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mart7x5
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Materials for making a space elevator on the Moon presently exist. And it is in technological capabilities to do so. However, compared to Earth, Moon has like no atmosphere and around 16% gravity at the surface. It is though possible to lift raw materials from the Moon to the orbit in much cheaper way than launch it from Earth. This would make building orbital structures very cheap compared to todays prices.
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binTravkin
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Lord of Progress of the Council of Lords of Gaia
Jan 2004 time: 07:36
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quote: if predictions of that space elevator are not too premature. |
No, they are not. The guys say we have all the needed tech in 10 yrs and Elevator up and running in 10 more.
I think it makes very much sense as it will bring down Earth-to-Orbit transition costs to 1% of the existing (not my guess, but analysis from some experts).
In such cases when a vast economical atvantage is on the stake, there's some threshold after which everyone is going mad on the project because who first gets there gets the best profit and advantage for further development as well.
Last edited by binTravkin on 08-09-2005 at 17:10
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Cataphract887
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quote: /me says no to Dragonball in SMAC |
dont worry there wont be any dbz in *my* mod
quote: Imagine a human able of:
1.being 100 times as tough as steel or flexible as water - MatterEditation on cellar level (nano + matter Edit), but that would be possible only after matter editation on laboratory level, thus not on L10 as matter editation is techwise, but probably on L11 or so.
2.lifting himself into space - Antigravity on cellar level (also likely to come some time after lab antigravity)
3.Breathing in space, erm sorry, he even't won't need to breed, because he's feeding from Quantum Power plants sized as small as mitochondrius in our cells.
etcetc |
sounds like bin is adding dbz though.
seriously.you can think that without cracking up bin? 
most sci fi like this is junk. i like smac sci fi prescisly because it ignores this view 
quote: As much resources as Venus might have, it's simply no use terraforming that planet if only for the daylength. And I suspect the rapidly increase in atmospheric pressure would be quite a technical difficulty to overcome for an elevator cable. Hell, if a cable can be constructed that can take that much pressure, they better dip it in Jupiters' atmosphere and collect Heł there. Much better for spaceship fuel/fusion powerplants once fusion power is possible. |
although terraforming is nonsense. cant terraform another planet,we can barely do any forming to our own!
think someone(s) here has dangerously high levels of nitrous oxide in their house 
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Senethro
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All it takes is self-assembling tools, whether biological or technological, and a huge investment of time and energy.
Theres a large ball of hydrogen in the middle of our solar system undergoing constant fusion reactions. Interstellar distances mean we're not going anywhere soon, so is it really so impossible?
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binTravkin
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Lord of Progress of the Council of Lords of Gaia
Jan 2004 time: 07:36
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quote: most sci fi like this is junk. i like smac sci fi prescisly because it ignores this view  |
Well, the reality is that interstellar voyages might be much much further from this moment as some would expect.
At the same time populations are growing.
And they're growing fast enough for wise people to start worrying where will all those chinese, indians and african kids go.
Earth is big enough to support 3-10 times of the current population (by different estimates), but come on, would you really like to live 50cm away from your neighbour and within reach of arm to next one?!
That's why sci-fi is sci-fiction, but sci-reality is what's going on and what's going on is we're running out of space and materials quickly, folks.
quote: As much resources as Venus might have, it's simply no use terraforming that planet if only for the daylength. And I suspect the rapidly increase in atmospheric pressure would be quite a technical difficulty to overcome for an elevator cable. Hell, if a cable can be constructed that can take that much pressure, they better dip it in Jupiters' atmosphere and collect Heł there. Much better for spaceship fuel/fusion powerplants once fusion power is possible. |
1.It is possible to change Venus's atmosphere by inventing a special bacteria for it. And I do not think just changing it to needed percentage of oxygen and other parts, but also changing the pressure.
"Surplus" atmosphere can be made into liquids or even solids and sublimed to the surface.
It is only a question of BioEngineering or BioMarchinery to be able to do it. Nano could also fix the problem if it comes out first, before both latters.
