Talk:Colonization of Venus

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Colonization of Venus was a good article candidate, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. Once the objections listed below are addressed, the article can be renominated. You may also seek a review of the decision if you feel there was a mistake.

Date of review: August 31, 2006
To-do list for Colonization of Venus: edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
  • However, the low level of referencing expecially in key sections like Advantages and Obstacles mean that it is not GA quality at this time - needs 25 references
  • the opening should be reworked and expanded per WP:LEAD and sentences like Given the seemingly insurmountable difficulties outlined above, a surface colony on Venus in its present form would appear to be out of the question. should be rewritten in a more encyclopedic tone. -- minor work might still needed in the lead - Nbound
Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on May 8, 2006. The result of the discussion was keep. (See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Colonization of Mercury, the nexus of a group discussion involving this page.)
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Core concepts

Colonization and terraforming

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[edit] Lengh of day and distance from Sun

Could we do anything to shorten the day to 24 hours and/or move Venus further out from the Sun?

Would it be possible to somehow move Venus so that Earth and Venus are a double planet?

This is really OR, but for the curious the short answer is "no". In Entering Space, Robert Zubrin discusses the possibility of changing Venus' rotation using asteroid impacts -- the most violent planetary events currently known, and determined that it would take thousands of them, and would likely wobble its orbit before significantly affecting the spin. Moving Venus is an even more difficult proposition energy-wise, and one that would not really be desirable anyway as being the same distance from the sun as the Earth (i.e., having two planets in one orbit) is an inherently unstable situation, even in perfect opposition (i.e. in each other's L3 Lagrangian points). siafu 05:01, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Crops on Venus

I'm suprised that several similar pages exist, but there has not yet been a colonization of Venus page yet. Roman Soldier 07:19, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for starting this one. I'm not sure I buy the argument that "the Venerian day is longer than its year, making feeding the colony via inexpensive plant growth in greenhouses impractical without some form of hitherto-unknown genetic engineering permitting plants to survive a lengthy night." What is the difference between a hypothetical greenhouse on a terraformed Venus and growing annual crops on Earth? One could plant seeds at the beginning of the Venus day and harvest in the Venus evening, saving seeds for the next day. According to the Venus article, the high altitude winds circle the planet about every four Earth days, so that would be the effective day for the more likely balloon colony, I don't think it would take much to get plants to thrive on a cycle of 48 hours of light and 48 hours of darkness. Sounds like a nice science fair project. --agr 04:02, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
You may be right about greenhouses in a floating colony, which I had not considered when originally writing that section of the article. However, if on the surface (ignoring the issues of heat, pressure, sunlight, water, and atmospheric composition), we face the a much longer day: 116.75 Earth days long, meaning (if I'm correct) a night 58 Earth days long. No Earth crop I know of could survive that; nor would genetically engineering a plant to adapt to a 116.75 day-long day-night cycle be an easy task. This is dramatic contrast to Mars, whose "day" is 24 hours, 39 minutes, 35 seconds, almost exactly ours in an amazing coincidence that all but invites us to grow crops there. LeoO3 01:48, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Given how terrible surface conditions on Venus are and how difficult any terraforming would be, this is a somewhat academic discussion; however I think some possibilities do exist. There are places on Earth where the growing season is less than 100 days. See, for example http://www.geo.msu.edu/geo333/growseason&frost.html Plants that can endure such a short season could be cultivated by starting seeds in artificial light during the Venusian night and then placing them in sunlight during the day. A colony would need some source of night-time energy anyway and plants take much less energy as seedlings. Other crops, such as evergreen trees might do just fine on the Venusian cycle. And, of course, there are always photosynthetic single cell organisms. Since these lighting conditions are easy to simulate on Earth, experimenting with various possibilities could be done now. Might make a good science-fair project, even.--agr 22:29, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conditions

I reverted the passage:

Water in any form is almost entirely absent, and the visible clouds are comprised in part of sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide vapor. While this could be seen as creating an environment extremely hostile to human life, it is arguably more hospitable than places like the Moon and Mercury where light elements may be completely absent.

back to its original form:

Water in any form is almost entirely absent, and the visible clouds are comprised in part of sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide vapor, creating an environment that is extremely hostile to human life.

