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.)

Comments

venus is a forgotten planet?

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:venus is a forgotten planet?

[Anonymous Coward]

that's because neptunian food is to spicy. they always have to knock it up another notch.

Re:venus is a forgotten planet?

[Cripple Mr. Onion]

I would give my vote to Mercury as the forgotten planet. There has only been 1 probe (Mariner 10) and it's mapping only covered about 45% of the surface to a resolution of 1km. Considering how close it is, it's odd that there really hasn't been any interest in it at all. Maybe NASA has something against large, uninteresting chunks of rock. But then, how do you explain the EROS Mission? :) onion.

Re:venus is a forgotten planet?

[Selecter]

Thats becuase anything they send to Mercury will burn up in a very short time, limiting the scientific value. It's all about maximum value gained for the bucks.

Re:venus is a forgotten planet?

[sniggly]

Nobody's going to venus because the temperature on the planet is over 400 centigrade.

So it's pretty much totally worthless for the coming centuries. Mars is a different story. While its atmosphere is toxic and its air pressure too low the temperature around the equator wouldn't bother a Canadian (gets above freezing at times). It also has water. Pretty decent planet.

Re:venus is a forgotten planet?

[jaywee]

What about MESSENGER, launching to Mercury this year ?

Re:venus is a forgotten planet?

[Babbster]

Not only worthless in terms of manned travel, but quite a bit more complicated in terms of unmanned exploration. I've got to believe that equipment survivability on Mars is a lot better than on Venus due to that ridiculously high temperature, which approaches that of an uncooled Nvidia video card.

Re:venus is a forgotten planet?

[VanillaCoke420]

MESSEMGER

Bepi-Colombo

Re:venus is a forgotten planet?

[DustinB]

Restarting the core is simple. Haven't you seen the movie?

Re:venus is a forgotten planet?

[roman_mir]

I disagree. Venus is a better choice for terraforming than Mars will ever be. It is close to our planet's size, it has an active atmosphere, which can be changed by introducing microbes that metabolize it and split the CO2 into solid carbon and free oxygen. By doing this we can change the atmospheric pressure of the planet and the temperature to something quite close to what we are used to.

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.) Or we could crash a large meteor into it?

Venus is the next Earth, Mars is way beyond our capabilities of terraforming. However on Mars we can build undeground colonies and green houses.

Re:venus is a forgotten planet?

[arivanov]

inducing a strong electromagnetic field upon the planet's core

Venus has vritually zero magentic field so

In fact, the main reason for Venus not being ever suitable for terraforming (at least on its sunny side) is that there is no magnetic field so the first solar flare will irradiate to death any leaving creature there. This is the first problem to be solved for terraforming it. It is a catch 22 situation - in order to to convert Venus CO2 and H2SO4 atmosphere into something useable it has to be populated with algae and bacteria. In order for them to function they need solar energy. If they get in the Sun on Venus they die because there is no protection from high energy particles.

Re:venus is a forgotten planet?

[roman_mir]

http://www.ufoindia.org/article_gravityelectromag. htm - on the IC of Venus - most likely Venus has a massive FeNi core surrounded by Fe2++ free magnesium silicates. There is no strong Electromagnetic field most likely due to the very high temperature of the core. By cooling down the atmosphere (reducing the pressure) the core heat could start transfering into the space basically.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/ven usfact.html - compare Venus and Earth. These planets are very much alike, much more alike than Earth and Mars.

It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[AKAImBatman]

Exactly. If we wanted to actually colonize Venus, we'd have to terraform it in one way or another. Otherwise, the extreme pressures would make it difficult to explore without some form of space infrastructure already in place. *After* we have an infrastructure, it will be more like deep sea exploration. Right now it's like Romans talking about diving for sea monsters.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[affreca101]

My objection is that NASA has decided that the search for life is is the most important aspect of planetary research, because it is what catches headlines. Venus is not a likely source of life, however the geology is still very interesting but ignored.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[shigelojoe]

I think Venus still takes a back seat to the moons of Jupiter. That's where the future action is going to be.

Except Europa, of course.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[Artifakt]

This is partly a question of energy. Rough calculations seem to suggest that the human race will be producing enough power to be able to break down iron oxides on the Martian surface and free oxygen, or to move icy comet cores from the outer system and impact them on Mars, before that many generations have passed.
We don't know much about what technology would make such things possible, but if you draw even a straight line curve from the technology of the past, such as wood heated boilers, through today (fission), and extrapolate, the time till we can spruce up Mars is only a hundred years or so.
Terraforming Venus, on the other hand, takes changing that long rotation. Even if we could strip off the existing atmosphere, and replace it with 15 PSI worth of 70 some odd % Nitrogen, 22% Oxygen, etc., the Venusian day is so long that such an atmosphere would freeze out on the night side.
Even if we can sustain a technological growth rate that may be just plain impossible in the long run, Mars will be doable generations before Venus.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[MMaestro]

The problem isn't only in getting a space type infrastructure up, its also the problem of gathering, sorting and analyzing all the infomation. We have the two rovers on Mars sending information back fairly regularly to scientists on Earth, but how many scientists do you think are working on the data being sent back? At least a couple hundred, OFFICALLY. There are probably also a couple thousand private citizens also analyzing the data as soon as its public released. Its probably easier to have one big group of people researching one planet rather than having two groups arguing over "which planet is more habitable."

