Venus vs. Mars

[Cyclops]

...
Venus: Even better.
Have fun terraforming a planet with a surface temperature hot enough to melt lead. Have fun doing that while the only magnetosphere on the planet comes in the shape of an electric current from the solar wind blasting away at the planet, guaranteed to roast anyone if for some magic reason the surface temperature hasn't done so already. But hey, at the very least you do have an atmosphere, 96% carbon dioxide.
Weather prediction: Clouds of sulfuric acid and no rain because just like with Mars the solar wind has blasted off all hydrogen....

Only just noticed this bit, thanks for illuminating my crass ignorance. I had thought Venus had a liquid iron core but oh dear. So maybe if we do slingshot them together there's a tiny chance of a molten iron core? Definitely the work of many millions of years.

The rest I feel is theoretically doable, once we start hurling planets like nerf balls. As Sumskilz says an ice moon here, an orbital tweak there, and we might well have a blank slate like terra 3.5 billion years ago. Then its simply ( ) a matter of seeding precisely the right lifeforms to convert the atmosphere...and voila! A lovely Earth 2 for whatever we have evolved into in the 2 or so Billion years needed. Yes I know it took 4 billion last time around but we'd be using a private-public partnership this time so I assume efficiencies.

Well, i guess their private foundations do a lot of good things for the public. That they save a lot of taxes because of them is only coincidence.

Sorry I was on a Blade Runner jag. The response I was looking for was "Corporations are like any other organisation. They are either a benefit or a hazard. if they are a benefit its not my problem". Then Professor Farnworth comes in and asks if this is to be an empathy test.

The weird grimes rant about AI=Communism seems to neglect the fact AI is likely going to be generated by megacorps. Either it will be a supersmart slave, or it will learn about humanity from outliers like Musk or Bezos. Either way normal humans will have very little chance.

[PointOfViewGun]

We do not know whether Venus' core is liquid or solid. We simply know that its about the same size as that of Earth's and made up of iron and nickel.

[Vladyvid]

The concept of terraforming is for now just a fictional idea, because we cant do it. We could get to Mars or Venus, but we cant terraform them. If we could, then Mars would be a better candidate because its just a smaller planet so its that much easier to change things on a smaller scale i would think.

[Common Soldier]

Kilometer wide domed cities would only be feasible if the planet remained at its reduced gravity, if at all. Trust me, I'm an engineer and all that. Probably not even then, since you need one heck of a lot material to shield yourself from cosmic radiation, and building in such a hostile environment would be far harder to do than on earth.

Only about about 2 to 3 m (6 -9 ft) of dirt would be required to provide adequate radiation shielding. And the "dome" need not be very high, maybe only a couple stories high. Perhaps I should have said "roofed" rather than domed. Most of the city could be half buried. Could you provide a network of roofs running a kilometer long? Don't see it as Impossible engineeringwise as long as you have the material and energy. You have an entire planet to mine, and no ecology to worry about. Not sure how thick lead glass would have to be to provide adequate shielding. Roof would not need to be entirely clear, only skylights would be needed. Easier to build tge entire city underground, just need excavating equipment, difficult but not technically impossible.

Oh yeah, I should have mentioned: Those fancy spaceships with windows and those colonies with glass domes? Ain't gonna happen, unless everyone's ok with having one third of their DNA sliced per year spent in space.

You should look up what O'Neil colonies were before you dissed them. They were a proposal by a physicist Dr. O'Neil for tens of kilometer long cylindrical rotating station. As I said, you only need around 3m (9 ft) of dirt and rock to provide enough shielding. The only issue would be and the ends, which you could avoid having people near them. You would spin then to provide 1g gravity. Since most of the mass is just rock, you could get it from mining asteroids or the moon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder

Oh and I forgot/am not so sure how much of an issue that'd still be with the significantly reduced yet still existent gravity, but with regards to zero gravity at least you'd face very significant challenges with regards to reproduction.
Translation: Even if your thing works, it probably won't work as well as on earth .

