Terraforming

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.

lol gtf off of wiki srsly.