Question Thinking about Venus...

[EvilTessmacher]

I'm rather curious about the science that has been applied in the past, to Venus. More specifically, what it would take to "undo" the atmospheric changes and convert the atmosphere back to an oxygen-rich environment... Just "whatifing" here...

 

[Atlan0001]

I'm rather curious about the science that has been applied in the past, to Venus. More specifically, what it would take to "undo" the atmospheric changes and convert the atmosphere back to an oxygen-rich environment... Just "whatifing" here...

It would take thousands of years to terraform Venus from the top down with specialized algae microbes doing the job. But we could very well still colonize Venus by simply colonizing Venus's orbit with cloud city-state like Stanford Tori. Effectively being Venus's colonizers, with Mercury further in system being the same thing as their resource moon "at a distance."

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I don't think you will find any sort of life form that we could introduce to Venus to terraform its atmosphere. The planet is just too hot. Nothing lives in molten lead.

Yes, the upper atmosphere is cooler than the surface, but getting something to survive and reproduce in the upper atmosphere, without water to work with, seems non-feasible with current understanding of biological processes.

 

[billslugg]

Sagan's 1961 idea, he later pointed out that any scheme to split CO2 would result in free oxygen in the atmosphere as well as a rain of microscopic graphite particles. Once reaching the hot surface 800°F, 1300 PSI, the graphite would instantly burn to CO2.
More recent proposals would convert the atmosphere to carbonate rock, eject CO2 to space or send to Mars to beef up its atmosphere.

 

[IG2007]

It's been a long time, friends, but I am back.

I'm rather curious about the science that has been applied in the past, to Venus. More specifically, what it would take to "undo" the atmospheric changes and convert the atmosphere back to an oxygen-rich environment... Just "whatifing" here...

I am not an expert in terraforming, but to change the atmosphere, we need to cool down Venus first. Kurzgesagt has an excellent video on putting angled mirrors into orbit to effectively put shade on Venus and freeze the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We can then break down that CO2 into Oxygen and carbon. There is already enough nitrogen in the atmosphere of Venus, and after releasing the right amount of oxygen from the solid CO2. Or we can introduce cyanobacteria, which can produce oxygen. Although the resulting atmospheric pressure will be several times more than that of our atmosphere, it should be enough to introduce genetically modified plants and animals.

Again, it would take a long time, but honestly speaking, Venus is a better candidate for terraforming than Mars. It's almost as big as the Earth, it has a magnetic field (albeit a weak one, but better than nothing), and it's closer to the Earth than Mars.

I am sorry if my understanding of Venus' composition is wrong, I am a bit rusty in my astronomy. Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Atlan0001]

It's been a long time, friends, but I am back.

I am not an expert in terraforming, but to change the atmosphere, we need to cool down Venus first. Kurzgesagt has an excellent video on putting angled mirrors into orbit to effectively put shade on Venus and freeze the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We can then break down that CO2 into Oxygen and carbon. There is already enough nitrogen in the atmosphere of Venus, and after releasing the right amount of oxygen from the solid CO2. Or we can introduce cyanobacteria, which can produce oxygen. Although the resulting atmospheric pressure will be several times more than that of our atmosphere, it should be enough to introduce genetically modified plants and animals.

Again, it would take a long time, but honestly speaking, Venus is a better candidate for terraforming than Mars. It's almost as big as the Earth, it has a magnetic field (albeit a weak one, but better than nothing), and it's closer to the Earth than Mars.

I am sorry if my understanding of Venus' composition is wrong, I am a bit rusty in my astronomy. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Once we begin colonizing space, in-space surface colonization, we will begin colonizing the space in orbits above Mars and above Venus -- second to the L-points above Earth -- with spin-gravity space stations and city-state Stanford Torus type Space Colonies (think planetary cloud city-states, only higher . . . in planetary orbits above all seven planets (Venus, outward) plus the asteroid belt and even possibly two or three of the larger moons, maybe). Permanently in space and spreading out, expanding and growing in-space, a multi-thousand-years terraforming of Venus from the top of its atmosphere down will begin. All that while Mercury further in becomes essentially the Venusian Colonists Moon for Venusian Colony's resource purposes (the colony stations above Venus will be nothing less than the beginning colonization of Venus . . . right away with no waiting a solid owning of Venus by essentially Venusian colonists, and owning Mercury on further in to boot (a double)).