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It's wild we have any images of the surface of Venus at all given how hostile Venus is. Given how hostile it is, it seems unlikely we'll go back anytime soon. T

by cletus 5y ago

It's wild we have any images of the surface of Venus at all given how hostile Venus is. Given how hostile it is, it seems unlikely we'll go back anytime soon. These images were really a product of the Cold War where the US focused on Mars. It's worth noting that Venus is still probably a better terraforming target than Mars [1]. This romantic notion of Mars has rooted itself deeply at this point (eg with Elon Musk) but Mars is basically a more distant and inconvenient Moon. Almost no atmosphere (in fact, just enough because dust storms will occasionally just coat all your equipment), the Sun is weaker and gravity is still very low. Venus's atmosphere is about 3% nitrogen and 97% CO2. It has about 100x the atmosphere of Earth, which means there's actually more atmospheric nitrogen than on Earth. And abundant CO2 means oxygen is abundant. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI-old7YI4I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI-old7YI4I

Clewza313 5y ago
Temperatures on the surface of Venus are around 500 deg C, the pressure is around 90 Gs and the atmosphere is actively corrosive with superheated sulphur dioxide etc. While you may indeed be right about terraforming, settling on Mars seems like a cakewalk by comparison.
- mattowen_uk 5y ago
  I had a fictional concept of gas mining in the atmosphere of Venus (like Bespin's Cloud City) but I couldn't think of a way to mitigate corrosion of the materials you'd use to build it by the sulphur dioxide... (On Venus at 50 miles up, the atmospheric pressure is approximately the same as Earth, whereas on the surface it's the equivalent pressure of Earth's Mariana trench.)
  - cletus 5y ago
    If we're talking about what humanity's future off Earth might look like, it's actually highly unlikely that it's on planets at all, given how hostile such places are, the huge energy costs of entering and leaving gravity wells and how inefficient planets are at creating living area per unit mass. Orbital habitats using spin gravity seem way more likely with places like the Moon and Mercury being the source for the required raw materials.
    - technologia 5y ago
      Suddenly not so much Star Wars as much as it is Gundam :p
      - matheusmoreira 5y ago
        The people who remain on Earth do nothing but pollute it, because their souls are weighed down by gravity!
      - datameta 5y ago
        Or Culture series :)
    - pengaru 5y ago
      Planets are protective, you're going to have a tough time dealing with radiation poisoning spending a lifetime in space without them.
  - u801e 5y ago
    > whereas on the surface it's the equivalent pressure of Earth's Mariana trench. The surface pressure on Venus is around 90 atm which is equivalent to the pressure one km below the ocean surface. The Mariana trench is a little over 11 km deep.
    - mattowen_uk 5y ago
      Cheers, I kinda dredged the numbers up from my memory.
sandworm101 5y ago
Mars is closer than the moon, at least in terms of fuel. It takes less velocity/delta-V (aka space gas) to get to the surface of mars than it does the surface of the moon. We can use parachutes/aerobraking at Mars whereas at the moon we have to burn rockets all the way down. So mars is the easier and more dramatic stage for anyone wanting to demonstrate thier rocket tech. Venus is even closer still, but as a hell planet Venus doesn't lend itself to dramatic imagery and storytelling.
- ericbarrett 5y ago
  It takes a lot more to get back, though—Mars is a deeper gravity well (5 km/s escape velocity versus 2.4 km/s for the Moon). Then you are spending hundreds of days on the return journey, versus a week or less from the Moon. And humans are definitely going to want to come back, because to stay on Mars is to be doomed to radiation poisoning, and not on long timescales. "Recent data from ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter showed that on a six-month journey to the Red Planet an astronaut could be exposed to at least 60% of the total radiation dose limit recommended for their entire career."[0] Maybe for robots, but I think human colonization of Mars without first mastering the Moon is very unlikely. [0] https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/The_radiation_showstopper_for_Mars_exploration https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Ex...
belter 5y ago
We should not have ignored Venus. Its easier to get to than Mars and the top of the atmosphere has reasonable temperatures. Why would a certain type of life would not be possible under 400 C or acid sulfuric environments ? It might be very different from what we have on Earth, but is there anything specific to Venus current environment that makes us believe it is not possible, with the exception it would be very, very, different from what we have on Earth ? I find the Venus images more interesting than Mars. Even more surprising, 30 years ago the Russians were flying balloons for days on Venus atmosphere ! "Soviet Balloon Probes May Have Seen Rain on Venus" https://www.wired.com/2013/04/vega-venus-rain/ https://www.wired.com/2013/04/vega-venus-rain/ "The two 3.5-m-diameter balloons floated for nearly two days in the Venusian atmosphere around 55 km above the surface. Unlike the hostile terrain below, the cloud layers at this height are a veritable wonderland. Temperature and pressure are comparable to Earth’s average and there is ample sunlight streaming in from above. If not for the sulfuric acid clouds and hurricane-force winds, the atmosphere of Venus would be a comfortable living space." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program
