View Poll Results: Which planet should we focus on more to terraform?

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  • Mars

    6 30.00%
  • Venus

    4 20.00%
  • Neither.

    10 50.00%
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Thread: Venus vs. Mars

  1. #81

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Quote Originally Posted by PointOfViewGun View Post
    A colony on the Moon is harder to build than to build a space colony. It's highly unlikely we can terraform the Moon as well. Both Titan and Europa have very low surface gravities, something we can never change. Our moon is likely to be a transit station that will be suitable for really short term habitation. The only plausible option is Venus.
    Is a colony on the Moon harder to build than s space colony? Why? If you had giant boring equipment like thar tunnel out subways you could create more living space than stringing space station modules, I would imagine.

    The moon is the place to start a cony, even if it is only a scientific colony. It is close, and lot easier to supply and support than Mars. Before you start s planet further out, you would want to at least practice having a colony somewhere a lot closer.

    And if people can handle zero g for a year, and they can, then they can handle the moon's lower gravity for just as long or longer. A little gravity might be a whole lot better than no gravity at all. Instead of daily hard exercising, may be all you have to do is carry around weights

  2. #82

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Quote Originally Posted by Common Soldier View Post
    Is a colony on the Moon harder to build than s space colony? Why? If you had giant boring equipment like thar tunnel out subways you could create more living space than stringing space station modules, I would imagine.
    The moon is the place to start a cony, even if it is only a scientific colony. It is close, and lot easier to supply and support than Mars. Before you start s planet further out, you would want to at least practice having a colony somewhere a lot closer.
    And if people can handle zero g for a year, and they can, then they can handle the moon's lower gravity for just as long or longer. A little gravity might be a whole lot better than no gravity at all. Instead of daily hard exercising, may be all you have to do is carry around weights
    For one simple reason. We can not generate Earth-like gravity on the moon. Humans can not handle zero gravity without damage. They survive, yes, yet they can't really handle it well. Having non-zero low gravity is better but not a solution. Human body is not made to exist on non-ideal gravity situations for a long time.
    The Armenian Issue

  3. #83

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    We cannot generate earth like gravity on any planet. Venus is the only planet close to earth gravity and you are stuck with floating cities that I see a big problem with. It will be as difficult to land on Venus as the earth, and and if you use parachutes like today's rockets, you have to catch the rockets before falling they fall to the surface and are destroyed. And unlike a base on the moon or a fixed body, the floating cities won't be fixed in place, but the location will move with the winds.

    We know 0 g is bad news, but we don't know what low gs foes. Perhaps, if you wear a 100 kg suit all day, that will keep you body healthy.

    In any case, while it is feasible to build a station that generates artificial gravity, we have yet to build one, and it might be easier to build a scientific colony on the moon than a spinning space station to generate artificial gravity.

    A moon base can give us sone data how low as oppose to no gravity effects humans long term. We might be able to extrapolate what the long teem effects of less than one g.

    But any colony on a planet or moon is not going to be Earth gravity. Even if we have faster than light space drive, most planets we find won't be exactly 1 g.
    What if we find a planet the size of Mars but with an atmosphere as thick as Earth's? Should we write off the planet because its gravity is too low? And the scenario is not impossible. Titan, a fraction of Mars' mass, has an atmosphere thicker than Earth.

    So I would say it is inaccurate to say that it is harder to build a moon base than a space station. You won't have Earth level gravity, but that is something you just have to live with, and that will be true for every planet in the solar system, even Venus. Venus may have almost the level of Earth's gravity, but it still isn't the same.

  4. #84

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Quote Originally Posted by Common Soldier View Post
    We cannot generate earth like gravity on any planet. Venus is the only planet close to earth gravity and you are stuck with floating cities that I see a big problem with. It will be as difficult to land on Venus as the earth, and and if you use parachutes like today's rockets, you have to catch the rockets before falling they fall to the surface and are destroyed. And unlike a base on the moon or a fixed body, the floating cities won't be fixed in place, but the location will move with the winds.

    We know 0 g is bad news, but we don't know what low gs foes. Perhaps, if you wear a 100 kg suit all day, that will keep you body healthy.

