Would you live on terraformed Venus?

[Sal]

We'll have 1 billion people living on Mars by the time the first permanent settlement is on the surface of Venus.

[Anomalocaris]

We'll have 1 billion people living on Mars by the time the first permanent settlement is on the surface of Venus.

It would be interesting to calculate what the population carrying capacity of fully terraformed mars might be.   I suspect it is a lot less than a billion people.   Even the most optimistic and grandiose terraforming scenario, if examined closely, would leave the surface of terraformed planet in a state that would not even approach what would be considered marginal on earth.  The best scenario would see most of mars becoming similar to the atacama desert, with small parts more like arctic tundra, while the best part of Venus would be somewhat like Sahara by day and the ice free parts of Antarctic by night.

I don’t see we can feasibly establish a second population center in the solar system that would rival the population of the earth even in the far future.

[sdelsolray]

Venus' lack of a magnetic field, it's near perpendicular axis tilt of only 3 degrees (actually 177 degrees from its north pole) and its extremely long rotational period of 243 days are additional stumbling blocks to terraforming it to support carbon-based life.

[Anomalocaris]

Venus' lack of a magnetic field, it's near perpendicular axis tilt of only 3 degrees (actually 177 degrees from its north pole) and its extremely long rotational period of 243 days are additional stumbling blocks to terraforming it to support carbon-based life.

None of those should present insurmountable difficulties.

1.  The low rotation rate means natural day night cycle would be extremely long and, if the atmosphere is dramatically thinned until surface pressure begins to resemble those earth, the day-night temperature difference may become very high.   However, this may be offset by sunshade and sun reflectors In orbits with periods similar to earth day night cycle. 

2.  Lack of magnetic field - this allows solar wind to strip the upper atmosphere.  However, even if Venus to the atmosphere is reduced to earth atmospheric mass, the time required to strip away most of Venusian atmosphere is still on the order of hundreds of millions of years.  In other words it needn’t stop us in the next few hundred or few thousand years.   Atmosphere stripping will also strip away UV-B deflecting ozone,  however that needn’t be a serious issue at high latitudes where angle of incidence would dramatically reduce intensity of uv to reach surface.  Lower latitudes on even terraformes Venus would likely remain uninhabitable due to the fact that solar constant on Venus is twice that on earth.  Intensity of solar radiation at 60 degrees latitude on Venus would still be the same as that on equator on.   So high latitudes (almost arctic circle latitudes were it on earth) would be the main livable locations on Venus.  which brings us to axial tilt.   


3. Lack of axial tilt- so Venus will have no seasons,  not a show stopper by any means.  However lack of axial means the 30 degrees of latitude around each pole of Venus won’t see half year long days or nights as polar regions do on earth.  The area would still need artificially circadian rhythm, but so would any other part of Venus.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

No one is going to terraform Venus.  No one is going to terraform Mars.  We're never going to build Dyson spheres or rings.  No lunar colonies, Lagrange stations, asteroid mining, or ships with solar sales plying the far reaches of the Solar system. 

And I don't like that point of view any more than the rest of you.

Boru

[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.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

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.

And Neptune might be awash in diamonds the size of your fist.  So what?

Boru

[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.

And Neptune might be awash in diamonds the size of your fist.  So what?

Boru

So what?   If Venus can’t ever be mined for most of the minerals its own colonies need, the economic proposition of planting colonies on its surface would be greatly reduced.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

And Neptune might be awash in diamonds the size of your fist.  So what?

Boru

So what?   If Venus can’t ever be mined for most of the minerals its own colonies need, the economic proposition of planting colonies on its surface would be greatly reduced.

It doesn't matter.  The mineral wealth (or dearth) on other planets is of no moment, as we're never going to exploit it.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

So what?   If Venus can’t ever be mined for most of the minerals its own colonies need, the economic proposition of planting colonies on its surface would be greatly reduced.

It doesn't matter.  The mineral wealth (or dearth) on other planets is of no moment, as we're never going to exploit it.

Boru

How would settlements/colonies meet their raw material needs?

If raw material needs can’t be met locally, then it makes no sense to settle on the surface of other planets.   

It would be cheaper to put up orbital habitats around the earth for any number of inhabitants than to plant the inhabitants on the surface of other planets if much of the raw material must be supplied from the earth or from other bodies in space.