Colonists of Venus

in Actifit3 years ago (edited)

In a previous Actifit report about Isaac Arthur's "Outward Bound: Colonizing Mars" video I mentioned Mars not having much nitrogen. Do you know what nearby planet has more nitrogen than Earth? Venus. How do you get it from Venus to Mars? Machine gun rods of solid nitrogen at Mars. "Machine gun" were Isaac Arthur's exact words. Is that as awesome in your imagination as it is in mine?

Why stop at firing rods of nitrogen like we're Prohibition-era Chicago mobsters? Let's slam huge chunks of ice at Venus. One day on Venus is 243 Earth days. If we want to terraform Venus to be like Earth speeding up Venus' rotation would bring that closer to a 24 hour day. Also, increasing the rotational speed of Venus would most likely give the planet a natural magnetic field. Increasing rotation by slamming chunks of ice near the equator along the edge is tricky but theoretically possible. It would also create an ocean.

If one is really ambitious just take one of the moons from the outer planets and put it in orbit around Venus to act as a gravity tractor and speed up the planet's rotation. That's more of a Kardashev Type II civilization project though.

Oh, and we can fry the planet. If we use space mirrors we can bake off some of the atmosphere decreasing the large amount of air pressure. We could also mine the plentiful carbon dioxide for its carbon and export billions of tons of graphene from Venus. We can break down the sulfuric acid into water and oxygen along with hydrogen that could fill blimps to allow colonies to float miles above the planet's surface where air pressure and temperature are closer to Earth's conditions.

With enough energy and time Venus could be the most likely planet to be terraformed in the Solar System. Until the job is done don't forget your acid-resistant suit.
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2035
Daily Activity, Walking