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Venus: The Forgotten Planet
Anonymous Coward from Winnipeg writes "These days many of us are consumed by daily batches of spectacular images from our twin Marsbots and international fleet of Mars-orbiting craft. But we should not forget our sister planet, Venus, which has undergone significant exploration in years past. Don P. Mitchell's home page features an intriguing refinement of Soviet surface images using modern reprocessing techniques. Don also includes a terrific overview of the Soviet Venus exploration program. Complete radar mapping of Venus was provided by Magellan ten years ago. Sadly, according to the Venus Exploration Timeline, only two new missions to Venus are envisioned: ESA's Venus Express (using leftover Mars Express and Rosetta equipment) and JAXA's Planet-C orbiter. Apparently, no landings on Venus are planned - is this another case of humanity losing advanced space travel capability due to neglect, like Apollo?" (We've mentioned Mitchell's reworked images before -- amazing stuff.)
venus? my vote would be neptune, for the planet that gets the least press coverage...
and mars for the planet that gets the most, outside of ours...
We do cold and dry much better than hot and caustic. And Mars has all the potential for life evidence (or so we think) so it gets a lot of focus. I think Venus still takes a back seat to the moons of Jupiter. That's where the future action is going to be.
You forgot to mention the BepiColombo that will laucnh on 2011-01-01: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog? sc=BEPICLMBO
The Television Wiki
I once heard a conspiracy theory that Venus might actually be friendly to Earth beings, and the only evidence was an obvious question about the Venus landers. If the pressure at the surface is 90 bars (90 times that of Earth's surface) and the heat is about 864 degrees (F), how could our puny lander EVER reach the surface of the planet using terrestrial technologies. I don't take interest in most conspiracy theories, but that did spark my curiosity. Can anyone explain? I know the lander survived to the surface for a short amount of time, but even that feat is amazing given the surface conditions.
I find this article funny. Mars can be inhabited and explored by humans, and there are a lot of possibilities about what could be done there. The martian gravity is weaker then earths, so it becomes much cheaper in fuel costs to launch missions from mars. Add the proximity to the jovian asteroid belts, and we have all the resources we need to do a lot of neat stuff. Venus isn't habitable by humans. Now this doesn't mean that we shouldn't send any probes there, but first thing is first.
Some of the moons of planets are interesting as well. It is hard to draw a line. It is good to have redundancy as you see in the Mars case, as well as we learn to make long dinstance missions. On the other hand we oversee many of the close stars/trabants which want to be explored
People look at Mars these days, almost as the "next Earth"...dreams and hopes from businesses the world over of exotic minerals, huge deposits of iron and whatnot, and this drives many to support Mars exploration
There are also those who of course, believe that Mars is chiefly where we will dump those extra billions of people we are going to have in the next 100 years.
But Venus should not be forgotten, it is a legitimate testing ground for technology and a potential "gold mine" in itself.
Landing is not currently possible with the level of technology you puny earthlings currently possess. Our atmosphere would crush you faster than you can say Venusian.
i believe one of the reasons for such neglection is due to the thick layer of cloud covering the planet. i myself would be put off observing the Moon or Saturn from my backyard if there's cloud hanging in the sky.
:)
having said that, we have seen amazing ground-penetrating technology used on Mars Rovers. So maybe some of these gears can be re-used?
it'll be rather amusing if Venus does have lives kicking under the thick cloud as we speak, but we failed to further investigate it
The most compelling reason to not send bots to Venus, but to Mars, would be Venus' surface temperature. If you think the greenhouse effect is bad on Earth, try an atmosphere comprised almost exclusively of greenhouse gases, and hop in a notch towards the Sun.
Try surface temperatures in the range of 400-500 degrees C, and watch closely as that poor overclocked Pentium powering the robot overheats like an Eskimo who's in Rio de Janiero to watch the carneval.
Thanks, I'd rather try for Mars first, with temperatures in the much more comfortable range for Earth-invented technology. Hell, we don't even have to shield it for temperature most of the time, as it is just marginally cooler on Mars and the electronics gives off some heat by itself to stay warm.
