How can we terraform Venus' atmosphere?

[Rakaydos]

Or, we could build a network of solar power arrays kilometers in length in width closer to the sun than mercury. Using some high power lasers we could then propel a solar sail vehicle. Problem is, we can't necessarily provide thrust at apoapsis.

Unless you use your solar sail vehical as a mirror anf focusing array, to use the launch laser energy to perform precice burnoffs of cometary mass at apoapse. Not as efficent as the ion drive, but reusable- it can stay in the oort cloud sending comets to venus whenever one comes within range.

[fenderzilla]

my astromony teacher talked about greenhouse balloons, which would float around the upper atmosphere and slowly turn the CO2 atmosphere into an O2 one. you could use sodium hydroxide to turn the bounty of sulfuric acid into water and table salt, which could water the plants and go towards a saltwater ocean. even if you converted the entire atmosphere into O2, it would still be really really hot. and the solar radiation would be pretty bad, since Venus has no magnetic field.

[Vaporo]

The thing is that there is something like 10¹⁶ kg of water on Venus already. About as much as Lake Superior. That's nothing compared to Earth, but it's equivalent to several hundred good-sized comets.

I'm not sure what kind of climate you could achieve with such an amount of water, though I assume it would be pretty much a "desert". There'd be a need to keep the water cycling and there wouldn't be significant bodies of water on the surface.

To increase it further, I'd still be minded to consider reactions that might break down rock and release water. Even if they're pretty energy-intensive I suspect it'll require less energy than throwing comets about.

Well, I believe that Venus is relatively flat over much of its surface, so much of the water may accumulate in the flatter areas to form a number of small lakes.