Terraforming Venus

Artist's conception of a terraformed Venus, courtesy i09.com

Terraforming a planet, or engineering it to be like Earth, has long been an attractive idea to science fiction. But what planet is the prime candidate? You might be surprised to find out that many consider it to be Venus. Not that the planet offers an easy time of it, but Venus offers one thing Mars and the other planets don't--a gravity nearly the same as Earth's. At about 90% of normal Earth gravity, it can easily hold an atmosphere, and would minimize the atrophy to humans from living in low gravity.

However don't count on anyone terraforming Venus soon. Venus has no magnetic field to speak of, it rotates too slow in the wrong direction, and its crushing, poisonous atmosphere is hot enough to melt lead. Each of these issues present such an immense engineering challenge that many would say it's impossible. But if it was possible, how would it be done? And what would it look like? Read Beyond Earth, to find out.