We know that life can exist in the harshest environments here on Earth. There are extremophiles (no, not X-Games lovers) that live at the bottom of the ocean near tectonic vents where the temperatures are hundreds of degrees above what humans could stand. Not to mention that there isn't any light down there for photosynthesis or anything of the sort.
If life can exist there, it's more than likely that similar life could exist on Venus with its very extreme environment and bountiful liquid (unlike dry Mars).
Could the Soviet explorers have found primitive life there and for fear of starting widespread panic decided to keep the whole thing quiet. Just declare that Mars is the target for the future and keep Venus missions underwraps?
It's a little bit tin-foil inducing, but considering that Venus has water which we have 'decided' is one of the fundamental building blocks of life, could it be so far fetched that life spontaneously originated there on its own?
I have been pwned because my
the interesting thing isn't which planet gets less or more, but why they get less or more.
mars gets the most because its the closest that might be able to support its own life
europa isn't a planet but it still gets points for life, however its farther than mars
venus is close but doesn't have a chance of life as we think of it. Venus does however have excellent energy harvesting/producing possibilities as soon as we are more space capable
Good luck in hell.
No, the lack of a stampede to Venus is not evidence of a loss of "advanced space travel capabiilty".
It is a function of limited resources and the obvious sense that Mars is more likely to have been, or be, hospitable to life than Venus.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I've always found Venus to be an interesting planet, but I agree with the focus on Mars. I think one of the first major step to interstellar travel will be establishing a base on another planet, and Mars is our (closest) best shot. Europa and Titan would be good supply stops on the way out of the solar system.
Xbox reviews.. We think they're funny.
You know the saying, women are from Venus...; ergo geeks don't get any women, so therefore Venus is forgotten.
In contrast, Mars is much simpler: domes to hold atmosphere in (with the possibility of terraforming to make a breathable atmosphere), and you're pretty much there.
After Mars, there is a good prospect of moving on to Jovian moons, possibly Saturn's moons as well. Venus, however, doesn't have much to offer us until we've had a chance to refine our space-going technology with Mars and Jovian adventures.
Excellent to see old, crappy images reworked with hi-tech to reveal things the original science team were never capable of seeing! What amazes me about the images is that there's enough light on the surface to actually see ANYTHING! I mean, isn't the surface pressure on the order of hundreds of atmospheres? To me, that implied some sort of soupy and only partly transparent atmosphere. The radar map of the surface is remarkable in that there are no craters visible - evidence of extreme and recent volcanic activity I assume. All together a very interesting planet - but one unlikely to see human footprints until we've throughly explored the Jupiter system I susppect. Just how on Venus would you design and use a pressure suit that can take the rather dangerous and corrosive Venusian Atmosphere, at ridiculous temeratures and pressures?
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
Look at all the problems we've had with landing a craft on Mars - a planet whose surface we can see, which isn't THAT much farther away than Venus (both are too far to do say, human controlled robotics directly). And Mars is just a cold mound of rock, with some relatively flat spots. Its not a huge strecth of existing terrestrial technology to build a Mars rover - all you need to do is keep the electornics warm, and use low power so that you can use solar.
Now, on Venus, the surface temperature is about 750'K - 900'F. now, a server room conks out at a LOT lower temperatures than that. And... did you want to build the lander out of mostly metal? Might not be so smart - it rains sulfuric acid all the time on Venus. That's nasty stuff if you're a lander. Oh, and solar power is out - that sulfuric acid rain comes from a pretty thick cloud cover.
We're also exploring Mars because it seems to be a RELATIVElY Earth-like planet - in that, maybe we can make it work for permanent human habitation.
Venus would just require radically new technology to land on, which isn't smart because the scientific benefits, while real, could be eclipsed in terms of */$ (bang per buck) on other places. And it doesn't look like humans are EVER going to live there. IMHO, the biggest problem that the space program now has is capturing our imagination - a preparing for humans on Mars does it, studying volcanoes on Venus is interesting, but doesn't scratch the human itch for exploration as well.
It's sexism pure and simple. Mars is the male god of war, and Venus is a goddess. The male chauvenists are the REAL reason almost nobody cares about Venus, and to think, I thought sexism was dead. It's a male dominated solar system.
K
What if we sent some torpedo to Venus that somehow magically scooped all the atmosphere off. Here's my question: Would it come back on its own, or would it be gone forever?