- belter 5y ago
  The Planetary Society has these with post processing for better quality: "Every Picture From Venus' Surface, Ever" https://www.planetary.org/articles/every-picture-from-venus-surface-ever https://www.planetary.org/articles/every-picture-from-venus-...
- canadianfella 5y ago
  Why do you put spaces before punctuation?
  - _Microft 5y ago
    This is off-topic but I think I can help. Some languages, like (European) French, put spaces before question marks[0] and exclamation marks[1] and people might be so used to doing it that they even do it when writing in a different language. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark#Stylistic_variants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark#Stylistic_varian... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclamation_mark#French https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclamation_mark#French
eloff 5y ago
Also while life on the surface of Venus is extremely hostile, it's possible to build floating stations in the atmosphere because it's so much more dense than earth's. High enough in the atmosphere the pressures, temperatures, and solar radiation would be reasonable. It's harder than floating a ship on water, but easier than doing airships on earth. I'm not sure what that gains us over just having a habitat in orbit though. Colonizing other planets doesn't make much sense to begin with yet. We don't even colonize Antarctica, and it's a paradise compared to mars. I'm more interested in setting up industry and habitats in earth orbit. Close enough for low latency internet, and trips measured in hours, but far enough to allow asteroid mining, 24/7 solar, manufacturing and refueling largely outside of earth's gravity well. Plus if something goes wrong you can have escape pods that return to earth. Having a strong space industry like that is also the best protection from potential asteroid impacts.
- dougmwne 5y ago
  > I'm not sure what that gains us over just having a habitat in orbit though. Critically, it gains us raw materials. Space is empty. The upper atmosphere of Venus is full of elements we can use to sustain life.
  - eloff 5y ago
    You mean CO2 and small amounts of nitrogen? That doesn't seem like a great resource. If you value CO2 so highly there is plenty right here on earth that nobody wants and people will actually pay you to remove from the atmosphere. No need to go all the way to Venus. Even on the surface of Venus, inhospitality notwithstanding, the resources are at the bottom of a gravity well equal to earth's. It is way more viable to mine asteroids than mine a planet, especially a planet like Venus. Mining other planets is only interesting if the market for the resource is on that same planet, or we've exhausted the supply of asteroids with that resource.
    - canadianfella 5y ago
      Who said anything about mining?
ethbr0 5y ago
> Given how hostile it is, it seems unlikely we'll go back anytime soon NASA heard your July 4th plea, and sees you Discovery Mission 15 (VERITAS) and 16 (DAVINCI+). Targeted to launch in 2028 and 2029/30 respectively. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VERITAS_(spacecraft) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VERITAS_(spacecraft) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAVINCI%2B https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAVINCI%2B
generalizations 5y ago
> It's worth noting that Venus is still probably a better terraforming target than Mars [1]. This romantic notion of Mars has rooted itself deeply at this point (eg with Elon Musk) but Mars is basically a more distant and inconvenient Moon. There's a distinction there worth pointing out. We can actually land on Mars, and if something goes wrong there are options (Apollo 13 style). If something goes wrong on Venus, you're falling through acid clouds and getting cooked. The vacuum of space is less perilous than the atmosphere of Venus. On the other hand, as you mentioned, Venus has the raw materials and the magnetosphere for terraforming. Might be worth just dropping some hardy lichen on Venus to get the process started, because no one is going to go there as-is.
- fnord77 5y ago
  Venetian gravity is much closer to earth's too
- at_compile_time 5y ago
  > Might be worth just dropping some hardy lichen on Venus to get the process started, because no one is going to go there as-is. Hardy is an understatement. Life would need an entirely different chemistry to function at 730K.
  - DuskStar 5y ago
    Presumsbly, you'd start in the upper atmosphere and work down. Airborne equivalents to algae?
  - webnrrd2k 5y ago
    Maybe something similar to what lives at undersea hydrothermal vents? I know close to nothing about extremophiles, but I imagine that there is something, somewhere on earth, that's used to living in an environment that is closer to Venus's environment.
    - ASalazarMX 5y ago
      It's one thing to live near hydrothermal vents, and other to live inside them. IIRC no known creature survives above 120 Celsius.
gus_massa 5y ago
