[2019 Archived] History of Popularity of Mars and Venus (Possibly Outdated)
Figure 1:
Behold the morning and evening star! Notice, how bright it is? Its brightness
and twice-daily appearance made this star to be appreciated for millennia. At
present, this ‘star’ is better known as the planet Venus. This Photograph was
taken by Babak Tafreshi.
“You can see it shining brilliantly in the twilight, chasing the sun down below the western horizon…or you can spy it before dawn, fleeing the rising sun. In these two incarnations, brighter than anything else in the sky except only the sun and the moon” [31].
It
is what our ancestors knew as the ‘morning and evening star’, better known now
as the planet Venus. Venus had been cherished for millennia owing to its
distinctive brightness and twice-daily appearance. The Romans, who named Venus,
knew it as their goddess of love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility and prosperity
[32]. The Greeks knew Venus, as phosphoros (light-bringer),
and heosphoros (dawn-bringer). The Maya knew her as Chacek and Noh
Ek’, which translates to ‘the great star’. The old Babylonians knew her as Ninsi’anna,
which gives the affectionate meaning of ‘divine lady, illumination of heaven’ [13].
Moreover, the Pythagoreans revered it as the only planet, which was bright
enough, to cast a shadow. In short, Venus had been a divine celebrity.
On
the contrary, Mars’s early recognition was less appealing, owing to the iron oxide
found in the Martian soil - which gives it its distinctive red colour, which in
turn, was allusive of blood when seen from the Earth. Mars had a dark identity
during the ancient world [14]: The ancient Sumerians knew Mars as Nergal,
their god of war and plague. Mesopotamian texts describe it as ‘the star of
judgement of the fate of the dead’. The Romans, who named Mars, revered in as their
god of war [14]. Well, Mars did have sort-of-a divine status,
however in was not in an aesthetically pleasing sense.
Figure 2: This might seem like a red star, but it is in fact the planet Mars. It can be seen to glow with a reddish hue, reminiscent of blood. Mars was unusually larger at the time this photograph was taken by David Chabot
Venus,
with its almost similar mass, size and density, along with her healthy
reputation since the ancient times, made it seem as the Earth’s twin sister.
For centuries, people speculated as to how our sister-planet might look.
Galileo Galili in 1609 was the first person to observe Venus with a telescope.
He saw an “absolutely featureless disk”, which was still seen as it is, even
with larger telescopes with improved resolution. It evidently meant that Venus
was covered by a “dense layer of obscuring cloud” [33].
The
uncertainty of the composition of the Venusian clouds, at that time, led to
“the curious conclusion that the surface was a swamp, like the Earth in the
Carboniferous period” [33]. Dr. Carl Sagan, in his Cosmos (1995), beautifully summarized, how
that conclution was drawn as follows:
“I can’t see a thing on Venus”
“Why not?”
“Because it is totally covered with clouds.”
“What is it made of?”
Afterwards, things started to go wrong:
“Water of course”
“Then why are the clouds of Venus thicker than the clouds on [the] Earth?”
“There is more water there”
“But if there is more water in the clouds, there must be more water on the surface. What kinds of surfaces are very wet?”
“Swamps”
We
humans like to resonate the idea of life elsewhere, and even imagined cycads
and dragonflies on the carboniferous swamp-Venus [33]. But this
scenario soon broke down with the astronomical spectroscopy of the Venusian atmosphere,
from the Mount Wilson Observatory around 1920. It revealed that there was not a
hint or trace of water vapour above the clouds [33]. This led to the
drawing of more conclusions which include an Arid-Desert Venus, a Petroleum-Oil
Venus and a Seltzer-Limestone Venus:
The
most logical conclusion for the lack of water is that, Venus has an “arid
desert-like surface surmounted by clouds of fine drifting silicon dust” [33].
It is a world devoid of water and life. Other scientists speculated that, all Venusian
water combined with hydrocarbons, and lead to Venus having a planet-wide oil
field or a global ocean of petroleum [33]. It isn’t surprising for
such a conclusion to be drawn, especially during the great depression following
the first world-war, where petroleum and oil were dreamt-of. Yet again, another
minority of scientists were still hopeful for water on Venus, and proposed that
the Venusian clouds are cold, and condense water vapour to water, which has a
different spectral signature. The soi-disant abundance of water, along with
high atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, led to the conclution that Venus was
covered with a vast sea of seltzer (carbonated water) with occasional
limestone-encrusted islands [33].