Long term zero g is bad, but we do not know how less than 1g will affect someone. Probably extended stays at significantly less than 1 g would cause serious problems if you return to Earth, but maybe not otherwise. Anyone's guess.

It's honestly fun to go through the dozens of reasons why it can't work, each one of which should be enough to kill it for the foreseeable future.

Difficult is not impossible.

[PointOfViewGun]

The Human Body and Gravity

Medically-speaking, getting there is essentially the easy part. The current six-month rotation on-board the International Space Station was partly designed so that it reflects the time taken to get to Mars, resulting in greater knowledge on what state an individual would arrive at Mars in. Physiological effects aboard the ISS range from muscle atrophy to osteoporosis and negative effects on the balance and cardiovascular system. With these mitigated for to some extent, such signs of the body adjusting to daily life without gravity are in synchrony with those likely to be experienced on a journey to Mars. As a result, the trip itself will not be so different to living on board the ISS — however the consequences of travelling beyond low Earth orbit and then living on Mars is far less familiar territory in space research. After a long space flight, astronauts find it difficult to stand and orientate themselves in the weight of Earth’s gravity. A crew of post-mission specialists are ready to assist astronauts upon landing on Earth, but this will not be the case for the first settlers on Mars. The surface gravity of Mars is 38% that of Earth. That might make it slightly easier on landing, but in the long run, the full force of gravity that our bodies have adapted to will not be present to re-strengthen the astronauts’ cells, bones, and muscles as they readapt to a gravity environment. Adjusting to this lower level of gravitational pull on Mars may cause a physiological change in the astronauts’ bone density, muscle strength, and circulation making it impossible to survive under Earth conditions if they were to ever return.

With the amount of time it takes to get to Mars, live there and come back, astronauts are likely to have great trouble in surviving their return. We might very well be condemning them to a one-way trip. The ship that will go there has to have artificial gravity through rotation. It's a must. Yet, by creating colonies on Mars, we'd be creating a lesser human race there.

[Cookiegod]

I think this categorical rejection of newer technologies ignores the advances we have already achieved.

I'm not rejecting any newer technologies or advances. I'm right with them. I'm actually working on some of them.

For example you hear constantly some spurious claims about AI being made by people who have no idea about it, yet I have, including ANN, so there's nothing unreasonable with me rejecting those claims.

An example of where I'm being positive is an algorithm I'm finalising right now, which can measure the structural integrity of a structure from its vibrations almost live, with just a few seconds of lag, and can transfer the results to update a FEM of the building to reflect the observed changes. Quite a step up from the strain sensors currently employed.
My work is optimistic since the sensors it relies on are quite expensive, so for my work to be feasible the cost has to go down enough, which I hope will happen, since the market would be there for it, as we have more off shore structures than ever on earth.

That same work however is also something that yet again also a good exercise in humility. One of those methods I implement were developed in the 60s for NASA's moon landing program. It just went through the decades poorly understood with regards to its capabilities, and consequently underused.

And that's where the main issue here lies. I think people aren't aware how very little the scientific advances in the last couple of decades have been in crucial aspects.

Sure, we have computers now, allowing us to do much more complex calculations, and I for one don't even know how to use a slide rule. Yet those working with it were capable enough to land and start vessels on the moon. All the thrust vectoring done by SpaceX is not that hard. It required some leg work, sure, but it is in no way revolutionary or ground breaking.

Thing is that there are things that we can say are impossible, such as terraforming Mars, then there are things that are unfeasible, and then there are things that are undesirable, such as living in space or in a makeshift hostile environment that millions of years of evolution have not prepared us for.

Precisely, bacteria or organisms in general, that can alter an atmosphere is not some science fiction. We already have organisms on Earth that are capable of changing molecular composition of their environment. We can already alter or adjust mechanisms of organisms. Getting them to Venus is not something that would be economically devastating. There are no ecological cost as we'd be testing them on a different planet meanwhile introducing the wrong organisms on Earth could be devastating. This is a mission Elon Musk or Bill Gates could fund by themselves. The Mars Perseverance mission cost less than 3 billion dollars. We're not talking about some kind of materialization technology. Much of what at least I pointed at are feasible technologies.

