Project Aphrodite

[Arkansas Warrior]

(Mods, if this should be on the IS board please do move it.)


How much do we know about Venus, especially it’s terraforming?  I’ve read JHS: Terra, but it doesn’t say all that much.  Of course there’s the sunshade that Amaris wrecked, and there seem to have been some ground-based atmosphere processors, but what else?  Even during the height of the Star League, Venus never seems to have had more than ~200 million people, which seems awfully low, given its status as *the* breadbasket of the Terran system (with surpluses even going to surrounding systems), even if farming was largely automated.  Or maybe the population was low because it wasn’t as much a  paradise as one might expect?  Do we have any idea what equatorial temperature was? Were they able to speed up the rotation, so that it didn’t have month and a half long periods of daylight?  Was the whole planet basically one big farm, or were there tropical jungles and the like?  The Military Academy of Aphros was one of the big SLDF academies, and home to the Gunslinger Program, but I don’t know that we know anything else about it.  What about the magnetosphere?


Terraforming Venus is a topic I find interesting, but there are a lot of big questions, and I’m curious as to what BT’s solutions were. Or if they were just handwaves.

[AlphaMirage]

I think they are just handwaves, the terraforming of Mars seems *more* plausible (Project Lowell). Even a millennium with the might of the Star League in its prime doesn't seem like enough to enable surface habitation and under no circumstances would I live under a dome on such a hostile world.

I really just wished the BT creators chose the atmospheric colonization model and just have space stations that are farms and floating cities in the clouds to process that gas and send it up into those stations. I suppose that is why I write fan fictions. My present one does actually feature Venus in several scenes (the atmosphere, another one had a space station orbiting it)

[worktroll]

Sunshades, and the Star League Department of Mega-Engineering. Basically hand-waving.

They didn't address the sheer volume of atmosphere as far as I can tell. Now I've got lots of ideas, but purely head-canon (I did do meteorological modelling for other planets, back in the 1980s though.)

[PsihoKekec]

Didn't they drop some stuff that absorbed elements from atmosphere, thus gradually dropping the volume of atmosphere. The problem of terraforming failure is that with increased temperature, all the captured atmosphere is getting released, which combined with evaporated oceans, means the atmosphere is even more massive than before.

[SteelRaven]

There are two board games; Colonizing Mars and a expansion, Venus Next. Fun resource management games that allow you to play with all the different ideas for terraforming. Just add "Terran Hegemony" to the games story and say "Yeah, it happened something like that."  

 

[beachhead1985]

Weren't an isolationist WoB sect the last folk on Venus before WoB-ROM blew up their reactor or some-such?

[PsihoKekec]

There were couple of dome cities left, then the one with isolationist sect had an unfortunate technical malfunction that killed everyone in that dome, so WoB evacuated the populations of other domes, to prevent further tragedies.

[Liam's Ghost]

Sunshades, and the Star League Department of Mega-Engineering. Basically hand-waving.

They didn't address the sheer volume of atmosphere as far as I can tell. Now I've got lots of ideas, but purely head-canon (I did do meteorological modelling for other planets, back in the 1980s though.)

Maybe they used the excess atmosphere as propellant when they spun the planet up to shorten the day/night cycle.

[Natasha Kerensky]

The real obstacle to terraforming Venus is the removal of the equivalent of 91 Earth atmospheres of carbon dioxide from the Venusian atmosphere.  Sunshades won’t do that.  It requires a major resurfacing of the planet to capture the carbon geochemically, as well as the introduction of massive amounts of some kind of additional chemo-physical catalyst to do that geochemical capture on the timeline that BT history requires.  Or it requires the introduction of an incredible amount of hydrogen, from a gas giant planet or the Sun/Sol, to strip the oxygen from the carbon dioxide, creating oceans of water and soot.  I don’t recall any references in BT lore regarding either technique.  More here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Venus

[Arkansas Warrior]

The real obstacle to terraforming Venus is the removal of the equivalent of 91 Earth atmospheres of carbon dioxide from the Venusian atmosphere.  Sunshades won’t do that.  It requires a major resurfacing of the planet to capture the carbon geochemically, as well as the introduction of massive amounts of some kind of additional chemo-physical catalyst to do that geochemical capture on the timeline that BT history requires.  Or it requires the introduction of an incredible amount of hydrogen, from a gas giant planet or the Sun/Sol, to strip the oxygen from the carbon dioxide, creating oceans of water and soot.  I don’t recall any references in BT lore regarding either technique.  More here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Venus

Fun fact: I was just reading that page the other day, it’s what inspired this thread.


I actually found some things going back through JHS:Terra, and I think there may be some hints in Liberation of Terra II, I’ll check when I get home and have more thorough information later.

[cray]

The real obstacle to terraforming Venus is the removal of the equivalent of 91 Earth atmospheres of carbon dioxide from the Venusian atmosphere.

