Terraforming Venus

[mdatspace]

snip

Not a volcano on the moon?

Look at the lunar mares. Those are like flood basalts. Those are volcanic.

Mars has water to mine and there are martian sinkholes which provide protection from micrometeorites, radiation and weather. You have much less water on Venus, and it is harder to extract.

Edited February 12, 2014 by mdatspace

[Idobox]

Mining anything outside Earth to bring it back is a bad idea. There is nothing valuable enough to justify the price to get it, not on the Moon, not in Asteroids.

The one thing that makes sense is to mine stuff to use it in space, like turning water into fuel to break the damned rocket equation.

Building a mining colony on Venus with the objective of sending stuff back to Earth makes little sense, even if you found piles of pure platinum lying around. That being said, it doesn't make more sense to build one with the same goal on Mars, the Moon or an asteroid. A fuel station on the Moon, on the other hand could be very useful.

The main reason to build a colony on another planet is to get people to live on another planet, that's all. It might also be thought as a way to save money on exploration and science, since return missions are much more complicated and dangerous.

Building a self-sustaining colony on the Moon or Mars is hard. As I already said, you have to deal with large temperature swings, negligible outside pressure and limited resources.

On Venus you don't have to care about radiation, pressure, temperature, day/night cycle (like the Moon), low gravity, availability of water, carbon and nitrogen. If important resources are far away from each other, transport is easy, and you have plenty of sunlight.

The two main objections to Venus are : acid rain and you can't mine it.

Well, sulfuric acid is not something you want to expose your skin to, but simple airtight clothing would be enough.

People assume that mining on Venus is hard or impossible because small probes launched in the 70s didn't last long. But temperatures of 500°C are not especially rare in industrial processes, even in high pressure and acidic conditions. Sure, it will be harder than on Mars, but compared to sending mining equipment to another planet, it will be easy. Also, getting an excavator weighing tens of tons on the surface in one piece is much easier on Venus.

The high temperature could make refining and molding easier too. Less energy to melt stuff, less issues with rapid cooling.

[Idobox]

Not a volcano on the moon?

Look at the lunar mares. Those are like flood basalts. Those are volcanic.

No, there are no volcanoes on the Moon. The Mares were formed by volcanoes 3 to 4 billions years ago, but the Moon is now cold and geologically dead.

As for Mars: Nuclear power is, like for so many things in space, the answer. And you don't want to settle near the poles initially anyway.

How do you cool your reactors on Mars? you can forget conduction and convection will negligible. Unless you sublimate ice or carbonic ice, you're left with radiation, which requires large surfaces, so a lot of piping aand materials; hence high cost and risk of leak.

It's fine on the RTG scale, but you quickly run into problems when you want MW.

So, a fancier version of hazmat suits, in other words space suits. Same goes for Mars, just with a bit more cloth between you and the atmosphere. Returning from Mars to Earth is easier from Mars. Mining Mars is vastly more economic, and easier, than mining Venus, if that's even possible to an industrial extent.

More likely a scuba diving suit. and you can't compare that with a suit working in near vacuum, super cold temperatures, high radiation environment. For reference, the EVA suits used on the space station weigh more than 100kg. A typical diving suit with an aluminum air tank weighs 15kg, and that's not space technology.

In this context, heavy elements would refer to pretty much every thing heavier than water that wasn't blown away when the sun formed.

So metals, rocks, carbonates, etc.

I'm not sure Venus would be very different from Earth or Mars from that point, except that it has plenty of water.

[Rakaydos]

It sounds like the easiest thing to do is to Aerocapture all the building material you need in the form of asteroids and comets, into low venus orbit. The personel commute from Bespin. (what I'm calling the hypothetical floating city) Venus provides a gravity anchor, approx 1g habitation gravity, and a stable 1 bar atmospheric pressure, with an entire sky to expand across.