My knowledge of bioengineering is very poor at best, so I have zero evidence for this. But here's some food for thought:
1) You bring a limited, quite small amount of these bacteria to the planet. We assume ideal conditions, where the environment of the planet is perfect for them. Even with exponential growth it'll still take them some time to work their way around an entire globe.
2) Laws of thermodynamics: The reactions fusing C and O2 to CO2 are exothermic. This is how we get our energy. The breakdown of CO2 needs to add that same enthalpy back into the equation. It is endothermic and needs work to be put into it.
This is why all miracle solutions are bound to fail.
That's not meant to talk down those bacterias, I do not know how the bacteria cultures you are talking about work, but I think neither do you. You're leaving out some very important parts of the equations. It's quite possible and imaginable that bacteria cultures could be part of a solution, but not the miracle solution where you just drop them into the atmosphere and all'd be swell. I'm very hard pressed to believe that.
3) Ok you have the bacteria, and they can do miracles. We'll assume this. You'd still be bonkers to just drop them into our atmosphere, as that'd risk creating a "bullfrogs in Australia" type of scenario, except far more destructive, with the potential destruction of all plant life and consequently all other evolved species, assuming that our atmosphere would be nutrient rich enough for said bacteria to begin with. I'm already sceptical that nature hasn't seen this bacteria evolve on its own if it was that easy.

Only about about 2 to 3 m (6 -9 ft) of dirt would be required to provide adequate radiation shielding. And the "dome" need not be very high, maybe only a couple stories high. Perhaps I should have said "roofed" rather than domed. Most of the city could be half buried. Could you provide a network of roofs running a kilometer long? Don't see it as Impossible engineeringwise as long as you have the material and energy. You have an entire planet to mine, and no ecology to worry about. Not sure how thick lead glass would have to be to provide adequate shielding. Roof would not need to be entirely clear, only skylights would be needed. Easier to build tge entire city underground, just need excavating equipment, difficult but not technically impossible.

1: The first reason why this km wide dome would be ridiculous is the moment. Problems don't scale linearly, they grow exponentially. The moment works off length squared. If you want to compensate for it through curvature to have only positive stresses, you'd consequently have to dig much deeper than before or build higher. Smaller domes would consequently be much much easier and cheaper. Though granted, the dome would have negative pressure on the outside, but that creates additional problems, since the real problem could be preventing the shielding from ripping outwards.
2: Any catastrophic failure at that dome would dome that doom doom that entire dome and all the people in it. If you have smaller domes, you have smaller problems. Any failure of a small one would impact the rest of the colony much less. So already from a risk management perspective no one in his right mind would go ahead and build those big ones without big reasons.

You should look up what O'Neil colonies were before you dissed them. They were a proposal by a physicist Dr. O'Neil for tens of kilometer long cylindrical rotating station. As I said, you only need around 3m (9 ft) of dirt and rock to provide enough shielding. The only issue would be and the ends, which you could avoid having people near them. You would spin then to provide 1g gravity. Since most of the mass is just rock, you could get it from mining asteroids or the moon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder

I specifically talked about centrifugal artificial gravity before, and you assume I don't know what it is?! Have fun looking out a window with "only" 3m of dirt around it.
I highly doubt that number. It might be correct for relatively short space flights, but you want people to live and thrive and not have a higher propensity for cancer issues than on earth.

Long term zero g is bad, but we do not know how less than 1g will affect someone. Probably extended stays at significantly less than 1 g would cause serious problems if you return to Earth, but maybe not otherwise. Anyone's guess.

We can extrapolate, and what we can extrapolate, is bad.

Difficult is not impossible.

A few of them impossible, many more of them unfeasible, and an even greater number of them are straight up undesirable.

