Venus

[Michael Kieth Adams]

Mars is fairly easy.  A few quintillion dollars and centuries and viola!  Venus however is a lady and changing any lady is problematic.  First, how do you cool the hottest planet in the solar system?  Shade?  Probably a good first step.  How about rings of dust between Venus and the sun.  Then there is the super thick poisonous atmosphere.  Cooling first.    
Maybe  eclipses to create cool spots in the atmosphere  What do we do about the dang clouds?  How do you get sulfuric acid to condense?  Dust maybe?  It sounds easy but in many ways poison, pressure, and heat could be as troubling as near vacuum, low pressure and permaganates.  Got any ideas?

[saac]

2 hours ago, Michael Kieth Adams said:

Mars is fairly easy.  A few quintillion dollars and centuries and viola!  Venus however is a lady and changing any lady is problematic.  First, how do you cool the hottest planet in the solar system?  Shade?  Probably a good first step.  How about rings of dust between Venus and the sun.  Then there is the super thick poisonous atmosphere.  Cooling first.    
Maybe  eclipses to create cool spots in the atmosphere  What do we do about the dang clouds?  How do you get sulfuric acid to condense?  Dust maybe?  It sounds easy but in many ways poison, pressure, and heat could be as troubling as near vacuum, low pressure and permaganates.  Got any ideas?

Yep, spend money on something else - maybe sort out the problems here!

Jim

[Michael Kieth Adams]

Humans have always been real estate developers.  Right now we can barely leave the planet, but we will get there.  My money is on an elevator to low earth orbit.  Not saying at all to stop working on making things better right here.  There is plenty to do for everyone.  Respectfully, Mike

[Mark2022]

I don't believe we'll ever go anywhere off this planet. Not even the moon. I don't believe (for I have no proof) that there are rovers on Mars and probes around Jupiter and further out. I think  it is all total shenanigans. I don't trust a word NASA says.

Do a little 'thought experiment' with your living room wall: Your living room wall is likely to be about 8ft which is approx 240cm. Earth to Moon is approx 240,000 miles. Which means Apollo went a distance of your floor to your ceiling in 1969-72. Now, the highest  the shuttle ever went was approx 300 miles up. That's equivalent to 3mm (mm!) off your floor.

Anyhow, I know I'm a 'heretic' but I just wanted to add my tuppence. Also watch Apollo 16 moon buggy footage: It's a dummy! 100%.

[saac]

29 minutes ago, Mark2022 said:

I don't believe we'll ever go anywhere off this planet. Not even the moon. I don't believe (for I have no proof) that there are rovers on Mars and probes around Jupiter and further out. I think  it is all total shenanigans. I don't trust a word NASA says.

Do a little 'thought experiment' with your living room wall: Your living room wall is likely to be about 8ft which is approx 240cm. Earth to Moon is approx 240,000 miles. Which means Apollo went a distance of your floor to your ceiling in 1969-72. Now, the highest  the shuttle ever went was approx 300 miles up. That's equivalent to 3mm (mm!) off your floor.

Anyhow, I know I'm a 'heretic' but I just wanted to add my tuppence. Also watch Apollo 16 moon buggy footage: It's a dummy! 100%.

Mark, the shuttle was designed to operate in low Earth orbit, 3 mm up, and no further. No great conspiracy there.  All it took to cover the 240,000 miles to the moon was knowledge of Newton's 1st law of motion - get the rocket going fast enough with a few orbits of the Earth, point it in the right direction, then wait 3 days!  No magic, nor any really fancy physics - just a hell of a lot of courage from the 3 astronauts on board and faith in Mr Newton.  

Jim

Edited September 13, 2023 by saac

[saac]

42 minutes ago, Michael Kieth Adams said:

Humans have always been real estate developers.  Right now we can barely leave the planet, but we will get there.  My money is on an elevator to low earth orbit.  Not saying at all to stop working on making things better right here.  There is plenty to do for everyone.  Respectfully, Mike

Yep we develop real estate for sure but isn't the mantra  location, location location. Venus just hasn't got it.  The Moon on the ether hand has a nice sea view, and Mars, well just look at those mountains. 

Jim 

[Michael Kieth Adams]

I actually started with terraforming Mars but it disappeared somehow.  Oh well, as a computer person I am an excellent gardener!  Venus however is closer than Mars and has better( or worse) solar power options.  Themain problem with Mars is lack of a descent magnetic field.    Either we need to kick start Mars ( liquid?) core somehow or build one, rings of magnets in orbit maybe?  Then we need an atmosphere.  I think icebergs from Saturn plus maybe a few comets.  There is some evidence of extremely salty temporarily liquid water ( ? ) on the surface of Mars.  Might be more in lava tubes and maybe at the bottom of Mars Grand Canyon.  Then there is the permanganate.  Titan might be easier but the low gravity could be a killer.