[TheGatesofLogic]

Yes, venus or mars is definitely not worth mining for return value, but whoever said that asteroid mining or lunar mining is not worth it is sorely mistaken. asteroid estimates with modern rocket costs is approximately breakeven due to inflation, buf lunar mining ought go be extremely profitable. The veins of heavy metals we find on earth are mostly from asteroid impacts post-molten crust period (save for a small minority that results from the upwelling of convection currents in the outer mantle). The mooN, unlike the earth, scatters almost none of this material and actively shows us where the material is, much better than prospecting for years like on earth.

[mdatspace]

No, there are no volcanoes on the Moon. The Mares were formed by volcanoes 3 to 4 billions years ago, but the Moon is now cold and geologically dead.

I knew that. However, there is volcanism in the past.

[AngelLestat]

Diamonds aren't some kind of element, they're just a form of carbon and can be manufactured. It's extremely doubtful that diamonds could be retrieved from Venus for less energy than it would to synthesise equivelant diamonds, and there's not even any real reason to believe diamonds would be more common or easier to access on Venus anyway.

You are right, I can not assure that diamonds are easy to find in venus. But. looks promising.

A lot of carbon, many volcanos, never was mined! (here at earth we are picking those shiny rocks from the ground since we discover the fire or before.)

Diamonds are not cheap to made. Mimic the huge pressures and heat from inside the earth is very energy intensive.

Not to mention bringing 5 tons of diamonds into the market would decrease their value significantly, then you would have to find somebody to purchase all of those diamonds which would have to be jewelers or something similar, because diamonds sold for industrial uses are worth far less. So at the end of the day it would take you 10 years to sell them all.

You are sure? Since we start to making synthetic diamonds the cost of diamonds rise and keep rising. Is a product very recomended in case you wanna do an inversion. The price always rise. This is due that every time is harded to mine. And becouse it has use for everything. First you not need to underestimate how value is this for womens. Second, there are millons of tools that work a lot better if they use diamonds. Third, everyday born people that does not have any. So demand would not stop.

Define heavy elements. The moon is rich in Iron, Aluminium, Silicon, etc. To an astronomer, those are heavy elements (everything heavier than Helium). As are NEOs. If you could mine Diamonds on Venus (And you can't, actually, there won't be any diamonds within reach, due to the nature of the crust), and ship them to Earth, they would be way more expensive than Terran diamonds, and nobody would even *want* to buy them.

Are you joking? XD You said that it does not worth sent 5t of diamonds from venus but you wanna sent iron or aluminium to earth??? You need mining things that have higher mass-price relation. Things that are rare at earth.

Take the periodic table, and see all "HEAVY" elements from the 55 to the last. All heavy elements are rare, becouse they was only made it by a supernova, instead iron or others are made it during the normal star life.

So, a fancier version of hazmat suits, in other words space suits. Same goes for Mars, just with a bit more cloth between you and the atmosphere. Returning from Mars to Earth is easier from Mars. Mining Mars is vastly more economic, and easier, than mining Venus, if that's even possible to an industrial extent.

Why? there is bacterian life at venus?? It does not need to be airproof! And in case you go outside without a glove, with the time, you would start to feel a light burn. But you back inside, you wash and use something to neutralize the acid, unless is raining!

Almost any cloth that is not made with organic or metal would work.

Like Idobox said, neoprene would work, also latex (very good against almost all chemical), plastic based, etc

I imagine the suit more like this:

After all, we are in VENUS

Did you just say it's easy to brake a comet into orbit? Comets are typically in very "steep" orbits. They are very fast. There is nothing easy about bringing one into orbit. And they have a tail that far into the solar system.

You search one from the asteroid belt. Then you attach a solar sail, then you wait.. It would take while...... but eventually you would have your aerocapture.

It sounds like the easiest thing to do is to Aerocapture all the building material you need in the form of asteroids and comets, into low venus orbit. The personel commute from Bespin. (what I'm calling the hypothetical floating city) Venus provides a gravity anchor, approx 1g habitation gravity, and a stable 1 bar atmospheric pressure, with an entire sky to expand across.

Heh I remember when I saw that floating city the first time that I saw star wars, I found it very little serious XD

It is Landis Land or Lando land?