[PointOfViewGun]

Thing is that there are things that we can say are impossible, such as terraforming Mars, then there are things that are unfeasible, and then there are things that are undesirable, such as living in space or in a makeshift hostile environment that millions of years of evolution have not prepared us for.
My knowledge of bioengineering is very poor at best, so I have zero evidence for this. But here's some food for thought:
1) You bring a limited, quite small amount of these bacteria to the planet. We assume ideal conditions, where the environment of the planet is perfect for them. Even with exponential growth it'll still take them some time to work their way around an entire globe.
2) Laws of thermodynamics: The reactions fusing C and O2 to CO2 are exothermic. This is how we get our energy. The breakdown of CO2 needs to add that same enthalpy back into the equation. It is endothermic and needs work to be put into it.
This is why all miracle solutions are bound to fail.
That's not meant to talk down those bacterias, I do not know how the bacteria cultures you are talking about work, but I think neither do you. You're leaving out some very important parts of the equations. It's quite possible and imaginable that bacteria cultures could be part of a solution, but not the miracle solution where you just drop them into the atmosphere and all'd be swell. I'm very hard pressed to believe that.
3) Ok you have the bacteria, and they can do miracles. We'll assume this. You'd still be bonkers to just drop them into our atmosphere, as that'd risk creating a "bullfrogs in Australia" type of scenario, except far more destructive, with the potential destruction of all plant life and consequently all other evolved species, assuming that our atmosphere would be nutrient rich enough for said bacteria to begin with. I'm already sceptical that nature hasn't seen this bacteria evolve on its own if it was that easy.

No one suggests it can be done instantly. However, the idea that it would take thousands of years is not realistic. It can likely be done within decades. We know how fast bacteria or organisms in general can expand. As I type these, an increase in certain substances in sea of Marmara in Turkey caused mucilage that covered entire coastlines. These kinds of sea life "explosions" can happen very fast with the right conditions. In fact, I bet the time to research the right bacteria for the required conditions would take longer than for us to see real effects of the bacteria in work. Yes, as these bacteria work, they will also output heat, but they will also change the composition of the atmosphere. This will potentially reduce the green house effect and more heat will be able to escape the planet.

Again, you're coming from a false premise, that somehow a single bacteria will turn the planet like Earth in a day. Nobody suggested that. It's annoying at best to people battle wind mills like that. The idea is a tiered approach and I've already pointed at this. First task is to calm the atmosphere. Get rid of the carbon dioxide which will decrease the atmospheric pressure as well as the heat saved by the planet.

E. coli bacteria engineered to eat carbon dioxide

E. coli is on a diet. Researchers have created a strain of the lab workhorse bacterium — full name Escherichia coli — that grows by consuming carbon dioxide instead of sugars or other organic molecules.

The idea here is that there is nothing to lose for a small price. We get the ability to test out such methods in a planetary scale in an environment that poses no risk to Earth.

[Cookiegod]

E. coli bacteria engineered to eat carbon dioxide


The idea here is that there is nothing to lose for a small price. We get the ability to test out such methods in a planetary scale in an environment that poses no risk to Earth.

The bacteria still consume energy, rather than produce it. For them to consume carbon dioxide, they have to do a reaction with a negative enthalpy, or it has to offset the energy expense by producing more energy in a different equation.

EDIT: Gave your link a quick glance now, and saw this:

The CO2-eating, or autotrophic, E. coli strains can still grow on sugar — and would use that source of fuel over CO2, given the choice, says Milo. Compared with normal E. coli, which can double in number every 20 minutes, the autotrophic E. coli are laggards, dividing every 18 hours when grown in an atmosphere that is 10% CO2. They are not able to subsist without sugar on atmospheric levels of CO2 — currently 0.041%.

The 0.04% CO2 level was precisely what I was referring to when I said:

assuming that our atmosphere would be nutrient rich enough for said bacteria to begin with.

[PointOfViewGun]

The bacteria still consume energy, rather than produce it. For them to consume carbon dioxide, they have to do a reaction with a negative enthalpy, or it has to offset the energy expense by producing more energy in a different equation.
EDIT: Gave your link a quick glance now, and saw this:
The 0.04% CO2 level was precisely what I was referring to when I said:

Which is perfect for Venus as its atmosphere is made up of 95% carbon dioxide. Not sure why producing energy is such a concern as well. What's your point?