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
I've been wondering...
Mars is rich in iron oxide.
Venus is rich in sulphuric acid.
What do you get if you mix the two?
(ie; maybe if we took some atmosphere from Venus to Mars and some soil from Mard to Venus, interesting chemical reactions could take place! Useful reactions?)
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I had a friend working with NASA when they were naming geological features on the surface of Venus. Since all features were named after women, I managed him to persuade him to name a crater after my girlfriend, as a birthday present to her. Not bad, Venus being the planet of love and all that -- and certainly better than naming a star (star-naming companies are scammers, their catalogues are not recognised by the IAU).
The only drawback, of course, is she's not my girlfriend anymore. However, every time I see Venus on my evening cycle home from work, I'm reminded of her and the crater. Fond memories indeed!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
1660C is the melting point of titanium, but there are high temp steal alloys that can withstand 462C. Sorry about that. Plus the cooling system. Read about the probes and you'll see.
shouldn't we be taking care of Earth? Check this out:
, 12 374,1153530,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0
Scary.
Uranus is. There are love songs to Venus and people are always talking about the Mars-Venus duality, but poor Uranus is never the topic of polite conversation, unless it's being made the butt of jokes.
Ok, correcting an AC won't do much good, but what the heck:
First, it's "Kelvin", never "degrees Kelvin". 750 Kelvin. Be careful with that -- it's one of the signs you can tell people you don't really know the subject you're talking about.
Second, a Kelvin can be defined as the equivalent degree Celsius, plus 283.15. 750 Kelvin equals about 450 degrees Celsius.
If I'm not mistaken, I wrote "in the 400-500 degrees Celsius range"? How would this be way out?
I know that the continual 1200 F sulfuric acid rain is a bummer.
Maybe we could nuke the planet into a nuclear winter to cool it down?
I think I'm going to patent it.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
The problem with Venus is that it is one of the most hostile environments we've yet to find in our searches. It's hot, it's acidic, and so it's hard on equipment, and it's potential for harboring life is low (given what little we know about the subject).
Our first objective in exploring the universe is answering the "are we alone" question. If we can find something as simple as bacteria on another planet, then it sets the groundwork for finding other more highly evolved forms of life. We just need to really prove that life is out there. I have zero doubt that there is, but we still have to proove it.
Once we find aliens, fine, then it might be neat to look at Venus.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
THRILL at its seductive mistresses of mayhem!
MARVEL at the wonders of the future!
EXPERIENCE the mysteries of the forgotten planet.
Our biggest threat came from our very own solar system.
Arrive 30 minutes prior to the movie to receive a FREE stale popcorn and a lukewarm coke
Did anyone anyone think cheap sci-fi feature when reading the heading?
- Mad, ingenous - they've both left you puzzled -
The site mentions that some probes had microphones to measure wind speed in the atmosphere. Does anybody know if that sound was recorded and if so whether it's available somewhere on the net?
Learn Chemistry. Then some common sense. Christ you're dumb.
Perhaps this is the reason why we have not seen Venus landers:
Venus today is a scorching, hell-like place -- totally dry, with a surface temperature hotter than the melting point of zinc (800 degrees F) and an enormously heavy, largely carbon dioxide atmosphere, 100 times as dense as Earth's.
I don't know for certain but I imagine that would complicate things enourmously.
Time makes more converts than reason
Deep-sea divers breathe mostly helium, with a
tiny bit of oxygen mixed in. They skip the nitrogen.
So just do that. Add a backpack full of something
that undergoes a phase transition to keep you cool,
and you should be able to walk around just fine in
a lightweight suit.
Cool the lander with nuclear-powered AC, and use
that to recharge the phase-change material in
the suits.
If we can learn to land on Mars with a much better track record, than perhapds will we be advanced enough to start building probes to explore Venus. But at 400 million a pop, I don't think anyone will want to pay for a whole five minutes of time on Venus just yet.
/ headlines/2001/venus.html
see:
http://www.planetary.org/html/news/articlearchive
The annonymous contributor from Winnipeg has given us a really cool link: http://www.mentallandscape.com/
Theres much more to it than just Venus - though the material supplied on that subject is pretty damn good.