No, that's relatively easy compared to some parts of Venusian terraforming. The excess atmosphere is an easily pumped and moved fluid. In BT, the excess atmosphere was partly bonded with Mercurian calcium to form artificial soil and limestone beds, and the rest was ejected to accelerate the world's spin.

None of the above is easy. It involves moving dwarf planetary masses of material (which just came up in BT fact checking, incidentally - the Terran system is back in the news). But, frankly, those problems were easy compared to this:

Venus is 464C/900F at the surface and doesn't get colder as you head toward the core. There is no easy way to extract heat from unmovable, solid, water-free rock. Even after you cool the atmosphere, eject excess atmosphere and sequester it as soil, add oceans of water, and cut sunlight to a sensible 1400W/square meter, every place on the planet will be basically sitting on superheated rock within a few tens of meters of the surface.

Can you imagine kids finding literally red hot rock whenever they dig a hole in the backyard? That's a heck of a problem to solve.

What's scary is the Terran Alliance managed it. Somehow. And handled most of it in about 150 years.

Sunshades won’t do that.

Sunshades will play a useful role in reduing wattage at the surface, though.

[Daryk]

Tagging this thread for greater glory! ;D

[Natasha Kerensky]

In BT, the excess atmosphere was partly bonded with Mercurian calcium to form artificial soil and limestone beds, and the rest was ejected to accelerate the world's spin.

Was that ever published?

It involves moving dwarf planetary masses of material

Ryan Iceship Cartel to the rescue...

every place on the planet will be basically sitting on superheated rock within a few tens of meters of the surface.

Can you imagine kids finding literally red hot rock whenever they dig a hole in the backyard? That's a heck of a problem to solve.

As long as it’s consistently tens of meters under the surface and no one is stupid enough to dig their own basement, sounds more a geothermal energy source than a problem.

What's scary is the Terran Alliance managed it. Somehow. And handled most of it in about 150 years.

Polystyrene microspheres may accelerate the formation of magnesite (MgCO3) by orders of magnitude, even at room temps:

https://phys.org/news/2018-08-scientists-mineral-co2-atmosphere.html

But even if the CO2 could be removed and other issues dealt with instantaneously, I imagine it would take much longer than the BT timeline for the radically altered atmosphere, new oceans, and geophysics to reach a stable equilibrium and not threaten settlements with hypercanes, tsunamis, and quakes.

[cray]

Was that ever published?

Yes.

But even if the CO2 could be removed and other issues dealt with instantaneously, I imagine it would take much longer than the BT timeline for the radically altered atmosphere, new oceans, and geophysics to reach a stable equilibrium and not threaten settlements with hypercanes, tsunamis, and quakes.

Yep. The magic exhibited by the Terran Alliance is a problem for continuity and culminated in the assination of Simon Cameron.

[Arkansas Warrior]

No, that's relatively easy compared to some parts of Venusian terraforming. The excess atmosphere is an easily pumped and moved fluid. In BT, the excess atmosphere was partly bonded with Mercurian calcium to form artificial soil and limestone beds, and the rest was ejected to accelerate the world's spin.

None of the above is easy. It involves moving dwarf planetary masses of material (which just came up in BT fact checking, incidentally - the Terran system is back in the news). But, frankly, those problems were easy compared to this:

Venus is 464C/900F at the surface and doesn't get colder as you head toward the core. There is no easy way to extract heat from unmovable, solid, water-free rock. Even after you cool the atmosphere, eject excess atmosphere and sequester it as soil, add oceans of water, and cut sunlight to a sensible 1400W/square meter, every place on the planet will be basically sitting on superheated rock within a few tens of meters of the surface.

Can you imagine kids finding literally red hot rock whenever they dig a hole in the backyard? That's a heck of a problem to solve.

What's scary is the Terran Alliance managed it. Somehow. And handled most of it in about 150 years.

Sunshades will play a useful role in reduing wattage at the surface, though.

I figured you were involved in the writing on those.  Thanks Cray!  The heat's a problem I hadn't considered, figured subtracting atmosphere and adding water would've largely dealt with that.


Anyway, to go back to some of the other points that have been raised, JHS: Terra talks about the use of specially-engineered "terraforming algae" plus calcium from mercury, to turn much of the carbon dioxide atmosphere into limestone.  Hydrogen from comets and Titan are also mentioned being added.  More atmosphere was, as Cray notes, used as reaction mass to spin the planet up to a 48 hour day (it's been a while since I read this, but I'm surprised I forgot that).  Still a retrograde rotation, I wonder?  Probably.  All of this apparently took less than a century, rendering Venus habitable by the mid-2200s (well before the Star League's Mega-Engineering, as it turns out).  JHS:Terra also mentions nitrogen being sequestered, and some of the resulting solids being found to make good fertilizer which, combined with the invention of artificial soil (I'm still not sure what that means, exactly.  Can we not do that with compost currently?) allowed Venus to feed "the Terran system and several nearby colonies."  It's not mentioned, but I wonder if Venusian atmosphere might also have been useful for Mars; certainly Venus had plenty to spare, and could have given Mars an atmosphere thicker than Earth's without noticing the loss.  Even cooled to a liquid, though, that much CO2 or N2 is going to take a lot of dropships to move, though.


