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 mofo
Hobby Jingoist
Registered: 04/05/08
Posts: 2,232
Loc: Donkey Kong Kill Screen
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 Why not try to cool Venus? 
#8808532 - 08/21/08 10:13 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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I was thinking, it would be a fun little science experiment to try to cool Venus. I think it could be done by exploding one or more "dust bombs" composted of a fine particulate matter such as clay dust at the L1 Lagrange point, the point of equilibrium between Venus and the Sun. Otherwise, it might also be done by spraying rings of dust into various orbits around Venus, eventually forming a shroud.
This would serve several purposes. First, if it worked well and was controllable, it could potentially be applied to earth to counteract global warming. Also, it would create a much more hospitable environment in which to explore Venus, and maybe even allow for manned exploration of the surface.
What do you think, good idea? Bad idea? Is it ethical? I would think it would be ethical since Venus is uninhabited, but what exactly are the rules for this kind of thing?
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DieCommie
Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: mofo]
#8809213 - 08/22/08 01:12 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Sounds cool to me  I have no moral dilemma colonizing a Venus at all. That would be quite the endeavor though. From what Ive seen on TV, Venus is hot because of its cloud cover.. I wonder if adding dust would really cool it? I guess your thinking is at the Lagrange point the dust wouldn't act to keep the heat in Venus' atmosphere. It would be quite the struggle, getting Venus violent forces under control. But if you did you would get decent gravity, unlike mars. And more sunlight than mars.
Quote:
but what exactly are the rules for this kind of thing?
There are only nature's rules, which are unbreakable; and man's rules, which are arbitrary.
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 zouden
Neuroscientist
 
Registered: 11/12/07
Posts: 7,091
Loc: Australia
Last seen: 14 years, 6 months
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: mofo]
#8809525 - 08/22/08 04:11 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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I think venus's atmosphere is also really corrosive...?
Quote:
There are only nature's rules, which are unbreakable; and man's rules, which are arbitrary.
Well said. Man's rules exist to protect man - this includes environmental protection rules, because we are part of Earth's environment. But we are not part of Venus's environment. It is entirely up to us to decide what to do with it.
If we decide that we should terraform Venus then let's launch the dust bombs and make history!
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I know... that just the smallest
part of the world belongs to me
You know... I'm not a blind man
but truth is the hardest thing to see
Edited by zouden (08/22/08 04:37 AM)
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: mofo]
#8810401 - 08/22/08 10:31 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Dust bombs on Venus sound cool, but on Earth? I already have enough dust around here with my cat. 
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Republican Values:
1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.
4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Le_Canard
The Duk Abides
Registered: 05/16/03
Posts: 94,392
Loc: Earthfarm 1 
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: mofo]
#8811507 - 08/22/08 02:15 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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It could be done, but it'd tak a long time to cool. It's like 900 degrees F there.
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Yarry
Old Timer
Registered: 01/04/04
Posts: 23,762
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: Le_Canard]
#8813669 - 08/22/08 11:18 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Is it uninhabited? Or is it uninhabited as far as humans know? Do you really think that humanity as a whole has moved beyond simply going to planets for observations to the point where we can terraform them?
Do you not think that manned missions to Mars would be more worthwhile then a dustbomb on venus?
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Grumpy Old Man.
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mofo
Hobby Jingoist
Registered: 04/05/08
Posts: 2,232
Loc: Donkey Kong Kill Screen
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: Yarry]
#8813758 - 08/22/08 11:46 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Well, I was thinking it would be something fairly simple to do and could provide great benefits, even just in our ability to study the planet. However, I just did a little figuring, and the numbers are discouraging. I assumed 1 gram of fine particulates per square meter to be masked, and so if you wanted to completely obscure the planet, it would take approximately 115 million metric tons of particulate. Of course, obscuring just a percentage of the suns rays may still produce the desired effect, and perhaps there is a material that would be more effective, but we're still talking massive quantities of material, which would most likely have to be mined somewhere in space, or else how could we get that much stuff up there? Maybe if they ever get that space elevator going...
