Terraforming Venus: Is It Possible to Make the Second Planet Habitable?

A definitive idea enshrined in a ton of sci-fi movies and books has been centered around space exploration. Gradually, these ideas evolved to the colonization of our adjacent planets. Mars has always been an object of our attention when we talk about terraforming. For the uninitiated (and for those who haven’t watched Man of Steel), terraforming involves shaping the environment or ecology of a planetary body to make it more habitable for humans. But outside of Mars, which other bodies are good candidates for this process? Is terraforming Venus possible?

Terraforming Venus: The Origins

In layperson’s terms, terraforming can be described as altering the atmospheric pressure, temperature-based metrics, and various surface-level factors to make the overall environment a habitable space for humans. Specific research towards terraforming has always inched toward Mars. Monumental scientific research has been directed towards exploring life on Mars and the possibility of future colonization of Mars. However, what misses our eye is the idea of terraforming Venus. 

The idea behind terraforming Venus is grounded in something other than cosmic science. Instead, its origin can be traced back to some science fiction.

The Idea of Terraforming Venus Began in Sci-fi

In the novel Last and First Men, Olaf Stapleton, penned in 1930, describes humanity’s descent onto Venus after Earth’s is left inhabitable. Two chapters in the novel narrate the process of terraforming Venus.

The onset of the Cold War resulted in a heavy focus on space exploration. Sci-fi novels shifted their plots towards space exploration. During this time, Venus terraforming was a definitive theme in various novels.

• Paul Anderson wrote about terraforming in his novel The Big Rain penned in 1954. The theme of the novel centered around various planetary engineering tactics being used by humans to alter the planetary conditions of Venus.

• In 1991, G. David Nordley wrote about the process of terraforming Venus in his short story The Snows of Venus.

• Kim Stanley Robinson wrote a trilogy focused on terraforming Mars.

• This trilogy was followed by another novel – 2312 – dealing with colonizing the entire planetary system. The terraforming of Venus was a significant idea of this novel. The author talked about processes such as global cooling, which had a sturdy ground based on research proposals and scientific studies.

Research-based studies

• The prospect of terraforming was introduced by Carl Sagan in 1961. In his article “The Planet Venus,” published by the author in the scientific journal ‘Science’ he talks about initiating the process of terraforming on Venus with the help of photosynthetic bacteria. The proposal focused on the injection of photosynthetic bacteria in the atmospheric environment of Venus to initiate the conversion of carbon dioxide into organic carbon.

Before we proceed to understand the terraforming of Venus, it’s necessary to understand the environment of Venus. 

The Essentials on Planet Venus

Venus, also known as the Sister Planet of Earth, is the second planet in our solar system. It was explored by the NASA Mariner 2 spacecraft on 14 December, 1962. Following this mission, various space agencies scrambled toward the conquest of Venus.

Venus is also described as the Toxic Twin of Earth. Its topography, size, and structure are heavily identical to Earth. However, the atmosphere of Venus isn’t welcoming. It combines heavy surface heat and dense, heavily toxic air.

The motion of Venus around its axis is prolonged – one day on Venus is as long as 243 days on Earth. And, the rotation of Venus is backward. In layperson’s terms, this means that on Venus, the Sun rises in the West while setting in the East.

The topography of Venus has been a matter of research for cosmologists. The surface of Venus ages between as old as a billion years old and as young as 150 million years old. Although this period may seem very large, it’s relatively young from a geological perspective. Scientists are still in a dilemma regarding the reason behind the complete resurfacing of Venus.

Now that we have understood Venus let’s try to understand its terrain and atmosphere from the perspective of terraforming.

Atmospheric conditions of Venus

The conditions of Venus are similar to biblical descriptions of hell. But research has revealed that these conditions weren’t permanent. The actual conditions on Venus had been very different in the past.

According to an estimate, nearly 700 million years ago, the climate of Venus was temperate. The atmospheric conditions were warm and wet, and nearly 80% of the surface of Venus was covered with oceans. However, a resurfacing event occurred within Venus around 500 million years ago.

The magma stored inside the mantle of Venus started bubbling up, releasing a heavy amount of Carbon dioxide. These gasses were released into the atmosphere, but their reabsorption path was blocked by the incoming mantle, which had solidified itself even before reaching the surface of Venus. This process would have caused the onset of a Greenhouse effect that resulted in creating a hostile environment on Venus.

Why is Venus considered a choice for terraforming?

The runaway greenhouse effect has changed the entire dynamics of the climate on Venus. The fact is clearly understood by the fate of research probes and various space exploration missions sent to Venus:

• Spacecraft sent by the Soviet Union on the surface of Venus successfully landed on the surface of Venus. However, the atmospheric pressure and temperature destroyed the spacecraft.

• A probe, a device loaded with an assortment of scientific tools but unmanned and unpiloted sent by NASA as a part of the Pioneer Venus multiprobe, could survive for an hour on the surface of Venus.

So, even though Venus has displayed such a disastrous climate, why has terraforming Venus been the fancy of various space scientists and researchers? Is no one stopping to ask if Venus terraforming is possible in the first place?

Position of Venus

Venus is situated at a distance wherein both planets are closest to each other after 584 days, i.e., 19 months. This phenomenon is known as inferior conjunction. If we compare this with Mars, it occurs after 26 months. Due to a closer positioning, it’s much easier to fly missions because the average time required to fly missions would be low, and the frequency of missions would be higher.

Gravitational Conditions of Venus

If we look at the gravity of Venus, it’s around 90% of Earth’s gravity. The gravity on Mars is relatively equivalent to 38% of Earth’s gravity. Therefore if we ever plan to settle on Venus, the most feasible option is Venus because any gravity-related challenges would be very low. 

Habitation on Venus would help reduce the health-based issues associated with inhabiting planets with lower gravity. Mars, with a relative 38% of Earth’s gravity, would result in a faster deterioration of our bones compared to Venus. 

Could Venus be Terraformed? The Challenges and potential solutions

The current climatic conditions of Venus can be described as follows:

• The greenhouse effect has resulted in a dense atmosphere on Venus. Due to the greenhouse effect, the temperature on Venus is so high that it melts not only through rocks but also through metal. The atmospheric pressure on Venus is 92x the atmospheric pressure on Earth.

• The surface of Venus, which used to be covered with oceans, has turned into a surface full of depositions of matter from volcanic origin.

• Due to the runaway greenhouse effect, the temperature of Venus is around 454.4 °C.

All these factors underline a simple fact – the current conditions of Venus are heavily unsuitable for habitation. These factors need to be reversed with the process of terraforming. 

Some of the proposed solutions are as follows:

#1 Controlling Temperature on Venus

A primary reason behind the greenhouse effect is attributed to the fact that the planet receives twice the amount of sunlight received by Earth. The atmospheric composition of Venus consists of 97% carbon dioxide. This gas is responsible for trapping the heat emanated by the Sun. Therefore terraforming has focused on addressing the issue of temperature to prevent heating of the planet’s surface.

Some of the proposed solutions are:

#A Creation of Shade:

Paul Birch talks about creating a gigantic shade protecting Venus from sunlight exposure. This shade would be located 1 million Km farther away from the Sun. This point is described as the Lagrange point (L1). The enormity of this shade can be understood by the fact that the surface area of this proposed shade would be 100 Bn times larger than the current area of the International Space Station.

#B Dropping temperatures:

Due to the creation of the shade, the temperature of Venus will start experiencing a slow drop. After 100 years, it would drop up to 31 degrees. At this juncture, the carbon dioxide will resume its cooling process. 

The condensation process will result in the natural transformation of gas into liquid. Due to such transformation processes, the surface of Venus would be covered with water. Due to a reduction in carbon dioxide, the atmospheric pressure of Venus will start decreasing.

#2 Water on Venus

Water is a staple constituent necessary for the habitation of human life on Earth. If we look at Venus, it has a very minimal trace of water in its atmosphere. Therefore, we can only transport water to Venus by importing water to Venus.

Transportation:

Hypothetically we could transport water to Venus with the help of spacecraft. Even if we transported 30 Million cubic/km of water to Venus, we would need a fleet of 1000 spacecraft. These spacecraft would have to run around 30 Billion missions to transport around 2% of the Earth’s water composition to Venus. Let’s ignore these lucid musings and move forward.

Hydrogen:

Any student knows that a hydrogen molecule contains two hydrogen atoms and a single oxygen atom. If we split up the molecule and transport the hydrogen, we could heavily decrease the payload. Although a hydrogen molecule contains a single oxygen atom, its weight is sixteen times heavier than a single hydrogen molecule. However, this method is only feasible if it further boils down to sourcing hydrogen and its transportation, which is still very expensive.

Saturn: How will Saturn help in bringing water to Venus?

Saturn could be the answer to help solve the water woes on Venus. Paul Birch suggested that Hyperion, which is a moon of Saturn, could be the answer to water woes on Venus. The surface of Hyperion is covered with ice. The proposed method involves building a device that would be installed on Hyperion. The device will harness solar energy and release steam so that the generated force will slow down the orbit of Hyperion. Therefore, the moon will fall from its original orbit.

After 30 years, the orbit of Hyperion will clash with the orbit of Titan, which is also a moon of Saturn but much more prominent in mass. Due to the collision, Hyperion will be thrown out of Saturn’s orbit. Thus by using a slingshot maneuver, Hyperion will move toward Jupiter.

As it moves towards Jupiter, the gravity of Jupiter will capture Hyperion and force it inwards. If the hurling is accurate and Hyperion inches closer to Venus, the gravity of Venus will capture Hyperion, followed by a systematic breaking down of Hyperion, followed by water transportation to the surface of Venus.

Before you judge this story as another sci-fi writing, I would like to enlighten you with the fact that this theory follows all the known laws of physics.

#3 Oxygen on Venus

The Earth’s atmosphere consists of 21% oxygen. To inhabit Venus, we would need oxygen within a similar ratio. The current atmospheric conditions of Venus have no oxygen. However, this process would be easy.

Photosynthesis:

The process of photosynthesis is used by plants wherein the carbon dioxide is converted into carbohydrates, and oxygen is used to generate oxygen. By planting a variety of plants on the surface of Venus, oxygen can be generated.

#4 Terraforming Venus with Microbes

Could Venus be terraformed with help from microbes? During the 60s, Carl Sagan focused on using various bacteria or microbes that would be introduced within the atmosphere of Venus, which would focus on breaking down carbon dioxide within the atmosphere of Venus. During that period, such an idea was rejected because researchers could not determine the atmospheric conditions of Venus and whether the microbes would sustain themselves within such a heavy temperature.

The current research in microbiology has unlocked various new frontiers which have unlocked the possibility of developing such microbes. A strain of bacteria resistant to such high temperatures, followed by heavy reproduction capabilities, can be used to bring about such changes.

#5 Terraforming Venus: Recent Research

The research around Venus terraforming has been ongoing for the past few decades. However, recent research that has caught everyone’s fancy is worth mentioning.

Alex Howe, an astrophysicist at NASA, discusses creating colonies on Venus. The ambitious plan considers various challenges and provides daunting solutions for inhabiting Venus.

Space colonies:

Space colonies are termed as a culmination of colonies constructed on rafts that would be lighter than the dense atmospheric pressure of a planet. The air above these tiles will be processed for purification and filtration, providing breathable oxygen to humans residing in these colonies.

These colonies, essentially rafts, will be constructed of tiles. These tiles would be mined from the carbon available on Venus. Apart from that, the upper air would be utilized for breathing. In contrast, ongoing research on the air below the tiles will focus on reducing the toxicity of the atmospheric conditions below these tiles.

Water on Venus Space Colonies

Any civilization needs water. Gallons of water would be needed to facilitate life on Earth. This water will be made available by mining ice from the surface of Ceres, ie. an asteroid is situated between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.

Could Venus Be Terraformed: The Role of Governments

Space missions by any country are heavily dependent on government funding. You might have sound theory, but to implement the mission, regulatory approval and political support by the government decides the fate of your research.

Sound-minded people can understand that terraforming Venus is an enormous agenda. The scope of infrastructure, research, and money required for such projects is a challenging job. It needs deep insights and a burning reason which would justify such missions. In the present scenario, governments are unlikely to be fans of undertaking such far-fetched missions.

John Logsdon, the founder of Space Policy Institute, underlines that any project that plans to colonize Venus isn’t up for consideration in the foreseeable circumstances.

Can We Terraform Venus? The Bottomline

It’s easy to see that the idea of terraforming Venus is very complex. Any plans must be taken with a pinch of salt because all of them will be enshrined in theory and lacking a practical reference or even application in a simulation-based environment.  

However, future endeavors toward this idea are possible. 

The human species has shown a history of innovation and rapid movements concerning scientific research. If we send human-crewed missions to Mars, someday we could colonize Venus. Who knows, terraforming Venus would be a tangible thing a few centuries down the line.