I posted that question largely to elicit analytical and independent discussion, and given the company in this forum, I unsurprisingly found the responses enjoyable. I have been away for a couple of days and now it is pay time; I have to put in my ha'porth.

One immediate problem to settle is the fact that the semantics of the word "pole" is open to discussion. I do not claim to have a definition that is watertight, let alone cogent and exclusive. I am thinking of something along the lines of points, generally paired points, opposite in some sense, unambiguous and in fixed positions relative to some suitable set of coordinates. That certainly suits poles of rotation, such as on the North-South axis of our planet. It explains why we don't have East-West poles. So far, so fairly simple, right?

Now, please imagine as an illustrative example a scenario in rather hard science fiction. Suppose we sent out several thousand spacecraft, probably unmanned, to explore our Kuiper Belt and locate bodies, preferably ice or metal, of some 1e9 to 1e10 tonnes mass. Each suitable body first would be de-spun, then redirected, probably in slingshot orbits past gas giants and possibly the Sun as well, and ridden into collision with the limb of Venus in such a mode as speed up the rotation of the planet as drastically as possible. The procedure would be continued until the planet maintained the same face to the Sun all year round.

Why Venus? Think about it. Think about the consequences. Think about a planet that could supply more useful land area than Earth (roughly twice as much in fact) and as much free energy year round as anyone might reasonably wish to use.

But that is tangential (if you will excuse the impact of the expression in context) to the main point. Note that if we regard the leading edge (or limb) of the planet as seen from the Sun, as the Western limb, then the point where that limb crosses the ecliptic would be stable and unambiguous. It would be as much of a West Pole, and its opposite would be as much of an East Pole, as it axis of rotation would pass through the North and South Pole.

What is more, one could make an analogous claim for every point on that great circle. You could have a pole for each spike on the compass rose. What is more, there would be a Perihelionic Pole, and of course an Aphelionic Pole as well. All in all, an unusually polar planet.

Now, I do not know whether you will find anything what so ever of interest in this speculation, nor whether you will be more interested in the semantics of polar terminology or philosophy, or in why we should consider doing this to Venus in particular, but I should be grateful for your remarks on any or all aspects of the matter. I have been thinking about them for quite some decades, but without much encouragement from those in the corridors of power. Some other planets are tempting in various ways, but Mars isn’t one of them. Until someone discovers some material reason to justify it, the idea of a manned Mars expedition must surely be the nuttiest and least original idea that any Buck-Rogers-struck mental teenager in NASA ever came up with. I could make a (MUCH) more persuasive case for Mercury.

Cheers,

Jon