Yes, venus or mars is definitely not worth mining for return value, but whoever said that asteroid mining or lunar mining is not worth it is sorely mistaken. asteroid estimates with modern rocket costs is approximately breakeven due to inflation, buf lunar mining ought go be extremely profitable. The veins of heavy metals we find on earth are mostly from asteroid impacts post-molten crust period (save for a small minority that results from the upwelling of convection currents in the outer mantle). The mooN, unlike the earth, scatters almost none of this material and actively shows us where the material is, much better than prospecting for years like on earth.

You are all underestimating the power of commerse and the need.

At Colon times, europa already did long ship travels of 5 month to china to buy silk, spices, etc. Those travels were cheap? Not. It was cheap send a full crew and feed them? Not. Make the ship? Not. But they anyways do it.

And then, they do the same thing with South America. They come, carry all the gold, and go back. In that time the cost of such travel was the same or more than the things that we are talking about.

But I guess all had the wrong idea that you go to venus for first time, and you are sending back material. NO. Of course not. It would take a time before that.

But commerse would appear you want it or not. Is the need.

Like the diamond example, if some of the big productors of diamond here in Africa, knows that there is diamonds at venus, would make a big invesment, collaborating with all settle needs, and then after 20 years, would send machinary and mens to start work. And then control that bussness.

In few years with solar sails, skylon, thermal rockets, etc. The transport cost would down a lot. And is not like you go there and you just wanna search diamonds or materials to construct at venus. No.. you are mining and you would gather all things of value that you found. Californio, materials that you need, gold, uranium, etc.

Commerse always find a way.

[Seret]

You are sure? Since we start to making synthetic diamonds the cost of diamonds rise and keep rising. Is a product very recomended in case you wanna do an inversion. The price always rise. This is due that every time is harded to mine. And becouse it has use for everything. First you not need to underestimate how value is this for womens. Second, there are millons of tools that work a lot better if they use diamonds. Third, everyday born people that does not have any. So demand would not stop.

Synthetic diamonds and gem diamonds are two separate markets. The advent of synthetic diamonds did hugely slash their cost for use in tooling, etc. You can buy diamond tipped tools at your local store, they're so cheap now.

The price of gem diamonds is kept high not due to scarcity or difficulty in extraction, but by the fact that historically one company controlled 90% of the market, and maneuvered extremely hard to keep competitors out. Gem diamonds are neither scarce nor particularly useful, their price was historically set by artificial restriction of supply and aggressive marketing. Supply has loosened up, but the market still expects diamonds to be expensive, and the suppliers are happy to oblige.

[SargeRho]

No, I'm not joking. Extracting Aluminium on Earth is extremely dirty. And not particularly cheap either. And sending it to space is even more expensive. I didn't say send it back to Earth either. Using anything mined anywhere on another planet is a bad choice. Use what you mine in space right there. Now, products are a different issue. Semiconductor production in microgravity would be very profitable. And producing fancy alloys on Mars is easier than doing so on Earth (less gravity, no need to worry about Oxygen corroding your alloys).

And no, Diamonds are nor rare or hard to get. They are expensive purely because of someone playing the market.

[Winter Man]

At Colon times, europa already did long ship travels of 5 month to china to buy silk, spices, etc. Those travels were cheap? Not. It was cheap send a full crew and feed them? Not. Make the ship? Not. But they anyways do it.

And then, they do the same thing with South America. They come, carry all the gold, and go back. In that time the cost of such travel was the same or more than the things that we are talking about.

The difference here is the empires of old travelled to get things they couldn't source locally, either through exhausted supply (gold) or insufficient climate (spices). No point mining aluminium or iron to bring it to Earth when we have plenty here already. Platinum group metals, maybe, but not from Venus.

[Seret]

Platinum group metals, maybe, but not from Venus.

I agree. Demand for these would be high if the price could be brought down, so you could bring back plenty without risking flooding the market. Currently demand for fuel cells is being constricted by the high price of platinum, if somebody dumped a whole load of it onto the market there's a huge potential there.

[Idobox]

About diamonds. There are now made by vacuum deposition, and are significantly better and cheaper than gems. The gem on a ring costs a lot because of deBoers, nothing else.