[Paul M]

Mars, for sure, because it's there and doable within the realms of current technology.

Venus, no. 

Actually, maybe there's a way to pipe some of Venus' thick atmosphere to Mars? 😁

In any case, I prefer the money to be spent on society here and now. As a guess, I'd say 99.99999999999% of the global population have no interest in nor will benefit from exploring other planets.

 

[Michael Kieth Adams]

There is a seventeen mile stretch of highway in L A that was computerized using technology developed for space.  The savings in reduced accidents and time saved amounts to billions.  How many miles of computerized highways are there?  Also how many lives saved by space medicine.  The space race has paid for itself many times over.  Mike

[Mandy D]

7 hours ago, Paul M said:

I'd say 99.99999999999% of the global population have no interest in nor will benefit from exploring other planets.

 

So, by your percentage figure, only a single person in 10,000 billion has any interest in the exploration of other planets? So, basically, 1/1000 of a person! More than half the people I willingly associate with in real life have an interest in seeing the exploration of other planets and everyone in developed countries in the world along with most developing countries benefit indirectly from space exploration, whether that be LEO, planetary or other. I'm sorry, but there is no way I can agree with your statement on any level.

[Mandy D]

7 hours ago, Michael Kieth Adams said:

There is a seventeen mile stretch of highway in L A that was computerized using technology developed for space.  The savings in reduced accidents and time saved amounts to billions.  How many miles of computerized highways are there?  Also how many lives saved by space medicine.  The space race has paid for itself many times over.  Mike

The UK "smart" motorways programme has been put on hold due to increased incidences of accidents. I wonder how LA is doing it differently that they get a positive result whilst Britain is failing. Would you mind explaining to us Brits what exactly your computerised highways look like in technology terms. What is the purpose of the computerisation and how does it work from a user perspective?

[saac]

To be honest I think we are no where near the technical capability of terra forming.  It is well and truly in the realms of science fiction and not engineering reality. Look at the difficulty we are facing terra forming here on a hospitable planet where we already have residence  and all we need to do is drop CO2 levels a few 1/10 ths of a percent.   Talk of changing toxic acidic atmospheres of bone shattering pressure or replacing  atmospheric vacuums with oxygen rich atmospheres is fun but just fantasy.  Anyway, where is the imperative to spend that sort of wealth and resources which most likely does not actually exist anyway. 

Jim  

[Paul M]

6 hours ago, Mandy D said:

So, by your percentage figure, only a single person in 10,000 billion has any interest in the exploration of other planets?

I didn't expect my silly figure to be mathematically analysed.

Let's just say, space exploration isn't important to most people.

I've followed space science all my life and even I think there are better ways to use our wealth and technology than messing up some other planet... because we can.

[Michael Kieth Adams]

18 hours ago, Michael Kieth Adams said:

There is a seventeen mile stretch of highway in L A that was computerized using technology developed for space.  The savings in reduced accidents and time saved amounts to billions.  How many miles of computerized highways are there?  Also how many lives saved by space medicine.  The space race has paid for itself many times over.  Mike

The highway in question was in the 1980s and the computer basically controlled stoplights.  We’ve come a ways since then.  Weather satellites help everyone with a radio on the planet.  GPS helps every ship on the planet, none of us can know what trick or bit of software used on Mars might be adapted to a terrestrial use, but we can be sure from past experience that they will.  Science has been a part of the human experience since before we became human.  No we can’t terraform anything just yet, but there is no knowing when we might begin.  Our problems here are deep and profound but that is no reason not to try and understand the universe around us.  You might say that the study of ants is useless. But ants outweigh us by quite a lot and are probably more important to ecology than we are.  We do not know enough to say what knowledge might be vital or lead to important forms of knowledge.  We MUST learn everything we possibly can, if for no other reason than we can.  I have no certainty of being absolutely right about anything, but I’d claim about 90% on this one.  ,Mike

[Michael Kieth Adams]

I haveto hope that no one’s feelings have been hurt.  We all have reasons why we feel and believe what we do.  As the joke goes, walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, then who cares!  They are a mile away and you’ve got their shoes!  Grab them shoes and take off!  Mike