Making Venus livable?

Cork boy 55

This is a poll that discusses the old idea of altering the atmosphere of Venus. Carl Sagan proposed this in an article titled "The Planet Venus" in the 1961 edition of journal Science. Sagan suggested seeding the upper atmosphere of Venus with algae to remove CO2 (carbon dioxide) thereby reducing the greenhouse effect. His idea was based on the algae effect on the very early atmosphere of Earth, which was similar to Venus. On Earth, ancient algae plus water evaporation converted the mostly CO2 atmosphere into oxygen and hydrogen eventually allowing for more comfortable temperatures.

Given what we know of Venus today, is there any hypothetical way that Venus could be transformed into a tropic Tahiti Planet?

Request: If you're thinking "We've got enough problems here on Earth. What about global warming?" Good point, but please go to the threads that exist now because this is only about Venus, and is hypothetical and for fun. I request that Earth references be made only as they pertain to the idea of Venus atmospheric change.

AlmightyCushion

The lack of a magnetic field (or one relatively strong) will cause problems no doubt. Venus does have a very dense atmosphere, I remember reading before that because of it's dense atmosphere you could potentially float a research base high up in it's atmosphere where it's temperature and pressure wouldn't be a problem, you still wouldn't be able to open a window though. Apart from the carbon dioxide there is also sulfur in Venus' atmosphere, so you'd have to be able to remove that too, I've no idea if that's possible but I imagine it is.

Rubecula

Often thought about this myself (didn't know that the late great Carl Sagen had also considered it.

I would if I had the power/ability try using extremophile bacteria to reduce the CO2 and acid content. And to fix a lot of the excess gaseous content of the atmosphere into a form of limestone.

There is a problem in that Venus does not have much of a magnetic field in comparison to Earth. If we could shift the likes of Ceres into orbit around Venus we would provide it with a moon which I believe would have some beneficial effects on the planet.

But I fear we are peering into the insane sort of worlds of fantasy to even consider it with our current technology.

BULLER

Very interesting idea, but ultimately its verging on impossible. Even if it was an oxygen atmosphere and all the toxic Sulfur was somehow magically removed... you'd still be left with an atmospheric pressure about 90 times higher than Earths at the surface! It'd also be hot, very hot :P

Mars on the other hand is much more appealling in nearly every aspect and technically doable, albeit with a couple hundred years and a tons of effort!
My ideal scenario would be to crash a few big icey asteroids from the belt into the poles and release CO2 which would be a knock-on warming effect, releasing more CO2....ect.
Once water has enough pressure to become a liquid, you're in business! There's huge amounts of water trapped on Mars, it'd potentially make a big sea if released.

Its really interesting thinking of the different ways it could be achieved!

AugustusMinimus

BULLER wrote: »

Very interesting idea, but ultimately its verging on impossible. Even if it was an oxygen atmosphere and all the toxic Sulfur was somehow magically removed... you'd still be left with an atmospheric pressure about 90 times higher than Earths at the surface! It'd also be hot, very hot :P

Mars on the other hand is much more appealling in nearly every aspect and technically doable, albeit with a couple hundred years and a tons of effort!
My ideal scenario would be to crash a few big icey asteroids from the belt into the poles and release CO2 which would be a knock-on warming effect, releasing more CO2....ect.
Once water has enough pressure to become a liquid, you're in business! There's huge amounts of water trapped on Mars, it'd potentially make a big sea if released.

Its really interesting thinking of the different ways it could be achieved!

1. Lack of a magnetic field would erode the atmosphere
2. Very little gravity on Mars. Would be very difficult to get air pressure to the right level, whilst also maintaining the level of oxegen needed to support life. Some fairly fancy gases would need to be pumped into the Martian atmosphere to achieve this.


On the other hand, with Venus being a similar size to earth, air pressure might not be as much of a problem. Getting oxegen there would be. Big problems with Venus obviously being the incredibly long day and the proximity to the sun.