The Earth has massive amounts of platinum group metals, but they are usually very diluted. Sure, they are more concentrated in some asteroids, but the cost of exploration and exploitation would be massive. Earth resources will probably be more competitive for a very long time. Also, people are working hard to find alternatives to these metals, especially for fuel cells, with metal oxides being very promising.

Also, the market is small. In 2010, 240t were sold, the current market value is around 1400$/oz, which means a global market around 10 billion $ a year, it's not a lot.

Now, products are a different issue. Semiconductor production in microgravity would be very profitable. And producing fancy alloys on Mars is easier than doing so on Earth (less gravity, no need to worry about Oxygen corroding your alloys).

Oxygen is not something really difficult to get rid of. Vacuum pumps, or even good old fashioned iron shavings will do the trick.

That being said, there are a number of nice things to do in orbit, including drug manufacture and funky metals (steel with bubbles for example). Drugs are light and expensive, so I can see it happen, metals on the hand...

For semiconductors, I'm not sure how microgravity helps, but less than 100 kt of mono-crystalline silicon is produced a year. Space silicon would be expensive and reserved to a niche applications, so I don't expect you would need more than a few hundred tons a year. It's probably cheaper to send it from Earth than to mine it.

[NASAFanboy]

To even attempt to land a single man on Venus is a foolhardy adventure. We can land a crew of six on Mars by 2030, and have a moon base by 2025, but the earliest estimates of a manned Venus landing is 2070. The Moon and Mars are easier to reach, much more predictable, and do not require habitats to be armored like a aircraft carrier. They do not melt lead, and they do not have thick layers of lava everywhere.

The only advantage we will have in Venus is the gravity similar to Earth. Nothing else.

Venus is a death world. It can be terraformed like Mars, yes, but it will not last as long as Mars. Mars is the next goal of the human race, then the asteroid belt, then Jupiter and Saturn. I do not see a manned mission to land on Venus in the near future, but an orbital station and flyby missions will likely happen by 2039.

Whatever the case, I believe it is best to hold off our Venusian ambitions until we have mastered the Moon and Mars. They are the low-hanging fruit of a tree, Venus is high up. You cannot get the high-up fruit without grabbing the low-hanging fruit first.

As for the diamonds, ignore them.

Even if the Moon was made of solid gold, hauling this gold back will not e profitable with current technology.

Let alone a Venus with diamonds deep under.

[SargeRho]

About semiconductors: You can make much larger wafers in microgravity. Even in 1/3 gravity you can make larger wafers. Because of that, it'd be much more efficient to produce microchips in orbit.

[AngelLestat]

Scientists tend to view knowledge as a means to understanding how the universe works. Engineers view science in terms of potential application. And economist convert those potential applications into profits to all (at least in theory)

So, scientist has nothing to said about what is economic viable or not. In the same thing that economist can not said nothing about what is possible or not.

Currently lauch cost to low orbit: around $12 million per metric ton. Skylon would down that number to 650000 U$S

You can construct and send a rocket to launch payloads from Landis Land to Low orbit (DeltaV without ballons 8km/s) and back. In venus they need to get only the hidrogen and oxigen (both from sulfure acid). So you would had a cost close to 20 millons per metric ton (middle sette age, you already had the a big base but still the manufactured process is low develope). After that a Solar Sails sent the cargo to earth (is almost free, but it has a investment cost, lets said 5 millons per trip.)

Then you have a cost of 25M to sent 5T of payload to earth.

You need mine to get elements to construct the base. But in that process you also get many other things that are valuable. With the time, you separate all those things, and when some colonists go back, you use the extra free payload to sent back those things to get profits to help you to cover the costs.

Just in case you have the lucky to get one piece of diamond of more than 2kg, you can sold that for 5 Billons or more. Enoght to cover many of your costs.

You think that only by science interest you would be able to sustaint a colony outside earth?

Not, it would die. And ever if you get enoght money to sustain it, it would never grow up.

You need invesments looking for new business. Money moves montains (literally). If investments found that they can make a profits, you would have a colony in not time.

Towns are made it that way. When towns does not have any good resource, die. But when they do, grows so fast that you had a city in no time.