    In any case, while it is feasible to build a station that generates artificial gravity, we have yet to build one, and it might be easier to build a scientific colony on the moon than a spinning space station to generate artificial gravity.

    A moon base can give us sone data how low as oppose to no gravity effects humans long term. We might be able to extrapolate what the long teem effects of less than one g.

    But any colony on a planet or moon is not going to be Earth gravity. Even if we have faster than light space drive, most planets we find won't be exactly 1 g.
    What if we find a planet the size of Mars but with an atmosphere as thick as Earth's? Should we write off the planet because its gravity is too low? And the scenario is not impossible. Titan, a fraction of Mars' mass, has an atmosphere thicker than Earth.

    So I would say it is inaccurate to say that it is harder to build a moon base than a space station. You won't have Earth level gravity, but that is something you just have to live with, and that will be true for every planet in the solar system, even Venus. Venus may have almost the level of Earth's gravity, but it still isn't the same.
    Except we're not stuck with floating cities on Venus. Nobody suggested we should land and try to live on Venus with the current conditions. The whole idea of the thread is to change those conditions on a planet. We already know low gravity (not just zero gravity) creates many health problems. Any attempted colony in such a situation would be a health care disaster for its inhabitants. What I'm talking about is long-term habitation which would be required for a colony to be a colony. You can easily find fault in what I say if you change the parameters.
    The Armenian Issue

  5. #85
    swabian's Avatar igni ferroque
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    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Quote Originally Posted by Common Soldier View Post
    Is a colony on the Moon harder to build than s space colony? Why? If you had giant boring equipment like thar tunnel out subways you could create more living space than stringing space station modules, I would imagine.

    The moon is the place to start a cony, even if it is only a scientific colony. It is close, and lot easier to supply and support than Mars. Before you start s planet further out, you would want to at least practice having a colony somewhere a lot closer.

    And if people can handle zero g for a year, and they can, then they can handle the moon's lower gravity for just as long or longer. A little gravity might be a whole lot better than no gravity at all. Instead of daily hard exercising, may be all you have to do is carry around weights
    The problem with low-g environment is muscle and bone atrophy. The lack of constant gravitational stress on the body makes it weak, which is a problem when astronauts are returning to earth. This problem could theoretically be bypassed with genetic engineering. I mean, it will have to be genetic engineering. It's nothing less than the very basis of manned long-term missions and eventually for colonisation. The thing is, though - as i mentioned above - that actual colonists might not need to worry to be ever exposed to earth's gravity. Same applies to permanent inhabitants of large space arcologies and the like.

    BBC Article: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...ied-astronauts
    Last edited by swabian; July 04, 2021 at 08:44 AM.

  6. #86

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    It's not just muscle and bone atrophy. Astronauts working in ISS for a long duration going almost blind is not a product of that. Low or no gravity also affects the fluid circulation in your body. It can cause a number of complications in the long run.
    The Armenian Issue

  7. #87
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    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Yes economically it will pretty much always be cheaper to Mariform (or Veniform or whatever) the humans than Terraform the planets. Need a human to live in space? Genetically modify a spherical radiation resistant human with a nice tough skin (in case of decompression), retractable limbs, multiple eyes (in case of zero G blindness) and increased intelligence.

    Behold, the new man! Homo Stellaris!
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  8. #88
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    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    We could also just send cockroaches to the terraformed planets, wait a couple of centuries for them to evolve, and then either trade with them or do a Space Troopers remake with higher production value.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cookiegod View Post
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  9. #89

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    It is quite remarkable how hard it is for people to imagine the proportions of anything planetary. If we had to bring some material from Earth to the other planet that would have any effect on a planetary scale, we would completely deplete our own resources and destroy our own climate here in the process.

    Only two rockets in history have surpassed bringing 50 tonnes of payload to orbit. So let us assume that we got big rockets to bring something to Venus that isn't there. The water in one Olympic 50-meter swimming pool contains 2,500 tonnes worth of water. So to transport that to Venus, we would need to have 50 massive rockets fired from Earth. And if you think that dumping one swimming pool's worth of anything into that fiery hell is going to have any affect on how things look there, you are a fool.