Nikola Tesla; Rockets; Ion engines; lots of cool stuff. Explore the site - really fascinating stuff.
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
Its actually ridiculously easy to land on Venus. You don't even need a parachute. The Venera craft didn't use parachutes they just had a dish shaped structure at the top like an umbrella and in the enormously dense atmosphere that was enough to slow the craft to landing speed. However, once there surviving is very difficult, the major problem is the heat. We can build craft to go down 11 km in our oceans, and survive sulphuric acid environments no problem ... but you can't keep an object permanently cold (or cold for extended periods) in such a hot environment.
I'm sure Venus has an interesting history and is worth exploring one day. But probably not for a while. Though the pics are very intriguing.
Bitter and proud of it.
1. attach microphone to your 'puter, dude.
2. open sound recorder, on your `leet XP box
3. blow into above microphone
4. ???
5. Die
Damn, the idiots are out tonight. Maybe a full moon? or is it a full Venus?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
"...is this another case of humanity losing advanced space travel capability due to neglect, like Apollo?"
No, I think it's more a case of space agencies not wanting to toss their multi-million dollar probes into a nintey atmosphere, 850 F (450 C) cloud of sulphuric acid 850 F (450 C)where probe lifespans are measured in hours. The cost to knowledge-gain ratio is staggeringly out of proportion on those missions. At least on mars you stand a decent chance of getting a return on your investment.
It's more a case of space agencies saying "Yep, that's nasty stuff. Let's move on for now."
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I suppose the French can lay an equal claim to them too?
The really great thing is that after America is consigned to the history books under the heading 'Other empires of note', the scientific benefits will still be there ...
Don't forget to watch for the pairing of the Moon and Venus tomorrow night at 6:30 - 7:00pm (Eastern Time) in the West sky. They'll only be about three degrees apart in the night sky.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Comprise does not mean "compose"; it means "consist of". For example, a dozen comprises twelve eggs. Saying that something is "comprised of" something else makes no sense.
I would think that a free vasectomy or tubal ligation to anyone who wanted one would be way cheaper than trying to find extra storage space for resource consuming humans.
The enviroment itself could generate enough energy for it (winds, tides, etc.). Plus Atnartica is practically right here. On Mars, it be pretty hard to remove heat.
wow thats awesome, do you have any proof at all, or are you just karma whoring?
I think that Brad Guth hasn't forgotten Venus
The Tao that can be spoken is not the one eternal Tao
The problem with Venus missions is that the surface temperature is 450C and 90 atm (90x the pressure on Earth). I work for a company developing new high temperature piezoelectric materials for use in a drill for surface sampling. The goal is a 2 hour survival of the probe. That should give you an idea of the harsh conditions there.
What about Pluto? It's the only planet that has never been visited by probes. It would more appropriately be "the forgotten planet".
A Pluto Heavy Lander that continues to live for a long time, that would be cool...
venus may be a gas giant that just never got enough gas?
Dumbass, you know that Winnipeg is one of the cities with highest per-capita broadband use in all of North America, let alone Canada? Both cable and DSL are cheap here. Winnipeg is a test market for many new services. Experimental technologies, like consumer ADSL are introduced first and cheapest here to test out the result in our very stingy population. There's great competition here between Shaw Cable, MTS ADSL, Terago broadband and various wireless startups. The result: I pay an equivalent of $24 US for monthly ADSL service that boasts greater than 99.96% uptime (my own measurement). You think that's crazy? I agree. But when we're locked in doors all winter with temperatures dipping below -30 there isn't much else to do.
Yes, I agree, as another poster noted, it's the planets beyond Saturn that really get neglected: Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.
At least Cassini is going to Saturn. I can't wait for that, especially the probe to Titan.
I really wish more probes would go to Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. I find them absolutely fascinating. I guess it's a cold temperature thing--I'm fascinated by cold.
I really hope I'm alive to see the New Horizons misson arrive at Pluto. I think I've come to the decision that I'm going to make every effort to keep myself alive until I can see pictures of Pluto. That's going to be absolutely amazing.
Not that Pluto is such an impressive planet--or planetoid?--just that to actually see it would be such an impressive feat.