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zouden
Neuroscientist
Registered: 11/12/07
Posts: 7,091
Loc: Australia
Last seen: 14 years, 6 months
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: mofo]
#8813820 - 08/23/08 12:01 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Why not take it from Venus itself? Bury some nuclear weapons and use them to throw dust into the atmosphere.
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I know... that just the smallest
part of the world belongs to me
You know... I'm not a blind man
but truth is the hardest thing to see
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Yarry
Old Timer
Registered: 01/04/04
Posts: 23,762
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: mofo]
#8813942 - 08/23/08 12:28 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
mofo said:
Well, I was thinking it would be something fairly simple to do and could provide great benefits, even just in our ability to study the planet. However, I just did a little figuring, and the numbers are discouraging. I assumed 1 gram of fine particulates per square meter to be masked, and so if you wanted to completely obscure the planet, it would take approximately 115 million metric tons of particulate. Of course, obscuring just a percentage of the suns rays may still produce the desired effect, and perhaps there is a material that would be more effective, but we're still talking massive quantities of material, which would most likely have to be mined somewhere in space, or else how could we get that much stuff up there? Maybe if they ever get that space elevator going...
But what gives you the right to do that?
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Grumpy Old Man.
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DieCommie
Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: Yarry]
#8813959 - 08/23/08 12:33 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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What makes you think the right must be given?
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zouden
Neuroscientist
Registered: 11/12/07
Posts: 7,091
Loc: Australia
Last seen: 14 years, 6 months
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: Yarry]
#8813964 - 08/23/08 12:34 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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I think DieCommie answered that: we choose our own rights.
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I know... that just the smallest
part of the world belongs to me
You know... I'm not a blind man
but truth is the hardest thing to see
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Yarry
Old Timer
Registered: 01/04/04
Posts: 23,762
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: zouden]
#8815191 - 08/23/08 11:02 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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I think if you guys are talking about interplanetary terraforming, that is cool and Im all for it. This guy however said he wants to dustbomb a planet basically blindly to see what happens. That is not cool by me.
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Grumpy Old Man.
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BrainChemistry
Captain Obvious
Registered: 06/19/07
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Loc: Mountains of N. America
Last seen: 10 years, 2 months
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: Yarry]
#8815237 - 08/23/08 11:13 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
This guy however said he wants to dustbomb a planet basically blindly to see what happens. That is not cool by me.
So if it doesn't work you got a bunch of dust floating in space. What gives?
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Word to your mom.
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Yarry
Old Timer
Registered: 01/04/04
Posts: 23,762
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What if some randoms came and dustbombed earth? I just dont agree with mans uneducated fingerprints being smudged all over the universe.
Its an interesting idea, but until there would be some actual science behind it, I am against it.
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Grumpy Old Man.
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BrainChemistry
Captain Obvious
Registered: 06/19/07
Posts: 3,657
Loc: Mountains of N. America
Last seen: 10 years, 2 months
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: Yarry]
#8817326 - 08/23/08 06:45 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Yeah, but theres no one alive on Venus to care.
And who really knows...maybe mankind was created by someone elses uneducated fingerprint.
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Word to your mom.
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zouden
Neuroscientist
Registered: 11/12/07
Posts: 7,091
Loc: Australia
Last seen: 14 years, 6 months
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: Yarry]
#8817448 - 08/23/08 07:15 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
Yarry said:
What if some randoms came and dustbombed earth? I just dont agree with mans uneducated fingerprints being smudged all over the universe.
Its an interesting idea, but until there would be some actual science behind it, I am against it.
That's a good attitude. Anyway I don't think there's any economic reason to do it either.
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I know... that just the smallest
part of the world belongs to me
You know... I'm not a blind man
but truth is the hardest thing to see
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Ferris
PsychedelicJourneyman
Registered: 03/12/06
Posts: 11,529
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: mofo]
#8818116 - 08/23/08 10:37 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Unless you have a scientific argument to back up this dust bomb hteory, I think that you are taking the opposite approach. Rather than attempt to keep heat from entering the atmosphere, which can be a good thing for the future of the planet (energy = plants, animals, and environment, not to mention industry), I think that the better approach would be to do something about the sulfur dioxide clouds that are the main cause of the extreme greenhouse effect on the planet.