  10. #90

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Who suggested shipping out water from Earth to Venus?
    The Armenian Issue

  11. #91

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    I bet many who read that actually understand that water in a familiar, clearly-defined space such as a swimming pool offered an easily understandable example of the enormous effort it takes to bring anything from earth that will have a planetary-scale effect in the other end.

  12. #92

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Quote Originally Posted by Septentrionalis View Post
    I bet many who read that actually understand that water in a familiar, clearly-defined space such as a swimming pool offered an easily understandable example of the enormous effort it takes to bring anything from earth that will have a planetary-scale effect in the other end.
    Which is the context I'm asking in. To make it even more generic divorced from you example: Who suggested sending anything to Venus in such a large scale from Earth?
    The Armenian Issue

  13. #93

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Quote Originally Posted by PointOfViewGun View Post
    Who suggested sending anything to Venus in such a large scale from Earth?
    It doesn't matter if anyone did directly or indirectly now that I see your point. If you intend to terraform Venus without material resources from earth on a large scale, that is just fabulous! Should make cooling our planet by a couple of degrees globally without sacrificing our wasteful ways of life a walk in the park. I mean, it's right here and there is no acid rain to worry about.

  14. #94

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Quote Originally Posted by PointOfViewGun View Post
    It's not just muscle and bone atrophy. Astronauts working in ISS for a long duration going almost blind is not a product of that. Low or no gravity also affects the fluid circulation in your body. It can cause a number of complications in the long run.
    That's the point. We do not know what low g does to the body as oppose to zero g, since we have never experimented with low g as opposed to no g.

    We are speculating that low g effect will be the similar to zero g, but that is just speculation. We just don't know what the effects will be.

  15. #95
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    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Plenty of (frozen) water in the asteroid belt isn't there? I bet some of it isn't contaminated too. Just scoop it up when we collide Mars with Venus.

    Honestly Terraforming is a nice idea but the economic challenge is huge, and the problem isn't really that the planets don't suit us, its that we don't suit anywhere but Earth. Be the change you want to see. If humans want to travel the universe we need to transcend our humanity. After all, a planetary life form that evolved in a somewhat dense (but not too dense! muh eardrums!) wet (ie 1-99 degrees C) oxygen rich environment at the bottom of a (not too steep) gravity well in a universe where the temperature goes from 0-5000 and diamonds and plasma are vastly more common than liquid water isn't exactly maxxed for adaptability.

    [edit-the span of temperatures in the universe seems to be 1 K (-272 C) to 5,500,000,272 K: the absolute hottest seems to have been 1,420(blaze it),000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,272 K or "Planck temperature" just a wee bit after the Big Bang. So I was just a little bit out lol.]

    https://www.sciencealert.com/the-hottest-and-coldest-temperatures-according-to-physics

    Quote Originally Posted by Cookiegod View Post
    We could also just send cockroaches to the terraformed planets, wait a couple of centuries for them to evolve, and then either trade with them or do a Space Troopers remake with higher production value.
    ...if the cockroaches are smart enough we could use them for labour (I bet they don't unionise like those pesky humans), and why wait centuries? Even better we could program robots (preferable biological ones) to evolve themselves and we could play chess with them while they crush our skulls....nothing the God of Biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.

    Also how dare you suggest Star Ship Troopers production values could be improved!
    Last edited by Cyclops; July 12, 2021 at 04:32 PM.
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  16. #96
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    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Quote Originally Posted by Septentrionalis View Post
    Should make cooling our planet by a couple of degrees globally without sacrificing our wasteful ways of life a walk in the park. I mean, it's right here and there is no acid rain to worry about.
    It was difficult to go to the moon, difficult to build the first computer, even more difficult to circle around the planet by ships, not even knowing what food to keep health or what weather they may encounter. If we had chosen the easy routes every time, we would have nothing today.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cookiegod View Post
    wtf no.
    A successful colony needs enough volunteers willing to live horrible lives and to make enough money to offset the cost of maintaining it. That's it. Helium-3 baby!
    I'd volunteer and pretty sure there are many out there.