> And abundant CO2 means oxygen is abundant. Oxygen combined with other atoms is not rare. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_Mars > Based on these data sources, scientists think that the most abundant chemical elements in the Martian crust are silicon, oxygen, iron, magnesium, aluminum, calcium, and potassium. The problem is separating the Oxygen from the other materials to get Oxygen molecules that you can breath, and that requires a lot of energy. Last year some team made a project to produce Oxygen molecules in Mars using the soil and energy, with some method similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Hall%E2%80%93H%C3%A9roult_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Hall%E2%80%93H%C3%A9... (Here the process use Carbon rods as cathodes, that get "burned", but IIRC their idea was to avoid the Carbon rods and collect the Oxygen molecules.) I'm not sure if this early prototype is viable, anyway. Also, extracting the Oxygen molecules from CO2 requires also a lot of energy. Plants need a lot of sunlight to do that and the artificial methods also need a lot of energy.
- cherryturnover 5y ago
  What is stopping us from launching seed payloads to these planets with some way to continually water them? Wouldn't that be a way to theoretically test the survivability of the planet without sending people?
  - sandworm101 5y ago
    We already know that plants will not survive in martian soil regardless of watering them. For the amount of effort/energy/consumables needed to turn martian soil into something that can grow plants, it would be easier to just send some soil. Or, skip all that and go totally hydroponic. Hydroponics makes economic sense here on earth already. On mars, hydroponics is exponentially easier than traditional farming methods. The first habitats will probably not use any martian resources. First uses will probably be as construction materials. Then possibly as a fuel source. Those are the high-mass uses. Things like growing food/oxygen don't require much mass and so are far down the list.
  - retrac 5y ago
api 5y ago
Isn’t Venus too hydrogen poor to be terraformed? Where are you going to get trillions of tons of hydrogen?
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
Making a cloud city on Venus is totally doable but it should be noted that the surface of Venus only rotates once per year (the actual orbit around the sun makes it two days per year). However there is a point in the clouds where you have earth level pressures and temperatures, and the clouds encircle Venus on a time scale much closer to Earth days.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
areoform 5y ago
> Given how hostile it is, it seems unlikely we'll go back anytime soon You're going to be really happy about this then. We're going back to Venus! NASA just chose VERITAS and DAVINCI+ as a one-two-punch combo for Venus. Just in case you aren't familiar with the missions, One is a descent probe + communications relay (DAVINCI+) that is supposed to last 63 minutes from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom, and bring modern spectroscopy + imaging to bear on the atmosphere. They particularly want to investigate trace gas elements and the presence of organic compounds in the atmosphere. As it descends, the probe will also be taking high resolution snap shots of the tessera with a modern-ish (emphasis on the ish) camera right up until it is destroyed. The other one is an orbiter with the goal of making the highest resolution map of Venus possible. And acting as the basis for future missions. They'd also like to monitor the atmosphere to characterize any variations such as the surface emitting water (could there be underground water on Venus? Probably not, but who knows?) Based on overheard watercooler chatter, it appears that one of the concerns that drove NASA to give both Discovery slots to Venus missions is because of the potential loss of institutional knowledge. The people who helped build and run Magellan are retiring, and we haven't sent anything there since. It's important to capture their information and train the next generation on Venus so that we don't lose hard earned lessons. IMO, Venus is a really important planet to study because it helped us to understand global warming and planetary dynamics. A better understanding of Venus means refinements to our atmospheric models for climate change. It's more important than Mars, potential for life or not.
- cletus 5y ago
  Yeah, I’d heard about these missions. One has a descent probe but I believe it’s atmospheric, not surface like the Venera missions, right? Still cool though. What I personally want to see in my lifetime is a return to Neptune and Uranus. I don’t believe we’ve been to either since Voyager. Given such a mission takes the right planetary alignment, a decade of prep and still a decade to get there this will take awhile. The Venus missions actually make either icy giant missions less likely, sadly. Outer planet missions are super expensive and the next launch window is in the early 2030s so time is actually running out.
  - 5y ago
dylan604 5y ago
>It's worth noting that Venus is still probably a better terraforming target than Mars This has always been my sentiment as well. Mars is a dead planet with no magnetic belts for shielding, and is just too far on the edge of the goldilocks zone. Also, if we can figure out how to terraform Venus' atmosphere, then maybe we can "fix" Earth's.
- Gravityloss 5y ago
  It might not be that hard to create an artificial field for it. 1 Tesla might be enough, similar to what's in MRI machines. Park that in the L1 Lagrange point.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I'd also like to have it attached to the ship so that there is radiation protection during travel. I see that more doable than planet sized protection.
swatkat 5y ago
Indian space agency, ISRO, is planning for a Venus mission in 2026: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shukrayaan-1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shukrayaan-1