... because it IS extremely hostile, and the hostility of the Moon or Mercury does not make Venus any more friendly. Venus is also a lot less hostile than, say, the surface of the sun, but that's not relevant to the section in this article entitled "Obstacles". siafu 20:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Every place in the solar system outside of the Earth is hostile to human life. The question is whether the upper atmosphere of Venus is more so or less so. I think there is a good case that it is less so. Yes sulphuric acid clouds sound nasty, but they appear to concentrate an important element, hydrogen, that is scarce on the planet. The other elements needed for life appear to be present in reasonable quantities, so that H2SO4 could be seen as a resource, not an obstacle.--agr 02:02, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
It could be, but presently it isn't. The fact that the abundance of hydrogen is useful does not lessen the fact that the abundance of sulfuric acid is a major obstacle that is beyond the easy reach of current technology to overcome. That makes it inappropriate to say "While this could be seen as creating an environment extremely hostile to human life..." because it's not just seen that way, it is that way. siafu 05:16, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
The article on sulphuric acid#Environmental aspects says the concentration of the acid on Venus is too low to be a major obstacle. --agr 19:05, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, we can't use wikipedia articles as references for other wikipedia articles, and this one is not only unsourced but also contradicts what is said on Venus:The clouds are mainly composed of sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid droplets and cover the planet completely... and it doesn't say that this is only a trace compound. Additionally, the venereal atmosphere contains H2S, which is highly toxic, and SO2, which is merely irritating. All of this, of course, without significant free oxygen and almost no water at all.
The point, however, is that in a section detailing the obstacles to colonization it's not appropriate to try and "spin" them as advantages -- such a description, if true, belongs in another section. It's less appropriate to say that it "could be seen" as an obstacle when it clearly is an obstacle, even if, once conquered, it could be put to good use. It's still an obstacle. siafu 19:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree with your complaint about spinning. I'm not proposing going back to my original language. I am still concerned about the "extremely hazardous" claim. There are lots of sources that say sulfur is a small component of Venus's atmosphere. It far from clear to me whether the sulphuric acid clouds are a major problem or only one more nuisance in an already hostile place. Note that CO2 itself is hazardous in high concentrations. Look at the end of the carbon dioxide#Biology section. I don't think anyone is proposing that floating cities on Venus have outside balconies where people can sun-bathe. --agr 02:02, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
If we have a source, we can include it. But we're both saying that it's an "extremely hazardous" environment; so hazardous, in fact, that the only way to survive it is to remain in a sealed enclosure. This makes it akin to space or the deep sea. However, if CO2 &c. are more serious concerns than H2SO4 corrosivitiy, we should rephrase the sentence to highlight those instead. siafu 22:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
Maybe something like: "Water in any form is almost entirely absent. The atmosphere is devoid of oxygen and is primarily carbon dioxide, which is poisonous in high concentrations. The visible clouds are comprised in part of sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide vapor." and leave it at that. --agr 17:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. siafu 17:17, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Since sulfuric acid (H2SO4) has all the atomic components of H2O, plus some extra oxygen and some sulfur, is there a chemical process that could convert the acid to water? The sulfur could be converted to a solid and shipped off-world, leaving water and oxygen. Has anyone done any work on what kind of atmosphere would be needed to shield the surface from the Sun? Looks like it gets nearly twice the solar constant as Earth. Chadlupkes 05:39, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
The energy requirements are high and it may be hard to collect significant quantities of sulphuric acid, and the stuff isn't easy to handle, but it appears to be the only source of hydrogen on the planet. Fortunately, there is no need to ship the sulfur off planet, no easy thing to do. Small quantities are needed for life, the rest can be dumped overboard as SO2 or whatever. --agr 11:16, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terraforming

It is impossible to terraform Venus.--Nixer 05:09, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Impossible is a pretty strong word; the article comes pretty close to saying that, however. --agr 11:41, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
It is impossible because if all the sunlight energy coming to Venus use for transforming CO2 to O2 without any loss, it will take more then 50000 years.--Nixer 12:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
So it sounds like you're saying difficult, not impossible. Regardless, where is this discussion going? siafu 19:07, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
It is not possible to convert all the energy coming to Venus to chemical converting of the gases.--Nixer 21:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Apparently, the answer to my question is "nowhere". siafu 00:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
50,000 years doesn't make something impossible, one just has to be patient. But the reality is a lot worse. Even if you could convert all the CO2 to carbon and O2, you'd end up with a layer of carbon 100 meters thick under an atmosphere of nearly pure oxygen at high pressure. [1] One spark and the whole thing would burn up. You really need to strip away most of the atmosphere; maybe giant reflectors to heat up the planet and boil it off. Then add some ice asteriods. The human race could use a long term project after all. --agr 13:22, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the terraforming section is uneeded. It should be combined with the Venusian_terraforming article. --Ittiz 19:51, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Floating Cities

