Project Aphrodite

Project Aphrodite was the terraforming project of Venus.

History

The Department of Mega-Engineering tackled an even more daunting task after starting Project Lowell on Mars as it tried to convert the hellish environment of Venus into a garden. Work on Project Aphrodite, the Venusian counterpart to Lowell, did not begin until the waning years of the twenty-second century. This project would boast the grandest scope of any engineering project ever attempted. First spending decades scattering airborne algae to thin the heavy Venusian atmosphere, DoME then began bombarding the planet with hydrogen, first by redirecting comets toward the planet, but later with gas shipments from Titan. At the same time, a massive solar shade was placed in orbit sunward of Venus, reducing the amount of solar energy it absorbed while collecting excess energy for other projects. By 2203, Venus' conditions had been mitigated enough for exploration of the planet's surface. Twenty atmospheric processing plants were built on the surface to continue the work of mitigating the hothouse world, and perhaps most impressively, much of the atmosphere was repurposed as reaction mass, allowing DoME to accelerate Venus' rotation until its day was a mere 48 hours long. Venus eventually became a breadbasket world for the system due to the unique properties of its soil, feeding the rest of the Sol system and exporting food to struggling colonies. Over 202 million people resided on Venus during the Star League's zenith.

Bibliography

• Jihad Hot Spots: Terra
• The Star League