Terraforming Venus

Venus is a better target for human exploration than Mars. The distance to it is shorter, Earth and Venus come into the proper planetary alignment for journey there and back more frequently. It is of more similar mass as Earth than Mars, so consequently has more similar gravity.

There is the problem that it is really hot, 460 degrees C, there. But it can be solved! The temperature is caused by a greenhouse effect caused by the excess carbon dioxide. But, there are plants and cyanobacteria which eat carbon dioxide. There are also bacteria that can survive at very high temperatures, for example near hydrothermal vents at 380 degrees C. There are organisms that can eat rock, like lichen. The lack of water is troublesome, though there are of course desert organisms that live with very little water.

No single organism on earth possesses all these characteristics, but we could breed one. Breeding bacteria is a well studied art. We can trigger horizontal transfer using viruses and other bacteria-bacteria interactions to get all the right genes into a single organism. Finally we can force evolution from Earth conditions to Venus conditions of many bacteria generations to breed a suitable Venus bacteria.

We only need to deliver a small payload of the bacteria (a small payload in space transprt is good!) to Venus to start the terraforming process. The lack of natural predators means the bacteria will multiply exponentially and quickly get their work done.

In the meantime, we can figure out how to get humans to Venus. We'll arrive to find it with a oxygen atmosphere covered in a sludge of dead bacteria.