The big chill: Venus

Two years back I mused what might happen to various planets if they got Birch's orbital ring: they get cold. I had most interest in colder Venus. Last July John Strickland brought up how to chill Venus, again (not to be confused with Bishop Joe). I reckoned I could do better in 2021 and... I still reckon as much.

Birch himself had opined upon SVL1-Lissajous (pdf). Birch (here) and Greg Leal were going for the quick-fix, which will take solar energy away from Venus orbit thus, er, blocking it from Venus' satellites too. Strickland, I sorrow to report, is similar. Inasmuch as Strickland is hoping to land upon Venus, I say he has missed a step. I get particular hives when people bring up muh cathedrals for a multigenerational project. I want something at Venus' AU soon. I have long said here that nobody much wants Venus for its own sake; they want Venus for its central location, its cheap energy, and its mass conducive to stable orbits.

The orbital ring brings Venus' own resources into easier-access, starting low-orbit. The ring can drain up volatiles especially oxygen, sulfur, carbon, and nitrogen (certainly better than my first shot at this). This helps Leal's project of removing at least the carbon, Leal not saying much about how it be done. Leal (now Strickland) said(/say) further: shading Venus will create a new equilibrium there; Jeremy Lichtman in 2018 has added, if the ring can radiate the heat. That carbon dioxide now supercritical turns to liquid, and eventually (under 2 bar N₂) an albedo 1 snow.

Chilling Venus will lower the atmosphere so the ring must lower their tethers that much further down. It might not even affect the colonists; Handmer (for one) never did much approve Landis' floaty cities. And now the planet proper can be landed on, maybe even mined. Just without (much) water.

I hope that the orbital ring should be inhabited so with a population with some motivation to keep the place running. I don't think we can ask for settlers at SVL1.

Someone should have asked Leal - who wants those venereal volatiles? I hadn't the answer at the time, but now... asteroid Atira crosses that orbit. It is stony and barren. Atira'll take this stuff, in return for silicates and iron. UPDATE 10/14: If only to get it started.