11-15-2017, 06:16 PM | #11 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Implications of a terraformed Venus/Triton
It would be possible to terraform Venus without moving it if you added an enormous solar shade (it has to cover a bit under half of the sun). Probably something at L1 that uses solar sails for station keeping; it would be about a million kilometers away, 10,000 kilometers across, and would probably cause a permanent annular eclipse of the sun (which would vary in position noticeably over the course of a day).
This is still a ridiculous engineering task, and would be greatly complicated by adding a moon (so I suggest no moon), but it's not out of scale compared to all the other ridiculous engineering tasks involved in terraforming Venus. |
11-15-2017, 07:31 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: The Land of Enchantment
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Re: Implications of a terraformed Venus/Triton
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To see the soletta you'd have to look directly at the sun, which we all know doesn't work very well. But if you had proper lenses, or a camera obscura, or whatnot, would you be able to see it? Maybe only as a sort of "diffraction pattern"? Hmm.
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I'd need to get a grant and go shoot a thousand goats to figure it out. Last edited by acrosome; 11-15-2017 at 07:39 PM. |
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11-16-2017, 11:59 AM | #13 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Implications of a terraformed Venus/Triton
Pamela Sargent's Venus trilogy features a Venus terraforming project.
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11-16-2017, 12:22 PM | #14 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Implications of a terraformed Venus/Triton
If the structure is diffuse and just lets half the sunlight through, probably not. If the structure is opaque and just smaller than the sun, you can view it the same way you view a solar eclipse -- any time sunlight passes through a narrow hole to produce a dot further away (such as just passing through holes between tree leaves) the dot of light has the same shape as the sun (I watched the total eclipse in August. Near totality shadows just felt weird and wrong).
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11-16-2017, 12:56 PM | #15 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: The Land of Enchantment
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Re: Implications of a terraformed Venus/Triton
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The question then, I guess, is how large are the individual circular mirrors? Answer: since I find the idea of using a camera obscura to see it interesting, rather large! I'll fiat say that you need a really large one to see it, though, like a literal room in a castle or something. And, actually, I have just the group in mind to have discovered this... Note to self: the sun appears just over 1/3rd larger from Venus. Anyone have answers on how ridiculous the Titan energy budget would be? Do I have to live without a moon? Or for the smaller Venus orbital adjustment?
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I'd need to get a grant and go shoot a thousand goats to figure it out. Last edited by acrosome; 11-16-2017 at 01:24 PM. |
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11-16-2017, 01:07 PM | #16 | |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Implications of a terraformed Venus/Triton
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11-16-2017, 02:57 PM | #17 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Implications of a terraformed Venus/Triton
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Incidentally, a shield has dramatically different orbital requirements from a magnifier; while L1 is not stable, it doesn't require anything more than station keeping to stay there, unlike the proposed Mars mirrors (you can think of the Lagrange points as flat areas on surface. As such, it doesn't take any force to stay there. However, L1, L2, and L3 are like flat points at the top of a hill, so if you move you start rolling down the hill. L4 and L5 are like flat points at the bottom of a depression, so stuff tends to get stuck there). Station keeping would involve either adjusting the amount of sunlight passing through, or deflecting it to one side or the other instead of straight towards the sun. |
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11-17-2017, 09:37 AM | #18 | |
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: The Land of Enchantment
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Re: Implications of a terraformed Venus/Triton
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And in which case I have already mentioned the soletta being concentric circular mirrors. And I grok Lagrangian points, at least minimally: But it sounds like you are saying that moving Triton isn't very do-able. Can anyone think of better options for a moon that's reasonably massive? (I assume not.)
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I'd need to get a grant and go shoot a thousand goats to figure it out. Last edited by acrosome; 11-17-2017 at 09:40 AM. |
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11-17-2017, 10:01 AM | #19 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Implications of a terraformed Venus/Triton
Use superscience and move anything you want to. For anyone limited to hard science O'Neill habs are pretty much always a better option.
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Fred Brackin |
11-17-2017, 11:24 AM | #20 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Implications of a terraformed Venus/Triton
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Other than massive and convenient coincidence, no. |
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