I'd completely forgotten about Venus.
sig under development
This is such a big eye-opener to me. It makes me realize how much the current Mars probes are being hyped up. A big thanks to the poster and the guy who ramped up the old Venus images.
More than anything, it makes me wonder how much more of space could have been explored had the Cold War (Space Race) not ended. Bush's plan for NASA is way too conservative. We really need some other country to up the competition again.
Catch up people!
is this another case of humanity losing advanced space travel capability due to neglect, like Apollo? No, it's more a case of not wanting to spend a lot of money exploring something that will never be of any use to us, ever. At least Mars still holds out the promise of potential human habitation. You do know why Bush wants to go to Mars, don't you? So that there will be a place to send "unlawful combatants" when Guantanamo Bay gets too full!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
can't believe nobody has mentioned Velikovsky s theories yet.
Now, I'm sure we could build something that could go there and survive for a while, it's just not quite what the space program is looking for. The reason Mars is so popular is because it's the one most likely to have life on it, whereas Venus is slightly (see above ;)) inhospitable....
--<Mike>--
That's what amazes me about people who talk about terraforming Mars, etc. They talk like it would be so simple. Even if we had the tech to move comets, etc., and the various other things we would need to do - we DON'T have the knowledge of WHAT to do.
We can't seem to understand our OWN atmosphere enough to know what things (good or bad) we are doing to it even unintentionally. We can't agree on Global Warming, etc...
So what makes us think we will know just the right recipe for a cozy atmophere on Mars? We don't even know the right recipe for one here on Earth yet.
This space available.
Depressing places drive you to do stuff like write Windows(tm).
The space program uses open source software and is attempting to eschew cloudly places.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
For electronics to work in high heat conditions like on Venus, it's time to go back to vacuum tubes... They like heat. For memory, we can use magnetic cores with a high Curie point. I wouldn't mind working on a Nuvistor-based computer, or even integrated thermionics with welded wiring and ceramic substrates. Anyone want to hire a 32 year old 'old style' electronics expert?
TIMMs
I'd put up a few bucks of my own money to fund a study on the effects of high temperatures, high pressures, and corrosive vapors on spammers.
Does NASA have a Paypal account?
Because of the greenhouse effect
"Martians are from Mars, Venusians are from Venus"
So, according to Futurama, peddlers of stupid metaphors managed to finally sort that one out, even if it did take them 1000 years. I say that's far too optimistic.
I don't get it when it comes to picking which planet to terraform. Mars will never work, its core is dead, which is why the planet is dead with little to no atmosphere. Venus's core is still kicking, we just need to bleed off some of the atmosphere and increase its rotation a little. Still a monumental task but doable, whereas Mars is dead and will remain that way without an active core.
"I don't which is worse, that everyone has a price, or that the price is always so low"--Hobbes
Venus will be the first extraterestrial body that we will terraform.
This will be accomplished by bio-engineering a class of organisms that will have the following characteristics:
1) Asexual reproduction.
2) Sulphur/oxygen/carbon based metaboism.
3) Builds "Balloon" cells so it can "float" in the CO2 sea that is the venusian atmosphere.
4) Short life span.
5) The discarded Carbon/Sulphur/Nitrogen skeleton must not ignite, returning the CO2 back into the atmosphere.
These organisms will be introduced into the the Venusian atmosphere by floating, automated seeding ships. In a few hundred years we oughtta be able to move in there.
What we can do about the crappy weak magnetic field and the six month long days and nights, I haven't got a fucking clue.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
A great read is David Grinspoon's 'Venus Revealed.' Interesting, funny, and the inspiration for my lame sig.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
Yes, colder worlds are easy to master with robots.
Because of thermodynamic reasons (carnot cycle), it's much more complicated to send a robot to venus and keep it cool. One essentially has to take a nuclear reactor (or a similar strong power source) along in a rover on venus, because otherwise you could'nt cool it. Energy effiency for cooling is a few % max., whereas heating is nearly 100%.
If you take that concept one step further and apply it to living beings, you can begin to imagine what living on another world might be like. In the water, we become 'flying' humans, because our body density is lower than the density of water, we are able to float effortlessly (some of us, I guess) without any need to touch the ground.
