If Venus was habitable...

[Crossroads Inc.]

Not sure if this is more Science-y, or if this will be relegated as a "Rar" but..

For a great deal of early astronomy, most thought of venus as "Earths sister". It was a similar size, shape, and many thought it had lush jungles and supported life. Well as we all know by now it is a tectonically bound Runaway Green-housed Hellhole... But what if it wasn't?

What if the cosmic dice had been throw a little different, Venus was a little closer, its tectonics allowed for normal movement, and its seas stayed to create a normal environment instead of boiling away.

SO, how exactly would it change things to have a viable planet just a stones throw from Earth?

[Teleros]

Assuming it's habitable but uninhabited? We talk about trips to Venus instead of Mars. Assuming it's also inhabited... god knows. What are the natives like and when do we (which "we" anyway?) first contact them?

The main trouble as I see it is the sheer cost of space flight at the moment - it's bad enough trying to get people onto the moon, never mind planning a journey to another planet. This would really put a spanner in the works as far as travelling to an inhabitable Venus goes, but possibly the sight of an Earth-like planet in the sky might spur advances in radio transmissions / telescopes / satellites / rockets go.

[Gramzamber]

I imagine that a whole new ecosystem would mean a whole batch of viruses and contaminants that'd complicate matters but I'd think humanity in general would be more eager to get there.
One thing's for sure, a lot more of our space probes would be going in Venus' direction.

[Lord of the Abyss]

The main trouble as I see it is the sheer cost of space flight at the moment - it's bad enough trying to get people onto the moon, never mind planning a journey to another planet. This would really put a spanner in the works as far as travelling to an inhabitable Venus goes, but possibly the sight of an Earth-like planet in the sky might spur advances in radio transmissions / telescopes / satellites / rockets go.

I wouldn't be surprised if one result would be a much greater willingness to use Orion Drives or some other form of nuclear propulsion. Sure, we could do that now, but between the phobia of nuclear-anything and the fact that there's nowhere to go that isn't dead there's not much incentive to push for it.

As for what would happen if there were inhabitants that would depend strongly on what they are like. Hi-tech isolationists who laser our probes out of their sky? Some Iron Age society? Semi-barbarians living among huge radioactive craters and ruins? (Scientist: "The tribal leader's name seems to translate as "The Lord Humungus")

[Guardsman Bass]

Venus would likely have received many more probes than it has IRL, helped by the fact that more of them would likely survive the descent to the planet's surface.

My guess is that Venus would be a guaranteed manned space program target after the Moon, particularly if the ecology turns out not to do particularly bad things to life from Earth that ends up there.

[Temujin]

With a viable ecosystem, Venus would easily beat out any interest we have in Mars. Of course a manned mission would be more difficult because Venus' gravity is over twice that of Mars, thus making it more problematic to get astronauts back. Of course with an environment similar to Earth's, long term missions and survival would be made easier.

[Ariphaos]

With a viable ecosystem, Venus would easily beat out any interest we have in Mars. Of course a manned mission would be more difficult because Venus' gravity is over twice that of Mars, thus making it more problematic to get astronauts back. Of course with an environment similar to Earth's, long term missions and survival would be made easier.

If it had a developed, oxygen-rich biosphere that clearly already had a lot of cross-pollination with Earth, why bring them back right away? Or even soon?

[Simon_Jester]

Assuming it's habitable but uninhabited? We talk about trips to Venus instead of Mars. Assuming it's also inhabited... god knows. What are the natives like and when do we (which "we" anyway?) first contact them?

The main trouble as I see it is the sheer cost of space flight at the moment - it's bad enough trying to get people onto the moon, never mind planning a journey to another planet. This would really put a spanner in the works as far as travelling to an inhabitable Venus goes, but possibly the sight of an Earth-like planet in the sky might spur advances in radio transmissions / telescopes / satellites / rockets go.

The existence of a demonstrably habitable planet would probably jump-start the manned space program immensely. Venus would be the logical target for the program after Apollo (which in this timeline would be seen mostly as a hardware test).

We might well see mass use of heavy lift boosters or Orion drives to assemble a worthwhile colony expedition to Venus, I think. If nothing else, the local biology would be of enormous scientific interest, far more so than pretty much anything in the field of astronomy that can be advanced by space flight in real life.

It's arguably the lack of interesting xenobiology, more than anything else, that's choking space exploration in real life. Because that means there are no easy resting places for human colonies in the solar system, and precious little in the way of low-mass cargo a colony can send back to repay its initial investment.