by cletus 5y ago

Clewza313 5y ago

Temperatures on the surface of Venus are around 500 deg C, the pressure is around 90 Gs and the atmosphere is actively corrosive with superheated sulphur dioxide etc. While you may indeed be right about terraforming, settling on Mars seems like a cakewalk by comparison.

mattowen_uk 5y ago
I had a fictional concept of gas mining in the atmosphere of Venus (like Bespin's Cloud City) but I couldn't think of a way to mitigate corrosion of the materials you'd use to build it by the sulphur dioxide... (On Venus at 50 miles up, the atmospheric pressure is approximately the same as Earth, whereas on the surface it's the equivalent pressure of Earth's Mariana trench.)
- cletus 5y ago
  If we're talking about what humanity's future off Earth might look like, it's actually highly unlikely that it's on planets at all, given how hostile such places are, the huge energy costs of entering and leaving gravity wells and how inefficient planets are at creating living area per unit mass. Orbital habitats using spin gravity seem way more likely with places like the Moon and Mercury being the source for the required raw materials.
  - technologia 5y ago
    Suddenly not so much Star Wars as much as it is Gundam :p
    - matheusmoreira 5y ago
      The people who remain on Earth do nothing but pollute it, because their souls are weighed down by gravity!
    - datameta 5y ago
      Or Culture series :)
  - pengaru 5y ago
    Planets are protective, you're going to have a tough time dealing with radiation poisoning spending a lifetime in space without them.
- u801e 5y ago
  > whereas on the surface it's the equivalent pressure of Earth's Mariana trench. The surface pressure on Venus is around 90 atm which is equivalent to the pressure one km below the ocean surface. The Mariana trench is a little over 11 km deep.
  - mattowen_uk 5y ago
    Cheers, I kinda dredged the numbers up from my memory.

sandworm101 5y ago

Mars is closer than the moon, at least in terms of fuel. It takes less velocity/delta-V (aka space gas) to get to the surface of mars than it does the surface of the moon. We can use parachutes/aerobraking at Mars whereas at the moon we have to burn rockets all the way down. So mars is the easier and more dramatic stage for anyone wanting to demonstrate thier rocket tech. Venus is even closer still, but as a hell planet Venus doesn't lend itself to dramatic imagery and storytelling.

ericbarrett 5y ago
It takes a lot more to get back, though—Mars is a deeper gravity well (5 km/s escape velocity versus 2.4 km/s for the Moon). Then you are spending hundreds of days on the return journey, versus a week or less from the Moon. And humans are definitely going to want to come back, because to stay on Mars is to be doomed to radiation poisoning, and not on long timescales. "Recent data from ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter showed that on a six-month journey to the Red Planet an astronaut could be exposed to at least 60% of the total radiation dose limit recommended for their entire career."[0] Maybe for robots, but I think human colonization of Mars without first mastering the Moon is very unlikely. [0] https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/The_radiation_showstopper_for_Mars_exploration https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Ex...

belter 5y ago

We should not have ignored Venus. Its easier to get to than Mars and the top of the atmosphere has reasonable temperatures. Why would a certain type of life would not be possible under 400 C or acid sulfuric environments ? It might be very different from what we have on Earth, but is there anything specific to Venus current environment that makes us believe it is not possible, with the exception it would be very, very, different from what we have on Earth ? I find the Venus images more interesting than Mars. Even more surprising, 30 years ago the Russians were flying balloons for days on Venus atmosphere ! "Soviet Balloon Probes May Have Seen Rain on Venus" https://www.wired.com/2013/04/vega-venus-rain/ https://www.wired.com/2013/04/vega-venus-rain/ "The two 3.5-m-diameter balloons floated for nearly two days in the Venusian atmosphere around 55 km above the surface. Unlike the hostile terrain below, the cloud layers at this height are a veritable wonderland. Temperature and pressure are comparable to Earth’s average and there is ample sunlight streaming in from above. If not for the sulfuric acid clouds and hurricane-force winds, the atmosphere of Venus would be a comfortable living space." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program

