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/sci/ - Science & Math

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5922246 No.5922246 [Reply] [Original]

which planet would be easier to terraform and maintain the livable climate: Venus or Mars?

>> No.5922249

Mars is far easier to Terraform and far easier to live at.

Right now, all Mars needs is about 100 years of the most powerful CFC's we can produce, which is quite easy for us. Thats solving the problem with this generation technology, though.

It would take about 1000 years, however, for the temperature to improve considerably.

But after 100 years the temperature would raise a few degrees, which would then unlock the planets natural "terraformation" in its rocks, where all the CO2 is frozen away. This CO2 would rapidly fill the air and create a much thicker atmosphere. This would raise temperatures considerably/pressure and put liquid water back on the ground. Then its just a matter of 900 years of algae growth and plant growth, which will slowly start converting the atmosphere into an oxygen rich state.

>> No.5922257

>>5922249
I should also mention, Mars has a 24 hour day, and is probably still geochemically active. This means that the core is still somewhat warm, but not active like Venus' which constantly shifts and changes and covers its surface in lava. Meanwhile, although Mars' gravity is 1/3rd our Earths, we're pretty sure that wouldn't be detrimental to us at this point.

>> No.5922256

Mars actually has water and a 24 hours day. Not only Venus has a completely fucked up rotation, it doesn't even have the materials necessary for terraformation. Take your pick

>> No.5922259

>>5922246
after we found out mercury has water at its poles youd have an easier time living on mercury than venus.

>> No.5922270

>>5922259
>>5922257
>>5922249
the problem I have with mars though is that it's small enough and not active enough to produce an thick atmosphere on it's own and would require lots and lots of costly pumping it up. while I understand Venus is literally hell it's got the gravity to maintain it's atmosphere, I also think the lack of tectonics / boiling atmosphere could be remedied in much the same way, by cracking the uni-plate into several pieces along weak points

>> No.5922307

>>5922246
How the fuck would you terraform Venus?

>> No.5922321

>>5922270
But Venus is so fucked up it can't even spin in the same direction as the rest of the fucking solar system, that's not something you can fix, even if somehow you magically replaced all of its atmosphere and created hydrogen from nothing

>> No.5922336

>>5922270
Venus is almost irrepairable. We could make floating domains in its upper atmosphere, where its most similar to Earth than any other place in the Solar System, but seriously.

Mars is frozen up. Once we warm it up a few degrees and get the C02 going, it will become self-sustainable. Especially once plant life is growing.

>> No.5922417

isnt the core of mars dead though? how do you plan on living on a planet with no magnetic field?

>> No.5922444

>>5922246
Sorry to be off topic OP but...
that picture is so amazing.

I mean, just look at that. It's austere, ghostly almost...but beautiful and haunting all the same.
What a universe we live in.

>> No.5922495

Venus is way out of the question, so is damn near every other body in the Solar System. They're either too close to the Sun, too far away, or too small to gravitationally hold a thick enough atmosphere.

Mars is our best and only bet for terraforming.

>> No.5922505

Im going to say venus solely because its gravitational strength is comparable to earths. You could place reflectors between venus and the sun, use cloud seeding, or surface reflectors, after you had fixed its atmosphere and not even bother fixing the rotation. The atmosphere is 95% CO2 which can be converted into C(s) and O2(g) the O2 can be reacted with hydrogen to form water. You would need a suitable supply of hydrogen. You could also liquify the CO2 and store it or shoot it off into space.

>> No.5922509

I thought thew problem with terraforming mars is that its core is basically dead and that the lack of strong poles on the planet will allow things like solar flares to blast away the atmosphere pretty easily.

>> No.5922539

>>5922509
I always assumed its lack of atmosphere was due to its low gravity. Venus has the same problem, for some reason its magnetic field is not strong enough.

>> No.5922897

>>5922539

yeah, the problem with any terraforming is the magnetic field. You can easily fix temperature and atmosphere, given a few thousand years.

I want someone to tell me how we're going to stop radiation from coming in to Mars.

>> No.5922934

>>5922307
10 trillion tons of baking soda.

>> No.5922936

>move venus further into the habitable zone
>bombard with comets to cool surface and produce an ocean
>some artificial process to remove the sulpheric acid from the atmosphere
>artificial plants to convert co2 into oxygen
>????
>venus is now earths sister planet like we all used to believe.

>> No.5923005

>>5922509
we're talking about quasi geological time scales here. We'd have disappeared from the solar system one way or another before the solar wind sweeps away Mars' atmosphere again

>> No.5923020

>>5922934
2.e+17 pounds of baking soda?

>> No.5923029

>>5922249
>holes in an ozone layer
>on a planet with barely any atmostphere

>> No.5923041

>>5922897
assuming one could create enough electricity and build a large enough coil wouldn't it be possible to generate an artificial magnetosphere?

>> No.5923046

>>5922270
this isn't true

look up the rate of ablation of the atmosphere by solar winds, it is incredibly small

if you had a breathable atmosphere, it would take something like 100 million years for the solar wind to degrade it

also, if you build out a planet wide grid and have a current backbone running around an equatorial line you can generate a magnetic field comparable to earths. something like 10% of our current electricity usage would need to be pumped around the equator of mars to get a comparable field (protect from cancer and such)

>> No.5923072

Venus has about 90 times the atmospheric pressure of earth. Good fucking luck with all that.

Mars's core is dead, which means no magnetic field, which means atmosphere simply isn't going to stick to the planet, regardless of size, gravity, etc. Yes, fucking magnets hold the atmosphere in.

Why even bother living at the bottom of a gravity well, anyway? Orbital cities, or just huge fucking ships that can house millions are the better bet. Nature is extremely overrated.

