Terraforming Venus

[Rakaydos]

I'm interested in exploring the idea of how one would terraform venus.

Obvouly, it's not the easiest possible target- lethal pressures, temperatures, acid rain, and so on. But how much of thatt would be solve "simply" by turning off the sun (from the perspective of venus) for a decade or two?

If you put a massive solar sail near the Sol-Venus L1, or closer to venus with some kind of radiation pressure to push it outward (a similar design was suggested for a mars soletta) and venus lost all forms of external heating, the temperature would eventually drop, the weather would calm down, many of the toxic precipitates would condence out of the atmosphere (lowering atmospheric pressure).

However, I doubt that would solve ALL the broblems- it's simply the best start. What would be the next problem, and how would that be best solved?

[DaveofDefeat]

Well considering much of the heat is do to the greenhouse effect, coupled with the face that the service pressure is 92 times greater than the earth, your best bet would be to find some way to fix all the carbon in the atmosphere. Of course you would have to do this on a massive scale.

[Brotoro]

Big job. Once you have your sun shield in place to drop the planet's temperature, smash millions of comets into it. Then seed the resulting seas with engineered life forms to extract the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and deposit it out, plus some to add oxygen to the atmosphere.

[jwenting]

the high surface pressure itself causes a very high temperature...

That whole "greenhouse effect" is less important than you think, and is in large part due not to carbon but sulfur.

Binding that sulfur would lower that pressure some no doubt, might have an effect, but I doubt it will alone (or even in combination with binding all the carbon into solids) be enough to lower the temperature to something humans would find remotely comfortable. You'd need to cart off a large portion of the entire atmosphere.

[Kryten]

Then seed the resulting seas with engineered life forms to extract the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and deposit it out, plus some to add oxygen to the atmosphere.

If you're fixing a large proportion of that carbon, you're still going to end up with dozens-of-atmosphere pressures; just from a mostly oxygen atmosphere rather than a CO₂ one. Anyone have proposals for fixing oxygen?

[CalculusWarrior]

I was reading a book called 2312 which detailed a Venus terraform. A sun shield was used, as well as Brotoro's comet idea. I believe they froze the atmosphere so that CO2 fell as dry ice and was swept under the ocean beds then covered by rock.

Edited February 10, 2014 by CalculusWarrior

[Brotoro]

If you're fixing a large proportion of that carbon, you're still going to end up with dozens-of-atmosphere pressures; just from a mostly oxygen atmosphere rather than a CO₂ one. Anyone have proposals for fixing oxygen?

The little critters can make calcium carbonate to remove oxygen along with the carbon. Maybe we can also convince them to manufacture calcium sulfate or whatever other compounds we need to remove the right mix of elements.

Edited February 8, 2014 by Brotoro

[Motokid600]

Keep Venus where its at. Let's float cities in its atmosphere. And eventually lower rovers to and from the ground to collect resources.

[Scotius]

If you're fixing a large proportion of that carbon, you're still going to end up with dozens-of-atmosphere pressures; just from a mostly oxygen atmosphere rather than a CO₂ one. Anyone have proposals for fixing oxygen?

Haul loads and loads of iron dust there. Large portion of oxygen formed on young Earth was bound with iron. It formed red layers (essentially rust) in rocks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Earth#Oxygen_revolution

[crazyewok]

If you're fixing a large proportion of that carbon, you're still going to end up with dozens-of-atmosphere pressures; just from a mostly oxygen atmosphere rather than a CO₂ one. Anyone have proposals for fixing oxygen?

If your shamsing comets into the planet then Im guessing alot of atmospehere will be flung into space. Seeing as to get to this point you would have to have huge resources and tecnology backing you then Im guessing you could capture some of the atmosphere and take it off world and either dump it in space or bring to another colony or base where it could be used.

[lajoswinkler]

Increasing oxygen concentration on Venus would be incredibly hard. The surface has reduced rock. Good luck with that.

[Anton P. Nym]

There's the problem of stored heat; Venus's atmosphere is hot, and so is the rock making up its surface. Even with a perfect sun-shade it'd still take thousands of years to cool down enough to let liquid water exist on the surface.

I was so disappointed when I learned that... but was encouraged when I learned that at altitudes above the sulphur cloud layer atmospheric pressures would support life; we could seed airborne micro-critters to create an oxygen layer there and use aerostats for colonies.

-- Steve

[jwenting]

If you're fixing a large proportion of that carbon, you're still going to end up with dozens-of-atmosphere pressures; just from a mostly oxygen atmosphere rather than a CO₂ one. Anyone have proposals for fixing oxygen?

yup, iron. Just dump thousands of tons of iron filings into the atmosphere. The O2 will bind to it, forming iron oxides that leave the surface covered in a layer of rust.

