Re: [OT} Terraforming

In a message dated 9/27/99 5:04:59 PM Central Daylight Time, 
laserlight@cwix.com writes:

<< anyone have information on terraforming?  I'm curious if
 anyone has any ideas as to how long it takes to get from
 bare rock to usable soil, without direct human intervention
 to break up the rock and add organics.
  >>

It depends upon air and water action against the rock, but on this
planet it 
took billions of years to create soil and organics. It will probably
NEVER 
happen on Venus, though there must be something like soil in that
corrosive 
atmosphere - its the organics that are missing. Terraforming involves
adding 
water and oxygen to a planet which otherwise would not have them in the
hopes 
of creating an environment that humans could live in without major 
life-support. If you could replace the gas loss in the atmosphere due to

lower gravity you could conceivably terraform the moon.