[Spectre_nz]

I was under the assumption that getting to Venus was an order of magnitude easier than getting to Mars.

If you have the delta V to get to the moon, then you only need to include more travel time in your budget and you practically fall to venus for freeeeeeeeee.

So, I'd hypothesize we would have colonized venus in the 80's and we'd still be having a cold war, only all the remaining soviets would be Vesuvian.

[PeZook]

If it had a developed, oxygen-rich biosphere that clearly already had a lot of cross-pollination with Earth, why bring them back right away? Or even soon?

Or at all

Seriously: getting off Venus with no support infrastructure is going to be impossible at anything approaching our current tech levels. You'd need to either send a fully-equipped expedition capable of constructing that infrastructure, or develop some sort of an SSTO spacecraft which one could refuel using water and a nuclear reactor.

[Temujin]

With a viable ecosystem, Venus would easily beat out any interest we have in Mars. Of course a manned mission would be more difficult because Venus' gravity is over twice that of Mars, thus making it more problematic to get astronauts back. Of course with an environment similar to Earth's, long term missions and survival would be made easier.

If it had a developed, oxygen-rich biosphere that clearly already had a lot of cross-pollination with Earth, why bring them back right away? Or even soon?

That was kind of my point. They may not come back anytime soon, if at all.

And even if survival is far easier, its not guaranteed. A one way trip is not something we've ever sent human explorers on before.

[PeZook]

And even if survival is far easier, its not guaranteed. A one way trip is not something we've ever sent human explorers on before.

Actually, that's not true. We haven't done it lately, but that's only because we've mastered travelling around the world with ease. There were plenty of times where explorers never returned home, and sometimes they never intended to return. Certainly most explorers in human history were quite ready to spend years, if not decades in foreign lands.

[Sky Captain]

If Venus were habitable for humans I think we would have far more serious space program. I imagine we would have landed first probes on Venus in mid sixties and first manned landing might have occurred at late seventies/early eighties. After all there were plans about going to Mars after Moon missions. With a habitable planet nearby there would be much more incentive to go there than go to Mars.

A problem would be to get astronauts back because Venus has nearly Earth strength gravity which would need serious rocket to break free. A SSTO rocket fueled by locally made H2 and O2 might be possible although landing such delicate hardware on Venus without damaging it would be difficult. However if conditions were Earthlike enough to allow astronauts to sustain themselves on local resources then getting home wouldn't be such pressing issue like on Mars where if your ascender stage breaks down you are dead. However I bet there would be plenty of scientists who would want to go even if they knew they won't be coming home any time soon just to be able to study alien ecosystem in situ.

[Temujin]

Quick post before I run to hell work.

Your right, going for years long expeditions could certainly be considered a one way trip. But the possibility to turn around and return home was at least possible. IIRC, a good example is Cortez scuttling his ships after reaching America, but still having the knowledge and craftsmen in his party to easily build more, i.e., when they took the Aztec capital. That's not something Venusian explores would be able to do from scratch. They would have to essentially take an extra rocket with them, or wait for one from Earth; and then of course get it refueled after landing.

I'm curious, aside from the obvious migrationary explorations, are there some examples of explores only setting off and not intending to return home?

[Sky Captain]

I suppose first Venus explorers could go while the rocket to bring them back are still being developed. After all to land and bring some supplies with them to set up small research outpost they would need only a scaled up version of Apollo command module (and of course Earth departure stage). Then after landing they could live on Venus while engineers on Earth are developing a rocket to bring them back. Yes, it would be risky, but there won't be a risk of imminent death if they have to stay few years longer than planned. Resupplying astronauts with food (if they can't grow their own) and new science hardware wouldn't be that difficult.

[Ariphaos]

This is making me want to write an alternate history scenario. Hm.

[PeZook]

The way I could see the program going is something like this:

Phase 1: Exploration and mapping of the planet with unmanned probes. First orbital ones, then autonomous landers, and finally robots.The goal would be to gather data on the Venusian environment, atmosphere, weather, geography etc.

Robots would explore possible landing sites pre-selected based on orbital imagery, and provide radio beacons for navigation later on.

Phase 2: Supply buildup. Unmanned "cargo hauler" spaceships would be launched in large quantities, delivering supplies to the chosen landing site. Some would be lost due to errors in navigation and equipment failures, etc, but no personel would be lost. The supplies would land around the designated human landing site and contain things like building materials, clothes, survival and scientific equipment, the works. It would culminate by flinging a nuclear reactor to Venus, where it would either land at the chosen site or wait in orbit to be guided down by a human crew. It would provide power and work on cracking water into rocket fuel for the return trip.