Not only that there are management issues. NASA is already going insane trying to keep the two Mars rovers operational and funded. Chances are they're not going to spend a couple extra billion dollars on another planet which gets no PR.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[Inspector Lopez]

One of the weird coincidences of the Solar System is that, on every planet, there is a place that is not too far from STP ("standard temperature and pressure --- more or less like sea level and 300 K). In the case of Mars, that place happens to be in a very deep hole in the ground, whereas on Venus and Jupiter, that place happens to be well above the "surface" (whatever that means on Jupiter). For you Mars colonizers, if you dig a hole about 30-40 km deep, you'll find that a pretty good air pressure and temperature will result. It'll be CO2, of course, but perhaps some trees won't mind too much.

In the case of Venus, the question is, then, "why bother landing?" Why not just build yourself a balloon that floats around at some convenient altitude where it's not so hot, below the H2SO4 clouds so you can see the ground, perhaps occasionally deploying gliders or whatever to go down to the surface....

A subsequent /. post mentions that the Soviet landers bounced off the surface at 7m/s. If a "lander" had been equipped with airbags, it probably wouldn't have it the surface at all, if the bags were filled with a gas with lower molecular weight than that of Venus. Rather, it would bob at some altitude(well) above the surface, a sort of low altitude satellite bobbing along in Venus extremely dull weather.

[ The submersibles like the Trieste used "balloons" filled with gasoline to supply bouyancy; the gasoline was not crushed by the terrific pressure down there. Then by shedding ballast, the subermisibles could return to the surface. ]

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[AKAImBatman]

This is partly a question of energy. Rough calculations seem to suggest that the human race will be producing enough power to be able to break down iron oxides on the Martian surface and free oxygen, or to move icy comet cores from the outer system and impact them on Mars, before that many generations have passed.

*cough* Actually we have the power today. When one considers that space travelers' lives depend on energy, one realizes that Nuclear Fission is pretty much a requirement for space travel.

We don't know much about what technology would make such things possible, but if you draw even a straight line curve from the technology of the past, such as wood heated boilers, through today (fission), and extrapolate, the time till we can spruce up Mars is only a hundred years or so.

This is difficult, because the technology already exists for getting to Mars. Unfortunately, our society has been stopping technological progress in favor of the idea that everything must be "safe". So much so, that dangers are percieved where none exist. What people *want* is a Star Trek technology that glosses over how dangerous that much power actually is.

Even if we can sustain a technological growth rate that may be just plain impossible in the long run, Mars will be doable generations before Venus.

No argument here. I was just pointing out that Mars is more interesting *because* it doesn't need to be terraformed. Terraforming is still one of those "on the drawing board" type of things. Simple blimps flying around Venus would be a more viable option. With the extreme pressure of the atmosphere, it's even possible to build floating islands for exploration.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[AKAImBatman]

just make a nanotube pipe and send it down to suck out the venician atmosphere.

Riiigghhhttt... And just how do you propose to pump the atomosphere? You're trying to pull it *out* of a gravity well. You'd need approximately the same amount of energy for every kilogram of atmosphere that it takes to launch a kilogram of stuff to Earth escape velocity.

A much better option is microbes. If you can get some microbes to start changing CO2 into oxygen, a lot of the O2 will be absorbed by the soil. I can't say how much (or if it will even be enough), but it would be a start.

The only problem with that sort of terraforming is that it would tend to do irreparable damage to the geologic history of the planet. As a result, the whole thing is a bit of a "give and take" type of situation.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[sniggly]

There's one pretty good rationale, that's that this planet's ecosystem won't exist forever, if it isnt wiped out by an impact it could be destroyed by a nearby start going nova. If the ecosystem is lucky it'll survive another 4 billion years until the sun itself goes nova. Actually there are several extremely good rationales having to do with survival of the human race in the longer term.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[AKAImBatman]

Assuming you could find a good chemical that would produce inert results, you'd have to ship a hell of a lot of it. Microbes already have chemicals to extract carbon, plus they reproduce. What's not to like?

If you're really set on the idea of extracting a portion of Venus's atmosphere, there's a better (and more feasible) way than nanotubes or chemicals. Simply look for an asteroid on a near-pass course. If you catch it early enough, you should be able to use a couple of nukes to "nudge" its orbit so that it passes extremely close. As it passes, the asteroid's gravity will cause a extremely strong gravitational tide that will litterally rip away part of the atmosphere.

