Isn't the answer just: we grew up (evolved) on Earth, so from our perspective it's an Eden? Everyone's home planet must seem like an Eden to them, right?
Trisolarans notwithstanding.
Why is Venus hell and Earth an Eden?
141–150 of 358 posts
Re: Why is Venus hell and Earth an Eden?
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
So we'll need responsible stewardship over Earth's Habitability? No problem!
> we'll need responsible stewardship over Earth's Habitability This is just a semantic punt to "stewardship". (Why is habitability capitalised?)
typo. Also I'm being sarcastic.
Re: Why is Venus hell and Earth an Eden?
#143Still disappointed it's not a swamp as promised by 20th century science fiction.
Re: Why is Venus hell and Earth an Eden?
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
My impression was that pulverized rock/iron is not actually "soil", so after forming the atmosphere you need lengthy biochemical processes playing out on the surface. I admit though, I don't know too much about this.
I think that we should consider "the future". Yes, it's intangible but consider this; go back 2 centuries and ask someone if they could setup a business concern which produced millions of widgets a year. They'd think you daffy. Now beyond that, ask them to produce any manner of modern device with the precision and high consistency we have. Again, they'd think you mad, and think that such was impossible. Yet here we a…
> Yes, it's intangible but consider this; go back 2 centuries and ask someone if they could setup a business concern which produced millions of widgets a year.
To go off on a tangent: two centuries ago was the height of the first industrial revolution (at least in Britain). The first time in history when this actually became realistic.
The Industrial Revolution was the first time we had sustained, broad based productivity growth year after year (even if only around 1%, which is quite low by modern standards).
Weirdly enough, we can see sustained productivity growth in artillery and guns long before the wider industry.
Another weird connection: sometimes people look at a toy 'steam engine' that the ancient Romans had access to (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile) and wonder if they could have had an industrial revolution. But, to make a proper steam engine you need a lot more than just the right idea. You need a lot of metallurgy and precise crafting.
Specifically one thing you need is precision crafted cylinders that gas can expand in to move a piston. Well, at the time of the Industrial Revolution, European nations had just spent several hundred years locked in existential competition over who can make precision crafted cylinders that gas can expand in to move a bullet.
Re: Why is Venus hell and Earth an Eden?
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Plus, it's nice to split our eggs into multiple planetary baskets. Multiple baskets is good, but why planetary?
Too many dickheads with a bright idea of putting nuclear warheads on submersibles with a dead man’s switch on this planet.
I mean, we can build space habitats, we don't need to settle planets.
Re: Why is Venus hell and Earth an Eden?
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
The lack of tectonics would only be a problem if you want your terraforming to be 'one and done'. If you admit that terraforming, even after it's 'done', will require an ongoing maintenance effort, it's simple (but not easy). Eg you can use satellites to spin up an artificial magnetic field to shield against solar wind. However, I suspect terraforming planets is a waste. Far more bang for your buck to build habitats…
The Moon has zones like you describe on Mercury, and is a lot closer to colonize. Lack of large magnetic field probably won’t matter as terraforming either is hopeless.
Yes, you can also do a similar strategy on the moon.
You can in principle create artificial magnetic fields. But yeah, you are better off just staying indoors most of the time under a big fat layer of regolith.
Re: Why is Venus hell and Earth an Eden?
#147Venus is arguably the worst place in the solar system From another perspective, its atmosphere is "one of the most Earth-like in the solar system", and scientists long ago postulated the idea of establishing floating cloud cities. Big balloons filled with nitrogen and oxygen would naturally settle at the right altitude, 30 miles above the surface, where gravity, ambient pressure, and radiation aren't far off that of…
How do you deorbit Venus is such a way that your inflatable balloon city comes to a gentle stop, 30 miles up, and just floats there? Worse still, when people need to leave and return to Earth, how do you launch a rocket from the balloon city and return to orbit? How do visitors or pioneers deorbit and land at the floating city? If there aren't materials to effect a repair, how long until it sinks down into the hellzo…
> such a way that your inflatable balloon city comes to a gentle stop, 30 miles up, and just floats there?
Literally how floating works.
> Worse still, when people need to leave and return to Earth, how do you launch a rocket from the balloon city and return to orbit?
By launching your rocket from the ballon city and returning to orbit. (I'm struggling to see the novel problem.)
> Where are materials manufactured for repairs, and how quickly could they be manufactured and sent there?
Why is this unique to Venus versus anywhere else in space?
> If a rocket is trying to land and goes off course, does it squash the balloon city like a grape?
Yes. Same as if your rocket is trying to land at your Moon or Mars base (or hell, your Earth landing pad) and goes off course, it squashes your colony like a crouton.
Re: Why is Venus hell and Earth an Eden?
#148Re: Why is Venus hell and Earth an Eden?
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why? Just spin the thing Sure. Let's put rats in centrifuges in space and see if they can reproduce successfully. Maybe there is a coriolis boundary. Maybe something weird happens.
If you make your centrifuge big enough, it's fine. But yeah, sticking rats in a centrifuge is probably a better first step than starting with humans.
> If you make your centrifuge big enough, it's fine
We don't know this! We don't know how (or even if) an embryo develops under the Coriolis force, or with a gravity gradient.
Re: Why is Venus hell and Earth an Eden?
#150The funny thing is that an oxygen-rich environment is a hell-hole! Oxygen is insanely reactive and will corrode anything. Even early life on earth found oxygen toxic. It was released as a waste product by early life and they were so successful that all that oxygen accumulated resulting in the Great Oxidation Event ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event ). That likely resulted in many species going exti…
I once heard a similar point and it has fascinated me ever since: an alien observing human culture would be appalled at how dangerous our lives are. Everything around us is bathed in warm oxygen, just waiting to catch fire! Our homes, our clothes, our fields, our possessions, … our hair . Ready oxidation brings vitality to Earth but it’s also ridiculously dangerous.
It's very unlikely the aliens would not have something very similar going on in their own biosphere. Life needs energy to operate, after all.