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Space/Science » in reply to Terrafroming Venus

re: Terrafroming Venus

Venus has 3 main problems.
1. Too much atmosphere
2. Too much solar radiation
3. Rotates to slow.

As you know, Venus has way too much carbon dioxide, but did you know that Venus has about three times as much Nitrogen as the Earth (It only makes up about 2.5-3% of Venus atmosphere).

First, let’s get rid of most of that Carbon Dioxide. If we could mine the hydrogen from a gas giant, particularly one whose gravity well is not too strong (Jupiter is 2.6 G’s, Saturn and Neptune are 1.1 G’s and Uranus is 0.9 G’s, so lets go with Uranus or Saturn) we could ship it in huge tankers to Venus. These tankers could be basically huge gasbags made of carbon nano-tubes.

Once in orbit around Venus, we start processing her atmosphere. We split the Carbon Dioxide into Carbon and Oxygen. We combine the Oxygen with the Hydrogen we got from Saturn (or Uranus) to make water and energy. (We’ll save some of the oxygen to give Venus a breathable atmosphere) The leftover Carbon could be used to build tankers or other things, or sent back to Venus. We’ll leave a tiny percentage of the Carbon Dioxide alone to return to the planet’s atmosphere.

Any Nitrogen we remove will be stored in tankers bound for Mars, until over half of the Nitrogen is removed from Venus atmosphere.

The Sulfuric Acid clouds would be converted to Sulfur and water.

Problem 1 is taken care of. Venus now has a breathable atmosphere, suitable for plants and animals, plus vast oceans of water.

Problem 2 and 3 could be solved with the same solution. I had thought mirrors and solar shades would be the best way to control the amount of solar radiation reaching any spot on Venus.

I found a better way. Build a sphere around Venus (The ends are open like a round, pitted olive) The outside of the sphere lets sunlight in. The whole surface is this way. It is covered with tiny little holes.

The sunlight is channeled through fiber optics to an area on the inside of the sphere (the side facing Venus) and exits where the light then travels to the planet. Only part of the inside of the sphere lets sunlight out towards the surface. All of the fiber optics lead to this area. Any extra solar radiation can be used for energy.

This sphere rotates once every twenty four hours, and thus, so does the exit point of the sunlight, giving Venus a 24 hour day.

The two only problems with this approach is with approach, is ships landing on Venus, and space debris hitting the sphere.

Ships would have to enter through the holes in the sphere poles. These holes would be large enough to allow the Earths Moon to pass through (Not that we would want to do that).

For the other problem, space debris would have to be monitored and removed as needed. Any holes knocked through the sphere by debris would be quickly repaired by robots whose only function was to do just that.

Let me share with you my dream method of terraforming Venus. If I had the power to terraform Venus any way I wished, here is what I would do. Move Venus in a 1 Au orbit from the Sun that doesn’t threaten the Earth. Perhaps place here on the opposite side of the Sun as the Earth. Convert her air, like I discussed above. Speed up her rotation to 24 hours, and make Mercury her moon (Put it far enough away so that it’s gravity towards Venus is comparable to the Moon’s gravity on the Earth).

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