belter 5y ago
The Planetary Society has these with post processing for better quality: "Every Picture From Venus' Surface, Ever" https://www.planetary.org/articles/every-picture-from-venus-surface-ever https://www.planetary.org/articles/every-picture-from-venus-...
canadianfella 5y ago
Why do you put spaces before punctuation?
- _Microft 5y ago
  This is off-topic but I think I can help. Some languages, like (European) French, put spaces before question marks[0] and exclamation marks[1] and people might be so used to doing it that they even do it when writing in a different language. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark#Stylistic_variants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark#Stylistic_varian... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclamation_mark#French https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclamation_mark#French

eloff 5y ago

Also while life on the surface of Venus is extremely hostile, it's possible to build floating stations in the atmosphere because it's so much more dense than earth's. High enough in the atmosphere the pressures, temperatures, and solar radiation would be reasonable. It's harder than floating a ship on water, but easier than doing airships on earth. I'm not sure what that gains us over just having a habitat in orbit though. Colonizing other planets doesn't make much sense to begin with yet. We don't even colonize Antarctica, and it's a paradise compared to mars. I'm more interested in setting up industry and habitats in earth orbit. Close enough for low latency internet, and trips measured in hours, but far enough to allow asteroid mining, 24/7 solar, manufacturing and refueling largely outside of earth's gravity well. Plus if something goes wrong you can have escape pods that return to earth. Having a strong space industry like that is also the best protection from potential asteroid impacts.

dougmwne 5y ago
> I'm not sure what that gains us over just having a habitat in orbit though. Critically, it gains us raw materials. Space is empty. The upper atmosphere of Venus is full of elements we can use to sustain life.
- eloff 5y ago
  You mean CO2 and small amounts of nitrogen? That doesn't seem like a great resource. If you value CO2 so highly there is plenty right here on earth that nobody wants and people will actually pay you to remove from the atmosphere. No need to go all the way to Venus. Even on the surface of Venus, inhospitality notwithstanding, the resources are at the bottom of a gravity well equal to earth's. It is way more viable to mine asteroids than mine a planet, especially a planet like Venus. Mining other planets is only interesting if the market for the resource is on that same planet, or we've exhausted the supply of asteroids with that resource.
  - canadianfella 5y ago
    Who said anything about mining?

ethbr0 5y ago

> Given how hostile it is, it seems unlikely we'll go back anytime soon NASA heard your July 4th plea, and sees you Discovery Mission 15 (VERITAS) and 16 (DAVINCI+). Targeted to launch in 2028 and 2029/30 respectively. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VERITAS_(spacecraft) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VERITAS_(spacecraft) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAVINCI%2B https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAVINCI%2B

generalizations 5y ago

> It's worth noting that Venus is still probably a better terraforming target than Mars [1]. This romantic notion of Mars has rooted itself deeply at this point (eg with Elon Musk) but Mars is basically a more distant and inconvenient Moon. There's a distinction there worth pointing out. We can actually land on Mars, and if something goes wrong there are options (Apollo 13 style). If something goes wrong on Venus, you're falling through acid clouds and getting cooked. The vacuum of space is less perilous than the atmosphere of Venus. On the other hand, as you mentioned, Venus has the raw materials and the magnetosphere for terraforming. Might be worth just dropping some hardy lichen on Venus to get the process started, because no one is going to go there as-is.

fnord77 5y ago
Venetian gravity is much closer to earth's too
at_compile_time 5y ago
> Might be worth just dropping some hardy lichen on Venus to get the process started, because no one is going to go there as-is. Hardy is an understatement. Life would need an entirely different chemistry to function at 730K.
- DuskStar 5y ago
  Presumsbly, you'd start in the upper atmosphere and work down. Airborne equivalents to algae?
- webnrrd2k 5y ago
  Maybe something similar to what lives at undersea hydrothermal vents? I know close to nothing about extremophiles, but I imagine that there is something, somewhere on earth, that's used to living in an environment that is closer to Venus's environment.
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    It's one thing to live near hydrothermal vents, and other to live inside them. IIRC no known creature survives above 120 Celsius.

