Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Colonization of Venus

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 115 posts

Re: Colonization of Venus

#91

Post by PaulHoule »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #69
PaulHoule wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biosphere 2 had the problem, not least, that it didn't have enough of an atmosphere to buffer swings of CO2 concentration between day and night. It's like "what did they think would happen?"

I assume the reason nobody has tried to fund a biosphere 3 is because we don't yet have enough knowledge to make it possible.

I think it is more that you need a specific endpoint and a real business plan. Like how could Biosphere 2 have really made money?

A closed loop ecology for, say, survival on Mars, is an interesting question that somebody might need an answer to but there is no reason why it needs to look like the Earth with oceans and all and it might lean heavily on bacteria that live in vats or 24 hour illuminated agriculture or something.

Meanwhile it is not so clear that from a scientific point of view that some experiment in a greenhouse can give conclusive answers about the ecology of the Earth where so much is going on.

Re: Colonization of Venus

#92

Post by Robotbeat »

teachrdan wrote: post #70
Robotbeat wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really doubt your veracity about this. It’s literally illegal for billionaires to geoengineer the Earth to stop global warming (at least in several states). Doubtless you would also object to that as well. In which case it’s not actually about solving Earth’s problems but about not liking those who are doing it.

Billionaires could trivially fund uncontroversial projects like planting trees or solar electrification, especially in the developing world, both of which would help stop global warming. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for Elon or Larry to start doing either of those things, or anything else that would actually help mitigate or reverse climate change.

Yes, Elon Musk, famous for not being interested in solar electrification projects.

Re: Colonization of Venus

#93

Post by JumpCrisscross »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #61
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would be a colony constantly depending on Earth supplies and you would be constantly rebuilding it To be fair, this is true for all planets with known science and engineering. I'm not sure it's obvious that Venus (with its higher pressure and better radiation shielding) has fewer fundamental problems than Mars (with its surface that doesn't melt metal).

True fact, but not by much, as plans are already in-progress with Artemis V and a lunar colony.

> plans are already in-progress with Artemis V and a lunar colony

Artemis aims to establish lunar and Martian colonies. Not self-sufficient settlements. That's still at least a generation away, probably two or three.

Re: Colonization of Venus

#94

Post by bhelkey »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #37
adrian_b wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the point of view of exploitable resources, Venus is the opposite of Mars. On Mars, metals are very abundant and easy to extract, and also minerals suitable for making glass or ceramic materials are abundant, but the raw materials for making food and organic materials, like plastics, are very scarce and expensive to concentrate. On Venus, there are abundant resources for making organic materials and food (except…

> If not enough water would be found underground on Mars, that would be really difficult to transport from elsewhere. I was under the (uneducated) impression that there was a fair amount of water ice locked up in asteroids that are fairly easy to redirect into a Mars capture orbit.

Mars also has two polar ice caps [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_polar_ice_caps

Re: Colonization of Venus

#96

Post by Robotbeat »

teachrdan wrote: post #88
WalterBright wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of complaints about the environmental consequences of data centers. Musk is investing heavily in putting data centers in space.

Musk could spend 10 or even 100 billion on more down to Earth efforts without affecting his quality of life in the slightest. Instead he's promoting a self-serving idea, one that relies entirely on his own rocket-company infrastructure. Putting data centers in space is also a dumb idea due to the difficulty of dissipating heat, solar radiation, maintenance challenges and more.

I don’t understand this. Elon thought of a way to virtually eliminate the land, heat, water, and energy impacts of datacenters, and because it makes his companies money instead of being non-profit, this is bad?

Maybe I do get it. It’s not about the actual impact. It’s entirely about performing. Profit (which is literally just a measure of whether the return on something is greater than the inputs) is somehow evil, but losing money on something (ie it costs more in inputs than its outputs) is good.

Re: Colonization of Venus

#97

Post by a_t48 »

WalterBright wrote: post #77
zackmorris wrote: post #71

If anyone wants breadcrumbs, I just did a deep dive and there are a couple of promising technologies that could terraform Venus on roughly a human timescale of 100 years: * Sun shade/sail near L1 tipped up to 35 degrees to remain still: 5 micron polymer film (1.5-3.5 billion tons or 10-25 million SpaceX Starship launches at 150 tons each) or 50 layer graphene (15 thousand tons or 100 launches). Liquid CO2 ocean forms…

Mechanical carbon capture is a joke. There's no way it can scale enough to be measurable. It also requires energy - coming from where? Trees, on the other hand, can scale, and they get their energy from the sun.

Wind! Venus is full of it. (Making it so that your wind power can survive corrosion and the high speeds is an exercise left to the reader)

Re: Colonization of Venus

#98

Post by userulluipeste »

thijson wrote: post #2

The issue with Venus and Mars is that there is no magnetosphere. Over geological time periods the hydrogen is slowly lost into space. All that CO2 in the atmosphere could become H20 given enough introduced hydrogen, and photosynthesis.

That induced hydrogen, which you're looking for, can very well be the material particles in the solar wind. They don't reach much the Earth because are mostly charged protons and thus collide with Earth's magnetosphere. However, the lack of a strong magnetosphere on Venus means that, once that carbon dioxide layer gets reduced to lower levels and the reactive (free) oxygen can stay below a certain altitude, that shower of hydrogen should naturally become water. Therefore, the key to water on Venus is the reduction of carbon dioxide levels and production of free oxygen.

I've touched this idea before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26575155

Re: Colonization of Venus

#99

Post by cindyllm »

PaulHoule wrote: post #91
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the reason nobody has tried to fund a biosphere 3 is because we don't yet have enough knowledge to make it possible.

I think it is more that you need a specific endpoint and a real business plan. Like how could Biosphere 2 have really made money? A closed loop ecology for, say, survival on Mars, is an interesting question that somebody might need an answer to but there is no reason why it needs to look like the Earth with oceans and all and it might lean heavily on bacteria that live in vats or 24 hour illuminated agriculture or so…

[dead]

Re: Colonization of Venus

#100

Post by brendoelfrendo »

Robotbeat wrote: post #96
teachrdan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk could spend 10 or even 100 billion on more down to Earth efforts without affecting his quality of life in the slightest. Instead he's promoting a self-serving idea, one that relies entirely on his own rocket-company infrastructure. Putting data centers in space is also a dumb idea due to the difficulty of dissipating heat, solar radiation, maintenance challenges and more.

I don’t understand this. Elon thought of a way to virtually eliminate the land, heat, water, and energy impacts of datacenters, and because it makes his companies money instead of being non-profit, this is bad? Maybe I do get it. It’s not about the actual impact. It’s entirely about performing. Profit (which is literally just a measure of whether the return on something is greater than the inputs) is somehow evil, bu…

> Elon thought of a way to virtually eliminate the land, heat, water, and energy impacts of datacenters

He has yet to do any of this. He had an idea that plenty of others have had, and have mostly dismissed due to concerns with feasibility. Granted, orbital DCs could one day be feasible with enough investment; I will not pretend that it is impossible. But for him to pretend that it is a solution for today's problems is at best the folly of a wealthy idiot and at worst a cynical attempt to juice the value of SpaceX before its IPO.

Post reply on HN