Also all the problems that you find, is becouse you are watching the problem from the earth perspective. From day live perspective.

But all the things that may be seems difficulties at venus.. Are in fact benefics!

Sulfuric Acid... You know that this is the most important chemical element in the industry? Sulfuric acid production is a good indicator of its industrial strength of countries.

If the sulfuric acid cost rise, all consumed products rise. In one way or another are all related. (and the cost is rising)

And in Venus rain from the sky!

The higher pressures and heat on the surfuce can made all manufacture process that needs right that a lot cheaper.

From where I can see, a venus colony would grow at exponential rate due all its advantages.

Synthetic diamonds and gem diamonds are two separate markets. The advent of synthetic diamonds did hugely slash their cost for use in tooling, etc. You can buy diamond tipped tools at your local store, they're so cheap now.

The price of gem diamonds is kept high not due to scarcity or difficulty in extraction, but by the fact that historically one company controlled 90% of the market, and maneuvered extremely hard to keep competitors out.

It does not have any sense.

http://www.kitco.com/ind/Zimnisky/images/aug202013_3.gif

Also you can found who are the owners of each mine. You would find that mostly each mine are owner by 2 or 3 investment corporations.

Try to find 1 company that controls more than 5% of world diamonds.

Synthetic diamonds also are sale like gem, but you are misunderstanding that both source of diamonds (synthetic and mine it) works with two separate markets, industry and gem.

Why? becouse size matters. When you cut a diamond to make gem. You end with many small pieces, you can make maybe other gem from those pieces and then you have dust. The cost of diamond dust is a lot lower, this dust is the one that industry use. Also made systhetic diamond dust is a lot cheaper than made big pieces.

When I mention the 5T cost of diamonds, close to 20B, I was mention the average brute diamond cost.

Of course you maybe find a piece of brute diamond of 2 kg, and that alone could cost like a 5T of average size diamonds.

The diamond cost depends on the production cost and demand. And it does not matter where I get it, I would could sell it to the market cost.

No, I'm not joking. Extracting Aluminium on Earth is extremely dirty. And not particularly cheap either. And sending it to space is even more expensive. I didn't say send it back to Earth either. Using anything mined anywhere on another planet is a bad choice. Use what you mine in space right there. Now, products are a different issue. Semiconductor production in microgravity would be very profitable. And producing fancy alloys on Mars is easier than doing so on Earth (less gravity, no need to worry about Oxygen corroding your alloys).

And no, Diamonds are nor rare or hard to get. They are expensive purely because of someone playing the market.

Well, it is cost efficient extract minerals from moon if you plan to stay there. But we still dont know if there is some place where we can extract water to make a self sustaint base. No talk of all other elements needed. And we already talk about all benefics of venus vs moon. So I would let it like second place and mars third. (Mars only would be good for space tourism).

The difference here is the empires of old travelled to get things they couldn't source locally, either through exhausted supply (gold) or insufficient climate (spices). No point mining aluminium or iron to bring it to Earth when we have plenty here already. Platinum group metals, maybe, but not from Venus.

exhausted supply? gold? they had a lot of it. But they get more. More is always good. And not make me talk about all benefics of gold or platinum like noble metals; with plenty of uses.

You dont wanna accept it, but the example is the same.

I agree. Demand for these would be high if the price could be brought down, so you could bring back plenty without risking flooding the market. Currently demand for fuel cells is being constricted by the high price of platinum, if somebody dumped a whole load of it onto the market there's a huge potential there.

You can not aply one rule of economic and try to simulate the whole thing. Economics has many rules.

If you flood the market with one element, many different enterprise would arise (when before was not possible) to make good use of the new easy access and cost, so the cost would grow again. Factories some time do not use X element, just becouse they know that its production is limited, so if they use it it would rise the cost even more.

The Earth has massive amounts of platinum group metals, but they are usually very diluted. Sure, they are more concentrated in some asteroids, but the cost of exploration and exploitation would be massive. Earth resources will probably be more competitive for a very long time. Also, people are working hard to find alternatives to these metals, especially for fuel cells, with metal oxides being very promising.