I don't know what the most effective approach to accomplishing this would be, but I imagine it would involve seeding the clouds to cause rain, and then trapping the sulfur in some sort of chemical process, while converting the rest of the mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere to something with more oxygen and less -oxides. Sounds to me like this could easily take a hundred years if not more.
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mofo
Hobby Jingoist
Registered: 04/05/08
Posts: 2,232
Loc: Donkey Kong Kill Screen
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: zouden]
#8818119 - 08/23/08 10:38 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Actually, one good reason to do it would be to see how effective it is to cool a planet that way, and measure more precisely the ratio of light lost to temperature drop. This is important because we may have to do something similar for the Earth some day to control a runaway greenhouse effect. The experiment would be reversible as I had conceived it, by simply blasting the cloud with jets of water vapor or something along those lines.
I agree though , the issue of rights isn't exactly clear cut. For instance, if Russia decided to use Mars as a nuclear missile test range, I thing a lot of people and nations in this world would have something to say about it, since if anyone has any rights to the planet, then we all do or at least should. Doing such a thing would effect the planets usefulness for the rest of us.
Likewise, a similar argument could be made against cooling Venus, however it would be much harder to demonstrate how a 900 degree Fahrenheit planet is useful. It would also be valid to say we should study the planet further in its current condition before doing something so drastic.
I don't buy this argument that we inherently have no right to do such things though. Especially since, in all likelihood, the average person destroys more organisms in their daily lives than would be killed on Venus. Do you clean your toilet? You just killed millions of bacteria. That sounds like a genocide to me. Every time you eat an apple you are permanently and irrevocably depriving numerous apple trees their inherent right to exist. In fact, everything we do kills organisms, so what gives the human race any right to exist at all? This is nonsense of course, but we should be respectful to life we find on other planets. Carl Sagan said that even if we only find bacteria on another planet, we should then refrain from invading their planet and leave them be.
As far as arguments that the dust would pollute space go, they do have some validity. As long as the dust cloud is in the L1 Lagrange point, in cannot be used for anything else, and it is a useful point. For instance, The Earth-Sun L1 is currently the home of a telescope which monitors the Sun, and I believe it can even give us some forewarning if a solar storm is headed our way. Other than that though, the likelihood of a dust cloud floating near Venus ever interfering with us or anything else in the solar system is very very low. We have a much better chance of getting struck by an asteroid.
Which brings me to my next point. Cooling Venus would be a good starting point for further colonization of the planet. It would be a catalyst for the human imagination and a spark to ignite the will of nations to embark on such an endeavor. Once people see that it has a habitable climate, they begin to picture people living there, and things start to happen. Such colonization of space is absolutely necessary to ensure the long term survival of the human race, as well as any species we choose to bring along. There are still believed to be a large number of unknown asteroids in our solar system which could strike our planet at any moment. In such an event, we would be lucky to have more than a few hours notice of our impending doom. If it came in the middle of the night, you might never know what hit you.
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Ferris
PsychedelicJourneyman
Registered: 03/12/06
Posts: 11,529
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: Ferris]
#8818136 - 08/23/08 10:44 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Here's a post I read a few months back when I thought I had hit on a good idea and was doing some research:
Terraforming Mars/Venus, etc
Venus is discussed in the second post there, with additional links.
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Rayn
Esquire
Registered: 08/18/08
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Loc: etc
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Re: Why not try to cool Venus? [Re: Ferris]
#8818757 - 08/24/08 02:32 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Well on the plus side Venus has a magnetosphere unlike mars, the only problem is Venus's magnetosphere is still 100,000 times less powerful than earth's. It is my understanding that without a decent magnetosphere you're pretty much going to get raped by radiation and solar winds.
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