A jelly-like creature whose body density was lower than air (through the use of airbags for example) would be appear to be flying to observers. To themselves, they would seem to be 'swimming' in the environment. An environment that to them would appear to be liquid.
According to this article, Venus may have microbes in its clouds.
Table-ized A.I.
Actually, the first "maps" of Venus were from '61.
They were done by bouncing RADAR from Earth -- I think it was using the Goldstone tracking station near Barstow, California, but it may have been the Arecibo antenna in Puerto Rico.
Using those original echo patterns, Richard Goldstein was able to do some primitive mapping of surface details, as well as determine the rotational period of Venus (not to mention discover the fact that Venus rotates retrograde).
(Goldstein's my Dad)
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
I had a friend working with NASA when they were naming geological features on the surface of Venus. Since all features were named after women, I managed him to persuade him to name a crater after my girlfriend.
Hmmm. Out of idle curiosity, did the Russians also name things after women only? I'm assuming that since they sent so many probes there they must also have claimed some naming rights.
For that matter, do the Russians refer to the planet as "Venus" or something else?
Three Squirrels
Well, the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature answered my question, and also seems to suggest that in fact not everything on Venus has a woman's name.
Craters though are! Sadly Melissa is not on the list.
Actually, check out the whole USGS Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. It's very cool.
Three Squirrels
Don't tell the patent people.
In patents, "comprising" means "includes". It is open-ended, meaning that other elements can be added even though not listed, and the description will still fit.
example: a chair comprising three legs and a seat. A chair having a back or four legs or both satisfies this definition and would infringe such a patent claim.
"consisting of", however, basically means "is made of". It is close-ended, meaning that other elements cannot be added without going outside of the description.
example: a chair consisting of three legs and a seat. A chair with four legs or a back does not meet this definition and thus would not infringe such a patent claim.
for further info, see the USPTO discussion here.
thats become the forgotten planet. The outer planet have
all had multiple probes in the past 20-25 years. Same
with Venus, and Mars.. well we can't throw enough junk
at that rock. AFAIK, Mariner 10 was the one and only,
and that only made 2 or 3 passes after getting a boost
after a Venus rest stop.
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/venusian.html
Get rid of everything Micro and Soft: Buy Viagra and/or Linux
Reading over the comments I see a lot of "We can't inhabit Venus because it is too hot. It is too caustic. The terraforming couldn't be done..."
So, if we can't actually shuffle our feet on a planet and beat our fists against our chests like apes it isn't worth bothering with?
Punches a lot of holes in a lot of arguments I've been handed over the years about exploration. Oh well, I guess space is just the final land-grab after all...
...if we don't send more probes to Venus?! I mean, hey, there's a big movie remake starring Jim Carey and the way I see it, NASA needs to start slinging probes to Venus to satisfy the Hollywood overlords, or the six milllion dollar man is going to have to fight the reanimated corpse of Andre the Giant in Robot Bigfoot make-up.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Heh. By that same token, you could reason that Cabot Cove, Maine is an exceptionally nasty place to live considering that they have a murder every week, even though it's a pleasant little east-coast town.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
The reason we send so many more probes to Mars than to Venus is that a good day on Mars is a lot like a bad day in Antarctica, at least if you're a robot probe. A good day on Venus is more like a bad day in Hell.
It's not forgotten, just shelved. Its surface is a corrosive, lead-melting hell; there's really not much of interest there for exploration or exploitation. In the list of Solar System objects to explore or exploit, Venus is way, way, down on the list. As in, arguably dead last.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
On the other hand, if we decide we're running out of dirt after we've filled up Siberia and the Sahara, colonizing the surface of the ocean is probably much more efficient than doing Antarctica. Among other things, you can do it in warm-climate areas, and you can do some of it in places that have enough energy and nutrient sources to grow food supplies; Antarctica's a tough place to do much hydroponic farming, and the Linux geeks won't let you eat all the penguins. It does require technology, since there are problems like riding out hurricanes and not getting your rafts broken up.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I'll tell you why:
Woman are for Venus
MAN are from Mars.
If the girls want to see Venus let THEM explore it...