Cray, do you have any idea what Venus's temperature would've been like during the Star League era?  JHS: Terra just gives the sweltering version that was current as of the Jihad.  Are we talking tropical rainforest, or something that makes Death Valley seem cool?  Also, given its relatively low axial tilt, it shouldn't have very notable seasons, right?  Maybe something more like the Dry Season/Monsoon Season dynamic of parts of Earth's tropics?  Likewise, without a moon I'm guessing it wouldn't have much in the way of tides?

[I am Belch II]

Didn't they also make Venus turn in to a 3-day rotation, instead of 250 days?

I remember reading that somewhere.

[cray]

Didn't they also make Venus turn in to a 3-day rotation, instead of 250 days?

48 hours, per JHS:Terra p. 159.

Still a retrograde rotation, I wonder?  Probably.

Nope. Venus was rotating so slowly that if you're spinning it up to 48 hours a day that you might as well go prograde. all the cool planets like prograde rotation.

JHS:Terra also mentions nitrogen being sequestered, and some of the resulting solids being found to make good fertilizer

Yep. Venus has 3x Earth's atmospheric nitrogen inventory. It had to go somewhere.

which, combined with the invention of artificial soil (I'm still not sure what that means, exactly.

Neither do I.

It's not mentioned, but I wonder if Venusian atmosphere might also have been useful for Mars; certainly Venus had plenty to spare, and could have given Mars an atmosphere thicker than Earth's without noticing the loss.  Even cooled to a liquid, though, that much CO2 or N2 is going to take a lot of dropships to move, though.

DropShips are not fit for the task of moving dwarf planetary masses of atmosphere and water.

Cray, do you have any idea what Venus's temperature would've been like during the Star League era?

Human habitable, not over 40C at the equator. Details TBD.

[worktroll]

No, that's relatively easy compared to some parts of Venusian terraforming. The excess atmosphere is an easily pumped and moved fluid. In BT, the excess atmosphere was partly bonded with Mercurian calcium to form artificial soil and limestone beds, and the rest was ejected to accelerate the world's spin.

Mental image of huge-ass WarShip-rated engines lined up all around Venus' equator, pointed about 30 degrees above the horizon. Huge intake scoops sucking in the atmosphere, and blasting it out as reaction mass  with the intent of spinning the planet up.

What did they do with the engines when they were finished, I wonder?  (Assuming that's what happened.)

[Caesar Steiner for Archon]

They probably left them there as some kind of monument rather than trying to recycle them into something practical. This is the Sol system after all, a project that benefitted only them and cost Infinity dollars was what they expected.

[Arkansas Warrior]

DropShips are not fit for the task of moving dwarf planetary masses of atmosphere and water.

Ok, not “DropShips” per se, after all this was the 22nd century.  But if they were moving dwarf planetary masses worth of hydrogen, calcium, etc *to* Venus, seems like they’d have had the capability of moving a bar or so’s atmosphere from Venus to Mars.

[Prospernia]

Actually, it's called, "Uzza". 

The first colonies on Venus will probably be floating-cities in the upper-atmosphere, where it's comfortable for humans.

If you can terraform the atmosphere, all that CO2 can be separated into O2, and if you add hydrogen, you can make water; but, what to do with all that carbon?  You need to eject it into space.

So, increase Venus' spin; so, poor Venus get hit and knocked upside-down during the Hadrian-epoch and being closer to the Sun, slowed it's rotation; but, if you increase the spin, you need a lot of power, a lot of power to move a planet so, that's going to generate heat.  Venus doesn't need anymore heat.

One problem with terraforming Venus is we're trying to solve a future problem with current-technology.  Can't we use HPG and just gate the atmosphere, to some other system?

And can't we use all that carbon from the CO2 in orbital-manufacturing?  Could you not have a viable orbital-shipyards around Venus? 

But in the end, you need Venus to have a high-rotation-rate to turn on Uzza's magnetic-field. But, in the end, humanity is going to bollocks that up; so, a 31st century Venus will be:

Have a five-hour day (whoops).
Be about  50% Oxygen
Atmospheric-pressure is still high, maybe still be very hot, but the air-pressure is high enough for liquid-water.
Have a low amount of water on the surface; the only why to get hydrogen is from the stellar-wind and then combine it with O2.
It would be awesome for photosynthesis, so, plants may have to be in greenhouses (trap the water), or genetically modified.