2.With the physical and chemical properties described for the SElevator material pressure is little of a problem to them. Gravity might be, however, and that's why Jupiter is more problematic.
3.Furthermore - it's very hard to think about Jupiter as a habitable planet, while Venus only has to undergo terraforming plus some daylenght fixing.
4.The daylenght is something around 120 Earth days IIRC (224 days is one day, 243 is one year, but they must be halved because it's spins against rotation vector) and I think it's the least problem of all. Possible solutions would some system for rapid air exchange, so atmosphere in the night area get's heated up with air from day area, which is in turn cooled down.
Also artifically creating dense cloud cover could be very beneficial for both daytime (less heat) and nighttime (less warmth lost).
Some crazy people have even proposed making it spin faster by some nuclear means, but I consider it a fiction not speculations about possible reality.
Probably when we have artifical gravity, we can make it work.
Also - on the fusion energy topic Geomeodder touched:
I think Mercury is a good place to collect raw solar power (solar constant ~10 times bigger).
Morgan would surely like to live there, even if he'd need to live beneath the surface in artifical environment..
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Cataphract887
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bin,the solar energy collectable in space is < any planets solar energy.
quote: That's why sci-fi is sci-fiction, but sci-reality is what's going on and what's going on is we're running out of space and materials quickly, folks. |
we are not. what we are doing however is wasting materiels quickly to the point where they will be exhausted. ive seen some models for efficent housing and cities devolopment,and we could have 100 billion people onbourd without to much congestion.
and fusion power,once workable,will provide nearly unlimited energy. remember we already have fusion reacters,but that the power needed to start\sustain the reaction is bigger than the output. this will change
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Cataphract887
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quote: And the physical ground of this is? |
hmm,lets see. oh yes,that energy has to travel through space and atomosphere to even get there. not to mention the benefits of zero g and the solar collecters in space would be much more efficent by being as close as you wanted.
k,4,800,000,000 divided by 100,000,000,000 people is .048 or 48 meters per person,correct?
some of the city designs ive seen had 2000 people per mi2 and with all the needed stuff,along with theater and parkland. i believe protoype designs were tested in the midwest
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GeoModder
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The most erratic Overlord!
Jan 2004 time: 06:36
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quote: Originally posted by binTravkin
1.It is possible to change Venus's atmosphere by inventing a special bacteria for it. And I do not think just changing it to needed percentage of oxygen and other parts, but also changing the pressure.
"Surplus" atmosphere can be made into liquids or even solids and sublimed to the surface.
It is only a question of BioEngineering or BioMarchinery to be able to do it. Nano could also fix the problem if it comes out first, before both latters. |
For terraforming Venus, a well established space transportation system is necessary as well. How do you think the planet could be filled with water again? At present, not a single drop can be found there, water vapor has since long disappeared from the Planet. So at the very least a number of ice-planetoids must be brought into the planets' atmosphere after the heat dissipates.
quote: 3.Furthermore - it's very hard to think about Jupiter as a habitable planet, while Venus only has to undergo terraforming plus some daylenght fixing. |
Where did I imply to colonize/terraform Jupiter? I merely offered a way to mine the planet for a useful substance.
quote: 4.The daylenght is something around 120 Earth days IIRC (224 days is one day, 243 is one year, but they must be halved because it's spins against rotation vector) and I think it's the least problem of all. Possible solutions would some system for rapid air exchange, so atmosphere in the night area get's heated up with air from day area, which is in turn cooled down.
Also artifically creating dense cloud cover could be very beneficial for both daytime (less heat) and nighttime (less warmth lost). |
The daylength alone would make the place not very welcome to humans, even if it proves possible to make the planet inhabitable. You may sound confident in our (future) ability to create the necessary weather pattern, but I'm not so sure about that. Planets are big!
quote: Also - on the fusion energy topic Geomeodder touched:
I think Mercury is a good place to collect raw solar power (solar constant ~10 times bigger).
Morgan would surely like to live there, even if he'd need to live beneath the surface in artifical environment.. |
Yep, solar energy is a good way to collect the power needed for letting our daily households and industrial facilities run, but won't help you much for propelling space craft, slow-paced solar sailing excluded of course. 
