Humans could never colonize Mars. The gravity is roughly a third of Earth. Bones would be deformed and break easy.

Venus however is a viable planet for colonization. We just need to get rid of that crazy atmosphere that it has.

The Venereal atmosphere would be tough to dispose of.

Big job, really big job.

Wouldn't you in the long run just set up large enough 1g centrifuges there in which people sleep and exercise? Doesn't sound like rocket science to me...

(February 13, 2016 at 6:28 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: The Venereal atmosphere would be tough to dispose of.

Big job, really big job.

Can't one genetically engineer microbes which use the temperature differences there to eat the co2 and convert it to carbon etc?

Might be better blowing the atmosphere off. Using microbes means relying on sunlight to break down CO2 with the standard efficiency of microbes, IOWs, low.

It would take a VERY long time, many centuries.

And the residue, carbon, will pile up on the surface in a very thick layer. It would be handy to somehow sequester it in the form of minerals in the crust for fear of accidentally setting the surface carbon layer on fire, and undoing the whole project.

(February 13, 2016 at 5:57 pm)KUSA Wrote: Humans could never colonize Mars. The gravity is roughly a third of Earth. Bones would be deformed and break easy.

Venus however is a viable planet for colonization. We just need to get rid of that crazy atmosphere that it has.

Venus as of now is not a good idea for colonizing it literally rains acid form the sky and 
the  amount of money and time it would take to clean up it's atmosphere would take awhile. 
Not saying it's a bad thing just saying it's a time consuming sort of deal. But on mars i get where you 
are going at with that. But either way look  at it currently the more we destroy  earth with carbon 
the less hospitable it's going to be for us. Either way were going to be a  multi planet species and starting off
on mars isn't a bad idea eventually were going be so far spread out into the stars in a few thousand years
if we have a working FTL or alcubierre drive

(February 13, 2016 at 6:28 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: The Venereal atmosphere would be tough to dispose of.

Big job, really big job.

Al Gore could do it.

(February 13, 2016 at 6:37 pm)Alex K Wrote:

(February 13, 2016 at 6:28 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: The Venereal atmosphere would be tough to dispose of.

Big job, really big job.

Can't one genetically engineer microbes which use the temperature differences there to eat the co2 and convert it to carbon etc?

Microbes can't subsist purely on CO2.  They need access to the elements that support the rest of their metabolic processes.  Since no microbes could survive anywhere near the surface of Venus, microbes has to somehow make due with any infinitesimal traces of these elements they can get from any dust grains carried into the upper atmosphere of Venus.   This probably puts a very severe constrain on the amount of biomass that could be supported on Venus.  This in turn puts a very tight limit on how fast the terraforming process can go at the beginning.

Later on, as these trace elements in the Venusian atmosphere are depleted, the constraint on the rate of organic terraforming would become limited by how fast the geological processes on Venus can replenish the atmosphere with dust containing these elements.

The nearest analogue might be the oxygenation of earth's atmosphere through organic processes. That took about one and a half billion years. With Venus the process would have to work through a primeval atmosphere 100 times more massive than earth's atmosphere. My guess is the process to convert Venusian atmosphere with engineered organic processes would not be measured in centuries, but tens or hundreds of millions of years.

Sod all that science stuff, it's much too hard. What if we just pray for Venus instead?

Come on guys. If we all put our trust in Jesus, he'll sort out that pesky CO2 problem in no time. We could borrow Mohammed's magic horse to get us there, too. And with Jesus watching over us, our insurance premiums should be cheaper.

(February 13, 2016 at 8:02 pm)dyresand Wrote:

(February 13, 2016 at 5:57 pm)KUSA Wrote: Humans could never colonize Mars. The gravity is roughly a third of Earth. Bones would be deformed and break easy.

Venus however is a viable planet for colonization. We just need to get rid of that crazy atmosphere that it has.

Venus as of now is not a good idea for colonizing it literally rains acid form the sky and 
the  amount of money and time it would take to clean up it's atmosphere would take awhile. 
Not saying it's a bad thing just saying it's a time consuming sort of deal. But on mars i get where you 
are going at with that. But either way look  at it currently the more we destroy  earth with carbon 
the less hospitable it's going to be for us. Either way were going to be a  multi planet species and starting off
on mars isn't a bad idea eventually were going be so far spread out into the stars in a few thousand years
if we have a working FTL or alcubierre drive

Even if FTL never pans out, we're better off seeding the species off system if we want to it to survive long term. Some sort of generation ship may be the solution.