04-23-2015, 09:43 AM
The big, obvious questions about terraforming Venus seem to focus on its atmosphere and producing oceans. However, a couple more questions occurred to me.
1) Say you've spun up Venus to a 24-hour day. Earth's spin causes some oblateness, while Venus has none. So...what sort of earthquakes and volcanic activity do you get when Venus starts plumping up its equator, and how long does that last? You're warping planet-sized masses of mantle and core. It seems like there'd be a lot of heat generated from that process.
2) Venus has spent a bajillion years baking its crust at 900F, meaning its crust and mantle temperatures start at 900F and keep climbing toward the core. This is a huge heat reservoir that would be awkward for Earth-like oceans and terrestrial soils atop it. So, how much cooling does the crust need and how deep should you go with crustal cooling efforts to avoid boiling off the terrestrial environment? Would a few hundred meters provide enough insulation or should you go through the whole crust? Also, how would Orion's arm arrange cooling for entire, extant planetary crusts?
1) Say you've spun up Venus to a 24-hour day. Earth's spin causes some oblateness, while Venus has none. So...what sort of earthquakes and volcanic activity do you get when Venus starts plumping up its equator, and how long does that last? You're warping planet-sized masses of mantle and core. It seems like there'd be a lot of heat generated from that process.
2) Venus has spent a bajillion years baking its crust at 900F, meaning its crust and mantle temperatures start at 900F and keep climbing toward the core. This is a huge heat reservoir that would be awkward for Earth-like oceans and terrestrial soils atop it. So, how much cooling does the crust need and how deep should you go with crustal cooling efforts to avoid boiling off the terrestrial environment? Would a few hundred meters provide enough insulation or should you go through the whole crust? Also, how would Orion's arm arrange cooling for entire, extant planetary crusts?
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
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"Everbody's always in favor of saving Hitler's brain, but when you put it in the body of a great white shark, oh, suddenly you've gone too far." -- Professor Farnsworth, Futurama
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"Everbody's always in favor of saving Hitler's brain, but when you put it in the body of a great white shark, oh, suddenly you've gone too far." -- Professor Farnsworth, Futurama