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Darkstar
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Huntsville, AL, USA
May 1999 time: 23:36
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Humm... Ok, if you can build bean stalks, that doesn't do squat for your Venus capabilities. The pressures for Venus are extreme. We can deal with that, eventually (and very expensively). The corrosive nature of it, though, that we would have to really research.
We'll more likely go to Mars before Venus. Indeed, there are now 2 corporations that are functional and are working on a permanent Mars colony by 2025.
Now, if you have SF nano, we won't have any problems. SF Nano makes all things possible. Your own personal genie. Of course, reality will be something different. It turns out that Nano changes so many rules. For instance, many innocent material when "nanoized", we've discovered recently, are extremely toxic and cancer causing. Whoops! But, we don't have the nano-machines that will repair us yet. If ever.
Personally, it doesn't look like it will ever be possible to build medical nano-machines that are useful beyond one or two specific task. Why? We just can't put any serious computing or information storage into them. We can design bucky balls that will cage special drugs and only release them inside a pancreatic tumor, but it turns out that the bucky balls cause brain tumors. So you'll trade your pancreatic cancer for brain cancer. Can we really over come it? Maybe. But there are only certain materials that will bond and form the nano-structures we need to do certain things. So, maybe not.
Think about it. We've had nano-tech since the 12th century. We just didn't know it.
As for carbon tubes... there's coal on the moon? That's news to me. That's what they are looking to make the bean stalk out of. Carbon nanotubes. Those only occur naturally in certain forms of coal, last I read. 
Just jerking your chains. However, the promise of nano-tech seems tremendous. But the reality of it will fall short of that promise. As all technology always falls short. The question is, how much will it fall short?
Oh... if we can get economical Artificial Gravity, well... things really become interesting then. Much more so then with small, specialized nano-machines.
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binTravkin
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Lord of Progress of the Council of Lords of Gaia
Jan 2004 time: 07:36
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quote: Those only occur naturally in certain forms of coal, last I read. |
You should do some reading again.
They're now produced industrially without the need coal to be the source (oil and many other substances fit as well).
quote: Humm... Ok, if you can build bean stalks, that doesn't do squat for your Venus capabilities. The pressures for Venus are extreme. We can deal with that, eventually (and very expensively). The corrosive nature of it, though, that we would have to really research. |
Ever heard about chemistry?
Even now it is possible to transform a vapor into a liquid or solid by a chemical reaction.
quote: Personally, it doesn't look like it will ever be possible to build medical nano-machines that are useful beyond one or two specific task. Why? We just can't put any serious computing or information storage into them. |
Where did you get the idea nano will have any computing or information storage capabilities?
It is long been discussed that making nano possible would also require a very powerful external computing and control unit.
What'd you think they're building those quantum computers for?!
quote: We'll more likely go to Mars before Venus. Indeed, there are now 2 corporations that are functional and are working on a permanent Mars colony by 2025. |
This is one nasty bit of official propaganda whom everyone tend to believe.
1.Mars is further away.
2.Mars is too cold.
3.Mars has less gravity (a major point for human biology!)
4.Mars has very little water (you might say that Venus has none, but Venus has enough O and H on it).
5.Mars has very little organic (read carbon) material
6.Mars has no atmosphere (also a very important point because if it had at least materials for it in abundance, it could be made, but it has not and transporting wouldn't come cheap! Also Mars atmosphere will be slowly depleting due to lowered gravity)
The only positive point I can see being on Mars is it's spin rate. If you can, name others.
The biggest difference will be gravity - if a human living on Venus will be able to come to Earth without serious consequences and vice versa, then a person born on Mars will be almost or completely unable to come to Earth, yet one still has to prove he will be born ok under the lowered gravity.
Only after Artifical Gravity I see Mars, Moon and other nice places possible.
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GeoModder
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The most erratic Overlord!
Jan 2004 time: 06:36
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quote: Originally posted by binTravkin
1.Mars is further away.
2.Mars is too cold.
3.Mars has less gravity (a major point for human biology!)
