[C22] A Terraforming Question
Aug. 16th, 2005 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldI'm happy to say that the most populous human world apart from the Earth is Diana, also known as Alpha Centauri A III. A world jointly colonized by France and its various European allies, Diana is home to well over a quarter-million people despite its relatively inhospitable environment. Diana in the 22nd century is a good stand-in for the Earth in a quarter-billion years or so, a formerly Earth-like world that still has a dense atmosphere and a significant amount of water that has begun to overheat thanks to the gradual warming and expansion of its primary.
It would be fun to terraform Diana--a wholly European Earth-like world, with an entirely Earth-derived ecology, would be a decided asset, especially given how close Alpha Centauri is to Earth. The only question surrounding Diana's terraforming is the not-insignificant question of method. I asked over at rec.arts.sf.science for relatively low-tech methods to cool down Diana. Apart from altering the planetary albedo on the model of Daisyworld, deploying large mirrors to reflect enough radiation from Alpha Centauri A to let its nearly-habitable world cool down was the only method that came to mind. Do any other methods come to mind?
It would be fun to terraform Diana--a wholly European Earth-like world, with an entirely Earth-derived ecology, would be a decided asset, especially given how close Alpha Centauri is to Earth. The only question surrounding Diana's terraforming is the not-insignificant question of method. I asked over at rec.arts.sf.science for relatively low-tech methods to cool down Diana. Apart from altering the planetary albedo on the model of Daisyworld, deploying large mirrors to reflect enough radiation from Alpha Centauri A to let its nearly-habitable world cool down was the only method that came to mind. Do any other methods come to mind?