Here's the tough part. The asteroid has to be large enough to have a strong enough gravitational pull, plus it has to have a high enough initial velocity to not get trapped in Venus's gravity and become another moon. Given the close proximity of Venus to the Sun, it may take awhile before a good one shows up.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[ajagci]

Assuming those were good reasons to colonize other planets, the time frame of those issues is so long-term (as is the time-frame in which we will be technologically ready to actually colonize other planets in any meaningful way) that it really has no bearing on which planets to target by unmanned probes for the foreseeable future.

In this century and the next, we should pick our targets for maximum scientific benefit, not for the possibility of colonization.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[100lbHand]

Nah, let your asteroid get caught in orbit, something about the size of our moon. Not only could it rip off some atmosphere one would think that it could help up the rotation of Venus and shorten the days.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[ajagci]

It's possible that the rapid development of technology as we've seen it over the last century/centuries will allow humanity to meaningfully colonize Mars within the next two to three centuries. I think the space elevator is a piece of the puzzle since it will allow very low cost orbital deployment.

Yes, it may be technologically possible to put a colony on Mars even within a couple of centuries. But that simply has no bearing on where we send our planetary probes today. If Venus were scientifically more interesting, we should be sending probes there despite its tough conditions.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[earthforce_1]

Actually, I believe it may be possible with anaerobic bacteria.

IANAB - I am not a biologist, but I know they have found bacteria living in very inhospitable areas, including mid-ocean vents. Some even survived a few years on the moon! Venus is not too unlike Earth was at the time life first arose. All we would have to do to start the ball rolling is unleash some genetically engineered bacteria that would thrive in the Venusian atmosphere, use a form of photosynthesis to convert the mostly CO2 atmosphere to oxygen and sugar, the way plant life does on earth. This would cool the atmosphere, and allow at least some of the the water in the atmosphere reach the surface. (Venusian clouds are sufuric acid)

Perhaps introduced bacteria could convert the sulfur in the clouds to something harmless or perhaps even useful.

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.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[phreakmonkey]

Unfortunately, our society has been stopping technological progress in favor of the idea that everything must be "safe". So much so, that dangers are percieved where none exist. What people *want* is a Star Trek technology that glosses over how dangerous that much power actually is.

Eh? Are you kidding? It seems like in every other episode of Star Trek that I watched the ship's Warp Core was going to self-destruct and needed to be fixed before it had to be ejected... or there was a matter/anti-matter collision explosion somewhere in engineering. (Granted, they used the latter more often in the original series). Hell, even their phasers were always overloading and being left somewhere to explode, killing a red-shirt or to.

No sirree, I don't think people want a Star Trek technology world at all. :)

- P.M.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[DrMrLordX]

You never watched Space Balls, did you? All you need is an obscenely large capital ship that transforms into a giant maid and you're all set!

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[Civil_Disobedient]

below the H2SO4 clouds so you can see the ground

I'm afraid you haven't been looking too closely at the imaging and cloud density data that the websites above explain. There aren't "clouds" like on Earth -- chubby, fat little suckers that we have. On Venus, it's just a giant, very slow-moving morass of gas. The Sulpher-rich "clouds" are more like fog. The heavy pressure makes "walking" on the surface like deep-sea diving on the surface of the ocean floors. But you're never going to get much better visibility than a couple of yards, maybe a dozen or so if you're lucky.

If a "lander" had been equipped with airbags ...then they would have melted upon deployment. The surface temperature of Venus is something like 800 degrees. And the atmosphere is highly reactive to metals. Yes, we have the technology to land on it nowadays, and it's certainly a lot closer than Mars, but terraforming and colonization talk just obfuscates what our primary purpose as a civilization should be: to build a large enough ship in orbit to explore the solar system up close and person.

This ship could have planetary re-entry capsules built into it, (much like the missions we're sending to Mars) or we could just build a better Earth-to-Orbit vehicle (which is long overdue). As long as you give it a strong enough power source you can build as ugly and un-aerodynamic a ship as you like. Need more O2? Need more food and water? Just hitch on a big-ass freight box behind the ship. It doesn't matter what the ship looks like (except from a maneuvering point of view -- center of gravity and all that).

But no, instead we waste our money sending fancy probes hundreds of millions of miles away and crossing our fingers. If these Mars missions have taught us anything, it's that scientists are very, very clever at fixing problems. Think of what they could do if they were able to do their observations on-site, instead of troubleshooting technical support problems with a 22 minute phone delay.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[AKAImBatman]

Designs are feasible that would seal off the nuclear material in a super-hard casing. A couple of the RTGs NASA has sent up have come crashing to Earth in a fireball and have survived just fine. One was even reused.

BepiColombo

[brokencomputer]

You forgot to mention the BepiColombo that will laucnh on 2011-01-01: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog? sc=BEPICLMBO

The real question is WHY

[KingOfBLASH]

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.