[Kithran]

Re the creation of artificial soil, given when this was probably written you probably want to look at Farmer in the Sky by Robert A Heinlein for what they were probably thinking of when they came up with the comment.

[Prospernia]

IMHO, by the year 3000, the Earth-System should include a fully terraformed Venus with a near 24-hour rotation, with hot, but not too hot weather with a fully breathable-atmosphere, trees, and oceans, and just leave the real science of terraforming the beast left to the ages. They used, "Star-League", technology.

[cray]

The problem with a terraformed planet enjoying 2,622 watts per square meter of sunlight, a lot of water coverage, a fast 48-hour day (or 24 hours), and a crust that was 450C close to the surface is that it needs constant maintenance. Venus had no maintenance for 300 years because Amaris was a jerk and Comstar was negligently cruel.

[Liam's Ghost]

The hot springs on Venus must have been absolutely magnificent. Or terrifying.

[Dragon Cat]

I've never thought once about the terraforming effort on Venus

I'm curious now though

So given the effort to terraform it then the subsequent neglect is Venus now somewhere in between the two?

On topic of Terra system was Mars fully terraformed I can't remember

Star League scien... Magic was great

[cray]

So given the effort to terraform it then the subsequent neglect is Venus now somewhere in between the two?

JHS:Terra describes Venus as of 3078. Its surface temperature is about 250C, surface pressure was 45 atmospheres (mostly steam), and there's still 31% water coverage because the high pressure is suppressing boiling in the oceans. The expectation was that as carbon dioxide and nitrogen sinks decomposed over the next century, Venus was going to turn into an epic hell surpassing 20th Century Venus.

On topic of Terra system was Mars fully terraformed I can't remember

Yes. Its atmosphere is a bit thin and cold compared to Terra, but it does have oceans, a full ecosystem, and a modest population. No one wants to live there because it's less pleasant than Terra (and formerly Venus). The walls of the vast artificial canal between the Hellas Basin and Northern Polar Basin used to be very popular with the ultra-wealthy of the Hegemony, but that ended after Liberation from Amaris.

The hot springs on Venus must have been absolutely magnificent. Or terrifying.

Yeah. I'm trying to figure out how the Alliance and Hegemony got the crust to a habitable temperature. Lots of robotic drilling and cooling operations for the upper hundred meters or so?

[ColBosch]

JHS:Terra describes Venus as of 3078. Its surface temperature is about 250C, surface pressure was 45 atmospheres (mostly steam), and there's still 31% water coverage because the high pressure is suppressing boiling in the oceans. The expectation was that as carbon dioxide and nitrogen sinks decomposed over the next century, Venus was going to turn into an epic hell surpassing 20th Century Venus.

I like the idea that, ultimately, the Star League made things worse for Venus. It fits in well with the Star League ultimately making things worse for humanity in general.

Yeah. I'm trying to figure out how the Alliance and Hegemony got the crust to a habitable temperature. Lots of robotic drilling and cooling operations for the upper hundred meters or so?

We've got a solution: hyperspace. Use geothermal energy to power HPG-like devices that jump big chunks of atmosphere to a random point in interstellar space. You don't care about what happens to those terrible gases, so you can fire off jumps on the planet's surface (or in its atmosphere) without misjump worries. (See the Ryan Cartel's method of transporting icy asteroids for precedence.) You might need hundreds of HPG-likes, but the League had money to burn, and since these aren't built to HPG or proper jump drive precision, they could be far cheaper. That same lack of precision means that you couldn't use these to transport goods or even raw materials directly from planet to planet, let alone invading troops. Or maybe the devices are also very short-ranged (1 or 2 light-years). In a nutshell, if you don't care what happens to what you're jumping except to make it go away, you can probably cut a lot of corners and make it work.

This might also explain Apollyon's rumored hyperspace cannon...

What this won't help with is all the other problems associated with terraforming. Good luck with those.

[Dragon Cat]

I forgot about JHS Terra having profiles on the planets I'll have to go have a look

Quite amusing that they made Venus worse and mars while successful because of all the room on Terra (with a smaller population) noone wants to live on Mars

[Daryk]

The imprecision of jumping shouldn't preclude targeting Mars with those chunks of atmosphere... ;)

[Prospernia]

. . .

Star League scien... Magic was great

The Star League invented something that will reduce the temperature of Venus; ever heard of DOUBLE heat-sinks?

[ColBosch]

The imprecision of jumping shouldn't preclude targeting Mars with those chunks of atmosphere... ;)

"Hey, we heard y'all need some atmosphere. Here you go!" *super-heated acid popping in right above the survival habitat*

[Daryk]

The terraforming presumably happened before there were habitats on Mars vulnerable to that (the first ones should be underground).