Also, the market is small. In 2010, 240t were sold, the current market value is around 1400$/oz, which means a global market around 10 billion $ a year, it's not a lot.

Mining asteroids is very difficult for the lack of gravity. In venus you can use detonations to make holes, or many other things, to have something against what to push you it makes all operations a lot more efficient.

Sure, the thing that you dont need deltaV to go out of there is important, but when you mine, you had a lot of things that you dont need "waste". Meanwhile in venus you can mine, place in one place all the things that are valueble, platine, gold, diamond, construction materials, etc, And within the time, you select and send the most valueable to earth to get other things that you need.

About semiconductors: You can make much larger wafers in microgravity. Even in 1/3 gravity you can make larger wafers. Because of that, it'd be much more efficient to produce microchips in orbit.

First, we dont know how much time the silicon would face to carbon base electronics. When we already made a lot of discoveries of how to control graphene conductivity.

Besides, a chip factory is ones of the most complex factories that can exist. Its very dinamic and needs a lot of things. A reduction in gravity is far beyond a benefic against all cons. Maybe far in the future is something that can be had it into account.

[TheGatesofLogic]

first off angellestat, you seem to lack a basic understanding of the relationship between supply and demand curves which is honestly the simplest concept in economics as far as i know. Flooding a market with a material REGARDLESS OF WHeTHER IT IS RARE OR NOT always leads to deflation of the material's value, so no matter how much of whatever material you are mining on Venus is brought back to earth you will approach a limit of profit, which, when compared to all modern calculations of the price of the project, would never even begin to break even with respect to diamonds or ANY OTHER material you might mine on Venus.

[Rakaydos]

Wait, Sulfuric acid can make hydrogen and oxygen? That totally solves Venus's water problem!

[AngelLestat]

Like already explain, economics is not all about 1 rule. Is not so simple.

If you wanna compare how good are our economics notions be my guess. We have plenty of data to see who is right.

Second.. you really think that 5T of one material would flood the marken?? are you serious???

And you dont get only 1 thing, you get many things, read how the different mining method work.

I would like to all watch this video. Just this part. Only 3 min. (best documentary ever.)

http://youtu.be/jqxENMKaeCU?t=33m2s

To all who said that we are ok with our resources, that there is no reason to mine outside.. There are many reasons!

[Brenok]

would like to all watch this video. Just this part. Only 3 min. (best documentary ever.)

http://youtu.be/jqxENMKaeCU?t=33m2s

I would not watch a video with ratings disabled, except in very exceptional circunstances. This is probably not one of them.

[AngelLestat]

I share your concern... In fact I have the same opinion when I saw something without rating. But that video was upload by youtube itself. HOME, is the best documentary about the world, is one of the first movies that youtube get becouse its global value. Try to search any critic to the documentary, is super seriuos (nothing like zergeist...)

I had 2 favorite documentals in my life, one is Cosmos by Carl Sagan, the other is this.

[Kryten]

But that video was upload by youtube itself.

Whut? There's a perfectly standard user profile connected to that video.

[AngelLestat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_(2009_film)

See, it said about youtube.

Projecthome a standard user?? Lol.

The video is spoken in almost all languages in youtube. Then you can choose any subtitle (between hundreds, each one with its correct scripts). Name one video or documental so open...

Just watch the *uck*ng video

[Dispatcher]

Terraform Venus? Its the future. Earth is just catching up.

[Kryten]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_(2009_film)

See, it said about youtube.

Yes, it says it's on youtube. If that's the same thing as 'being uploaded by youtube itself', then this is the KSP forum posting to itself.

[Seret]

Try to find 1 company that controls more than 5% of world diamonds.

De Beers.

Traditionally they controlled over 90% of the market, operating as a monopoly and strictly controlling the price by restricting supply and aggressively suppressing competition. They now claim they only control 50% and aren't quite so blatantly evil, but it's hard to tell how much of this is PR window dressing. They are certainly still overwhelmingly the dominant force in the market, and exert considerable control over the price.

Diamonds aren't expensive because they're rare or difficult to obtain and process, they're expensive because De Beers wants them to be.