Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 5:59 pm
Hey, those floating cities of Venus is a neat idea.
Still, I don't get the advantages. OK, you get some radiation protection due to the atmosphere, and you can plenty of gas products to make O2 and maybe some other things.
But you are essentially immersed in a hostile place, and if you fall, you die.
Orbital cities around Earth sounds more friendly, IMO.
Smashing Mercury into Venus - waste of planets! It would never cool off in time. And the extra mass in our neighborhood might screw with our orbit here at Earth. Mercury probably is good mining. Lots of metals there due to the density. So you lose that. And how are you going to move it?
Probably the only good way of starting this project is with a solar shield and freeze out the atmosphere. That part is cheap, relatively speaking. But you still have to store or move all that frozen mass. Maybe blast it out into orbit and use the reaction to spin up the rotation. Still too hard!
I also wonder about the geologic history of Venus and what lessons it holds. Lets say you get the atmosphere the way you want it. And say you imported the needed water to get lakes and maybe seas. Hasn't Venus' surface been recently (geologic time) resurfaced with lava flows? Something like 90% of it? What process drives that massive volcanism? Maybe it is due to happen right when your terraforming project completes and all your hard work goes up in flames! Cities sunk in magma!
Mars is really the only planet worth the effort. Venus sucks!
Still, I don't get the advantages. OK, you get some radiation protection due to the atmosphere, and you can plenty of gas products to make O2 and maybe some other things.
But you are essentially immersed in a hostile place, and if you fall, you die.
Orbital cities around Earth sounds more friendly, IMO.
Smashing Mercury into Venus - waste of planets! It would never cool off in time. And the extra mass in our neighborhood might screw with our orbit here at Earth. Mercury probably is good mining. Lots of metals there due to the density. So you lose that. And how are you going to move it?
Probably the only good way of starting this project is with a solar shield and freeze out the atmosphere. That part is cheap, relatively speaking. But you still have to store or move all that frozen mass. Maybe blast it out into orbit and use the reaction to spin up the rotation. Still too hard!
I also wonder about the geologic history of Venus and what lessons it holds. Lets say you get the atmosphere the way you want it. And say you imported the needed water to get lakes and maybe seas. Hasn't Venus' surface been recently (geologic time) resurfaced with lava flows? Something like 90% of it? What process drives that massive volcanism? Maybe it is due to happen right when your terraforming project completes and all your hard work goes up in flames! Cities sunk in magma!
Mars is really the only planet worth the effort. Venus sucks!