Zhirinovsky about George Bush and debarkation to Mars It is not necessary to joke with Mars. Here other children. This not Iraq, this not Afghanistan. George, your Mars rovers here will break on the part. 250 thousand selected Martians! They will spread everything. They entire planet will pass to one chas! They will explode all your Mars rovers, all your astronauts. George, you dzheday. You stop, blyad', you end, you laser sword hide further to the storage and forget about your dad. We have one mudak, took vengeance for the brother, blyad', and great galactic empire collapsed. And another crank was, he took vengeance for its grand-dad, and great galactic republic collapsed. And you will repeat the same error. You forget dad, dad worked out his. You think about the future of galaxy. It perishes! Your young people escape from your galaxy. There no one wants to live in your galaxy, no one! This barakholka, blyad'. dollar, dollar, dollar... this dirty green paper! Not soul, there is no music, blyad', do not have dzhedayev you. Entire peace listens to to iodine, Ob'- vans -Kennobi, blyad'. festivals, sport, races only on Dantuine: And here, on Mars. They here love force, and they despise you, despise. Your predecessor, blyad', Veyder, blyad', to it shirinku drew off directly in the command destroyer. This is entirely narrower than okhuyeli, blyad'! In the office of Head of The State to it it drew off. This that, galaxy, blyad'? You that do make, blyad'? Chubaka, blyad'! What, nakhuy, emperor? What Galactic Supremacy? Of minetchiki are devils, blyad', masturbators, pidarasy, zoofily, blyad'! George, George! Look Starry Wars! How many corpses, how much blood! And there they killed, and here they killed! 4 you I here tell: look, blyad', what sky, blyad', Ursa Major! Mars - this not Baghdad! This is not kabul! You will never here find water, because we know this people, we know this planet. They some to entire galaxy you send to khuy. Some! Everything else, blyad', fawn before you. They were erected by system in order to you to bow. You with your powerful khrenovoy economy, with your millionth army, with marskhodami, blyad', with the rockets not khuya can make. And you never here will be able to attain victory. All Martians of peace, all East Europe, Maykl Jackson, everything against you. Moscow, Moscow does not want this war, and to you our President this is clear, in Russian, he said: "not to dare to shoot at Mars". It is better together yebanem the star of death. We will find purposes in this system. So many planets, blyad'. you want, Venus nakhuy let us spread, blyad', to the meteoritic ring. To show you our rocket, blyad'? You do want, blyad'? here the weapons, blyad'.. at night our scientists will barely change the gravitational field of the Earth, and entire Mars will be under water. 24 hours, blyad', and by entire your Mars will be under water of Atlantic Pacific Ocean. You with whom do joke, blyad'? You think, blyad'! You did understand, than it did end the Dart Veyder, than it did end Palpatin, everything else? You will complete historical error! Humanity to you will gratefully not be. Forget it, humanity.
Is JAXA a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems...
Ah yes, Don P. Mitchell. This guy is masterful with the ladies!
And not to mention the computer consoles running on 20,000 Volts! Slightest bit of damage to the ship and they explode in a shower of sparks, killing another redshirt.
:o)
I mean, even using PCs with Windows I've only twice had any type of explosion. Kids, don't use a monitor right after its been stored in a damp garage for a few months... Incident no. 2 was also monitor related, an old monitor gave up the ghost with enough "poof" to fry the graphics card. But of course, CRT monitors DO have whopping great voltages
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
People seem to forget that as the sun gets older, it get's hotter. The sun is slowly expanding as it ages, this will cause the temperature on Venus to get even hotter. One must also take into account, if you want to terraform, that Venus recieves a great deal more solar energy than the Earth does. So even if you convert the atmosphere into something earthlike, the surface temperature will still be too high to make the planet habitable.
Mars is just outside the "habitable zone". If one were to induce a greenhouse effect using super-greeenhouse gasses, this would raise the temperature of the planet a great deal.
Also, there is more than enough water on Mars, although frozen.
The reason Venus is not the target of exploration at the moment is because it's not really our "Sister Planet". Mars is closer to this. Mars may have had oceans at one time and still has extremely large amounts of frozen water on it's surface. Venus has never had any water activity.
Mars is our "Sister Planet", not Venus.