Re:The real question is WHY

[Chapium]

The reason my friend is, that everyone believed Venus was inhabitable around the time the Soviets began exploring it. Their initial lander they sent there got fried because they thought it was only going to be about 80-100 degrees Farenheit on the surface; not 3-5x that.

Re:The real question is WHY

[Graff]

first thing is first... fixing problems on earth.

Opening up new horizons is part of fixing the problems on Earth. Not only is the space program generating research that is highly applicable to current Earthly problems*, it is also providing for an eventual safety valve where disaffected members of society can go off to a Moon or Mars colony to start a new life rather than remaining on crowded Earth.

An example of this can be seen in the early pioneering days of the United States. Sure it was a tough, difficult, and often deadly trip west but many people did it anyways in order to start off new. Many of those people had been feeling stifled in the eastern cities and so they went west, relieving the social caldrons which were beginning to boil over.

The fact that there was an open frontier allowed people to be innovative and to take a chance that they might get a piece of land of their own and maybe even have their own business. It provided the poorest person with the opportunity to be successful and to pass their success on to their children. When there are no frontiers this is much harder to do.

* Such as medicine, hydroponics, closed ecosystems, energy sources, micro-mechanization, robotics, etc.

Re:The real question is WHY

[kels]

Well, scientifically Venus is at least as intriguing as Mars, at least in terms of the big picture. It is much closer in size & mass to Earth, and so would be expected to evolve geologically in a very similar way. From what we know, Venus does not seem to work like Earth at all, with no signs of plate tectonics. Why not? Was it different in the past? Is it due to the different surface conditions (temperature, presence of water)?

The planet is thought to have been completely resurfaced around 500 million years ago, with relatively little geological activity since then. Why?

And the biggest question of all, how did the atmosphere & surface temperature of Venus evolve? Was it ever a place that had Earth-like surface conditions (liquid water)? Could it ever have supported life? Was a runaway greenhouse effect an inescapable consequence of receiving ~2x the solar radiation of Earth, or did Earth escape that fate due to the fact that biological activity has been sequestering CO2 for hundreds of millions of years?

In terms of planetary evolution, Venus, Mars & Earth seem to be the too hot, too cold, just right examples. Is the hospitibility of our planet due completely to the luck of its position at 1 AU from the sun, or did other factors come into play (stabilization of Earth's rotation & climate by our large Moon, for example)?

There's a lot we still don't know about our solar system, and Venus is a vital piece of that puzzle. If it's all about resources or human habitation, no, Venus isn't an attractive destination. But scientifically, it is key.

Re:The real question is WHY

[ajagci]

Opening up new horizons is part of fixing the problems on Earth. Not only is the space program generating research that is highly applicable to current Earthly problems*, [...] * Such as medicine, hydroponics, closed ecosystems, energy sources, micro-mechanization, robotics, etc.

What good do lessons about ecology do us when we don't apply them? We have more than enough technology to solve the problems here on earth--the obstacles are purely social and political. Colonizing Mars isn't going to solve that.

it is also providing for an eventual safety valve where disaffected members of society can go off to a Moon or Mars colony to start a new life rather than remaining on crowded Earth.

A six months interplanetary trip followed by enormously expensive life support is supposed to be a "safety valve"? Sorry, but you are naive.

An example of this can be seen in the early pioneering days of the United States. Sure it was a tough, difficult, and often deadly trip west but many people did it anyways in order to start off new. Many of those people had been feeling stifled in the eastern cities and so they went west, relieving the social caldrons which were beginning to boil over.

First of all, the US was, in many ways, a paradise: abundant wildlife, good climate, rich soils. Second, many people came lured by false advertising: despite nearly ideal conditions, life was indeed harsh (as life tends to be without tools and infrastructure). Third, emigration to the US hardly did much "relieving" for the countries where people emigrated from; quite to the contrary, after being a dumping ground for dopes and criminals initially, the US soon took away many of their most enterprising citizens, a "brain drain" that continues to this day. This continues to benefit the US at the cost of everybody else.

Of course, none of that is relevant to Mars: Mars is far less suitable for colonization than the Sahara desert, the top of Mount Everest, or the Antarctic. And in addition to that, it's much more costly to reach.

We either fix things here on earth or we die: colonization of other planets is not a viable alternative over the next couple of centuries at least.

Re:The real question is WHY

[kamapuaa]

Sci-fi can be a lot of fun to read or see in a movie. But taking concepts out of "Star Trek" and assuming they hold true for real life is false logic.

Getting in a boat doesn't compare to the difficulty of going to another planet. Life on another planet could never be as an effective a getaway, as moving to a shack in Idaho or Montana. When/if Mars is finally colonized far the in the future, it will be a highly regimented lifestyle - you really think dissaffected weirdos would be the idea type for such a life?