4.Mars has very little water (you might say that Venus has none, but Venus has enough O and H on it).
5.Mars has very little organic (read carbon) material
6.Mars has no atmosphere (also a very important point because if it had at least materials for it in abundance, it could be made, but it has not and transporting wouldn't come cheap! Also Mars atmosphere will be slowly depleting due to lowered gravity)
The only positive point I can see being on Mars is it's spin rate. If you can, name others. |
1. It's a mere 10 million km difference on perihelium. Besides, todays' spaceflight to Mars should be less mass-intensive due to the lower amount of fuel needed to brake in -and out of orbit of Mars compared to Venus.
2. It's easier to warm things up then to get rid (permanently) of heat. Also, the sun will continue to warm up in the future, so whatever effort is made to make Venus habitable, it is doomed anyway.
3. If that is a major concern, then humanity should forget all about going to space anyway. If giving birth in lower gravity-fields shows viable, simply a new subrace will see the light. Plenty of people would take the chance I think.
4. I don't see H nor O in this comparison list of Earth and Venus. Can you give a link to your info.
5. Do you expect organic material on a sterile world? Both planets are in that situation.
6. An insulating atmosphere could be made for Mars with local materials, but it would be of the wrong kind for breathing. The 'depleting' of a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere is a longterm issue, we're talking about ten thousands of years here, providing such an atmosphere can be kept warm enough. And I think for both planets transportation costs must be kept in mind, nitrogen and probably ice for Mars, at least ice for Venus. The most accessible place I know are the Saturn rings. [/QUOTE]
quote: The biggest difference will be gravity - if a human living on Venus will be able to come to Earth without serious consequences and vice versa, then a person born on Mars will be almost or completely unable to come to Earth, yet one still has to prove he will be born ok under the lowered gravity.
Only after Artifical Gravity I see Mars, Moon and other nice places possible. |
Again, without a subgroup living in lower/zero gravity, extensive spaceflight -and industry isn't viable. Take that away and there's no way colonisation of other planets will ever be feasable.
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Cataphract887
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quote: 2. It's easier to warm things up then to get rid (permanently) of heat. Also, the sun will continue to warm up in the future, so whatever effort is made to make Venus habitable, it is doomed anyway. |
heating up takes energy.cooling simply needs you to take the energy source away or block it
quote: 3. If that is a major concern, then humanity should forget all about going to space anyway. If giving birth in lower gravity-fields shows viable, simply a new subrace will see the light. Plenty of people would take the chance I think. |
subrace? this 'subrace' would have less strength and likely to not be able to return to earth. have you been in space? you would go crazy after awile.
quote: Again, without a subgroup living in lower/zero gravity, extensive spaceflight -and industry isn't viable. Take that away and there's no way colonisation of other planets will ever be feasable. |
remote controlled 'bots. drop a worker into an area,it uses raw materiels to make another,both of them build 2 other etc etc although matierl must be dropped into them.after awile they could setup a factory and resource proccessing equipment and begin local construction. and localaized artifical gravity feilds could make it viable for humans.
quote: 4.Mars has very little water (you might say that Venus has none, but Venus has enough O and H on it) |
since when did venus have O on it?
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binTravkin
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Lord of Progress of the Council of Lords of Gaia
Jan 2004 time: 07:36
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GeoModder, I must repeat the call for Chemistry.
Please, your link provided me with 2 things:
quote: Venus has clouds 50 to 70 km above surface containing H2SO4 (sulfuric acid). |
I hope I don't have to tell that sulfuric acid constitutes of SO3 or sufluric oxide and H20 or water.
They can be divided again easy enough.
and
code: CO2 0.0003 64
and regarding organic material I put "(read carbon)" in brackets and the answer again is:
code: CO2 0.0003 64
quote: Indeed, "just" dim the sun or put a let's say 15000 km shield in front of Venus |
Don't be funny GeoModder, SMAC itself has a concept of Solar Shade which is very viable and Earth had felt ir earlier (hence the death of dinosaurs).
It would be a LOT harder to heat Mars than to cool Venus.
