| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Bill, The Avender" |
| Date: |
21 Feb 2004 09:23:56 PM |
| Object: |
OT: Nuclear winter as a tool to cool down Venus? |
The subject pretty much says it all. I've looked around a bit on the
net for a more appropriate forum, but I'm not having much luck. Still
looking, though, but I'd still like to bounce some ideas around to
anyone who might care to answer. :-)
We hear about what nuclear winter would be like, and have seen some
similar situations after certain volcanic activities (I still remember
the sky in Pennsylvania after Mt. St. Helen's blew). Would it be
possible to use an event similar to this to cool Venus down to any
significant extent and for any significant length of time? My thought
is that if it could even be cooled down temporarily, some of the acid
and other toxic fumes might condense. If they did this, some form of
"cloud seeding" may become a viable solution for reducing the haze
when the climate begins to "restabilize" (if the atmosphere of Venus
can in any sense be considered "stable"). With everything we know
about chemistry, I'm sure we must know of some ways to bind at least
some of these fumes - once temporarily cooled - into a solid form that
wouldn't re-vaporize as Venus begins heating up again. Thus, Venus
wouldn't heat up quite as much, enabling us to strive to produce even
further climactic changes. On a species scale (no single human could
possibly live long enough to witness it all), we could chip and hammer
away at such things until we have a few viable worlds to inhabit in
this solar system. Mars would probably be the easiest, but who knows
what tricks might enable us to take down a few other contenders as
well? Venus and perhaps a few of the moon worlds in orbit around the
gas giants strike me as being within human reach, even if not within
our present abilities.
Producing a nuclear winter is well within our reach. Naturally, we'd
have to wait for Venus to cease being so radioactive before further
endeavors could be made. But we don't even have that at this point,
so I'd consider that progress.
With bombs more powerful than we generally produce, some well-aimed
ones might even be able to speed up her rotation a bit. Iirc, this
might make her climate a bit more stable (I forget where I read this
or what it was based on, though, so it may be incorrect). Of course
then you start making all sorts of other problems, including the
possiblity of a destabilized orbit that could send her hurtling
towards the Earth and utterly obliterating both planets. But hey,
we're a fairly capable species. We could probably figure out a way to
avoid that outcome - to at worst risk sending it hurtling into the sun
rather than into us. ;-)
Just some thoughts. Terraforming has been on my mind quite a bit
lately. :-)
--
L8r,
Bill
~*.**~.**.*~*.**.~**.*~.***.~*.**~.**.*~*.**~
The early bird gets the worm. The early worm,
on the other hand, just gets eaten.
~*.**~.**.*~*.**.~**.*~.***.~*.**~.**.*~*.**~
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| User: "Robert Schneider" |
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| Title: Re: Nuclear winter as a tool to cool down Venus? |
22 Feb 2004 01:10:02 PM |
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"Bill, The Avender" <Avender@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in message
news:403a1bec.36541480@newsgroups.bellsouth.net...
[snip]
Venus already reflects almost all of the sunlight falling on it due to its
dense cloud. Before they discovered the "greenhouse" effect, the early
speculation was that Venus was COLD, as cold as -125F. Buuuurrrr!!!
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| User: "jwk" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Nuclear winter as a tool to cool down Venus? |
24 Feb 2004 04:15:54 PM |
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(Bill, The Avender) wrote in message news:<403a1bec.36541480@newsgroups.bellsouth.net>...
The subject pretty much says it all. I've looked around a bit on the
net for a more appropriate forum, but I'm not having much luck. Still
looking, though, but I'd still like to bounce some ideas around to
anyone who might care to answer. :-)
I believe that the current idea about Venus is that it's mantel is
much thinner than the Earth's. That means that the hot, molten core
is closer to the surface and heats the planet. Solar radiation is not
the key to the problem. Try crashing a Mars-sized planet into it. It
worked for Earth.
jwk
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| User: "Enkidu" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Nuclear winter as a tool to cool down Venus? |
21 Feb 2004 09:59:28 PM |
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Bill, The Avender wrote:
The subject pretty much says it all. I've looked around a bit on the
net for a more appropriate forum, but I'm not having much luck. Still
looking, though, but I'd still like to bounce some ideas around to
anyone who might care to answer. :-)
We hear about what nuclear winter would be like, and have seen some
similar situations after certain volcanic activities (I still remember
the sky in Pennsylvania after Mt. St. Helen's blew). Would it be
possible to use an event similar to this to cool Venus down to any
significant extent and for any significant length of time?
