The Best Worlds To Terraform....Too Bad We Don't Have Any

[Spacescifi]

 

After a bit of thought, I think the best world to terraform that would be ideal would meet only three requisites:

 

1. 1g gravity or fairly close.

2. Terra firma...as in solid ground.

3. Lots of ice or water.

Having a breathable atmosphere would be nice, but really ice will give you all of that and more even if there is no air to speak of.

As long as humans or characters need to breath and need 1g to be healthy.  a world like this would be far better than even mars.

So much can be done with water afterall, it is like the the elixir of life and really good for terraforming using brought plants from Earth.

Desert worlds with 1g but no breathable air is kind of a maybe. IOne would have to scrape the poles for ice, and after that it.could be somewhat useful.

In our home system we have nothing as good, but we do have a lot of icy moons.

So as far as our home system goes, terraforming is not really ideal.

What our system is really good for is space habitats. So many low gravity moons with resources.

I would not be shocked if you could literally use an old fashioned catapult to chuck resources into orbit for assembly since gravity is so weak, or some other old fashioned hurling device.

I say all this because instead of the usual trope of aliens exist, I was going to go the route of humans being the ones to start making everythinlg, including the scifi aliens. That will include ALL the space habitats and terraforming...left behind as part of their legacy.

In real life, the icy worlds are too far away in our system.

But putting catapults and magnetic railways on the moon would be fun times for orbital assembly..

Moon is already smacked up so a few deorbting rocks won't make much difference if anyone screws up.

 

So long they don't screw up like this anyway....

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Spacescifi

[Shpaget]

7 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

I would not be shocked if you could literally use an old fashioned catapult to chuck resources into orbit for assembly since gravity is so weak, or some other old fashioned hurling device.

Haven't you been here long enough to learn that you literally can not use a catapult to chuck stuff into orbit.

7 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

 

So much can be done with water afterall, it is like the the elixir of life and really good for terraforming using brought plants from Earth.

If your candidate planet also happens to have lots and lots of CO2, and much, much more N.

[SpaceFace545]

What’s the point of these posts, you continuously argue and contradict yourself without coherency. Talking about what planets we can terraform and then you proceed to answer your own question.

[wumpus]

You are asking to terraform a planet that essentially doesn't require terraforming.  Perhaps something like Venus, only with available hydrogen?  And if there is liquid water and carbon, does the planet already sustain life and do you plan on keeping that life around post-terraform?

I'd insist that Venus should be ideal for terraforming, just expect it to take a long time between seeding the clouds with genetically engineered life (designed to slowly convert Venus's clouds to something more friendly).  Granted, getting life to deal with a lack of magnetic field (and Van Allen belts) might make Venus a no go.

[KSK]

2 hours ago, Shpaget said:

Haven't you been here long enough to learn that you literally can not use a catapult to chuck stuff into orbit.

Not quite true. Apparently, for a three body (or more) system it may be theoretically possible to use gravity assist manoeuvres to get a catapult launched projectile into a stable orbit. It would need to be an extremely accurate launch though.

Wikipedia provides a little more detail plus some real life space gun examples. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_gun

Replying to Spacescifi though, ignoring gravity assist shenanigans, there are basically three options for a catapult launched projectile. 

Projectile goes up and comes back down someplace else.

Projectile goes up at escape velocity or higher and doesn’t come back.

Projectile threads the needle between the above two options and enters into a closed loop trajectory. Which is great - except for the fact that that trajectory necessarily intersects the ground because that’s where the projectile started from. So even the closed loop trajectory is not a stable orbit.

For catapult launch to work, the projectile has to be capable of making an orbit raising manoeuvre. Either that or it has to be intercepted by something which is capable of catching something travelling at orbital velocities and then being capable of readjusting its own orbit afterwards.

Edited May 26, 2021 by KSK

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

  

8 minutes ago, KSK said:

2 hours ago, Shpaget said:

Haven't you been here long enough to learn that you literally can not use a catapult to chuck stuff into orbit.

Not quite true. Apparently, for a three body (or more) system it may be theoretically possible to use gravity assist manoeuvres to get a catapult launched projectile into a stable orbit. It would need to be an extremely accurate launch though.

If put a catapult on the mountain top and throw the cargo when it's at the rearest point of the Moon (if look along the Moon orbit), then to the moment whenthe cargo reaches the pericenter, the Moon will pass away from ther by 3 000 km (its orbital speed is 1 km/s), so the cargo stays in orbit, lol.

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Far more likely for us to find a planet with a 'close enough' atmosphere and then for the colonists to adapt to it. 