Phase 3: Manned mission. Using a single large ship or a smallish fleet, we send our first test subjects brave intrepid explorers to the landing site. They land and set up a base for the long-term using the stuff we sent them, while we continue shooting whatever supplies they require to them from Earth. Amongst these would be equipment necessary to assemble and launch a return rocket.

Phase 4: Return trip. After a few years, having gathered data and produced enough fuel to go to orbit, the expedition will prepare to leave/get exchanged for another group. They will board their rocket and launch to orbit, meet a return ship waiting for them, transfer to it and blast off home.

-----------------------

Make no mistake: it is an extremely risky mission. Assembling a rocket on site, with no access to an advanced industrial base? It may not be doable: not with enough lift to shoot the entire expedition to orbit without killing them all. Developing some sort of an SSTO transatmospheric shuttle is practically a necessity if we'd want to truly develop the planet in any way beyond science missions, but such a vehicle may just as well be a Star Destroyer as far as our current tech base is concerned.

Then again, in the bad old days of discovery, losing 50% of one's crew to disease during a year-long cruise was acceptable. We'd just be losing them in explosions of shoddily constructed rockets instead

EDIT: Another way to do that would be to consider the mission an extremely long term proposal, sending people there on 20-30 year contracts instead of ony a few years. The first several groups would have, as their only goal, constructin of a proper launch site, which would then allow them to be rotated home with decent safety and enough money to retire.

[Ilya Muromets]

The existence of a demonstrably habitable planet would probably jump-start the manned space program immensely. Venus would be the logical target for the program after Apollo (which in this timeline would be seen mostly as a hardware test).

We might well see mass use of heavy lift boosters or Orion drives to assemble a worthwhile colony expedition to Venus, I think. If nothing else, the local biology would be of enormous scientific interest, far more so than pretty much anything in the field of astronomy that can be advanced by space flight in real life.

It's arguably the lack of interesting xenobiology, more than anything else, that's choking space exploration in real life. Because that means there are no easy resting places for human colonies in the solar system, and precious little in the way of low-mass cargo a colony can send back to repay its initial investment.

I also wonder at the religio-philosophical ramifications of proven and thriving extraterrestrial life on other planets. Sure, it won't deflate the die hard fundies any, but it makes the already flimsy "Earth is the only place with life because God made it that way--just like it says in the Bible!" argument even more laughable. At the very least.

[Simon_Jester]

If it had a developed, oxygen-rich biosphere that clearly already had a lot of cross-pollination with Earth, why bring them back right away? Or even soon?

Or at all
Seriously: getting off Venus with no support infrastructure is going to be impossible at anything approaching our current tech levels. You'd need to either send a fully-equipped expedition capable of constructing that infrastructure, or develop some sort of an SSTO spacecraft which one could refuel using water and a nuclear reactor.

Yes. But we could... probably have done that if we really wanted to; it would be very far from easy but it would at least be within the realm of sanity.

But yeah, no way would missions to Venus be "flags and footprints." If you're not establishing a base there's no reason to go in the first place.

This is making me want to write an alternate history scenario. Hm.

Recommended reading: The Sky People by S.M. Stirling, which supposes exactly this scenario.

[aieeegrunt]

There would be a massive space race between the Soviets and the Americans during the Cold War. All sorts of manifest destiny and New Soviet Man and stuff to see who gets to colonize it first. The Soviets would have an edge in that they would be far far less concerned about flinging cosmonauts there without having a means (yet) to retrieve them, and they'd be more willing to spend bodies to get stuff done if required.

One convenient thing about it being difficult to get people back from Venus; you can effectively strand people there for years and see if the ecosystem does something horrible to them without it being obvious that that is what you are doing. And yes that is really a dick thing to do, but we're talking about government thinking.

[Simon_Jester]

There would be a massive space race between the Soviets and the Americans during the Cold War. All sorts of manifest destiny and New Soviet Man and stuff to see who gets to colonize it first. The Soviets would have an edge in that they would be far far less concerned about flinging cosmonauts there without having a means (yet) to retrieve them, and they'd be more willing to spend bodies to get stuff done if required.

Would they really? How do you know?

One convenient thing about it being difficult to get people back from Venus; you can effectively strand people there for years and see if the ecosystem does something horrible to them without it being obvious that that is what you are doing. And yes that is really a dick thing to do, but we're talking about government thinking.

