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Because we've failed to terraform much closer, less inhospitable environments, and the risks for getting it wrong are very high.
by thebooktocome 7y ago
Because we've failed to terraform much closer, less inhospitable environments, and the risks for getting it wrong are very high.
- ForHackernews 7y agoWait, what are the risks? It's not like you're going to make Venus _more_ inhospitable than it already is. Worst case scenario is we'd lose some valuable scientific information about Venus in its natural state.
- darkpuma 7y agoThe risk that Venus is or was once host to some form of life, and humans deliberately contaminating Venus with life would obscure any evidence of it. That is a very serious worse-case scenario because non-earth life would be truly invaluable to biology. It seems like a remote risk to me, but not something to shrug off. Particularly since the usefulness of introducing life to Venus is itself quite remote.
- jacobush 7y agoLife in temperatures that melts lead? Oh... or do you mean in the atmosphere?
- ceejayoz 7y ago> Life in temperatures that melts lead? Why not? It'd have to have different chemistry, sure, but even on Earth life exists in some pretty extreme temperature and environment ranges.
- tfha 7y agoLife really starts to struggle above 100 C. I think the most heat tolerant organisms we know of top out around 130 C. Life that could operate at 500 C is probably not water based at all, which would be very novel and certainly interesting to science.
- darkpuma 7y agoEither. It does seem unlikely, but the truth is we just don't know.
- dougmwne 7y agoFor all we know the Soviet Vega missions could have introduced airborne microbial life into the high atmosphere. We may have already seeded Venus.
- thebooktocome 7y agoYes, that is a high risk. We're not exactly lush with accessible Earth-ish planets near the habitable zone.
- stcredzero 7y agoWait, what are the risks? It's not like you're going to make Venus _more_ inhospitable than it already is. To some weird soul out there on the Internet, this sounds like a challenge.
- theandrewbailey 7y agoWhich environments are you referring to? Venus is the closest planet to Earth. The Moon is the only significant body between the two. And by 'we've failed to terraform', did you mean 'we haven't tried yet'?
- thebooktocome 7y agoAs far as I'm aware, nobody's succeeded in turning deserts into farm land on a large scale. Various parties keep trying but the water, fertilizer, and maintenance costs are astronomical.
- hsnewman 7y agoIsrael has turned much of it's desert into farmland and forests. For example, the Yatir forest is one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yatir_Forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yatir_Forest
- aeternus 7y agoWe definitely have. There's huge environmental impact, but that is to be expected. California's Central Valley project is an example, and China has some that are even larger.
- heurist 7y agoAll of Los Angeles/most of southern California was a desert, wasn't it? Massive water redistribution is the reason tens of millions of people can live there. Much of California's agriculture comes from the same water redistribution projects. Plus, there's no life that we know of on Venus. A bacterial population capable of living, evolving, and growing exponentially in that environment would be a huge change.
- pjc50 7y agoWe're currently in the process of terraforming earth to make it slightly less habitable.
- anticensor 7y ago