    It's pathetic to hide in a cave when the whole world is right outside. People can make all the excuses but really they're just frightened children growing up in a bubble and afraid of taking any risk. It's sad our modern cultures even encourage that kind of thinking. Can you imagine Columbus was like that? or the crew on Terror?

  17. #97
    swabian's Avatar igni ferroque
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    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    Yes economically it will pretty much always be cheaper to Mariform (or Veniform or whatever) the humans than Terraform the planets. Need a human to live in space? Genetically modify a spherical radiation resistant human with a nice tough skin (in case of decompression), retractable limbs, multiple eyes (in case of zero G blindness) and increased intelligence.

    Behold, the new man! Homo Stellaris!
    Yup. Also employ their digestive system to move in low G with farts.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    Plenty of (frozen) water in the asteroid belt isn't there? I bet some of it isn't contaminated too. Just scoop it up when we collide Mars with Venus.

    Honestly Terraforming is a nice idea but the economic challenge is huge, and the problem isn't really that the planets don't suit us, its that we don't suit anywhere but Earth. Be the change you want to see. If humans want to travel the universe we need to transcend our humanity. After all, a planetary life form that evolved in a somewhat dense (but not too dense! muh eardrums!) wet (ie 1-99 degrees C) oxygen rich environment at the bottom of a (not too steep) gravity well in a universe where the temperature goes from 0-5000 and diamonds and plasma are vastly more common than liquid water isn't exactly maxxed for adaptability.
    No, we probably cannot toss frozen water asteroids around. They are extremely far away and the energy necessary to decelerate them and to toss or transport them into the right direction would be too high.

    Quote Originally Posted by AqD View Post


    I'd volunteer and pretty sure there are many out there.
    If i would be young again, in many centuries, i would feel the same. For now we have to suffer this earth, i'm afraid.

  18. #98

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Quote Originally Posted by swabian View Post
    No, we probably cannot toss frozen water asteroids around. They are extremely far away and the energy necessary to decelerate them and to toss or transport them into the right direction would be too high.
    No need to decelerate them. All we need is a rocket to attach to one and push it in the right direction for a while. The rest is gravity. It's a rather low cost operation considering any terraforming process.
    The Armenian Issue

  19. #99

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    I don't think "its expensive" argument really fits the bill here.
    Our governments spend like crazy, and show no intention to stop the taxpayer-funded gravy train anytime soon. If we are going to break out the abacas and cut out the unnecessary government spending (foreign aid, useless bureaucracy, welfare, military, bailouts and corporate subsidies) we will quickly realize that we have a pretty good warchest for Great Crusade I mean space exploration.
    As for which planet, then I'd say we should do both.
    We should colonize space as far as we can, building colonies and outposts in as many places as possible. Never know which celestial body has what resources that could come in handy later.
    Last edited by Heathen Hammer; July 14, 2021 at 08:42 AM.

  20. #100

    Default Re: Venus vs. Mars

    Quote Originally Posted by AqD View Post
    It was difficult to go to the moon, difficult to build the first computer, even more difficult to circle around the planet by ships, not even knowing what food to keep health or what weather they may encounter. If we had chosen the easy routes every time, we would have nothing today.
    You are right in saying that choosing the easy route does not get us where we need to go. My fascination with this thread, however, as expressed quite explicitly, is the observation that many people cannot wrap their head around the material and resource needs of planetary-scale change, but keep confounding the daunting obstacles of terraforming with other scientific hurdles that are very different to overcome. In my opinion, your examples betray the same difficulty to keep these apart.

    You mention going to the moon. Going to the moon was not that hard apparently, but a planetary-scale process of sending 7 billion people to the moon is something else. Building the first computer is hard, for sure, but what about building a computer of planet size? Perhaps most importantly, circumnavigating the Earth by oceans is no small task for the person doing it the first time, but it pales in comparison (an understatement for sure) with recreating those oceans in a world with no liquid water and no ability to host liquid water in those quantities.

    All these explanations offered here are fanciful at best. Crash other heavenly bodies into Venus? Next to impossible, and how much water would those comets or asteroids really contain? Not nearly enough to make any noticeable difference let alone terraform anything. Terraforming a planet is a fiction that has just gained momentum among the technopositive crowd who clearly do not consider the energy or material needs of a task of that size.

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