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> there is nowhere else within reach that is remotely similar to either planet Now, hear me out here but have you considered Venus? Cons: Runaway greenhous
by mabbo 9y ago
> there is nowhere else within reach that is remotely similar to either planet
Now, hear me out here but have you considered Venus?
Cons:
Runaway greenhouse effect, sulfuric acid clouds, crazy hot, etc
Very long days (1 year = 1.92 Venus days)
Pros:
Nearer to sun => better solar energy collection
Nearly the same gravity as Earth (0.8-ish)
Lower delta-v to get there from Earth (someone double check my math on that)
You'd need to get material built into a 'solar umbrella' to cool the planet down, reflect light elsewhere. One idea (Kim Stanley Robinson?) was too make mirrors that reflect light from the way-too-bright side and have it instead reach the 'dark for half a year' side.
Once you've got it cooled down, you're a lot of the way there. Bleed off some of that atmosphere (hey, maybe Mars could use it?), get some plants converting CO2 into O2.
It's ludicrous, I know, but I find most conversations about terraforming are. The only real advantage that Mars has is that we could live there while we work on it. Venus, not so much.
- jcranmer 9y agoActually, the upper atmosphere of Venus has about the right atmospheric pressure and ambient temperature for Earth. So building effectively cities on blimps means you only need to worry about the sulfuric acid--walking outside only requires a hazmat suit, not a full pressure suit. It's not clear whether Venus or Mars is an easier target for colonization--that's just a sign of how hard it would be to build a colony on anything that's not Earth.
- mabbo 9y ago> It's not clear whether Venus or Mars is an easier target for colonization Actually, despite my above pro-Venus talk, Mars is still an easier option. I wound up on a wiki-spiral just now reading about options for Venus- turns out plants would not work for converting that CO2. The process for CO2 conversion needs Hydrogen- and Venus has none. We'd need some kind of trade-triangle between Mars, Venus and Jupiter, dumping CO2 from Venus to Mars, then moving H from Jupiter to Venus. We need to find some product Mars has that Jupiter wants, then we'd have it figured out.
- RugnirViking 9y agoMars has solid minerals, which I assume could be in short supply on any base near jupiter
- hutzlibu 9y agoJupizer has lots of moons ...
- RugnirViking 9y agoWhile true, I was more thinking that there would be shortage of something between those moons. Maybe I'm mistaken