Cataphract887 is completely correct on the fact that to take away is much easier than to put into.
quote: since when did venus have O on it? |
I believe I answered this unless you guys have problems with chemistry.
quote: Again, without a subgroup living in lower/zero gravity, extensive spaceflight -and industry isn't viable. Take that away and there's no way colonisation of other planets will ever be feasable. |
Well, that's your thoughts, but take the fact that artifical gravity is before such concepts as travel in zero time or travel in "hyperspace" or mass teleporting and you're sure to come to conclusion by the time this "great colonisation" happens, we will have enough gravity to stay as we are.
Space-based industry needs lo-zero gravity subrace?
Akhem, sorry, but this is bullshit.
quote: 1. It's a mere 10 million km difference on perihelium. Besides, todays' spaceflight to Mars should be less mass-intensive due to the lower amount of fuel needed to brake in -and out of orbit of Mars compared to Venus.
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Okay the difference is not so big, but by the time we'll be going there the fuel won't matter as well because it'd be some new way of propulsion.
quote: I'm thinking of todays -or near-future tech. Todays 'bots can't do this, and for sure can't maintain themself. The only artifical gravity we can create is by spinning things around. But for space alot of applications would need to be done in zero-gee anyway to get purer and better materials/equipment. There will always be people needed to get near such plants or for transporting them around. |
I think you grossly overestimate human possibilities.
Colonisation will be possible only when all those "todays -or near-future tech" will be something only grannies use.
quote: greenhouse gasses could be |
This is not a bad thought, but the downside is that most of those gasses are toxic to human.
The natural percentage of CO2 in air is <0.05%
At percentage 0.1% it becomes toxic to human, thus CO2 it surely won't be.
Even if people manage to keep those gasses in the upper levels of atmosphere, still they might occassionally come down and pollute atmosphere making it unbreathable.
quote: An insulating atmosphere could be made for Mars with local materials, but it would be of the wrong kind for breathing. |
That one on Venus can be made into right kind.
Last edited by binTravkin on 10-09-2005 at 20:00
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GeoModder
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The most erratic Overlord!
Jan 2004 time: 06:36
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quote: Originally posted by binTravkin
GeoModder, I must repeat the call for Chemistry. |
Well, since I'm not familiar with chemistry, I'll give you that shot. But of course the same counts for Mars, IF the 'material' is there.
Still, the comparison between water levels (liquid and vapor) with Earth is quite large.
quote: Don't be funny GeoModder, SMAC itself has a concept of Solar Shade which is very viable and Earth had felt ir earlier (hence the death of dinosaurs).
It would be a LOT harder to heat Mars than to cool Venus.
Cataphract887 is completely correct on the fact that to take away is much easier than to put into. |
Heat would continue to go into Venus' atmosphere, whatever content it has. And what's so funny about a 'shield'? I've read scifi where a sort of shield panes are put in front of both planets, close the levers, and no sun or less goes through. Put them towards each other in certain angles and it increases the 'strength' before letting the light go through. The same thing can be used to cool down or heat up it's 'target'
quote: Space-based industry needs lo-zero gravity subrace?
Akhem, sorry, but this is bullshit. |
Read again, Bin. I didn't say that space-industry needs such people, only that it is inevitable that they will develop in due time if they're up there long enough.
I'm thinking that we're talking about different time-scales here. You seem to envision this in a more or less far future, while I was thinking closer to our age.
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Chaos Theory

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Missouri / Misery; CC
Oct 2002 time: 04:36
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Having some knowledge of chemistry and physics, I feel obliged to inject a dose of reality.
First, colonization of Mars is possible without doing a thing to the atmosphere. The same can't be said of Venus. The conditions on Mars are, apart from the air, akin to the Antarctic. Since airtight structures aren't particularly difficult to build, the "only" added difficulty on Mars is the need to produce oxygen, rather than obtain it from the atmosphere. Compare this to Venus, where structures would need to, rather than contain a fraction of an atmosphere, keep out nearly a hundred atmospheres (surmountable), with high concentrations of corrosive chemicals (near-future insurmountable). There's a reason some probes we've sent to Mars's surface have lasted over a year and the probes we sent to Venus's surface lasted minutes or maybe hours.
