Timeline for Why not bring life to Venus along with the next exploring mission?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
25 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 13, 2018 at 22:34 | comment | added | Christopher James Huff | Except that's about a thousand times more lithium than exists in Earth's crust, never mind the impact of removing that much water from Earth. Even if you could get it, carpeting the planet in lithium carbonate is not a great start at terraforming it. Besides, Venus has plenty of minerals that will readily combine with the sulfuric acid and a good part of the CO2 if you just cool the place down and supply a lot of water. There is really no alternative to replacing the hydrogen that it's lost over time. | |
| Nov 12, 2018 at 9:44 | comment | added | Cornelis | @ChristopherJamesHuff At least, with LiOH the sulfuric acid could be removed and a lot of H2O gained. | |
| Nov 12, 2018 at 5:12 | comment | added | Christopher James Huff | 40 quadrillion tons of H2 is a bit more achievable than 2 quintillion tons of LiOH, the lightest hydroxide. You're not sequestering the atmosphere of Venus with anything imported from Earth, not without de-terraforming Earth to do it. | |
| Nov 11, 2018 at 22:53 | comment | added | Cornelis | @ChristopherJamesHuff Ignoring the immense quantities, hydroxides with CO2 gives solid carbonate and H2O. Thanks, it's good to have exchange ! | |
| Nov 11, 2018 at 19:05 | comment | added | Christopher James Huff | Ignoring the immense quantities of hydroxides that would be required, what would that accomplish? You simply can not do anything useful in terms of terraforming Venus without dealing with the 90 atmospheres of CO2. | |
| Nov 11, 2018 at 15:59 | comment | added | Cornelis | @ChristopherJamesHuff I thought you meant hydrogen resources. Couldn't hydroxides from Earth be the most practical, also changing the acid to sulfates ? Would aerogels or zeolite be strong enough to collect water from the clouds ? | |
| Nov 11, 2018 at 13:55 | comment | added | Christopher James Huff | At altitude 10% oxygen is more than enough to cause corrosion, especially in that carbon dioxide atmosphere full of sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid, and it doesn't bring the atmosphere any closer to being breathable while the lower density means buoyant lift is less effective, making doing anything in the atmosphere more expensive. Practical resources: all the building material and mining equipment that goes into constructing and supplying all those algae farms, all the water collected, etc. You could build entire floating cities for less. | |
| Nov 11, 2018 at 13:36 | comment | added | Cornelis | @ChristopherJamesHuff I agree with you about the surface, but at altitude 10% oxygen is still less than on Earth. What practical resources are you thinking of ? | |
| Nov 10, 2018 at 23:54 | comment | added | Christopher James Huff | @Conelisinspace: ...not really? Equipment on the surface will now have to worry about spontaneously combusting on top of the high temperature and pressure, not to mention all the carbon dust blowing around. At altitude, you've made the atmosphere far more corrosive, and no more habitable. Devoting the resources to colonizing Venus would be a lot more productive than giving it an even more hellish atmosphere. | |
| Nov 10, 2018 at 22:28 | comment | added | Cornelis | @ChristopherJamesHuff Yes, hydrogen is the problem but i think there's no practical answer to that. To get even 10 percent of oxygen would be great and will take a lot of time ! :) But wouldn't it be amazing to see that happen ? (for next generations) | |
| Nov 10, 2018 at 17:26 | comment | added | Christopher James Huff | @Conelisinspace: Oxygen is the problem, though. If you somehow kept photosynthesis going while recycling the water, you would end up with an extremely toxic high-pressure O2 atmosphere and a surface carpeted with carbon powder, which will be highly explosive in that atmosphere. You need to import hydrogen to terraform Venus, to turn the excess oxygen into water and lock most of the atmosphere up as biomass. Lots of hydrogen...about 40 quadrillion metric tons. | |
| May 21, 2018 at 16:26 | comment | added | PearsonArtPhoto♦ | I was mistaken. It seems that a base full of breathable air could float, but the atmosphere would not support that breathable air. | |
| May 21, 2018 at 16:10 | comment | added | Cornelis | @PearsonArtPhoto You must be joking ! In that link i only find atomic oxygen in trace amounts ! | |
| May 21, 2018 at 15:33 | comment | added | PearsonArtPhoto♦ | en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus | |
| May 21, 2018 at 14:31 | comment | added | Cornelis | @PearsonArtPhoto 20% oxygen ? Do you have a link ? | |
| May 21, 2018 at 13:36 | comment | added | PearsonArtPhoto♦ | There is actually a fair bit of oxygen in the atmosphere of Venus as it is, in the upper atmosphere. The atmosphere at 50-65 km is similar to that of Earths, to the point that if you could live in a flying platform of some kind that high up, you could probably breathe without assistance of a machine. | |
| May 21, 2018 at 12:02 | comment | added | Cornelis | @SteveLinton But what about the costs ? Andt this method would not make oxygen. I just would like to know if cyanobacteria could live in or just above the clouds, to start with. | |
| May 21, 2018 at 11:30 | comment | added | Steve Linton | @Conelisinspace If you want to transform Venus fast (and you're a somewhat more technologically advanced than us, but not in possession of new physics) you use a sunshade. A thin mirror roughly the size of Venus positioned between Venus and the Sun (held in place by balancing light pressure and gravity) would cool it enough to freeze out the CO2 in a few centuries | |
| May 19, 2018 at 12:48 | comment | added | Cornelis | @Uwe So we have to start with the upper atmosphere and exchange CO2 with O2 and that will bring down the temperature. | |
| May 19, 2018 at 12:43 | comment | added | Cornelis | @Uwe Bacteria have a huge multiplying capacity. The limiting factors are outside the cells, maybe radiation or pH at early Earth. Are there any other means for terraforming with such a potential ? | |
| May 19, 2018 at 10:20 | comment | added | Uwe | Terraforming of Venus would require a lower pressure and temperature of the lower atmosphere. | |
| May 19, 2018 at 1:12 | comment | added | PearsonArtPhoto♦ | @Conelisinspace Terraforming means too make more like Earth. More oxygen, bringing life, etc, would be a form of terraforming. But yeah, if you can get something to remain floating, and live off of oxygen, CO2, N2, and sunlight, it should be able to survive on Venus. | |
| May 18, 2018 at 22:59 | comment | added | Uwe | The terraforming of Earth, the production of the oxygen in the atmosphere by plants took a very long time. If terraforming of other planets would be 10 times faster, it will be still a very long time. If mankind needs terraforming of other planets, would it be possible to wait that long for it? | |
| May 18, 2018 at 15:50 | comment | added | Cornelis | Thank you for your answer, but my question is not about terraforming, but about starting life in the atmosphere of Venus. If that works, is up to the bacteria brought there. It should not take much time to explore with instruments if they will survive there. | |
| May 18, 2018 at 13:47 | history | answered | PearsonArtPhoto♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |