Okay I'm going a bit off the norm here for this thread. Mars once had an atmosphere and it went away do to Mars low density ( Please correct if wrong). So any Terraforming we do will be at best temporary because Mars wont hold an atmosphere that is life sustainable. OR is part of the terraforming planned is to somehow increase Mars density. IF yes that leads to questions about orbit change, gravitational pull changes and so many other things.

So is Mars really a good candidate for terraforming?

Also, Venus is a worse candidate. Although it's almost the same size as Earth (and it rotates west -> east) the atmospheric concentration of Co2 is so high that there is likely no way to remove it.

There is also quite a lot of water, but it is in the form of water vapour.

I don't think you can do much with a planet that has no magnetic field and no volcanic activity.

NASA's High Altitude Venus Operational Concept looks cool - maybe someday it will have tiny cloud colonies like Bespin in Empire Strikes Back.

Also, Venus is a worse candidate. Although it's almost the same size as Earth (and it rotates west -> east) the atmospheric concentration of Co2 is so high that there is likely no way to remove it.

There is also quite a lot of water, but it is in the form of water vapour.

Helpful?

I think they proposed seeding the atmosphere with blue-green algae back in the 70's or 80's, the algae was supposed to convert the CO2 into O2. The issue of atmospheric density is more the issue... redirect a water high asteroid to Venus? Hope the impact blows some of the atmosphere off of it?

But then I find this:
From Carl Sagan,
"Here's the fatal flaw: In 1961, I thought the atmospheric pressure at the surface of Venus was a few bars ... We now know it to be 90 bars, so if the scheme worked, the result would be a surface buried in hundreds of meters of fine graphite, and an atmosphere made of 65 bars of almost pure molecular oxygen. Whether we would first implode under the atmospheric pressure or spontaneously burst into flames in all that oxygen is open to question. However, long before so much oxygen could build up, the graphite would spontaneously burn back into CO2, short-circuiting the process."

Fuck.

Gee, maybe we could move our efforts and money into saving the planet we already have.

Gee, maybe we could move our efforts and money into saving the planet we already have.

I understand the sentiment but would want the money to come from somewhere else.

"NASA's budget for fiscal year (FY) 2019 is $21.5 billion. It represents 0.49% of the $4.4 trillion the United States plans to spend that year." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA


I would seriously look into the Military budget, make sure no detrimental cut would endanger our military personal. Not sure what other huge money pits we have but my next would be the "aid money" and such sent to other nations.

Heard this years ago and still in favor of it. Shut down a lot of the military bases over seas. That would save a ton of money and said money could be used along the lines of Ray's statement.