gus_massa 5y ago

> And abundant CO2 means oxygen is abundant. Oxygen combined with other atoms is not rare. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_Mars > Based on these data sources, scientists think that the most abundant chemical elements in the Martian crust are silicon, oxygen, iron, magnesium, aluminum, calcium, and potassium. The problem is separating the Oxygen from the other materials to get Oxygen molecules that you can breath, and that requires a lot of energy. Last year some team made a project to produce Oxygen molecules in Mars using the soil and energy, with some method similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Hall%E2%80%93H%C3%A9roult_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Hall%E2%80%93H%C3%A9... (Here the process use Carbon rods as cathodes, that get "burned", but IIRC their idea was to avoid the Carbon rods and collect the Oxygen molecules.) I'm not sure if this early prototype is viable, anyway. Also, extracting the Oxygen molecules from CO2 requires also a lot of energy. Plants need a lot of sunlight to do that and the artificial methods also need a lot of energy.

cherryturnover 5y ago
What is stopping us from launching seed payloads to these planets with some way to continually water them? Wouldn't that be a way to theoretically test the survivability of the planet without sending people?
- sandworm101 5y ago
  We already know that plants will not survive in martian soil regardless of watering them. For the amount of effort/energy/consumables needed to turn martian soil into something that can grow plants, it would be easier to just send some soil. Or, skip all that and go totally hydroponic. Hydroponics makes economic sense here on earth already. On mars, hydroponics is exponentially easier than traditional farming methods. The first habitats will probably not use any martian resources. First uses will probably be as construction materials. Then possibly as a fuel source. Those are the high-mass uses. Things like growing food/oxygen don't require much mass and so are far down the list.
- retrac 5y ago

api 5y ago

Isn’t Venus too hydrogen poor to be terraformed? Where are you going to get trillions of tons of hydrogen?

TaylorAlexander 5y ago

Making a cloud city on Venus is totally doable but it should be noted that the surface of Venus only rotates once per year (the actual orbit around the sun makes it two days per year). However there is a point in the clouds where you have earth level pressures and temperatures, and the clouds encircle Venus on a time scale much closer to Earth days.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

areoform 5y ago

> Given how hostile it is, it seems unlikely we'll go back anytime soon You're going to be really happy about this then. We're going back to Venus! NASA just chose VERITAS and DAVINCI+ as a one-two-punch combo for Venus. Just in case you aren't familiar with the missions, One is a descent probe + communications relay (DAVINCI+) that is supposed to last 63 minutes from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom, and bring modern spectroscopy + imaging to bear on the atmosphere. They particularly want to investigate trace gas elements and the presence of organic compounds in the atmosphere. As it descends, the probe will also be taking high resolution snap shots of the tessera with a modern-ish (emphasis on the ish) camera right up until it is destroyed. The other one is an orbiter with the goal of making the highest resolution map of Venus possible. And acting as the basis for future missions. They'd also like to monitor the atmosphere to characterize any variations such as the surface emitting water (could there be underground water on Venus? Probably not, but who knows?) Based on overheard watercooler chatter, it appears that one of the concerns that drove NASA to give both Discovery slots to Venus missions is because of the potential loss of institutional knowledge. The people who helped build and run Magellan are retiring, and we haven't sent anything there since. It's important to capture their information and train the next generation on Venus so that we don't lose hard earned lessons. IMO, Venus is a really important planet to study because it helped us to understand global warming and planetary dynamics. A better understanding of Venus means refinements to our atmospheric models for climate change. It's more important than Mars, potential for life or not.

cletus 5y ago
Yeah, I’d heard about these missions. One has a descent probe but I believe it’s atmospheric, not surface like the Venera missions, right? Still cool though. What I personally want to see in my lifetime is a return to Neptune and Uranus. I don’t believe we’ve been to either since Voyager. Given such a mission takes the right planetary alignment, a decade of prep and still a decade to get there this will take awhile. The Venus missions actually make either icy giant missions less likely, sadly. Outer planet missions are super expensive and the next launch window is in the early 2030s so time is actually running out.
- 5y ago

dylan604 5y ago

>It's worth noting that Venus is still probably a better terraforming target than Mars This has always been my sentiment as well. Mars is a dead planet with no magnetic belts for shielding, and is just too far on the edge of the goldilocks zone. Also, if we can figure out how to terraform Venus' atmosphere, then maybe we can "fix" Earth's.

Gravityloss 5y ago
It might not be that hard to create an artificial field for it. 1 Tesla might be enough, similar to what's in MRI machines. Park that in the L1 Lagrange point.
- dylan604 5y ago
  I'd also like to have it attached to the ship so that there is radiation protection during travel. I see that more doable than planet sized protection.

swatkat 5y ago

Indian space agency, ISRO, is planning for a Venus mission in 2026: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shukrayaan-1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shukrayaan-1