[Prospernia]

"Hey, we heard y'all need some atmosphere. Here you go!" *super-heated acid popping in right above the survival habitat*

In a realistic-game like Battletech, were machine-guns have a range of only 90-meters, I'd expect more realism.

[cray]

We've got a solution: hyperspace. Use geothermal energy to power HPG-like devices that jump big chunks of atmosphere to a random point in interstellar space.

Speaking of jumping atmosphere into space...

Per JHS:Terra, Venus addressed its original atmosphere in several fashions (wait for #4):

1. Mercurian calcium was used to bind some of the excess carbon dioxide into limestone.
2. Excess nitrogen (Venus has 3x as much as Earth's atmosphere) was bound into life-friendly nitrogen compounds that turned into artificial soil of later generations
3. Excess nitrogen was sent to Mars, which is nitrogen starved
4. A good chunk of the atmosphere was launched by mass drivers to spin up the planet.

I forgot about JHS Terra having profiles on the planets I'll have to go have a look

Quite amusing that they made Venus worse and mars while successful because of all the room on Terra (with a smaller population) noone wants to live on Mars

Mars is a dry, arid desert like the Atacama Desert, even after WoB fixed it up a bit. Before it went to hell, Venus was a sultry, pleasant paradise with very rich soils and nice breezes on its plateau-continents.

The terraforming presumably happened before there were habitats on Mars vulnerable to that (the first ones should be underground).

Project Lowell eventually stripped mined dwarf planetary masses of Titan's water-ice crust to hydrate Mars. Surface habitats were not present when that was landing on Mars.

[Daryk]

Thanks for the backup Cray! :)

[Prospernia]

. . .
Mars is a dry, arid desert like the Atacama Desert, even after WoB fixed it up a bit. Before it went to hell, Venus was a sultry, pleasant paradise with very rich soils and nice breezes on its plateau-continents.

. . .

Mars has a lot of permafrost, and back in the day, Mars had more water, ratio, than Earth does!!!

[cray]

Mars has a lot of permafrost, and back in the day, Mars had more water, ratio, than Earth does!!!

No, Mars didn't have more water than Earth, nor does its permafrost add up to much. If you melted all of Mars' permafrost, then covered all of Mars with plastic sheeting to keep the water out of the ground, and put the water on top you'd get about 50 meters of water. In comparison, Earth's water coverage is about 3,000 meters.

The problem with the "if you melt all of Mars' water..." estimates is that all that water would promptly soak into the dust, cracked crust, and gravel of Mars. In other words, melting all of Mars' waters puts you exactly where you are now: all the water is soaked in the dust of Mars.

To rival Earth's water and atmosphere on Mars, you need to import lots of water. Enough to finally saturate Mars' dusty, fracture, dry crust and start a water cycle.

[worktroll]

4. A good chunk of the atmosphere was launched by mass drivers to spin up the planet.

a) Mass drivers? How do you load gasses into what one would conventionally consider a mass driver (linear accelerator)?
b) Did the mass drivers accelerate the gas past planetary escape velocity, or solar escape velocity? If the first, then is there a "ring around the sun" of launched Venusian atmosphere?

I still prefer my head-canon of giant WarShip fusion engines ringing Venus' equator, pointed up at 45 degrees, with massive airscoops sucking in reaction mass. Unless one considers that a 'mass driver'.

[SCC]

Cray, are you working on a updated to the parts of GURPS Mars that deal with terraforming? Because it sounds like you are.

[cray]

a) Mass drivers? How do you load gasses into what one would conventionally consider a mass driver (linear accelerator)?

Freezing or liquification then packaging. You've got planetary-scale automated industries at work in Aphrodite and Lowell, so building lots of gas buckets isn't a stretch.

b) Did the mass drivers accelerate the gas past planetary escape velocity, or solar escape velocity? If the first, then is there a "ring around the sun" of launched Venusian atmosphere?

Solar escape velocity.

I still prefer my head-canon of giant WarShip fusion engines ringing Venus' equator, pointed up at 45 degrees, with massive airscoops sucking in reaction mass. Unless one considers that a 'mass driver'.

I like that quite a bit, but engines that big weren't available in the 2100s and 2200s.

Cray, are you working on a updated to the parts of GURPS Mars that deal with terraforming? Because it sounds like you are.

Nope. I've never worked with Steve Jackson Games.

[Prospernia]

You can simply converted the CO2 atmosphere to carbon / oxygen, then use K-F technology to gate the carbon to another location.

No, Mars didn't have more water than Earth, nor does its permafrost add up to much. If you melted all of Mars' permafrost, then covered all of Mars with plastic sheeting to keep the water out of the ground, and put the water on top you'd get about 50 meters of water. In comparison, Earth's water coverage is about 3,000 meters.
. . .

Mars had more water, for it's size than Earth did, until eons of solar-wind broke down the water molecules.