"We will have to speed up the axial rotation of the planet, well, maybe it is possible by using directed nuclear explosions, or by inducing a strong electromagnetic field upon the planet's core (I don't know how to do that.)"
Err yeah. I think you've been watching too many Sci Fi B-movies. Thanks for playing...
Acid rain may form in the high atmosphere but it evaporates LONG before it reaches the ground. Venus is a dry desert and probably has been for
the last 4 billion years.
Why? Simple. Whatever you do to the planet or its atmosphere you can't change the fact that its 30% closer to the sun that the earth and receives
a LOT more solar energy per square meter. Even assuming it was made the same as earth in every other way it would STILL have an equatorial temperature
close to boiling point which would make the whole system very unstable since if you had large oceans they would rapidly
evaporate leading to huge amounts of water vapour in the air and a runaway greenhouse effect. Again. Ok , you limit the amount of water on the planets surface but that just means most
of it will end up in the atmosphere so rather putting a damper on the idea of a flourishing earth life. At the VERY BEST you'd end up with a small patch of almost inhabitable land near the poles.
Not really worth the effort I think you'll agree.
I haven't noticed that anyone has mentioned the actual cost of going to Venus which, fuel-wise, is much more expensive than going to Mars. It's much cheaper to go to an orbit further from the sun than it is to go to one towards it due to the inertia a rocket will already have from Earth's orbit.
You can't just aim towards Venus and go. You have to slow down the rocket's relative orbital speed. That's a lot of fuel. So it's also a matter of cost/benefit.
I know there are some high standing areas on Venus. Maxwell Montes rises about 35000' above the planetary mean. The lower pressure means lower temperature. Does anyone know what the average temperature of such regions might be? They might be better places for spacecraft to land.
an ill wind that blows no good
Pushing one or two of Saturn's icy moonlets out of orbit and into a collision course would provide all the remaining water terraformers would need.
why do you talk as if this is some easy feat?
.. announces a new Java API that will allow developers to remotely operate Venus landers launched by the Soviet Union over 20 years ago! ORA has plans to publish a 10,000 page definitive guide written by a community college undergraduate for the must have price of $500.
It's not a doctoral thesis or anything but I've been doing a bit of armchair research on what it would take to terraform venus and I've posted it to my blog. If you're interested take a look.
I'd appreciate some constructive error checking.
Blaze a trail to the New World
The Cassini probe reaches Saturn this summer promising years of photos. It last the NASA billion dollar mega-probes. It took two decades to fund, design, launch and arrive.
We could sell the historical high resolution maps of the worlds on the Space Books, for good commerce.
The traveling to Mars is each 2 years, but we could launch **** Express or **** Rovers each 6 months to any near planet of his planetary ellipsis: Venus, Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Pluto, .. and their satellites too.
open4free
Look at our Earth as a computer system defined by many interdependent processes and variables.
If you can follow this train of thought you will understand that sometimes the only way to understand the system you are using is to work on a test system first!
You never bounce a production system while it's in production...
The phasers always work on the wrong frequencies too !
(guess this is redundant?)
So I guess what we need is an equatorial trench somewhere where the air pressure is higher.
I wouldn't go so far as to call the atmosphere "toxic." IIRC it's mostly CO2 which is a normal component of earth's atmosphere. All you'd really need to do is introduce some specific plants that were UV-resistant and could take low pressure and you'd be good to go.
(Vastly oversimplifying, I know, and probably leaving out huge chunks of the process, but you get the idea)
+++ATH0
You say that the problems on Earth can be solved with present technology, and that the obstacles to the solution of those problems are social and political. Fine.
So how would pulling the people working on the space program off of it untie the social and political knots?
You don't want an automechanic building your house, and you don't want an architect fixing your car--why, then, do you want to force rocket scientists to muck about in politics?
I claim not that only politicians should work in politics, but that people forced into fields that they have no passion for don't do much, if anything, for causing progress in those fields. Architects can enjoy messing about with cars, and being very able mechanics, and mechanics can love the design and construction of buildings along with cars, but most do not.
For example, the theory of continental drift was proposed by a meteorologist. As evidence has panned out, he was right, but do you really want Al Roker studying the fault lines near you?
*honk*
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates