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

[Nuke]

11 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The problem is, Venus doesn't have water.

as far as surface scans are concerned. you would have to get down there with a drill rig to know for sure. spectroscopy and surface samples can only go so far. 

its like you got a piece of aluminum  foil on a bowl of bean dip, and then assume that the whole thing is made out of aluminum and contains no bean dip. its your loss because i make one hell of a bean dip.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

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

Huh?  Why is that?

From my perspective, from what I've read, 'we're all star-stuff'.  I find it fairly likely that  with all the organic compounds floating around in literally everywhere we've looked - that all that life needs to get a start is 'moderately hospitable conditions'.  https://www.space.com/pluto-blue-haze-organic-compounds

If we accept the current models that our solar system started out in a star forming region that was effectively the remnants of probably multiple SNs... our sister stars and their systems likely have the same 'seed mix' and that any planets in those star's goldilocks zones started off with a similar mix of organics and thus are likely infested with life.  Extend to the galaxy.

= lots of wet rocks with squishy bits doing their own thing.

Edited May 28, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

58 minutes ago, Nuke said:

as far as surface scans are concerned. you would have to get down there with a drill rig to know for sure. spectroscopy and surface samples can only go so far. 

The water appears from the primary protoplanetary minerals (hydrates, etc), like the carbon dioxide (carbonates), and nitrogen (ammonia compounds) do.

The degasation decomposes carbonates into CO@, hydrates into H2O, ammonia into nitrogen, sulfides into sufur oxides ahich vent out and form the atmosphere and (when the pressure enough high) the hydrosphere.

So, the total amount of water and carbon dioxide in atmosphere is bound and matches the original protoplanetary ratio at corresponding distance from the Sun.
(So, btw, Venus should have lower H2O/CO2 ratio right from its forming, because of UV.)

The ocean is the condensed volcanic gases. At its mass is much greater than the atmosphere mass.
So, almost all volcanic gases released from the Earth by the minerals degasation is the ocean.

Earth hydrosphere (i.e. mostly water): 1.35*10²¹ kg. 
Carbon:

Quote

 The ocean, with around 38,000 gigatons (Gt) of carbon (1 gigaton = 1 billion tons), contains 16 times as much carbon as the terrestrial biosphere, that is all plant and the underlying soils on our planet, and around 60 times as much as the pre-industrial atmosphere, i.e., at a time before people began to drastically alter the atmospheric CO₂ content by the increased burning of coal, oil and gas. At that time the carbon content of the atmosphere was only around 600 gigatons of carbon. The ocean is there­fore the greatest of the carbon reservoirs, and essentially determines the atmospheric CO₂ content.

If I treat the American "38,000 billion ton" right, it's  3.8*10¹⁶ kg of carbon, so 1.4*10¹⁷ kg of carbon dioxide.

The Earth atmosphere total mass is (wiki) 5.15*10¹⁸ kg.
79% is nitrogen.
So, 4*10¹⁸ kg of nitrogen.

So, here on Earth water : nitrogen : carbon dioxide ratio is ~= 1.4*10²¹ : 4*10¹⁸ :  1.4*10¹⁷ ~= 10 000 : 30 : 1

Venus:
No hydrosphere.
Atmosphere:

General information[1]
Height	250 km (160 mi)
Average surface pressure	93 bar (1,350 psi)
Mass	4.8 × 1020 kg
Composition[1][2]
Carbon dioxide	96.5 %
Nitrogen	3.5 %
Sulfur dioxide	150 ppm
Argon	70 ppm
Water vapor	20 ppm
Carbon monoxide	17 ppm
Helium	12 ppm
Neon	7 ppm
Hydrogen chloride	0.1–0.6 ppm
Hydrogen fluoride	0.001–0.005 ppm

So,
Carbon dioxide = 4.6*10²⁰ kg
Nitrogen = 1.7*10¹⁹ kg.
Water: traces.

The water :  nitrogen : carbon dioxide ratio = 0 : 1.7*10¹⁹ : 4.6*10²⁰ ~= 0 : 1 : 30

Earth : Venus ratio:
Carbon dioxide = 1.4*10¹⁷ : 4.6*10²⁰ ~= 1 : 3300
Nitrogen = 4*10¹⁸ : 1.7*10¹⁹ ~= 1 : 4

***

So, as you can see, while the original ratio of N,C,O in protoplanetary minerals was nearly same,

Venus already has 3 300 times more exhausted CO2 in gaseous and liquid form than the Earth. 
Of course, Earth probably has much greater amount of carbonates being bound from the atmosphere.
But this in turn means that corresponding amount of water was staying in the Venusian atmosphere.

As you can see, Venus has 4 times greater amount of exhausted nitrogen.
So, the ammonia-containing minerals had released 4 greater amount of it.

This means that the Venusian minerals have released much greater amount of gases, and there should be thousands times greater amount of water or steam.
But where? Zero water, almost zero steam.

This means that all possible water (corresponding to the amount of CO2 and N) has already been released and lost.

As the water (18) is much lighter than CO2 (44), N2 (28), and O2 (32), this means that the released water was quickly lifted to the upper boundaryof atmosphere and splitted by UV into H2 (immediately escaped) and O2 (sank into the other part of the atmosphere).

So, the Venusian atmosphere became N2-O2-CO2 at nearly Earth N2:CO2 ratio, 30:1.

And as we can see, now the ratio is inverse: 1:30, so just traces of the N2 majority, and almost no O2.
This means, that after the water, N2 and O2 have left the atmosphere, while the heavy CO2 stays.

Did it happen 2 billion years ago or 200 million, doesn't matter.
Even worse, if the volcanic eruptions happened several hundred million years ago, this just demonstrates a dramatic rate of the exhausted water splitting and oxygen escaping.

So, there is no available water on the Venus. At all. It was, but it's gone.
The only hydrogen there is the traces of "sulfic acid" (actually a mix of sulfur oxides and water steam), in amount far lower that "terraforming".

Edited May 28, 2021 by kerbiloid

[Spacescifi]

19 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

@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.

 

Yes...but strangely enough...that was not the inspiration. I got it from a not directly related scifi source. Let's just say people were making remote controlled living creatures for entertainment.

And no....that is not where I am going scifi-wise, but I figured why not go much further and just make entire new species to boot?

 

For example, the purpose of making just about any fantasy race humans have dreamed of is obvious:

 

Elves: Long lived and somewhat superior to baselines in intelligence and beautiful or handsome as well? Why not?

Orcs: Stronger, could use them as military or security force or something.  Amp their sense of smell and hearing as an added bonus for that.

Scary looking creatures: To ward off vistors from secure areas. Could be amped with venom and night vision too. Maybe add a type of ranged attack as well just in case, so even without any held weapon, they have a natural one inherent to them.

 

Results: If you have an Orc planet, an elf planet, and a scary looking creature planet billons of years later when scifi takes place, migration and reproduction can be presumed.

Perhaps there was a lot a war so orc production went way up and an orc planet is the conclusion it lead to. Elf planet would be easy to explain because free high intellugence is hard to  say no to. Scary looking creatures having their own world is harder to explain as the market share profit return for making them ought to be lower compared to the previous examples. Probably spurred on by some corporate or business forces. Since one can make money off fear in many ways. Some legal....some not.

 

Not to say that this is what I am going to do...I am jusy giving this all as a basic example.

Reasons why humanity would create such races in the first place.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Spacescifi