Guy Royse wrote:
As it turns out, Venus has a rotation cycle of 243 days. That is,
rotational cycle on it's axis not around the Sun. In other words, the
day on Venus is 139,968 hours long.
It seems to me, although I must admit that I have not done the math,
this would need to be reduced or you would have a planet like the
McDLT with a hot side and a cool side. That could make getting
anything to live there a problem if the solar side was significantly
warmer than the cold side.
For my campaign, I'm assuming that the terraforming process started
within the past century, so injecting the hydrogen is one of the first
steps. I'm also assuming cloud-top colonization to provide the location
of the catalyst and Bosch reaction. I figure after they've made the
commitment to start dropping hydrogen onto the planet, they can begin to
construct the shade to cool the sunward side. Once the temperature of
the surface has cooled, which isn't going to be any time soon, they can
build a space mirror to help warm the night side, similar to one I'm
assuming was built to help warm Mars.
The terraforming of Venus is just background, as the surface conditions
aren't likely to have changed in the time frame that we're discussing.
However, it does present an interesting reason for all that activity on
and around Venus.
Not that any of this *really* matters, it's just fun. After all, this
is just a game we play with our friends in the basement. Go ahead and
bend a little physics, I won't tell.
No, none of this really matters. I can't imagine I'll be on my death bed
and regretting the fact that I didn't use a jet of hydrogen from Jupiter
to seed the Venusian atmosphere. Still, part of this exercise is to
create a reality that is based on real science. So far, the discussion
has been helpful in doing that for my campaign, and I've even made a few
changes to the Martian terraforming program based on this discussion.
Thanks to all.
-Mike
--
Michael Sarno
“When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of,
he always declares that it is his duty.”
-George Bernard Shaw
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