RE: Would you live on terraformed Venus?
August 4, 2019 at 8:59 pm
(This post was last modified: August 4, 2019 at 9:04 pm by Anomalocaris.)
One important advance in mineralogy over the last 50 years is a solid understanding of how important it was to the formation of the majority of the 6000 or so different species of minerals known to science for parts of the present surface of the earth to have had extensive exposure to geothermal heated water circulation, and having been first exposed to a reducing atmosphere and then and oxidizing atmosphere.
Mars could conceivable have a diversity of minerals perhaps beginning to approach to those on earth, Venus and the moon, based on present understanding of their geological history, might have as little as 1% as many type of different minerals in their upper crust as is found on earth.
So forming self-sustaining, largely resource independent colonies on Venus might prove much more intractable than on mars. Except for bulk structural materials like rocks, a Venusian colony might be tied to earth for even basic raw material needs forever.
Mars could conceivable have a diversity of minerals perhaps beginning to approach to those on earth, Venus and the moon, based on present understanding of their geological history, might have as little as 1% as many type of different minerals in their upper crust as is found on earth.
So forming self-sustaining, largely resource independent colonies on Venus might prove much more intractable than on mars. Except for bulk structural materials like rocks, a Venusian colony might be tied to earth for even basic raw material needs forever.