Missings to space are not leading advances in energy sources & robots. As far as micro-mechanization goes, they're sending IBM laptops into space. And who cares about advances in hydroponics or closed ecosystems?

Re:The real question is WHY

[Tablizer]

The planet is thought to have been completely resurfaced around 500 million years ago, with relatively little geological activity since then. Why?

The aliens screwed up their first attempt at planting humans, and decided to flush Venus clean and try a new colony on Earth. I think they are reaching for the handle again.

Mars is a Prospect for Money

[Qweezle]

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.

Re:Mars is a Prospect for Money

[Bagels]

About those extra billion people... to give a generic answer to a generic argument, Antarctica is more hospitable, so we'll probably expand to fill down there before we start packing people off to Mars. That said, Mars has a certain romance (not in the love sense) to it that Antarctica can't claim (though back in the 1800s, it was Antarctica that had that same sort of allure).

Re:Mars is a Prospect for Money

[jafuser]

I have a feeling venus will become a lot more interesting as time goes on. Having too much atmosphere seems to be a problem much more easily solved than having too little.

At least venus can eventually be terraformed when we develop such technology to do so. Mars doesn't have much hope of being terraformed because it lacks the gravity to keep an atmosphere in place.

Re:Mars is a Prospect for Money

[styrotech]

This is questionable. Mars is substantially warmer, for one.

Mars would be colder than Antarctica most of the time.

Mars
Antarctica

And Antarctica does better in the oxygen and water availability stakes.

Re:Mars is a Prospect for Money

[ajagci]

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.

You're gonna ship African and Indian street kids to Mars by the billions? Because that's where those "extra billions" come from. It's not going to happen.

There are only two ways we will deal with the population explosion: family planning and social changes on the one hand, or disease and starvation on the other.

Re:Mars is a Prospect for Money

[jayveekay]

And if disease and starvation don't pan out, there's always war.

The population explosion has already happened, btw. With current technology we won't be able to support the 6 billion or so of us around today at today's standard of living (even though billions today have a pretty poor way of life) for more than a century. The whole premise for our civilization is that it's ok to burn through our forests, water, and oil because technology will find a solution before we run out.

And if we don't find a solution? Well, we can tell our great grandchildren "Oops, our bad wasting all the oil and stuff. Sorry 'bout all the dead people you're gonna have from all the wars fighting over what's left."

That's the double edged sword of a 70ish year lifespan: It evolves the species but promotes short sightedness.

Landing on Venus

[eluusive]

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.

Re:Landing on Venus

[Shafe]

Yeah, except we did land on the surface something like thirty years ago. Take that, Venus!

Re:Landing on Venus

[korielgraculus]

HA! That's where you are wrong, you lousy venusi......SPLAT!

cloudy venus

[maliabu]

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 :)

There's a good reason we choose Mars, not Venus

[CrystalFalcon]

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.

Venus harbors life?

[ObviousGuy]

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?

Re:Venus harbors life?

[RoLi]

Could the Soviet explorers have found primitive life there and for fear of starting widespread panic decided to keep the whole thing quiet.

The most stupidest conspiracy theories are governments keeping alien life "quiet".

If there would be any evidence for alien life - or even intelligent life out there, the governments would profit the most because it's a good reason to raise taxes for military, etc.

The thought that the government would keep the cover over something that a) clearly isn't their fault, b) is possibly an external threat for which c) only the government has an adequate fix, is pretty dumb, IMO.

I'm all for conspiracies, but there must be some kind of motive behind it.

Re:Venus harbors life?

[alkali]

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).

I agree that there are some forms of bacteria that could survive on Venus. A more basic question is whether life could originate under such conditions, and I've never seen anyone address that question. I would be interested to know if anyone else has.

Re:Venus harbors life?

[JayBlalock]

His entire point was that, if you asked oceanologists or biologists in the 60s about the possibility of life at the bottom of oceanic abyssal trenches, they would have given the exact same arguments about why it was impossible. Just replace "sulfuric acid" with "near-boiling temperatures" or "2,500 PSI of pressure" and you'd be similarly laughed at for suggesting life.

The discovery and study of extremophiles has actually been a huge boon to those advancing theories of life on other worlds. The range of life on Earth is mind-boggling, with many organisms and animals which are at least as "alien" as anything that might be found on Venus or Jupiter or whereever. The basic point being, if they can go into places on Earth where life absolutely, positively, could not possibly be, and find life anyway, it suddenly becomes hard to summarily rule out ANY location.

the question is why

[Gimpy-Joe]

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

Reflects Rational Use of Resources

[reallocate]

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.

Venus

[rholliday]

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.

Venus isn't as interesting as Mars...

[Anonymous Coward]

in the short term, at least. Consider: the conditions on Venus are very inimical to human life; we'd have to invest in some serious tech to counteract the atmosphere and the heat.

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.

Amazing

[M0b1u5]

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?