Would the floating cities be domed or open aired structres?--Rhydd Meddwl 20:54, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Domed, unless you want to dodge sulfuric acid raindrops on your morning commute. :-) At least until things are at an advanced stage. Although, laboratory farms where you try to develop species for terraforming could be open-air. - Reaverdrop (talk/nl/w:s) 21:33, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Also, the atmosphere is almost all carbon dioxide, so a dome (or other isolated structure) would be needed if humans where to be in it. Polonium 20:14, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

What is the effective gravity at 50km above the surface of Venus? I ask because if the gravity is reduced below that of Mars then you lose an advantage when considering constructing floating cities.--72.140.175.249 03:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The radius of Venus is 6052 km at the surface, so climbing to 50 km increases the radius by a little less than 0.1%. The reduction in gravity is twice that (inverse square law), about -0.2%, i.e. not enough to be noticeable except with sensitive instruments.--agr 12:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Amendments

Quite an interesting article. Have made one or two changes, mainly to try to separate verifiable encyclopdeic facts from (scientific) speculation. There is probably a place for both in such an article but they should be kept distinct. Marcus22 11:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Evil twin"

Cute, but unencylopedic, in my opinion. Thoughts? --LeoO3 19:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed - the remark that Venus is Earth's "evil twin" is better suited to an article in a dumbed-down science popularization magazine. - Reaverdrop (talk/nl/w:s) 21:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FA!

Let's make this article into an FA! Much more interesting and appliccable to people in the here and now compared to the one on terraforming. I'm in Korea so I'll only be able to use the internet when it comes to sourcing. Maybe we should collect resources / ideas here on the talk page to start. Here's one, a thread on a discussion board and a site with more papers by the same person:

I'm not an astrophysicist myself so I'll have to defer to others on that area, but I've gotten an article on the front page before and have been looking for another one that deserves to be on the front since then (December 25, 2005). I think this is the one. Anybody else up for turning this into an FA? Mithridates 16:23, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA nomination failed

Overall this is an excellent article and it appears to cover the subject well. However, the low level of referencing expecially in key sections like Advantages and Obstacles mean that it is not GA quality at this time. Also the opening should be reworked per WP:LEAD and sentences like Given the seemingly insurmountable difficulties outlined above, a surface colony on Venus in its present form would appear to be out of the question. should be rewritten in a more encyclopedic tone. Please resubmit the article to WP:GAN or WP:PR when these concerns have been addressed. Eluchil404 20:34, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other smaller obstacles

I removed the following text:

Other smaller obstacles include: Though Venus is still quite close to Earth relative to other bodies in the Solar System, having to wait for a launch window every 500+ days at present technology would leave missions isolated from possible aid from Earth should problems occur. Having Earth appear as a small blue dot in the sky would not be as comforting to early explorers as the view from the moon, where Earth is always visible from one side.

The long time for resupply and the small apparent size of Earth apply to any locale in the solar system other than the Moon, so there is no particular reason to mention them here. Also, it is not obvious to me that the Earth and stars would be visible from a colony at 50 km altitude. Some reference is needed if they are. Finally the 500+ day launch window intervals apply to orbits with minimum delta-V at each end. These are the ones one would pick for building the colony and for regular supply runs since the payload would be maximized for a given rocket. However there are less efficient orbits available at other times and with techniques like gravity assist (using the Moon and Earth), ion engines and aerobreaking already available with present technology, the question of emergency resupply becomes a complex tradeoff of payload vs time. For a shipment of medicine or small spare parts, I suspect times on the order of months are practical today for most configurations of the two planets. --agr 13:09, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wind Power Resources

While lengthy discussion has been made to the use of solar, nuclear and unproven fusion power on potential space colonies, the use of wind power has never been discussed, perhaps because there is no wind on the moon, and no usable wind power on Mars. This is not the case for Venus, Titan and the gas giants however, which have atmospheric densities greater than Earth's. Wind power is economically viable on Earth and its usage is growing rapidly. This resource would be readily available to floating colonists on Venus or to surface colonists (or robots) on Titan. Wind turbines are also much cheaper, lighter and simpler to construct than nuclear reactors. Jasonkglore 17:05, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Obstacles

The section on Obstacles draws attention to the dire survival rate of the Soviet Venera program landers, but neglects to mention that Venera 13 managed to survive 127 minutes on the surface of Venus -- the, as far as surface survival goes, most successful lander to date. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 161.184.11.236 (talk) 09:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC).

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