After a couple of minutes careful consideration, I would move
Venus to about the orbit of Mars instead, and on top of that,
steer a nice wet comet or three into it to import some water
and cut down on the smog.  Mars is too small, too cold, and
too far away to do much with.  Venus, on the other hand, is
the right size, is currently a worthless piece of real
estate, and any mistake during the move doesnt break all the
eggs in the basket.

alice

> Though I believe it is possible that the greenhouse effect could result in a
> much more drastic change in temperature than currently projected & accepted
> (such as some unconsidered significant gain in positive feedback as
> thresholds are crossed) I'd expect any real opportunities put into effect
> methods being discussed are far off - tending to be more in line with the
> occurrence of the eventual drastic increase of solar flux reaching our
> planet.
>
> Rather than move the earth (with all the risks that entail) I'd look into
> moving the species.
>
> While I am skeptical of "interstellar travel" anytime soon, interplanetary
> travel is already within our grasp...
>
> So it would seem far reasonable to do it in steps:
>
> First, make mars habitable using techniques similar to those discussed in
> the article that started this thread: change comet orbits, but in this case
> to impact mars so as to build oceans and increase mass (to enhance the
> ability of the planet to better hold onto an atmosphere...).
>
> In conjunction with this wee could seed mars with selected life forms to
> help generate a more reasonable (for humans) atmosphere.
>
> With the increase in solar flux the temperature of mars would also increase.
>
> Perhaps the orbit of mars would be tweaked as discussed for earth - but
> before significant habitation by humans.
>
> etc.
> Bruce.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roman Black [mailto:fastvid@EZY.NET.AU]
> Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 12:32 PM
> To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject: Re: [OT]: NASA and comets agains
>
> Roman Black wrote:
>
> Well really, considering the current rate of
> technological advancement and the renewed interest
> in space travel I think we should be VERY capable of
> interstellar travel within 100 or 200 years, so this
> really is not a problem.
>
> So in 20 years when the next genius discovers that
> 0.999 (repeating) is NOT equal to 1.0 and uses that
> new math to develop the anitgravity/hyperlightspeed
> drive we can have a good laugh about the dying Sun and
> get ready to relocate.
>
> More seriously, you say "the Earth will only be
> habitable for the next billion years", really do you
> think we WON'T have interstellar transport within
> a billion years from now??
>:o)
> -Roman
>
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