Re:Soviet Venus Images (2004)
by at_compile_time on Sunday July 04, 2021 @02:51PM
(#27731765)
> Might be worth just dropping some hardy lichen on Venus to get the process started, because no one is going to go there as-is.
Hardy is an understatement. Life would need an entirely different chemistry to function at 730K.
Maybe something similar to what lives at undersea hydrothermal vents?
I know close to nothing about extremophiles, but I imagine that there is something, somewhere on earth, that's used to living in an environment that is closer to Venus's environment.
Re:Soviet Venus Images (2004)
by ASalazarMX on Monday July 05, 2021 @02:26PM
(#27740595)
It's one thing to live near hydrothermal vents, and other to live inside them. IIRC no known creature survives above 120 Celsius.
Presumsbly, you'd start in the upper atmosphere and work down. Airborne equivalents to algae?
There's a distinction there worth pointing out. We can actually land on Mars, and if something goes wrong there are options (Apollo 13 style). If something goes wrong on Venus, you're falling through acid clouds and getting cooked. The vacuum of space is less perilous than the atmosphere of Venus.
On the other hand, as you mentioned, Venus has the raw materials and the magnetosphere for terraforming. Might be worth just dropping some hardy lichen on Venus to get the process started, because no one is going to go there as-is.