[Liam's Ghost]

You can simply converted the CO2 atmosphere to carbon / oxygen, then use K-F technology to gate the carbon to another location.

Umm... no?

If you built an entire KF drive in an atmosphere and intentionally forced it to do what it is objectively not designed to do, you might successfully move a bubble of that atmosphere (and the stuff within it) somewhere else at the cost of completely destroying that drive. Or the entire process might just fail entirely and completely wreck the drive without going anywhere.

Even if it works, you've spent a large sum of money and resources to create a non-reusable method to move things in the least effective way possible. Battletech doesn't have stargates and jump drive don't function properly in a gravity well, much less on the planet itself.

[worktroll]

Freezing or liquification then packaging. You've got planetary-scale automated industries at work in Aphrodite and Lowell, so building lots of gas buckets isn't a stretch.

I don't want to think about the strength & mass of a capsule designed to maintain liquid C0₂ under pressure, which then has to take the strain of a linacc launch. Dry ice forms at -78C, which doesn't need cryogenic cooling, and is comfortable under normal pressure, with a thermal blanket. Handily, something the size of a 40' shipping container could carry 100 tonnes of dry ice. The container is about 4 tons of steel. With 4.8x10⁷ tonnes of atmosphere to move, reducing it by about 99%, that would only need about 1.2x10⁷ tons of steel, all moving in excess of solar escape velocity.

Mega-engineering, indeed!

[SCC]

I don't want to think about the strength & mass of a capsule designed to maintain liquid C0₂ under pressure, which then has to take the strain of a linacc launch. Dry ice forms at -78C, which doesn't need cryogenic cooling, and is comfortable under normal pressure, with a thermal blanket. Handily, something the size of a 40' shipping container could carry 100 tonnes of dry ice. The container is about 4 tons of steel. With 4.8x10⁷ tonnes of atmosphere to move, reducing it by about 99%, that would only need about 1.2x10⁷ tons of steel, all moving in excess of solar escape velocity.

Mega-engineering, indeed!

Step 1 of terraforming Venus is to freeze the entire atmosphere, which only takes 70 years the sun shade is built

[worktroll]

Not entirely sure how the surface cools in 70 years ... (invokes FASA fyzziks)

[Goose]

  Soooooo The Star League learned not to terraform, from any/ all example in the Sol System?

[Liam's Ghost]

Nah nah, it's simple. First you embed continent sized arrays of heat sinks able to survive the pre-terraforming atmosphere, all across the planet.

Then you install the sunshade and start ejecting the atmosphere. The dropping air pressure cools the atmosphere and pulls heat up from the crust through the billions of radiators.... re-heating the atmosphere?

Then you slowly land entire planet sized blocks of ice on Venus, and the equilibrium between the cold of the comets and the heat of the atmosphere settles somewhere around habitable?

(please note. This is almost certainly nonsense and I'm being silly)

[Prospernia]

Soooooo The Star League learned not to terraform, from any/ all example in the Sol System?

If you take the Battletech Universe Cannon, where, you can travel the stars and EVERY system has a habitable, Earth-like world, then, really, you don't need to.

Not entirely sure how the surface cools in 70 years ... (invokes FASA fyzziks)

If you removed or severely reduced the atmosphere, the surface would cool very quickly, especially on the night-side.

I suppose you can strip the atmosphere, reduce it to a hot-Mars, and eventually, though volcanic out-gassing, the atmosphere would rebuild itself faster than the solar-wind can strip it away.

[ANS Kamas P81]

If you take the Battletech Universe Cannon, where, you can travel the stars and EVERY system has a habitable, Earth-like world, then, really, you don't need to.

Not every system, just the ones that are on the map.  There's plenty of star systems in between the listed ones that aren't habitable for whatever reason.

[Dayton3]

a) Mass drivers? How do you load gasses into what one would conventionally consider a mass driver (linear accelerator)?
b) Did the mass drivers accelerate the gas past planetary escape velocity, or solar escape velocity? If the first, then is there a "ring around the sun" of launched Venusian atmosphere?

I still prefer my head-canon of giant WarShip fusion engines ringing Venus' equator, pointed up at 45 degrees, with massive airscoops sucking in reaction mass. Unless one considers that a 'mass driver'.
[/quote

Even atmospheric gasses have "mass".

[Arkansas Warrior]

Not every system, just the ones that are on the map.  There's plenty of star systems in between the listed ones that aren't habitable for whatever reason.

Even some of the ones on the map took a lot of work to get to habitability.

[cray]

Step 1 of terraforming Venus is to freeze the entire atmosphere, which only takes 70 years the sun shade is built

Simple one-dimensional models suggest about 200 years to cool off Venus's atmosphere, neglecting heat from the crust. Birch was at least good enough to cover the heat releases of phase transitions of the atmosphere. I haven't found other estimates detailed to that level.