BULLER

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

1. Lack of a magnetic field would erode the atmosphere
2. Very little gravity on Mars. Would be very difficult to get air pressure to the right level, whilst also maintaining the level of oxegen needed to support life. Some fairly fancy gases would need to be pumped into the Martian atmosphere to achieve this.


On the other hand, with Venus being a similar size to earth, air pressure might not be as much of a problem. Getting oxegen there would be. Big problems with Venus obviously being the incredibly long day and the proximity to the sun.

1. Lack of magnetic field would cause solar wind erosion it over a time frame of hundreds of thousands of years... not really an issue for us.

2. 37% of earths gravity isnt too bad at all; over twice as strong as the moons, I think it'd be fun.

3. As you said, Venus could never support plant life from earth even if it was livable, its rotation period is madness.

The air pressure on Venus is a massive deal!! 93bar crushes things... most probes dont last very long on the surface... never mind humans!

If you released all the trapped CO2 and Oxygen in the poles of Mars you could bring pressure up to 200mBars, which is breathable if made mostly of oxygen! Mars is just waiting to be transformed..

Rubecula

Some sort of Space syphon? Get a lot of atmosphere from Venus and stick it on Mars?

(Sorry I am being daft again):o

AugustusMinimus

BULLER wrote: »

1. Lack of magnetic field would cause solar wind erosion it over a time frame of hundreds of thousands of years... not really an issue for us.

2. 37% of earths gravity isnt too bad at all; over twice as strong as the moons, I think it'd be fun.

3. As you said, Venus could never support plant life from earth even if it was livable, its rotation period is madness.

The air pressure on Venus is a massive deal!! 93bar crushes things... most probes dont last very long on the surface... never mind humans!

If you released all the trapped CO2 and Oxygen in the poles of Mars you could bring pressure up to 200mBars, which is breathable if made mostly of oxygen! Mars is just waiting to be transformed..

The pressure on Venus though is caused by the type of gases that are in teh atmosphere. Replace them with an oxygen - nitrogen mix and the problem goes away.

Cork boy 55

Somebody made a wiki* entry about (some people have nothing to do)
handy andy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Venus

Artist's conception of a terraformed Venus. The cloud formations are depicted assuming the planet's rotation has not been sped up.




*Disclaimer wikipedia in itself is not a reliable soucre of information.

Cork boy 55

Also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus

Kidchameleon

What would be the temperate on the surface given Venus proximity to the sun? Assuming the atmosphere was made breathable. Something like 400 degrees?

AugustusMinimus

Very rough figures.

Earth is 1 AU from the sun. Venus is .7AU from the sun.

Invert the figures and it turns out that Venus is 1.428 times closer to the sun than the earth.


Say that the earths average temperature is 15 degrees celcius. On the absolute Kelvin scale this is 288 degrees Kevlin.


The power of the suns light diminishes by the square of the distance from the sun.

Hence, at Venuses distance from the sun, the light would be 1.428^2 times more powerful. It would be 2.039 times as powerful.


Double 288 Kelvin is 576 Kelvin. THis is 303 degrees celcius.

Dunno how accurate this is but the answer isn't crazy.

AlmightyCushion

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Very rough figures.

Earth is 1 AU from the sun. Venus is .7AU from the sun.

Invert the figures and it turns out that Venus is 1.428 times closer to the sun than the earth.


Say that the earths average temperature is 15 degrees celcius. On the absolute Kelvin scale this is 288 degrees Kevlin.


The power of the suns light diminishes by the square of the distance from the sun.

Hence, at Venuses distance from the sun, the light would be 1.428^2 times more powerful. It would be 2.039 times as powerful.


Double 288 Kelvin is 576 Kelvin. THis is 303 degrees celcius.

Dunno how accurate this is but the answer isn't crazy.

Having less greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere would help reduce the temperature too. It would probably reduce the night time temperature as well though.

AugustusMinimus

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Having less greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere would help reduce the temperature too. It would probably reduce the night time temperature as well though.

My calculation is simply based on the assumption of venus having an atmosphere made of the same constituents as earth, have the same air pressure and having the same thickness.

The only other variable should then be sunlight which is calcuable as I've done above.