>> No.5923090

>>5922249
>CFCs
...why.
What you want is SF6, and shitloads of it. 27000 times more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. If there happens to be a deposits of sulfur and fluorine on mars, we'd build a 'factory' and speed this up significantly. Later on, yeah, CO2 will raise pressure but we'll always need significant amount of SF6. It's beautiful - non toxic, it can be breathable with oxygen, just like nitrogen. After we raise pressure and temperature, plant life will convert CO2 to O2, reducing the temperature. Humans can't breathe anything over 4% or so of CO2, so eventually, planet would cool again to below zero. In order to counter that, we need SF6 as greenhouse gas in order to trap more of sun's energy.

>>5922270
I'm not sure if you are aware how shitty venus is. Colonization of venus won't happen in hundred years. Too much work.

>>5922934
I chuckled.

>>5922539
Too small gravity leads to upper layers of atmosphere being blown away with solar wind. It's very slow process though, if we shaped up mars now, it'd take thousands of years for solar wind to do any significant damage.

>>5923041
Yes, but very impractical without room-temp superconductors and fusion power.

>> No.5923114

>>5923090
>room temp superconductors
Wouldn't keeping them out of direct sunlight be cold enough in space?

>> No.5923118

>>5923114
They'd most likely be placed on surface. It's a huge ass infrastructure on surface and it rises exponentially if you try and move it higher. Imagine it like a spherical grid. You need much much more material if you'll place it in space, above the planet, not to mention the impossibilities of keeping it in place, repairs etc.
They will be on ground, trust me.

>> No.5923143
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5923143

you'd better have a strong spine/core if you want to live on Venus

>> No.5923313

>>5922249

Without a protective magnetic shield wouldn't a new atmosphere be stripped away by solar radiation?

>> No.5923315

>>5923313
yes, in 1 million years

>> No.5924338

>>5923090
> Humans can't breathe anything over 4% or so of CO2, so eventually, planet would cool again to below zero.

No Anon - it's pointless to go through all the trouble of terraforming Mars for anything less than 300 years of habitability. After we terraform Mars, then we obviously send people to it, right? Then by the time people live all over Mars would probably be 150-200 years, but by that time we have to start efforts to do the process all over again, right? But this time, Mars will have even less resources to do that... so we'll have to fight harder to make Mars work, and if we ever fail that means a whole entire planet of people will be dead.

What we should do is make Mars habitable as a testing ground for our abilities to terraform properly and move on to making habitable better places like Jupiter's Europa and Saturn's Titan. Jupiter and Saturn make better harbingers of energy than the Sun from Mars' distance, anyway!

>> No.5924357

>>5924338

>Jupiter and Saturn make better harbingers of energy than the Sun from Mars' distance

how?

>> No.5924362

Until we come up with a way to deal with muscle and bone decay in low gravity environments, there's no point in colonizing Mars.

Well, unless you want to force anyone who spends a significant length of time there to never be able to come back to Earth.

>> No.5924366

>>5924357
Mining if you want to be beta pussies.

Lighting it on fire, so to speak, making it a new Sun for those systems entirely confirmed for Alpha As Fuck permanent solution if you want to really change the future!

>> No.5924386

>>5924366

Titan has an average surface temp of -290 F. Europa's average (at the equator, btw) is -260 F.

I thought I'd hear some geothermal argument, but "mining?" What? How are you making up 300 degrees F of heat?

>> No.5925172

The most serious proposals for martian terraforming I've seen give a conservative estimate of 500 years length from the start to when humans can breath unaided on the surface with unlimited funding. Highly likely that, so it would probably take even longer.

Basically three steps.
1. Heat the planet up. Involves using loads of orbital mirrors and bombarding the planet with comets. 300 years.
2. Establish life on the planet. 100 years.
3. Convert the atmosphere to something breathable. 100 years.

500 year projects are beyond anything we've done before so I wouldn't hold my breath. If humans lived forever, then it might happen because at least those involved would live to see their tremendous investment pay off.

>> No.5926045

>>5925172
We've made things that took hundreds of years to complete before. The only problem is, they were all on Earth!

>> No.5926055

>>5922246
Mars is pointless.. without a magnetosphere any attempt an terraforming would be useless, unless that key issue is figured out first

>> No.5926066

>>5922249
>no magnetic field
0/10 planet would not colonize

>> No.5926083

Why not live under Mar's soil? Humans could live on Mars until they completely terra form the planet.

The soil would shield humans from Radiation, and there's really nobody stopping anyone from building massive underground cities on Mars. You can't even build a wind turbine without NIMBY getting in the way in the US.

Also, It is said that Nuclear Powered Tunnel Boring Machines exist that melt walls of the tunnels into thick glass..

But either way, we're going to need atomic powered boring machines,to pull off this idea. Even if it does not melt the rock, we could still dump the rock and rubble into massive piles.

>> No.5926967

>>5926083
can anyone answer this?

>> No.5927042

>>5926967
You build underground cities and then what? It would just be a really expensive alternative to earth. Nobody would want to burn so much money for nothing.

>> No.5927049

Venus, since it's nice and warm.

>> No.5927056

>>5922505
I'd guess that Venus has a higher initial in terraforming cost but lower long term maint. Mars is the opposite.

Anyway, with our current tech I believe we're incapable to venture into Venus, but Mars is already within our realm of possibilities

>> No.5927058

>>5927056
forgot the word investment (...investment cost...)

>> No.5927117

>>5926083
Building down costs more than building up.
Think of it like trying to build an underwater sea dome, except the water pushing down on you is a lot heavier.

>> No.5927178

>>5927042
Under ground cities could be used as a base of operation at mars.