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VENUS

Interesting-looking planet. And it's just next-door to the earth, and about the same size. (In comparison, Mars is a bit smaller)

Unfortunately it turns out to not be a very pleasant climate currently (2004). A bit hot (hot enough to melt lead), toxic acidic atmosphere, high pressure (90 atmospheres), bit of a greenhouse effect problem. Terrible thunder and lightning storms all the time.

Although the temperature and pressure at the surface of the planet Venus are very hot and dense, there is an earth-like habitable zone between about 50km and 65km altitude.

A good first move towards Venusian colonisation would be to terraform the planet. Biological alteration of the climate is the current favoured method. Extremophile organisms from Earth (for example blue-green algae) if introduced, could float about in the upper atmosphere and absorb sunlight and turn the CO2 into oxygen. Various nanotech devices could also be used, when the technology advances. Though terraforming of the planet Venus is quite an expensive venture capital project, the prize is very great, as the resulting planet would be like a whole Earth's worth of resources!

A few Venusian links:

www.the-solar-system.net/planet-venus/venus.html

http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/solar_system_level1/venus.html

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/venus/venus.html

www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/Venus/Venus.html

www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/venus/temperature-of-venus/

www.aerospaceguide.net/planet/planetvenus.html

http://private.addcom.de/jselk/Venus.htm

www.planetsalive.com/?planet=Venus&tab=B

http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/BrowseTheGeologicSolarSystem/VenusBack.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3746583.stm

www.galaxypix.com/solarsys/Venus/venus.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus

www.dlr.de/en/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-726/1206_read-12453/gallery-1/gallery_read-Image.1.5487/

It would be good to find a rotating globe of a Venus as if it was a terraformed earthlike planet (animated gif?). Adding oceans (which as of this date the planet does not have) would make the globe of Venus have continents and coastlines, but these would be entirely different to those of the planet Earth. It would also rotate the other way around. I dare say it's likely that some of the gadget shops would have a Venus globe on their list of interesting items on sale, but I have not checked them all!

Also see Xyroth's photos of the transit of Venus 2004. www.xyroth.net/transfot.htm . As the planet Venus is about the same size as the Earth, it's interesting to see how big the sun is, as Venus appears the size of a pea on a dinner plate against the background of the sun.

Terrain Data!: The surface of the planet Venus has been mapped by radar, and from this it's possible to construct three-dimensional scenes and flight simulation. Some clues into this can be found at:

www.ccm.net/~jrsmith/dtm.html

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/planets/venuspage.html

http://keck.library.unr.edu/data/Magellan/default.htm

The early Russian images of Venus have been digitally remastered, revealing extra detail. More about this:

www.space.com/scienceastronomy/venus_revisit_040422.html

Especially of interest are the Venus globe simulation images at Relief Globe.com (was http://www.reliefglobe.com/) , for example www.reliefglobe.com/venus_150x_6deg.html. We are reliably informed that the images are not copyrighted, which is impressively libertarian. Well Done!

Because of this generous policy by Relief Globe, we have acquired and terraformed a globe of Venus for the front page of Zyra's website on Issue87. See the picture New Worlds of Opportunity

The page www.zyra.org.uk/venus.htm is one of thousands of pages at Zyra's website about a wide variety of subjects. Also see space, orbits explained, science, etc.