5 ms·

You still have to spin up the planet. An earth-like atomosphere would freeze solid on the dark side, and air from the light side would be rushing into the dark

by nkoren 6y ago

You still have to spin up the planet. An earth-like atomosphere would freeze solid on the dark side, and air from the light side would be rushing into the dark side, where it would freeze, until the light side was stripped of its atmosphere too. So the atmosphere would just be a mobile ice cap on the far side, rotating around the planet once per year, with the only gaseous atmosphere being a small, constantly-moving region of sublimation at the terminator betwen the light and dark sides. Make the atmosphere thick enough to not freeze on the far side, and it'll be absolutely boiling on the near side. The slow rotation means that there is no happy medium: either you've got an atmosphere freezing solid, or you're cooking half the planet at any given moment.

mabbo 6y ago
> You still have to spin up the planet. Do we? I think what you really want is to equalize the amount of solar radiation hitting all sides. And if I can build a planet-sized solar shade, well, why not go one step further and instead make a swarm of mirrors in orbit? When they orbit the sun-facing side, they reflect the light away from Venus. When they're opposite, they're in darkness anyway. But when they're in between, they reflect light towards the dark side of the planet! I choose the angle of every mirror in this swarm, and thus I choose the amount of solar radiation hitting each point on the planet at all times. Thus, Venus shall have one timezone, Venus Standard Time, and I swear to you it shall not have anything like Daylight Savings Time.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  Not necessary, but convenient. Venus has very little water, so maybe impacting comets at the equator in the right direction would be enough to solve both problems
  - mabbo 6y ago
    That would take more than a few comets. And it might, somehow, make Venus even less livable. I read once that to slow Earth's rotation down to a stop, you'd need to perfectly sling 6 or more moons at it.
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      In the short term, probably. Not all energy from those impacts will be transferred to angular momentum. Maybe blowing up the comets before they reach the atmosphere and giving them a larger impact area could help.

by nkoren 6y ago

mabbo 6y ago

> You still have to spin up the planet. Do we? I think what you really want is to equalize the amount of solar radiation hitting all sides. And if I can build a planet-sized solar shade, well, why not go one step further and instead make a swarm of mirrors in orbit? When they orbit the sun-facing side, they reflect the light away from Venus. When they're opposite, they're in darkness anyway. But when they're in between, they reflect light towards the dark side of the planet! I choose the angle of every mirror in this swarm, and thus I choose the amount of solar radiation hitting each point on the planet at all times. Thus, Venus shall have one timezone, Venus Standard Time, and I swear to you it shall not have anything like Daylight Savings Time.

rbanffy 6y ago
Not necessary, but convenient. Venus has very little water, so maybe impacting comets at the equator in the right direction would be enough to solve both problems
- mabbo 6y ago
  That would take more than a few comets. And it might, somehow, make Venus even less livable. I read once that to slow Earth's rotation down to a stop, you'd need to perfectly sling 6 or more moons at it.
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    In the short term, probably. Not all energy from those impacts will be transferred to angular momentum. Maybe blowing up the comets before they reach the atmosphere and giving them a larger impact area could help.