Finding a planet in the right place with the wrong stuff and trying to change that basically requires asteroid and comet bombardment - and any civilization with those resources won't need to do it in the first place.  (The 'plant a big machine on the planet to terraform' trope beggars suspension of belief).  Even the successful bombardment technique requires an unreasonable cool down period with no guarantee that you'll get the right mix. 

Just go with what Pournelle et.al. did: fly your ships to enough stars and gobble up the good planets 

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, wumpus said:

You are asking to terraform a planet that essentially doesn't require terraforming. 

No problem.
Unterraform, then reterraform.

[YNM]

12 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

So as far as our home system goes, terraforming is not really ideal.

That's how most things work - either you find something that can work, but you have to find it all over the place, or you have to go the extra length with what you have to play with.

It's just how probability works.

Edited May 26, 2021 by YNM

[Spacescifi]

9 hours ago, wumpus said:

You are asking to terraform a planet that essentially doesn't require terraforming.  Perhaps something like Venus, only with available hydrogen?  And if there is liquid water and carbon, does the planet already sustain life and do you plan on keeping that life around post-terraform?

I'd insist that Venus should be ideal for terraforming, just expect it to take a long time between seeding the clouds with genetically engineered life (designed to slowly convert Venus's clouds to something more friendly).  Granted, getting life to deal with a lack of magnetic field (and Van Allen belts) might make Venus a no go.

 

 

Venus? Ha!

Consider if we somehow swapped tge dense atmosphere for an Earth-like one.

With no magnetic field it will erode overtime from solar wind. It will also still be too hot...Venus is closer to the star than us.

Like Mars, would have to live in caves.

 

Yeah...i kind of agree with another that smashing entire worlds together is likely the best way to terraform.

[Nuke]

i tend to view our inability to colonize planets as an engineering problem. every ball of dirt in the solar system no doubt has stuff you can use.  you might have to bring in some stuff from elsewhere. anything with a weak gravity well is fair game. enough to live on. but low enough to make the cost of launching spacecraft extremely cheap. stronger wells for post infrastructure. hellpits like venus for extreme desperation.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Nuke

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

@Spacescifi - Panspermia most likely scenario.  Given the sheer number of stars and presumably worlds, once we start tripping through the cosmos, we're likely to just find places that are 'close enough' and merely have to adapt rather than terraform.  Tell folks 'there's gold in them thar hills' and they'll pay their own way.

Also: Hints of Hidden Volcanoes Deep Inside Europa Boost Its Chances of Hosting Alien Life (msn.com)

(If panspermia is correct - the galaxy can't help but host life in literally every nook and cranny possible.  Origin Of Life: The Panspermia Theory | Helix Magazine (northwestern.edu))

 

[wumpus]

14 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

With no magnetic field it will erode overtime from solar wind. It will also still be too hot...Venus is closer to the star than us.

If the atmosphere will erode over time, why does Venus still have a thick atmosphere after 5 billion or so years?

For temperature, you need to lower the greenhouse effect lower than Earth.  That should get you significantly lower temps, but I can't compute if it will be enough.

Your choices come down to dragging a good candidate into the "Goldilocks zone", building your own planet (perhaps getting Slartibartfast to add some fjords), or resurfacing an already inhabited planet.  I'd have to assume that moving a planet requires only one step of building your own planet so should be easier.

[kerbiloid]

16 minutes ago, wumpus said:

If the atmosphere will erode over time, why does Venus still have a thick atmosphere after 5 billion or so years?

It has just its remains, the heaviest widely existing gas, CO2.

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, wumpus said:

If the atmosphere will erode over time, why does Venus still have a thick atmosphere after 5 billion or so years?

Venus has had several major volcanic events which have replenished the atmosphere over time. It also has plenty of air to go around.

 

I think Venus and Mars are two places we could most reasonably terraform (not that it wouldn't be a monumental task in any case). For Mars, we'd force water and CO2 ice into the atmosphere to allow precipitation and create a greenhouse effect, then place microbes of various sorts to alter the ground and air chemistry.

For Venus, we'd implant some kind of airborne microbes in the habitable zone of the atmosphere to change its chemistry. Over time we could probably change most of the air into something that precipitates onto the ground, resulting in a survivable air pressure and probably comfortable temperatures as well. 

For both Venus and Mars, an artificial magnetic field could be constructed at the L1 point. Both these worlds are right next door to Earth, and they happen to be almost perfect for us!

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, cubinator said:

For Venus, we'd implant some kind of airborne microbes in the habitable zone of the atmosphere to change its chemistry.

