Terraforming

Let's take an example: Venus.

Do you feel there would be anything inherently wrong if we were to somehow change Venus into a habitable environment?

Nope but we'd all be fucked up by gravity fo sure!

Nope but we'd all be fucked up by gravity fo sure!

College education ftw!

Terraform jupiter we'll have like 50x as much space! jk =P.

You can't terraform that which has no terra to form, Willkill. Although we don't know Jupiter's mass 100%, all signs indicate that it honestly has no solid mass to it, and given its temperature, some scientists believe that it was a star that simply didn't quite get the mass needed to ignite.

Mj pretty much summed up my feeling exactly, it's really difficult to decide between natural beauty and making ourselves infinitely more comfortable. I suppose the decision to terraform would depend upon what we intend to DO while we occupy the planet and if we truly intended to populate the entirety of it.

I can only hope we'd have learned how to lessen our negative impact on the planets by the time this is a consideration, otherwise we'd just be destroying planets in our wake.

Heh. So many future shows with a scene where a character looks up at the moon and remembers what it looked like before colonization, or looks up at it during a trip to the past and remarks at how pretty it is.

Exactly, this was precisely the type of discussion I was looking for. I suppose it boils down to human progress vs. environment seniments.

You can't terraform that which has no terra to form, Willkill. Although we don't know Jupiter's mass 100%, all signs indicate that it honestly has no solid mass to it, and given its temperature, some scientists believe that it was a star that simply didn't quite get the mass needed to ignite. Mj pretty much summed up my feeling exactly, it's really difficult to decide between natural beauty and making ourselves infinitely more comfortable. I suppose the decision to terraform would depend upon what we intend to DO while we occupy the planet and if we truly intended to populate the entirety of it. I can only hope we'd have learned how to lessen our negative impact on the planets by the time this is a consideration, otherwise we'd just be destroying planets in our wake.

I guess you didn't see my "jk =P". Not just that ...even if it retained its current size and it were a rocky planet we would be crushed by the gravity.

I think the possibility for a solid surface deep within Jupiter still exists, though. Not entirely sure about that.

Actually, according to wikipedia, Jupiter may have a solid core. Interestingly, the acceleration of gravity on the surface of Jupiter may be much less than the acceleration in orbit, since you'd have about 95% of it's mass pretty much evenly distributed arround you and canceling itself out. Not to say that the pressure and heat wouldn't kill you...

Jupiter is theorized to have a small, solid core or a gaseous core of dense materials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter#Internal_structure

They just don't have all the info to know for sure yet, WW. The temperature near the core is believed to be 36,000 degrees Kelvin and under 3,000–4,500 GPa of pressure. I don't know enough about chemistry to formulate a real guess, but wouldn't the molecules be flying EVERYWHERE under the excitement generated by that insane amount of heat, or would the immense pressure cut down on some of that?

If this were asked of a planet in a Sci-Fi novel, with it's own non-Terran life and ecosystem, then I think you'd get a better response.

In reply to Venus - I don't think it would be wrong, but it'd be a completely daft thing to do, and the cost involved would be ludicrous.

If it was done to every single discovered planet out there, then it could start to border on wrong. Sure, even if it were done to every single planet that has been discovered up to this present day, it wouldn't even begin to start to scratch the surface of what's in the Universe, but I'd still consider it as damaging the natural beauty of the Universe. For all we know, no two bodies are the same, and by terraforming one we just happen to come across, we'd be destroying something unique.

If this were asked of a planet in a Sci-Fi novel, with it's own non-Terran life and ecosystem, then I think you'd get a better response.

I don't think there would be many people who would disagree that eradicating another lifeform simply to make their planet livable for ours without some extreme circumstance would be wrong, I'm talking mostly about if you feel it would be wrong to change the nature of a planet to suit it to our own needs, after seeing what changes we've made to Earth.

In reply to Venus - I don't think it would be wrong, but it'd be a completely daft thing to do, and the cost involved would be ludicrous.

Well, the population generally continues to grow, and we will eventually run out of living space. Also, in the VERY long term, our sun will collapse into a Red Giant, which will swallow most of the Inner Planets, either completely destroying them or rendering them all barren in a manner somewhat similar to Mercury. This won't happen for billions of years, but if civilization lasts that long, we'll be forced to find a new living locale by then.

In the case of Venus, it'd be for exploration purposes as well as living space and resources to fuel industry. By the time we'd hypothetically be considering terraforming Venus, the cost wouldn't be prohibitive (as that would always be a consideration) and we'd already have means to cheaply ship men and materials from Earth via Space Elevator or something as yet undiscovered.

I'm mainly aiming for the philiosophical side of the argument.

I know this is off topic but.... if we do ever go to another planet it would most likely be Mars. Venus has intense gravity, volcanic activity and I'm pretty sure it be pretty damn impossible to live there. Mars does have insane wind storms but at least the gravity and temperature aren't as extreme so we could possibly work around it.

Actually, the gravity is similar. I think that Venus has promise for terraforming, but Mars is more promising left alone (almost no environment is easier to work with than a hostile environment).

I know this is off topic but.... if we do ever go to another planet it would most likely be Mars. Venus has intense gravity, volcanic activity and I'm pretty sure it be pretty damn impossible to live there. Mars does have insane wind storms but at least the gravity and temperature aren't as extreme so we could possibly work around it.

Uh...

Venus has a gravity of 0.904g, which is the closest to Earth gravity you'll find. The main problems are the fact that atmospheric pressure is 90 times greater than that of Earth, the fact that the surface is hot enough to melt Lead due to the intense atmosphere, and the complete absence of water.

Atmospheric pressure is largely due to greenhouse gases, which can be relieved along with a fair portion of the heat issue (as they're largely the same problem) via a Solar Shade, to cool the planet to where a lot of the gas could fall to the surface as Dry Ice to be shipped elsewhere (perhaps to Mars, where the problem is not enough atmosphere). Water could possibly be mined from an Ice Moon of Saturn such as Europa and literally just bombard Venus with large chunks of ice.

That's all pretty offtopic (and the info is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Venus), I'm mainly interested in the ethical ramifications.

Whoops guess I got the pressure/gravity mixed up. I don't remember my 5th grade science too well I guess.

Whoops guess I got the pressure/gravity mixed up. I don't remember my 5th grade science too well I guess.

I've been reading this kind of stuff all day, it really has me intrigued.