Not every system, just the ones that are on the map.  There's plenty of star systems in between the listed ones that aren't habitable for whatever reason.

Yep. The Inner Sphere's map only shows habitable systems. A 1,000 light-year sphere of stars around Terra would have about 2,000,000 stars.

However, Prosperina has a point: Projects Lowell and Aphrodite became white elephants as soon as Project Deimos succeeded. It was a lot easier to settle extrasolar habitable planets than continue terraforming Venus and Mars. Only massive lobbying kept the terraforming industry alive until it found a use for itself among the stars.

Mars had more water, for it's size than Earth did, until eons of solar-wind broke down the water molecules.

As of 2022, estimates of archaic Mars' water coverage indicate that there was enough water to cover Mars to a depth of 300 meters, which equals 43,000,000 cubic kilometers of water. In comparison, Earth's 1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers of oceans would cover its surface to a depth of 2,700 meters. Hence, proportional to its size, modern Earth has 9x as much water as archaic Mars.

On an absolute basis, archaic Mars had 3% of modern Earth's free water volume.

Soooooo The Star League learned not to terraform, from any/ all example in the Sol System?

In fact, the Terran system's terraforming industry was a powerful lobby and was involved in modifying many of the "habitable" planets found in the Inner Sphere. The old House Sourcebooks show how ecologies were commonly edited on a huge scale, leaving less than 50% of native life in place on many planets. The Terran Hegemony used terraforming on numerous worlds within its cramped borders to buy domestic political peace, with results ranging from Riken Minor to New Dallas, Brownsville, and Inglesmond. However, none of those efforts were as extensive as Mars and Venus.

[Goose]

The Terran Hegemony used terraforming on numerous worlds within its cramped borders to buy domestic political peace …

I … don't think politicos move that slow?

Let me rephrase: That Slow.

[Prospernia]

So, we have Lowell and Aphrodite, but why not mention Dr. Bere Sakar's work on terraforming?  The Battletech-universe has a 1,000 years some more scientific-discoveries could be made.

. . .

As of 2022, estimates of archaic Mars' water coverage indicate that there was enough water to cover Mars to a depth of 300 meters, which equals 43,000,000 cubic kilometers of water. In comparison, Earth's 1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers of oceans would cover its surface to a depth of 2,700 meters. Hence, proportional to its size, modern Earth has 9x as much water as archaic Mars.

On an absolute basis, archaic Mars had 3% of modern Earth's free water volume.
. . .

And This one states 500 to 1,000 meters. And my original quote was from a book on Mars from the '90's or '00's.

[cray]

So, we have Lowell and Aphrodite, but why not mention Dr. Bere Sakar's work on terraforming?

I didn't find a "Sakar" in canon* or Google. What book is Dr. Sakar in?

*Fact checker .pdf collection search.

[I am Belch II]

Making Venus a more nicer planet is a pretty big megaproject.
What other megaprojects were there before the fall of the Star League.

[ColBosch]

Making Venus a more nicer planet is a pretty big megaproject.
What other megaprojects were there before the fall of the Star League.

Lots, mostly terraforming. Storm inhibitors (whatever those are), sunshades, domed cities, etc. Castle Brians and the HPG network also probably count, even if they weren't administered by the Office of Mega-Engineering.

[Prospernia]

There's just one problem with terraforming-worlds is that, eventually, they get teraformed, and the Inner-Sphere, would be filling up with worlds on the map, but it hasn't, so, most likely, given the large number of surprisingly Earth-like worlds, terraforming is a long, lost and never pursued art.   Venus is just as it is today.

I didn't find a "Sakar" in canon* or Google. What book is Dr. Sakar in?

*Fact checker .pdf collection search.

Same category as Randell Stephens: we've got a thousand-years of future human-history to play around with.

[marauder648]

I also recall they somehow sped up Venus' spin which is basically impossible unless you happen to be somewhere pretty high up on the Kardashev scale, and this was done all before the Star League was a thing!

[Prospernia]

I also recall they somehow sped up Venus' spin which is basically impossible unless you happen to be somewhere pretty high up on the Kardashev scale, and this was done all before the Star League was a thing!

This Website is the only instance where Venus' rotation has been increased, and the planet is overrun by Dr. Moreau's sexy foxes and other manimales.

So, if such a thing were possible, then, surely an ancient alien-civilization would have emerged and speed up, moved all the terrestrial-worlds into perfect habitable-zone orbits as they would have needed them to support their growing-populations, wait, given the number of Earth-like worlds in Battletech, perhaps someone already did!

[worktroll]

There are no ancient alien civilisations extant in the BT universe.

Possibly the Inhibitors did such a great job until recently, just missing our corner of the Galaxy ;)

[Prospernia]

There are no ancient alien civilisations extant in the BT universe.