[lajoswinkler]

yup, iron. Just dump thousands of tons of iron filings into the atmosphere. The O2 will bind to it, forming iron oxides that leave the surface covered in a layer of rust.

Even if that had any value, where would you get all that iron? Thousands of tons is not nearly enough. I'm guessing right now, but I'd say you'd need few spheres of iron filings the size of Paris to trap most of the gas.

[ZeroTheAstronaut]

Another issue that everyone seems to overlook is that One day, on venus, is equivalent to 116 days and eighteen hours. Once temperatures and pressures are adequate for human surivial, there still exists that the day is far too long; One side will be extremely cold for three+ months and the sunfacing side will be the only side getting any natural light (This assumes the sunshield will have small "Hatches" that approximate a day/night cycle to allow some light through. Once cooled enough, of course) A possible way to circumvent this is to target all water bearing comets that would eventually be destined to Venus (because we'll need water) at the equator, to attempt to impart a small amount of angular momentum to venus; Over the years/millenia that each comet impacts, perhaps one day it will reach levels deemed acceptable.

[AngelLestat]

Why terraforming when it is so easy to live in their clouds?

In that case all the problems that you are mention dissapear.

The venus atmosphere is really dense, so dense that even without parachute a probe can survive (already happen), descent speed is not more than 5 to 10 m/s.

Winds down there are 10km/h top speed, this is still enoght to move some rocks.

Geofrey Landis (my favorite NIAC scientist) propose this:

“However, viewed in a different way, the problem with Venus is merely that the ground level is too far below the one atmosphere level. At cloud-top level, Venus is the paradise planet.â€Â

Landis has proposed aerostat habitats followed by floating cities, based on the concept that breathable air (21:79 Oxygen/Nitrogen mixture) is a lifting gas in the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere, with over 60% of the lifting power that helium has on Earth.[4] In effect, a balloon full of human-breathable air would sustain itself and extra weight (such as a colony) in midair. At an altitude of 50 kilometres above Venerian surface, the environment is the most Earth-like in the solar system – a pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0°C–50°C range. Because there is not a significant pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the breathable-air balloon, any rips or tears would cause gases to diffuse at normal atmospheric mixing rates rather than an explosive decompression, giving time to repair any such damages. In addition, humans would not require pressurized suits when outside, merely air to breathe, protection from the acidic rain and on some occasions low level protection against heat. Alternatively, two-part domes could contain a lifting gas like hydrogen or helium (extractable from the atmosphere) to allow a higher mass density.

At the top of the clouds the wind speed on Venus reaches up to 95 m/s (approximately 212 mph), circling the planet approximately every four Earth days in a phenomenon known as "super-rotation". Colonies floating in this region could therefore have a much shorter day length by remaining untethered to the ground and moving with the atmosphere. Allowing a colony to move freely would also reduce structural stress from the wind.

We can even mine the platet, we can get down machinery with hot air ballons using a nuclear reactor to heat the gases that you have inside the balon to make them always equal or more light that outside atmosphere, in this way you can control your altitude wherever you want.

The machinery can be 4 days working and rise them (before the heat reach their circuits) and in time to dock with the floating city that has a orbiting period of 4 days.

If you kept searching about venus, you will notice that this is not the only advatage.

[RRG]

You could put one solar shield/mirror (or a lot of smaller ones) at an inclined and eccentric orbit at aboutut 36.000km above the surface (1 earth day orbit) so that it would block the sun light when between Venus and the Sun and reflect light on the back of the planet when passing behind it. It would be either day or night on the entire planet, but it might be better than a 116 Earth days day.

[Rondon]

AngelLestat, the problem with mining Venus is that it may not be theoretically impossible, but it would be extremely difficult, every probe sent to the surface has been destroyed in minutes, or even before the probe has reached the surface, the best ever managed was just 2 hours, so if we could build something that could withstand the immense environmental conditions, it will be either mega-project to build, or require constant maintenance, it would be hard to see it as a sustainable colony. You could suck the materials you need out of the sky, but you'd would be limited almost exclusively to carbon, maybe you could get enough hydrogen out of the tiny water content (20 ppm) to make hydrocarbons and then plastics.

[Motokid600]

Why terraforming when it is so easy to live in their clouds?

In that case all the problems that you are mention dissapear.

The venus atmosphere is really dense, so dense that even without parachute a probe can survive (already happen), descent speed is not more than 5 to 10 m/s.

Winds down there are 10km/h top speed, this is still enoght to move some rocks.