A Martian habitat would need to produce its own heat or more effectively trap the Sun's and its own. A Venusian habitat would need gigantic chillers, as even if it could perfectly reject the environment's heat, it would need to expel heat generated within it. Lowering the temperature of Venus itself is much harder than covering Mars with airtight buildings. It is much easier to generate or contain heat than get rid of it.
Martian soil contains plenty of iron oxides, and I expect Martian rock contains silicon oxides. Estimates of the availability of water vary, but there is certainly some present at least at the polar caps.
Regarding comments on O2 and CO2 tolerance:
http://thelances.org/hr3/badair.html
By these charts, a partial pressure of O2 of as low as ~.12 atmosphere could be tolerated, presumably by someone acclimatized to sea level Earth. Mountain climbers can survive days, though not indefinitely, on O2 concentrations at Everest's height, which would be less than .07 atmosphere. CO2 pressure is normally .0003 atmosphere, but pressures as high as .005 atmosphere are trivial. As high as .03 atmosphere can be tolerated occasionally, without conditioning. With conditioning, at least .06 atmosphere can be tolerated.
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cal_01
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quote: Originally posted by binTravkin
Ever heard about this reaction:
code: CO2 + H2O + solar Energy = CH2O + O2
So to make our needed organic materials out of Venus we need 2 main reactions (they actually form a chain of reactions bu the results could approximately be as I describe):
code: H2S04 -> SO3 + H2O
code: CO2 + H2O + solar Energy = CH2O(carbohydrates and other organic material) + O2
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Um, bin? That formula should be the other way around. SO3 and H20 readily combine to form sulphuric acid readily in solution, but its decomposition is H2SO4 -> SO2 + H2O + 1/2 O2. This process also take a lot of energy too (ie. you can't simply boil concentrated sulphuric acid), so it's not very economical or viable.
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cal_01
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quote: Originally posted by Chaos Theory
Having some knowledge of chemistry and physics, I feel obliged to inject a dose of reality.
First, colonization of Mars is possible without doing a thing to the atmosphere. The same can't be said of Venus. The conditions on Mars are, apart from the air, akin to the Antarctic. Since airtight structures aren't particularly difficult to build, the "only" added difficulty on Mars is the need to produce oxygen, rather than obtain it from the atmosphere. Compare this to Venus, where structures would need to, rather than contain a fraction of an atmosphere, keep out nearly a hundred atmospheres (surmountable), with high concentrations of corrosive chemicals (near-future insurmountable). There's a reason some probes we've sent to Mars's surface have lasted over a year and the probes we sent to Venus's surface lasted minutes or maybe hours.
A Martian habitat would need to produce its own heat or more effectively trap the Sun's and its own. A Venusian habitat would need gigantic chillers, as even if it could perfectly reject the environment's heat, it would need to expel heat generated within it. Lowering the temperature of Venus itself is much harder than covering Mars with airtight buildings. It is much easier to generate or contain heat than get rid of it.
Martian soil contains plenty of iron oxides, and I expect Martian rock contains silicon oxides. Estimates of the availability of water vary, but there is certainly some present at least at the polar caps.
Regarding comments on O2 and CO2 tolerance:
http://thelances.org/hr3/badair.html
By these charts, a partial pressure of O2 of as low as ~.12 atmosphere could be tolerated, presumably by someone acclimatized to sea level Earth. Mountain climbers can survive days, though not indefinitely, on O2 concentrations at Everest's height, which would be less than .07 atmosphere. CO2 pressure is normally .0003 atmosphere, but pressures as high as .005 atmosphere are trivial. As high as .03 atmosphere can be tolerated occasionally, without conditioning. With conditioning, at least .06 atmosphere can be tolerated. |
I would also like to add that the human body primarily uses CO2 receptors to activate normal breathing responses. A higher CO2 content is likely going to make the person breathe faster, but not necessarily kill them.
Hmm. I wonder if it's possible to grow trees on Mars. There's definitely clouds of water vapor on Mars, too.
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