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Changing the atmosphere of Venus could make this planet not to a second earth, but to a second Mars - live impossible because of bombardement with cosmic radioactivity:

Translated with Google:

In contrast to Earth, Venus does not have its own magnetic field that protects it from the supersonic flow of the solar wind. However, this flow creates a weak, induced magnetic field around Venus. An analysis of the data that Solar Orbiter collected during its first flyby maneuver on Venus last December shows that this unique magnetic field is still strong enough to accelerate particles to several million kilometers per hour. The analysis was published online on May 3 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. In the opinion of the international research team, the results are a valuable aid in the study of planets in other solar systems and underline the importance of studying different planetary magnetic fields in the universe.

The earth creates its own intrinsic magnetic field using a molten liquid material in its core. The situation is different with Venus: it receives its magnetic field from the interaction of the solar wind with the planet's ionosphere, i.e. the part of the atmosphere that contains electrically charged atoms (ions). These ions generate electrical currents. When the solar wind sweeps over Venus, it interacts with these currents, creating a complete magnetosphere around the planet.

https://www.uni-kiel.de/de/universit...-orbiter-venus

If we changing blindly the atmosphere of Venus with trial and error without knowing the results we gain possibly nothing as creating a second life hostile Mars.

[PointOfViewGun]

Magnetic field is a must. That's why two major obstacles needs to be tackled with Venus. The atmosphere and the magnetic field. There is the possibility of Venus generating one if it starts spinning as fast as Earth. Something I touched upon since first post. However, in addition to the need to create an atmosphere on Mars, there is also the need to create gravity as well as the magnetic field. Short of discovering graviton, we will never be able to make Mars' gravity close to Earth's.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

There is the possibility of Venus generating one if it starts spinning as fast as Earth.

Why would Venus spin faster? How do we achieve it? Its all wishful thinking at the moment.

[PointOfViewGun]

Why would Venus spin faster? How do we achieve it? Its all wishful thinking at the moment.

There are a number of proposed ways this can be achieved. One proposed way is to jet out the atmosphere. Another one is to hit the planet with large enough asteroids at certain angles. That option can also help with the atmosphere given the composition of the asteroid we use. Its also a feasible one as we can use there are plenty of material in the asteroid belt and all it needs is the right kind of nudge. With the arrival of quantum computers we can safely determine such an objects trajectory.

There have also been a simulation study that basically says with the current spin, if the planet had Earth's atmosphere it would be possible to have a manageable climate similar to that of Earth's. Only problem to solve would be the lack of a magnetosphere. That can be created artificially. Gravity can't be.

Also:

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

The development of Quantum computers will need some time till they work really reliable.

And we can't even defend earth from an incoming asteroid now but shall be able to move an asteroid from the asteroid belt to hit Venus in the right angle?

I'm more as sceptical.

[PointOfViewGun]

The development of Quantum computers will need some time till they work really reliable.

And we can't even defend earth from an incoming asteroid now but shall be able to move an asteroid from the asteroid belt to hit Venus in the right angle?

I'm more as sceptical.

Again, we're not talking about terraforming Venus or Mars tomorrow. We're likely looking at a time span of a few hundred years at least. It's hell of a lot easier to push an asteroid than to stop one. We're also a lot closer to changing the trajectory of one as well. Aikijutsu, not boxing.

[Cookiegod]

"Quantum computers"
Uhm. And you're sure that they'll come because...?!

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

I really doubt that there will be a need for it in the next few hundred years, as the malthusian catastrophy won't happen.

Fertility rates are decreasing worldwide because of scientific and economical progress since 1950.



We will reach a top of 10,9 billion people on earth in 2100 (UN). Then it will decrease. No need for extraterresterial colonisation.

[Cookiegod]

I don't know Morticia, the US prison population is exploding, so a space prison would make sense.

[PointOfViewGun]

"Quantum computers"
Uhm. And you're sure that they'll come because...?!

Because they're already here?

IBM unveils first quantum computer in Germany

It is Germany's first quantum computer, and it is capable of bending the laws of physics and computing in order to work. IBM hopes to have a quantum computer that is 37 times faster in two years.

[Cookiegod]

https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/...ntum-computing