For whatever reason there may come a time when earth isn't a good place to be living, whether it's from man made problems, or that rouge asteroid ready to hit us. So I propose that we fly lots of algae to Venus, spread liberally on its atmosphere and sit back and wait for that algae to love up that excess Carbon Dioxide! Eventually Venus will cool enough and have a brethable atmosphere and it will be a great backup planet.
-- Qualiall, Dec 28 2000

"Pink! A rouge asteroid is heading straight towards us! It's going to blacking kill us all!" http://www.halfbake...nicolor_20Turrettes
[hippo, Dec 28 2000, last modified Oct 06 2004]

Artificial Lunar Atmosphere http://www.halfbake...0Lunar_20Atmosphere
The word is "Terraforming". Use it. (How long until we get a category?) [egnor, Dec 28 2000, last modified Oct 06 2004]

Space Balloons http://www.halfbake...dea/Space_20Balloon
Like dad used to say, "Where are you going?" [reensure, Dec 28 2000]

Nuke Mars http://www.halfbake...om/idea/Nuke_20Mars
Soften it up first. [bungston, Oct 06 2004]

Orbiting mirrors http://www.aeronautics.ru/mir06.htm
Put a few of these around Venus to cool it. [kbecker, Oct 06 2004]

Hot bacteria http://wonderclub.c...s/VentsHistory.html
Venus may feel a little cold for these. [kbecker, Oct 06 2004]

Life in a nuclear reactor http://www.nuclearf...ne/nwa/80/1986.html
Look for October entries for Three Mile Island [kbecker, Oct 06 2004]

I just love the word rogue. It seems fitting that it should be so hard to spell.

I heard an objection to this theory once, but I can't remember the chemistry of it. Anyway, you might want to find the current state of this half-baked idea.

My counter-idea (also not my own) is that we rig solar powered lasers near the orbit of Mercury and just burn off the excess Venusian atmosphere.
-- centauri, Dec 28 2000


In all honesty, I must say that I got this idea from my dad--who I know does not read sci-fi. If it is an unoriginal idea, it's because it is a blatently obvious idea that other people have thought of in the past. I haven't read a sci-fi, or any fiction book for that matter since I was young (sad, isn't it?)
-- Qualiall, Dec 29 2000


I'm reminded of the old joke about how LA gets rid of air pollution (make everyone overinflate their tires when leaving the area). I did put an internal link over that way for another HB idea (space balloons) for packing away Venutian air for detachment and release near, say, the moon.
-- reensure, Dec 29 2000


A better approach might be to move the excess atmosphere from Venus to Mars. I'd considered posting an idea for CO2 sequestration using Mars as the dump, and this is in the same vein.

What Venus really needs is a good sized moon.
-- phoenix, Oct 24 2001


If one is serious about Teraforming Venus, it would need a very strong magnetic field first, becuase anything you do would be nuked by the relentless radiation from the sun.
-- hallogen, May 26 2003


The venusian atmosphere contains sulphuric acid in noticable quantities. I think it should be concentrated/condensed and shipped to earth for industrial use, and not dumped in some poor, innocent atmosphere.
-- Aegis, Aug 04 2003


Practical issues with idea and other spin-offs mentioned:

1) If it was just CO2, that wouldn't be an issue, but it's also several hundred degrees, surface pressure on the order of tens of atmospheres, extremely acidic, very little water, and not a lot of light gets to the surface. Algae or 99.999% of any other CO2 eating Earth species would not survive. It was officially decided *years ago* that no sterilization is really needed to go to Venus because there aren't any Earth organisms that could survive. (Side note: CO2 is not the main culprit anyways - sulphuric acid and other compounds have a much greater effect to the tune of orders of magnitude.) 2) Using lasers to 'burn off' the atmosphere simply doesn't make sense. The Sun is already shining on it. Why would you think that adding <0.00000001% to the energy already impinging on the surface will burn off the atmosphere? And if you did, just use mirrors. Converting light to electricity and back to light to aim at the planet is less than 30% efficient. Just reflect it. A good mirror is upwards of 90% efficient. 3) The Moon doesn't have enough gravity to hold an atmosphere of any kind, and even if it did, it doesn't have enough magnetism to protect it from getting striped away again by the solar wind. 4) It would be difficult to get any use out of shipping CO2 to Mars - it's cold enough that it condenses and forms the 'snow' that you see on its poles. 5) Sulphuric acid is just about the cheapest industrial product there is, less than pennies on the kilo (it may be as low as dollars on the ton). Shipping it from Venus would cost more money than you could ever sell it for by a long shot.

Any other ideas?
-- Agamemnon, Feb 16 2007


//Any other ideas?// How about using the other 0.001% of any CO2 eating Earth species?

Actually, I'd be surprised if you couldn't find or adapt something that would be quite happy on Venus, or at least perhaps in the upper lambulae of the Venusian atmosphere. Things seem to love equally bizarre environments here on Earth.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 16 2007


Don't give up on this concept. //the other 0.001% of any CO2 eating Earth species// might be found in or around volcanoes. Some New Zealanders found some in the geysers' sulfur springs. They might do the trick.
-- Sendra, Apr 28 2009


They might already be there. The presence of carbonyl sulphide in the upper Venusian atmosphere is unexplained and it's been hypothesised that it's the result of biological activity. There's a level there which is within the temperature and pressure range of Earth's surface.
-- nineteenthly, Apr 28 2009


Smells good. Maybe glass or other material balls that would float on the supper dense atmosphere to seed and evolve bacteria. Of course, don't bring any back to my earth. . Magentize the planet, not enough iron? crash iron asteroides onto it.

Too hot, my machine, cooky? may be ready for Venus in about 50 years. See Pluvinergy.com.

What about spinning chain umbrelas in space, in solar sincronous orbit, with little shpperd ships to reposition and repair. The same robot ships that bring the iron asteroids. . As long as we built thos bots, we can also bring asteroids to neutralize the acid. Ohoh! A C in chem just will not do, ha? . I'll try it when you think its ready, I'll try anything, right?
-- Pluvinergy, Apr 28 2009



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