Venus's surface and unless there's been new data gathered I only saw two very small land masses on the surface. So toxic atmosphere and outlandish pressure aside, I think if we wanted to terraform another planet that we'd need to find one with a little more viable land mass? Maybe that's another reason?

reply to post by undiscoveredsoul


About 80% of the Venusian surface is covered by smooth volcanic plains.
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by wildespace


I have got it wrong.

Venus is easy to terraform, but it has no magnetosphere. Everyone dead.

Sorry peeps.

Originally posted by wildespace
reply to post by undiscoveredsoul

 

About 80% of the Venusian surface is covered by smooth volcanic plains.
en.wikipedia.org...

Thanks for that info wildespace. The book I was reading was Cosmos by Carl Sagan and the picture of the surface of venus showed two small almost island looking masses. I kinda knew there had to be updated info on the planet cause that book is OLD....but it was still a good read. Again thanks for the link to UPDATED info.