Figure 3: Galileo Galili in 1609 was the first person to observe Venus with a telescope. He saw an “absolutely featureless disk”, which was still seen as it is, even with larger telescopes with improved resolution. This picture of Venus taken by Mariner 10 reveals the same thing up-close. Venus was covered by a dense
After
decades of speculation, a progression of the Soviet Venera spacecrafts
and a cluster of American spacecrafts, from the Pioneer 12 mission
“entered the deep atmosphere or landed on the surface and
measured directly- essentially by sticking a thermometer out – the surface and
near surface temperatures” [31], which was found to be an
astonishing 480oC!; There are no swamps, oil-fields, seltzer seas or
petroleum oceans. Similarly, the atmospheric pressure was found to be 92 bars,
which is the equivalent of being submerged 900 metres under the ocean. Moreover,
“the clouds of Venus turn out to be chiefly a concentrated solution of sulphuric
acid. Small quantities of hydrochloric acid and hydrofluoric acid are also
present” [33]; No life, alien or human, would be able to live in
such an extreme environment, with all hopes lost for a human paradise on Venus.
The photographs taken of the Venusian surface, by the Soviet Venera 13,
reflects its hostility.
Meanwhile,
in 1877, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli reported the presence
of canali on Mars. Percival Lowell, who discovered Pluto, went on
continuing Schiaparelli’s work and managed to draw maps of a planet-wide system
of canals on Mars [33]. It led to the belief that Mars was inhabited
by some race of intelligent aliens, who built those canals as a means of
surviving in the desert-world they inhabit. Today, it is almost common sense
that Mars is devoid of life of any sort, which would have built such canals. As
a matter of fact, those ‘canals’ are pretty much non-existent. The canali
and canals were just figures of Schiaparelli’s and Lowell’s imaginations.
Nevertheless, when the public learnt of those canals, the popularity of Mars
rose steadily. Mars’s popularity never died down, and Mars had been subject for
searches of life and numerous missions of robotic exploration. What next? –
Manned missions and eventual Martian colonization.
The conclusion of our realization of Venus’s true nature is that it is lifeless and unwholesome. “With searing heat, noxious gases and everything suffused in an eerie reddish glow, Venus seems less a goddess of love than an incarnation of hell” [33]. Venus didn’t seem suitable for manned missions or colonization, and even exploration to an extent: Her popularity died down. Owing to her lack of popularity, apart for a few missions, Venus had been largely ignored since the 1980s.
Figure 4: Some of the few photographs of the Venusian surface, taken by the Venera 13 lander. It only survived for a few hours in the heat and pressure
Figure 5: Further
studies found Venus to be quite volcanically active. Simply, there are
volcanoes almost everywhere, at scales that dwarfs ours. This image is an
artist’s impression of a Venusian volcano.
The
argument is quite convincing. However, despite all reasoning, Mars’s popularity
seems to be getting the better of our minds. But, changing to Venus, will
drastically affect our future as a species, to the better. This cross-road between
Mars and Venus will approach soon, and we have to be ready for it, and turn to
Venus. I believe that we haven’t oriented our future towards to Venus, is
either that her cloud-top hospitality isn’t very well known, or because of surfacism
or Martian-obsession. Perhaps, even all three. Anticipating in
making a change which would revolutionary for humanity’s future in space,
perhaps saving trillions of dollars over the centuries, and inspired by the
points of Walker’s argument and the works of many other individual contributors;
I’ve decided to author this book. In the subsequent chapters, I will reason as
to why Venus (her upper atmosphere) is so hospitable, while Mars isn’t.
Moreover, I will point out our leg-up in achieving Venusian colonization, while
solving some issues that might arrive. Then, I will give a glimpse of Venusian
life, colonies and civilization.
Before
we begin, do note that I’ve introduced cloud-cities to float in accordance with
the principles of pressure equalization and the Archimedes’ principle of up-thrust
and displacement balances, in the first chapter. Afterwards, the HAVOC airships
and colonies, described in chapter five, will rely on the buoyancy of helium,
to stay afloat. Then, in the sixth
chapter, I will use the more successful concept of floating geodesic spheres,
like Buckminster Fuller’s Cloud Nine, which could easily suspend a city
in an atmosphere.
I would like to conclude, this rather short chapter, with the message that in order to turn to Venus, we must first restore her lost popularity: Word on the hospitality of the Venusian atmosphere would have to spread. It doesn’t matter if it spreads by word of mouth or through the mass media, as long as more people become aware. As a matter of fact, an increasing number of people do become aware of Venus’s hospitable atmosphere, a fact that should be encouraging. However, the rate at which such awareness spreads could happen at a faster pace. This book has been written with the hope that it would play a part in the movement to spread awareness on Venus or be least a slight contribution to it. I hope that you’ll find my writings interesting!
Achinthya Nanayakkara (31.01.2025)
Original - 2019
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