Possibly the Inhibitors did such a great job until recently, just missing our corner of the Galaxy ;)

The truth is out there; Battletech as more of a Dune-feel, than a Star-Trek feel.

[Daryk]

Dune: We have found the ancient aliens, and they are US! ;D

[Arkansas Warrior]

Can we try to stick to what we know (or can reasonably infer) about BT canon, and not wander into Ancient Aliens fanfic?

[Prospernia]

Found this little video on terraforming Venus.

https://youtu.be/G-WO-z-QuWI?si=8K8UPqRaFP4V75tA

To stick with Battletech-cannon, we have to use '80's technology to terra-form, so, Weyland-Yantani Atmosphere-Processors, (takes decades) or,

2. The Star-League did it (Somehow).

[Daryk]

That's a good video... and obviously, the answer for BT is #2... ;)

[Prospernia]

... and obviously, the answer for BT is #2... ;)

Double Heat-Sinks.

[Daryk]

DHS are too easy, so they can't be #2... ;D

[Iceweb]

Trying to learn a little more science here; What is the benefit of changing Venus' spin? 
I get that it rotates slowly and you would have the Sun heating one side too much and the other side gets too cold once the atmosphere is fixed from a sulfuric greenhouse.  Still that seems easier to solve with the giant solar mirrors than going to the effort of changing the spin. 
Do humans have a problem living on a planet that has such a long year, or was it mission creep of what the Star League teraformers could do so they did it? 

In the same vein they changed Venus from Retrograde to match all the other planets.  Again is there a benefit to humans to not have to live on a planet with retrograde spin, or was this just we got this far do a little more so it matches.   

I wonder if being on a planet that has a Retrograde spin would cause issue with moving onto a space ship/station which was generating gravity by spinning the other direction.  Or if you visited Earth or some other planet. 
I can see the inner ear not being happy about spinning the other way but I have no idea what other problems one could have from adapting to a retrograde spin and then being spun the other way. 

Speaking of that are grav decks on ships/stations standardized to spin one way?  Or does it not matter which direction a grav deck spins for generating artificial gravity?

Speaking of planets spinning we always think of planets spinning on an East/West axis with the poles at top and bottom.  Could there be a planet where the planet rotates North/South with the poles rotating instead of being static?  Has any such planet been mentioned in Battletech?  Could humans live on a planet with that rotation, or would the Star League have to had teraformed it to change the spin for viability? 

Thanks for any answers to help me learn.

[SteelRaven]

I forgot about JHS Terra having profiles on the planets I'll have to go have a look

Quite amusing that they made Venus worse and mars while successful because of all the room on Terra (with a smaller population) noone wants to live on Mars

Realistically, you wouldn't want to live on Mars even after a successful terraforming effort but BT has ignored the long term effects of living in low g environments so *shrug*

[Caesar Steiner for Archon]

Realistically, you wouldn't want to live on Mars even after a successful terraforming effort but BT has ignored the long term effects of living in low g environments so *shrug*

Speak for yourself, my dunks would be incredible.

[ColBosch]

Speak for yourself, my dunks would be incredible.

Simply the best osteoporosis. Like you wouldn't believe.

[Prospernia]

To live on Mars, we'd have to genetically modify people to live in the low-Gee, lower air-pressure.

All things considered, a fully terraformed Venus would be a lot more desirable for humans, than a fully terraformed Mars.

But, if humans live in space, (they're the ones that most likely will terraform them), they may not desire living in such high-gravity worlds. (Think the Expanse, so to speak (I hate referencing sci-fi)).

Trying to learn a little more science here; What is the benefit of changing Venus' spin? 
. . .

There's no problem with it rotating, retrograde, for humans. However, it's slow rotation means that with the greenhouse-atmosphere gone and an Earth-like one in its place, temperature-maps put the equator-continent as having a daytime temperature of over 100°C.

[Daryk]

And that day time would last a long time...

[ColBosch]

To live on Mars, we'd have to genetically modify people to live in the low-Gee, lower air-pressure.

Per a couple of sources, perhaps most notably JHS: Terra, the Western/Terran Alliance/Hegemony *did* do a lot of baseline genetic therapy and anti-viral work. The humans of BattleTech are referred to as Homo sapiens stellaris (IIRC); they are sturdier, healthier, longer-lived, and comfortable in a greater range of planetary conditions. Even before the Star League, the average lifespan on Terra was over 100 years.

[Daryk]

Paul answered a rules question in that vein around 10 years ago here: https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=40686.msg1310315#msg1310315

That's the closest to an official citation I've been able to find so far.

[SteelRaven]

Paul answered a rules question in that vein around 10 years ago here: https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=40686.msg1310315#msg1310315

That's the closest to an official citation I've been able to find so far.

Thanks for the reference