Re:Amazing

[kwan3217]

Its not even that complicated. The thing which killed all the Venera landers wasn't temperature or pressure, but battery life. The batteries only lasted two hours on the surface. Next probably would have been temperature. Pressure doesn't seem to be a problem, since Venera lives inside a pressure vessel and that worked just fine.

I have seen a design for a long-lived lander which uses an RTG (nuclear power) instead of batteries, to run a refrigerator and the rest of the gadgets for months or years.

Good reasons to not land on Venus.

[THotze]

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.

Re:Good reasons to not land on Venus.

[rodgerd]

Venus would just require radically new technology to land on,

Or you could ask the Russians how the Venera landers worked. I know NIH is a big problem for some people, but overcoming a bit of parochialism never hurt anyone.

The real reason they haven't explored Venus

[foidulus]

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.

Re:Venus: An Enigma

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, we can send shit and people(well, really more shit) deep into the ocean were we it survives and is put unde more then 90 bars. The heat is not really that hot. I mean it melts people. But 462C is not enough to melt steal. So not even close to imposable.

layman alert

[digitalsushi]

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?

Re:Venus: An Enigma

[Shafe]

Yeah but this is 1970's technology that was stripped down as much as possible to save costs on weight. And how can we imagine that our rockets would even function correctly under those terrible conditions? It would be like firing a stream of hot gas within a tank of lava. OK, extreme example, but I never understood that part of the Venus missions. There's a lot to our space exploration programs that have left lots of question marks that scientists have never fully answered for me. Perhaps MJ-12 decreed that we were not ready to handle the truth.

Name a crater?

[Aardpig]

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!

Re:Venus: An Enigma

[Draveed]

Don't submarines routinely survive pressures greater than 90 atmospheres? Back in 1960, the US Navy sent a specialized sub down into the Marianas Trench. That's about 35,000 ft down. Going by memory (so someone feel free to jump in and correct me), 33ft down in the ocean = 1 atm. So, that's about 1060 atmospheres. I always thought the difficult problem with Venus was its caustic atmosphere. That's what destroyed the Soviet probes, not the atmospheric pressure.

Possibly offtopic, but

[Threni]

shouldn't we be taking care of Earth? Check this out:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0, 12 374,1153530,00.html

Scary.

Re:Venus: An Enigma

[heptapod]

Perhaps this page may shed a little light upon your question.

Correction, again

[CrystalFalcon]

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?

Re:Correction, again

[Anonymous Coward]

Handy Kelvin links for all your learning needs..

Explanation as to why we don't say "Degrees Kelvin"
mathforum.org

For all your other Kelvin needs including history about the great man himself
http://zapatopi.net/lordkelvin.html

Let's not make the same mistakes again!!

Maybe we could go and live there

[eclectro]

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.

Venus is hell...

[sterno]

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.

Re:Venus is hell...

[mewsenews]

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).

kinda like my ex-girlfriend then

Venus - The forgotten planet!

[Borg453b]

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?

Why are there no Venus landers?

[Xabraxas]

Apparently, no landings on Venus are planned - is this another case of humanity losing advanced space travel capability due to neglect, like Apollo?

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.

Venus is a difficult target...

[wizz0bang]

Venus is far more difficult to land on than Mars. We have successfully sent several probes to orbit Venus, and even a few that "landed" on the surface. They lasted a very short time due to: high concentrations of Sulfuric acid (just like in your car battery), high atmospheric pressure, roughly 1500 pounds per square inch to the Earth's roughly 15 pounds per square inch, and not least of all temperatures hot enough to melt lead... up to 450 degrees C.

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.

see:

http://www.planetary.org/html/news/articlearchive/ headlines/2001/venus.html

Re:Venus is a difficult target...

[ms139us]

They know how to handle the acid.

They routinely handle these kinds of temperature and pressures.

What's the big deal?

Let's go to Venus!

Interesting stuff at the website not just Venus

[Tandoori Haggis]

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.

Easy to land, hard to survive

[Evil Pete]

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.

Re:Venus: An Enigma

[Entropy Unleashed]

Your conspiracy theory, like almost all conspiracy theories, contains elements of both truth and falsehood. No, we almost certainly won't polar bears cavorting over the poles of Venus. However, Venus is undubitably friendly to Earth life. The question is to which types of Earth life it is friendly. We know that thermophiles and other such extremophiles can survive in similarly challenging environments on Earth. However, it would likely require some fairly major bio-engineering in order to prepare such Earth organisms to live on Venus.

Beyond even just the well publicized extremes of temperature and pressure, any life-form on Venus would have to contend with heavy metal snow and clouds made of sulfuric acid. While I'm sure that we have separate varieties of extremophiles on Earth that can cope with each of these challenges separately, creating a synthesis of these traits would require significantly greater experience with practical genetic engineering as well as significant funding. We just don't have the funds right now to return Venus' friendship, which I'm sure is a situation that /.ers have experienced before.