Would a government even have to intend this? Wouldn't it just happen anyway?

[Kuroji]

One convenient thing about it being difficult to get people back from Venus; you can effectively strand people there for years and see if the ecosystem does something horrible to them without it being obvious that that is what you are doing. And yes that is really a dick thing to do, but we're talking about government thinking.

Would a government even have to intend this? Wouldn't it just happen anyway?

Honestly, it depends how much cash and how many men they're willing to throw at it, and how quickly. They'd have to assemble a rocket big enough to get everyone on the surface of Venus home. From scratch. Using nothing but pre-built parts. And they'd better have extras, because things will inevitably break. Even if you've got all the parts ready and they're pre-fab, they're massive enough that you're going to spend a lot of time putting it together, and you're going to need a lot of people to do it in any reasonable timespan. And that's without taking into account how much time you're not using to do anything scientifically interesting, such as looking at the local flora and fauna and making sure you're not going to pop like a zit the instant a local mosquito-equivalent bites you.

The only way a real colonization effort would get underway, considering resources are ultimately limited, is either by both nations cooperating (HA! RIGHT!) or by ensuring that the competition is solely in space, because the cost of building up their nuclear arsenals will mean that they don't get to do this. Fortunately, there are (presumably, somehow) concrete rewards that they can get out of this and it isn't ultimately nothing more than dick-waving in the politicians' minds.

[Crossroads Inc.]

You know I hadn't thought about it but Venus might set off another landwar, Im thinking about what happened with America and the big push all over again. One of the things I hadn't thought about was Venus being Earth size mean you would need another Saturn-V to get back to Earth, possibly something even bigger.

It does bring up the question of just how far Governments are willing to go in order to lay claim to new land. I think the reason that most governments currently don't care about other bodies in the solar system is mostly because its all uninhabited. If Venus could support 'life' (Though it may be full of Xeno diseases, bacteria and plants and animals poisonous to humans) it would change a lot of thinking in terms of claiming new land.

[Sarevok]

Other than free breathable air this version of Venus offers nothing. You still have to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per kilo shipped to Venus. And you need to move thousands of tons if you have any desire of producing anything of value from this rock. Given the circumstances Venus will have intense scientific value but attract no colonization efforts untill much later, probably in same time frame as one of our own possible futures involving cheap access to orbit.

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, it depends how much cash and how many men they're willing to throw at it, and how quickly. They'd have to assemble a rocket big enough to get everyone on the surface of Venus home. From scratch. Using nothing but pre-built parts.

That's my point; it's not really feasible.

What they'd really need is... Hmm. I'm imagining the following:

You build a genuine interplanetary spacecraft, using Orion drive or some other high-energy system. It's not intended to land. Call it the mothership, for tradition's sake. The mothership(s) can haul extremely large loads to Venus.

You build a capsule-style lander, sort of like the designs for landing on Mars, with no ascent stage. It can carry men or a moderate amount of heavy equipment. The capsule landers drop a crew and a bit of machinery to build a runway- this step is going to take a while.

Then you start landing gliders: basic design is similar to that of the space shuttle orbiter, but without the massive main engine complex. These are designed to reenter the atmosphere once, but can't leave on their own power unless they're launched empty with something equivalent to shuttle SRBs doing the heavy lifting. Obviously, no one will be landing and assembling SRBs any time soon...

The next step is to land, in pieces, a large air transport- something big. It flies from the airstrip you built for the gliders. That could be tricky (wing spars? what wing spars?) just because of the sheer size, but it's essential for the next step:

Air launched suborbital return vehicle. This looks something like the X-37B they're talking about over in News and Politics; you launch it in midair from a plane and it makes it up to orbit altitude and some semblance of orbital speed under its own power.

The mothership links up with the return vehicles in orbit. That's how you get your astronauts (and high-value cargo like biological samples) home.

Other than free breathable air this version of Venus offers nothing. You still have to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per kilo shipped to Venus. And you need to move thousands of tons if you have any desire of producing anything of value from this rock. Given the circumstances Venus will have intense scientific value but attract no colonization efforts untill much later, probably in same time frame as one of our own possible futures involving cheap access to orbit.

The critical difference is that there is far, far more appeal to colonizing the swamps of Venus than there is to colonizing L5 habitats or a subarean bunker on Mars. Therefore, the political will to build cheap space launch infrastructure will be available sooner and in greater supply, up to a point.