The problem is, Venus doesn't have water.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, wumpus said:

If the atmosphere will erode over time, why does Venus still have a thick atmosphere after 5 billion or so years

 

1 hour ago, cubinator said:

Venus has had several major volcanic events which have replenished the atmosphere over time

This 

...is the best theory.  Venus also has more than twice the gravity of Mars and close to the Earth's own, which helps. Lots of speculation that the magnetic field is important to reduce losses - but volcanism is probably more critical in keeping gasses available for the atmosphere to exist at all

Edited May 27, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[SpaceFace545]

24 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

This 

...is the best theory.  Venus also has more than twice the gravity of Mars and close to the Earth's own, which helps. Lots of speculation that the magnetic field is important to reduce losses - but volcanism is probably more critical in keeping gasses available for the atmosphere to exist at all

It doesn't have a magnetic sphere but it is close enough to the sun that the solar wind interacting with the atmosphere ionizes it and induces a magentosphere.

[Spaceman.Spiff]

Enceladus

[kerbiloid]

The volcanic eruptions are not the thing themselves.
They are just visible part of the degasation process.

H2O, CO2, SO2 get released.
And as everyone can see, if those eruptions happened not long ago, all water has already quickly escaped and isn't present anymore.
Because H2O is the lightest of the volcanic gasses.
It immediately gets higher than the dense CO2, N2, O2, and without ozone shield gets immediately splitted by UV and  then the hydrogen escapes.
To protect the ozone from being burnt by the solar protons, the magnetosphere is required.
No magneto - no water. Exactly what we see.

Mars is twice farther from the Sun and much cooler.
And even this didn't prevent its water and air from escaping.

The Venus is not an option due to lack of water even in future.
The Mars is a place to place numerous greenhouses to grow food for 100 mln in orbital habitats in case if the Earth gets temporarily burnt by an asteroid, nothing more.

All terraformable places in the Solar System are on the Earth.

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

The problem is, Venus doesn't have water.

Guess we'd have to make some from sulfuric acid and CO2.

[kerbiloid]

5 minutes ago, cubinator said:

some

Composition by volume	96.5% carbon dioxide 3.5% nitrogen 0.015% sulfur dioxide 0.0070% argon 0.0020% water vapour 0.0017% carbon monoxide 0.0012% helium 0.0007% neon Trace carbonyl sulfide Trace hydrogen chloride Trace hydrogen fluoride

Edited May 27, 2021 by kerbiloid

[SOXBLOX]

3 hours ago, cubinator said:

For Venus, we'd implant some kind of airborne microbes in the habitable zone of the atmosphere to change its chemistry. Over time we could probably change most of the air into something that precipitates onto the ground, resulting in a survivable air pressure and probably comfortable temperatures as well. 

Yeah. The precipitate would be carbon, though. With a pure oxygen atmosphere, no less. One spark and the planet becomes a fireball, and you're back at square one. AR has a bit on this.

[Spacescifi]

12 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

@Spacescifi - Panspermia most likely scenario.  Given the sheer number of stars and presumably worlds, once we start tripping through the cosmos, we're likely to just find places that are 'close enough' and merely have to adapt rather than terraform.  Tell folks 'there's gold in them thar hills' and they'll pay their own way.

Also: Hints of Hidden Volcanoes Deep Inside Europa Boost Its Chances of Hosting Alien Life (msn.com)

(If panspermia is correct - the galaxy can't help but host life in literally every nook and cranny possible.  Origin Of Life: The Panspermia Theory | Helix Magazine (northwestern.edu))

 

 

Very convenient theory....too convenient for me really.

On the other hand, if set many billions of years of humans tripping over the cosmos, then that WOULD allow time for somr serious terraforming to make worlds habital.

And if you want to explain baseline humans STILL being around despite being the progenitors of hundreds of related sapient races?

 

That would be both a yes and no. Some humans chose to transcend further than bassline, but thoss that still are baseline are the descendants of those who chose to stay that way.

 

And if you don't want want humans to be overpowered?

 

Say thr cosmos has been multiple cycles of dark ages and tech rebirth involving humans and their descendants.

 

The present would simply be the current scifi space age in the shadow of the nth latest dark age eons ago.

As per the usual, races hope to avert another cataclysm that results in another dark age. Some say it is inevitable, still others rather do what they can to prevent it, yet still others say THAT is what causes it...then others say what dark age? That's a myth man.

 

 

Yet husks of shattered planets and tech debris in old uninhabited systems give pause for thought.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Spacescifi

[SOXBLOX]

@Spacescifi, you reference Transhumanism and terms like "baseline" and "race". I wonder, have you read the stuff over at OA?

Personally it's all revolting to me, but you may not find it so bad. I occasionally read their articles when I feel like I either need a laugh or want to rip into an argument.

They have stuff on terraforming, I think, so I guess this isn't OT.