[snip]
I don't think this would help. You'd need to cool the planet as
sequester the carbon in some way. Also, there is no hydrogen in the
quantity needed combine with oxygen to create water oceans.
We'd need to aim a few hundred comets at the planet to get the water at
the same time we cooled the planet by reducing the green house gasses.
And at some 90 times the density of the earth's atmosphere, virtualll
all of it a green house gas, that's a tall order.
--
Enkidu
AA# 2165
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered.
Religion is answers that may never be questioned."
-- Unknown
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| User: "SMChristenson" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Nuclear winter as a tool to cool down Venus? |
22 Feb 2004 10:48:15 AM |
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On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 19:59:28 -0800, Enkidu wrote:
We'd need to aim a few hundred comets at the planet to get the water at
the same time we cooled the planet by reducing the green house gasses.
And at some 90 times the density of the earth's atmosphere, virtualll
all of it a green house gas, that's a tall order.
Slashdot last month ran a link to a site on the Venus landers. Check out:
http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_Lavochkin2.htm
"At an altitude of 50 kilometers, the parachutes were jettisoned, and the
lander fell for 55 minutes, slowed only by the aerobrake."
We're talking a 660 KILOGRAM lander they DROPPED from 50 KILOMETERS. And
it fluttered down into the atmosphere like a marble sinking through warm
molasses. Puts the venusian atmosphere into perspective.
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| User: "Bill, The Avender" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Nuclear winter as a tool to cool down Venus? |
23 Feb 2004 10:05:50 PM |
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In alt.atheism on Sun, 22 Feb 2004 10:48:15 -0600, SMChristenson
<smchris@visi.com> wrote:
On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 19:59:28 -0800, Enkidu wrote:
We'd need to aim a few hundred comets at the planet to get the water at
the same time we cooled the planet by reducing the green house gasses.
And at some 90 times the density of the earth's atmosphere, virtualll
all of it a green house gas, that's a tall order.
Slashdot last month ran a link to a site on the Venus landers. Check out:
http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_Lavochkin2.htm
"At an altitude of 50 kilometers, the parachutes were jettisoned, and the
lander fell for 55 minutes, slowed only by the aerobrake."
We're talking a 660 KILOGRAM lander they DROPPED from 50 KILOMETERS. And
it fluttered down into the atmosphere like a marble sinking through warm
molasses. Puts the venusian atmosphere into perspective.
Hmmn. Something doesn't sound quite right with this statement. With
something called an "aerobrake", somehow, I should think we'd be more
surprised if it actually 'plummetted' to the surface. How much
quicker would the same aeorobrake-endowed vehicle fall to Earth from
about the same height?
--
L8r,
Bill
/.-+-/,\-*+.\-/--,*/-\+.--\*/,+--/.\
Bill's Dictionary of Daffy-nitions
"geneaology (jeen-ee-ALL-uh-gee)
- (noun) The study of Barbara Eden."
/.-+-/,\-*+.\-/--,*/-\+.--\*/,+--/.\
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| User: "SMChristenson" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Nuclear winter as a tool to cool down Venus? |
24 Feb 2004 08:25:56 AM |
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On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 04:05:50 +0000, Bill, The Avender wrote:
In alt.atheism on Sun, 22 Feb 2004 10:48:15 -0600, SMChristenson
<smchris@visi.com> wrote:
On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 19:59:28 -0800, Enkidu wrote:
We'd need to aim a few hundred comets at the planet to get the water at
the same time we cooled the planet by reducing the green house gasses.
And at some 90 times the density of the earth's atmosphere, virtualll
all of it a green house gas, that's a tall order.
Slashdot last month ran a link to a site on the Venus landers. Check out:
http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_Lavochkin2.htm
"At an altitude of 50 kilometers, the parachutes were jettisoned, and the
lander fell for 55 minutes, slowed only by the aerobrake."
We're talking a 660 KILOGRAM lander they DROPPED from 50 KILOMETERS. And
it fluttered down into the atmosphere like a marble sinking through warm
molasses. Puts the venusian atmosphere into perspective.
Hmmn. Something doesn't sound quite right with this statement. With
something called an "aerobrake", somehow, I should think we'd be more
surprised if it actually 'plummetted' to the surface. How much
quicker would the same aeorobrake-endowed vehicle fall to Earth from
about the same height?
I think the question is how big the crater would be.
Take a look at the site. The "aerobrake" is virtually nothing. I'm
taking the site on authority simply because it seems well done. Aside
from the hard data of 90 atmospheres, the only other visual image that
comes off the top of my head has been wild speculation on the possibility
of extremophiles floating on the soup of the upper atmosphere.
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