Geofrey Landis (my favorite NIAC scientist) propose this:

“However, viewed in a different way, the problem with Venus is merely that the ground level is too far below the one atmosphere level. At cloud-top level, Venus is the paradise planet.â€Â

Landis has proposed aerostat habitats followed by floating cities, based on the concept that breathable air (21:79 Oxygen/Nitrogen mixture) is a lifting gas in the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere, with over 60% of the lifting power that helium has on Earth.[4] In effect, a balloon full of human-breathable air would sustain itself and extra weight (such as a colony) in midair. At an altitude of 50 kilometres above Venerian surface, the environment is the most Earth-like in the solar system – a pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0°C–50°C range. Because there is not a significant pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the breathable-air balloon, any rips or tears would cause gases to diffuse at normal atmospheric mixing rates rather than an explosive decompression, giving time to repair any such damages. In addition, humans would not require pressurized suits when outside, merely air to breathe, protection from the acidic rain and on some occasions low level protection against heat. Alternatively, two-part domes could contain a lifting gas like hydrogen or helium (extractable from the atmosphere) to allow a higher mass density.

At the top of the clouds the wind speed on Venus reaches up to 95 m/s (approximately 212 mph), circling the planet approximately every four Earth days in a phenomenon known as "super-rotation". Colonies floating in this region could therefore have a much shorter day length by remaining untethered to the ground and moving with the atmosphere. Allowing a colony to move freely would also reduce structural stress from the wind.

We can even mine the platet, we can get down machinery with hot air ballons using a nuclear reactor to heat the gases that you have inside the balon to make them always equal or more light that outside atmosphere, in this way you can control your altitude wherever you want.

The machinery can be 4 days working and rise them (before the heat reach their circuits) and in time to dock with the floating city that has a orbiting period of 4 days.

If you kept searching about venus, you will notice that this is not the only advatage.

Thaaank you. It seems my post was over looked. FORGET TERRARFORMING. Float.. everything.

[jwenting]

Even if that had any value, where would you get all that iron? Thousands of tons is not nearly enough. I'm guessing right now, but I'd say you'd need few spheres of iron filings the size of Paris to trap most of the gas.

If you have the resources to consider a terraforming plan that binds all the sulphur and carbon out of the Venusian atmosphere, getting hold of a few thousand asteroids containing iron or other materials that corrode easily into solids when exposed to oxygen rich atmospheres should be no problem.

[Rakaydos]

AngelLestat, the problem with mining Venus is that it may not be theoretically impossible, but it would be extremely difficult, every probe sent to the surface has been destroyed in minutes, or even before the probe has reached the surface, the best ever managed was just 2 hours, so if we could build something that could withstand the immense environmental conditions, it will be either mega-project to build, or require constant maintenance, it would be hard to see it as a sustainable colony. You could suck the materials you need out of the sky, but you'd would be limited almost exclusively to carbon, maybe you could get enough hydrogen out of the tiny water content (20 ppm) to make hydrocarbons and then plastics.

Venus atmospheric habitats, bread basket of the solar system? Grow food using carbon extracted from the atmosphere?

Come to think of it, with a 22 hour rotation (of the habitats) and that far from the surface, what would it take to reach orbit from the habitat? Does the superrotation accelerate furthur up?

[Rakaydos]

If you have the resources to consider a terraforming plan that binds all the sulphur and carbon out of the Venusian atmosphere, getting hold of a few thousand asteroids containing iron or other materials that corrode easily into solids when exposed to oxygen rich atmospheres should be no problem.

OR possibly part of a mutual terraforming of mars- extract the iron from the martian soil, dump it on venus.

[KASASpace]

Well, you "solved" the heating problem, so, how to solve all the other problems.

Let's figure out what we're dealing with first:

1. High Atmospheric Pressures

2. Still pretty hot

3. Toxic gases

4. Acid Rain

That's off the top of my head, so if there are more please enlighten me.

Possible *solutions*

1. This is (I think, probably wrong, so feel free to correct me) primarily caused by the heavier elements in the atmosphere, so something that filters them out, such as a lifeform, is a good idea

2. Really hot, gonna need to cool it down somehow, and radiation cooling isn't the best way............ can't really freeze it, comets would just evaporate until after a few hundred years (could still be wrong)

3. These are most likely the heavier elements/compounds making up the atmosphere (IE sulfur)

4. Rain is probably a result of "Acid Lakes" but still could be wrong. Best solution is to take the acids mostly away from areas where they can "evaporate"

Of course, I would rather colonize Mars, but whatever.

BTW, as Venus is the hottest planet, I would be careful no matter what you do.

[Motokid600]

Terraforming ANY planet is a ridiculous notion.

[Seret]

Terraforming ANY planet is a ridiculous notion.

This. After all, who's paying? Where do all the energy and materials come from? And imagine how much more you could achieve with that amount of time, money, energy and resources instead of terraforming.