Re:Venus: An Enigma

[groomed]

That was the Trieste, designed and built by the Frenchmen Auguste and Jacques Piccard. The US Navy bought it from them. To my knowledge, since that great achievement, nobody has ever gone deeper (or even as deep), so it's not exactly a good example of "not hard".

Re:Terraforming or chemistry experiments?

[ABaumann]

In order to terraform Venus, you'd have to pump out all of the greenhouse gasses (which is what maked the temperature on Venus even hotter then Mercury. ) Then we'd have to totally change the atmosphere. Assuming you could do all of that, you'd then be able to live on a planet that has days 5800 hours long. ( I hope you like sleeping with the light on. )

Probe Eater Plus

[Mulletproof]

"...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."

Re:"Our" marsbots??

[cfuse]

What do you mean "our" marsbots, Mr. Winnipeg? Those are my tax dollars hard at work.

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 ...

Moon & Venus Pairing

[nacturation]

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.

Re:Venus: An Enigma

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that hard to find information on the lander on the web. Read up on it.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/venera75.html

As for it being "stripped down", consider that they used a Proton to launch the thing, and could send over 5 tons of payload to Venus. Both Venera-9 and -10 were around 5,000 kg mass. The lander proper was about 660 kg, with a 900 kg protective shell. Put stuff in a one-ton steel sphere, and it tends to be protected from pressure. The surface temperature of 450 C is not really all that high, nowhere near enough to melt iron or steel, and certainly not much compared to the temperature during entry. (I'd say "re-entry", but of course the lander hadn't been there before...)

One interesting feature of the lander was that it was in free fall from 50 kilometers up, and hit the ground doing about 7 meters/sec. Airbags? We don't need no stinkin' airbags!

Re:Venus: An Enigma

[Xyrus]

It's pressure+heat+acid that's the problem. The probes that landed we're destroyed within hours. You can make a probe resistant to high pressure, but that takes strength of material. This usually means weight. You can make a probe resistant to heat, but it'll be damn hard to keep it cool for any length of time when the ambient temperature is 500 deg C. You can make a probe resistant to acid, but the metals used for structural integrity dissolve metals. Yes, we sent a sub to the deepest depths on earth, but that's nothing compared to trying to have a lander last more than a few hours on Venus. Maybe when we perfect high strength ceramic composites we can do it. Oh, and the nuclear power plant on board to power the cooling system. ~X Random Quote: "It's hard to shovel shit when already in over your head."

Someone who hasn't forgotten

[benj_e]

I think that Brad Guth hasn't forgotten Venus

They (we) are working missions to Venus...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

the outer outer planets...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:the outer outer planets...

[enosys]

Voyager 2 got to Neptune in about 12 years. Pluto was actually closer than Neptune during that time. I guess it could still have taken longer to get to Pluto because of the positions of other planets that you'd use for a gravity assist, but I really doubt it'd take an entire generation.

You try sending something to Venus...

[trainsnpep]

A pressure of 90 atmospheres, sulfuric acid clouds, 740K (that's 860C if I did my math right) tempertures, lava flows in many places....It's kinda harsh....

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....

Terraforming ain't so easy.

[Jafafa Hots]

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.

Re:Terraforming ain't so easy.

[AKAImBatman]

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 *do* have the tech. Sort of. We can generate enough energy to be zipping around the solar system, displacing asteroids and comets. We have even built some of the engine designs that give us that kind of power. (Although only the weaker ones have been built.) Most of the resistance to these technologies is poltical. (Don't dare mention "nuclear" as a propulsion method. Even if you're talking about using it in space, some people are whacked enough to start complaining about "polluting space". Sheesh.)

As for knowledge, most of the terraforming ideas are based on a "close enough" approach. It's assumed that once we get things to that state, then some of the more exotic Earth lifeforms could begin to get a foothold. (i.e. extremophiles) Whether it would actually pan out or not would be "the great experiment".

Interestingly enough, Venus may be easier to terraform than Mars. Mars has less atmosphere and little ability to hold more. Venus on the other hand, has too much atmosphere. Microbes exist that could exist on Venus (at least flosting, perhaps actually on the ground). As they convert CO2 to O2, the soil would begin to absorb the excess O2. In theory, Venus's atmosphere could be thinned greatly just by making it more habitable for Earth life.

There's also the asteroid-to-rip-away-atmosphere idea that I gave in another post. Personally, I'd be a little reluctant to try that route until it was shown that other methods fail.

Re:Terraforming ain't so easy.

[Waffle Iron]

We can generate enough energy to be zipping around the solar system, displacing asteroids and comets. We have even built some of the engine designs that give us that kind of power. (Although only the weaker ones have been built.) Most of the resistance to these technologies is poltical. (Don't dare mention "nuclear" as a propulsion method.

