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To: rjsimmon
Well, no plan is perfect ;-)

About your "nits":

1-The atmospheric pressure on Venus is 91 times that of Earth. An atmospheric probe that was sent was crushed.

That's right. I mentioned sending bacteria to the planet once cooling was initiated, to change the composition of the atmosphere. The trick is to bind the Carbon to something that can be percipitated out of the air, and therefore shedding "mass" from the atmosphere. No, I do not know how to genetically engineer a bug to do this, but it seems within the realm of chemical possibility.

2-No moon (tidal necessity)

When you are done using the asteroid for "nudging" Venus around, you park in a rather low orbit around Venus, and voila! You have a moon to generate some tidal action.

3-Exceptionally weak magnetic field

Well, 3 things are possible here:
(a) For small colonies, we create artificial magnetic fields locally, to protect the folks from radiation.
(b) Since we have "spun up" Venus to a 24 hour (or so) rotational speed, we might find that the core of the planet will start generating a magnetic field like the Earth.
(c) If the "moon" we park around the planet is sufficiently massive, tidal effects might help start some "core" sloshing around in Venus, to stimulate magnetic field production.

However, you raise just 3 of many valid points, indicating why we are not about to embark on a Venusian terraforming project any time soon.
29 posted on 08/05/2009 12:12:10 PM PDT by Rebel_Ace (Tags?!? Tags?!? We don' neeeed no stinkin' Tags!)
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To: Rebel_Ace
That's right. I mentioned sending bacteria to the planet once cooling was initiated, to change the composition of the atmosphere. The trick is to bind the Carbon to something that can be percipitated out of the air, and therefore shedding "mass" from the atmosphere. No, I do not know how to genetically engineer a bug to do this, but it seems within the realm of chemical possibility.

Even trickier would be finding the right bacteria that could survive in that hostile environment.

When you are done using the asteroid for "nudging" Venus around, you park in a rather low orbit around Venus, and voila! You have a moon to generate some tidal action.

The math for this is fascinating. What would be the required mass and velocity to move Venus to a sustainable, higher orbit? What would be the ramifications of moving the planet to a higher orbit, but not increasing the speed of orbit? Would Venus end up in too eratic an orbit to sustain its place in the solar system? What would that do the remaining inner planets?

Well, 3 things are possible here:
(a) For small colonies, we create artificial magnetic fields locally, to protect the folks from radiation.

Talk about power generation! How many Gigawatts would that take?

(b) Since we have "spun up" Venus to a 24 hour (or so) rotational speed, we might find that the core of the planet will start generating a magnetic field like the Earth.

Number and size of comets required??? The number of trips to the Kuiper Belt would exhaust the resources of Earth. Or, would we just wait for strays???

(c) If the "moon" we park around the planet is sufficiently massive, tidal effects might help start some "core" sloshing around in Venus, to stimulate magnetic field production.

We would need some new oceans. But then, if we chose the right bacteria, oxygen and hydrogen creation could be the proper by-product. Any of those little bugs floating around???

30 posted on 08/05/2009 2:15:10 PM PDT by rjsimmon (1-20-2013 The Tree of Liberty Thirsts)
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To: Rebel_Ace

One thing you need to keep in mind regarding any ideas of terraforming Venus is that Sagan’s “super greenhouse(TM)” theory is a bunch of bullshit. Venus is basically hot because it’s a fairly new planet which simply hasn’t had time to cool off. There’s likely nothing we could possibly do that would cool it in any sort of a hurry.


33 posted on 08/05/2009 8:04:06 PM PDT by wendy1946
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