Forget about the nuclear issue. If we develop the technology to aim asteroids and comets at a planet, would then have the ability to wipe out every living thing on this planet larger than a mouse. That is going to face some political resistance, and probably with good reason.

Re:Terraforming ain't so easy.

[Waffle Iron]

And the fact that we can see it coming years in advance will do nothing to sway fears?

Surely you've heard of stealth technology. Wrap it up in a black plastic cube.

And that the U.S. government has more technology to redirect the asteriods than anyone who gets out there to redirect the thing at us?

I'm not talking about the short term. Look at all of the shit that's gone down over the last 5000 years of history. There probably isn't going to be a "U.S. government" 10,000 years from now. Sure, the risk is low that some group or country would actually pull this off, but over the next million years or so, the risk will add up. I would argue that once this technology, is available, the annual risk from an intentional impact will be greater than that of a natural one.

At any rate, I'm actually not too worried about this scenario. The lack of success of SETI efforts indicates to me that civilization as we know it will come to an end much sooner than that. I'd guess that within the next few hundred years we'll either find a new physics phenomenon that allows an individual to intentionally or accidently destroy our little area of space/time, or we'll figure out a way to tunnel out of this overly constrictive level of reality into something better. Either way, we may not be around here long enough to worry about terraforming or asteroids.

Re:Terraforming ain't so easy.

[zero_offset]

Interestingly enough, Venus may be easier to terraform than Mars. Mars has less atmosphere and little ability to hold more. Venus on the other hand, has too much atmosphere. Microbes exist that could exist on Venus (at least flosting, perhaps actually on the ground). As they convert CO2 to O2, the soil would begin to absorb the excess O2. In theory, Venus's atmosphere could be thinned greatly just by making it more habitable for Earth life.

That isn't even close to accurate.

The surface temperature of Venus is about 900 degrees F. Although the greenhouse effect of the CO2-rich atmosphere is commonly cited as the main cause, another critical contributor is the extremely low rotation speed. One Venutian day lasts for 243 Earth days. This means the sun shines on the exact same spot of Venus for very, very long periods of time. The greenhouse effect plays into it by reflecting back a lot of that heat energy, but you're not going to be able to speed up the rotation of the planet. Even if you could figure out how to magically reduce 90% of the atmospheric pressure (Earth is about 14.5 PSI, whereas Venus is about 1500 PSI), a sunny day on Venus would be deadly.

The carbon dioxide atmosphere is also supplanted by a series of sulfuric acid cloud layers (each of which are many miles thick), as well as pools of liquid sulfuric acid on the surface. If that isn't challenging enough, intense microwave radiation is emitted from the surface, and all of that heat and pressure also means any water moisture which ever existed boiled away a long, long time ago (excepting small amounts of deuterium). Venus is largely devoid of hydrogen. Thus, even if you managed to deal with the atmospheric pressure and heat, you'd still be left with nothing but a bone-dry planet.

Carl Sagan suggested in 1960 that we might terraform Venus by seeding the atmosphere with hypothetical tailored bacteria to remove CO2. At the time, the surface was thought to be around 300-400 F, but now we know that organically-fixated carbon would be liberated as CO2 again, once it fell into the 900 F furnace that is the lower atmosphere.

Thus, Venus would certainly NOT be easier to terraform than Mars, even if we had any idea how to actually terraform in the first place. In fact, the surface of Mercury is probably more hospitable.

Re:mod down

[Aardpig]

Interesting, especially in light of a previous post indicating that there aren't any craters visible on Venus.

Further to my previous response to this false assertion, this page on the Magellan website discusses the fact that small craters on Venus have been assigned female first names.

Time for some re-evaluation

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Venus is even hotter than Mercury

[XPACT]

Because of the greenhouse effect

Venus is the obvious choice

[Sir Foxx]

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.

Venus and Bio-teraformation

[GeneralEmergency]

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.

Great Venus Read

[DieByWire]

A great read is David Grinspoon's 'Venus Revealed.' Interesting, funny, and the inspiration for my lame sig.

Re:How did the Russians name a crater?

[Aardpig]

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.

I'm not sure how extensively their Venera missions actually mapped the surface (remembering that you have to do the mapping in radar, not in visible light, due to the dense cloud cover). If you can't see it, then you can't name it -- so their being able to name things really does depend on the mapping capabilities aboard the Veneras.

For that matter, do the Russians refer to the planet as "Venus" or something else?

Something pretty close to "Venus", I imagine, judging from the naming of the Venera missions.

I know how did the Russians name a crater!

[rueger]

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.

acutally its Mercury...

[Lawrence_Bird]

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.

Dangers of warp cores and fusion reactors.

[edunbar93]

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.

Short Version

[santiago]

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.

Not forgotten, but shelved

[xihr]

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

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Star Trek power technology

[zoney_ie]

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.

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 :o)

Venus will never be very suitable for terraforming

[Viol8]

"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...