Floating Cities On Venus

Geoffrey.landis writes "Some of you may have heard me talk about colonizing Venus. Well, for those who haven't, Universe Today is running story about floating cities on Venus. It's a reasonable alternative for space colonies — after all, the atmosphere of Venus (at about 50 km) is the most Earth-like environment in the solar system (other than Earth, of course). '50 km above the surface, Venus has air pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0C-50C range, a quite comfortable environment for humans. Humans wouldn't require pressurized suits when outside, but it wouldn't quite be a shirtsleeves environment. We'd need air to breathe and protection from the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere.'"

Instant Global Warming

Just move closer to the Sun.

Re:Instant Global Warming

Not to take the bait, but Venus [wikipedia.org] is a lot hotter than Mercury [wikipedia.org]. The all-important albedo can have a much bigger impact on temperature than distance!

One question

And our reason for going to Venus is...?

We can mine the Moon and possibly Mars, but what does Venus offer us? Fuel? I would think it is too hot for mining the surface (robotic miners capable of operating in the heat may not be cost-effective)

Re:One question

Just think of the limericks!

There once was a man on Venus..

Re:One question

there once was a man upon Venus
her angry he was the wrong genus
as a mortal peon
cursed for an eon
the goddess to give cunnilingus

Re:One question

And our reason for going to Venus is...?

Well.. from the summary:

We'd need air to breathe and protection from the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere.'"

Some people might be feeling nostalgic and remember life in down-town Tokyo or New York or something, but just want to live in a new neighbourhood.

Too much minerals but...

Not enough vespene gas.

Is that all?

We'd need air to breathe and protection from the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere.

Well, we'd need all that plus the floating cities. Plus a way to get there would be nice, and a regular ferry to keep the supplies like food and such arriving. But aside from all that we are ready to move in.

"Floating Cities On Venus "

...that turn to goo in a few months!

don't trust the locals

they'll betray you and freeze you in kryptonite as soon as the empire comes knocking on their door.

Re:don't trust the locals

urg, carbonite, not kryptonite...

Re:don't trust the locals

Where else but /. could you accidentally replace a geeky reference with an even geekier reference?

Argumentative.

It is always this way. I've been saying that we should attempt manned missions to Venus using balloons for years, and now that somebody else suggests it I feel compelled to start poking holes in the idea.

It is quite nice as a there-and-back science mission but for a long term colony it's a terrible environment. The local resources are incredibly difficult to get hold of if you have to send a balloon down to get them, remember that the record for longest lasting machine on the Venusian surface is slightly over an hour.

The only reason to go there and take humans along is if space travel has become cheap and easy enough that you can do it on a whim.

Modify people, not planets.

Rather than try to change planets, it may be easier to genetically engineer people who are resistant to sulfuric acid ( or they may evolve naturally in China if nothing is done about their acid rain which is reaching a pH of 3.5 )

[ Please, no jokes about acid-resistant Chinese overlords ]

Re:Modify people, not planets.

[ Please, no jokes about acid-resistant Chinese overlords ]

What jokes? I, for one, welcome them!

Re:Modify people, not planets.

Don't post Interesting things next to Funny stuff, it confuses the moderators!

So we'd need to...

1) Wear suits to protect us from the poisonous atmosphere and lack of oxygen.
2) Stay under cover to protect us from the various radiation (no magnetic field as I understand it).
3) Keep a complex life support system functioning in a complex artificial environment where failure means death.

So how exactly is this different from the moon, mars or even space itself? It actually seems more difficult and worse environment for humans than any of those.

Should put something on our moon..

I think before we talk about other places, we should probably get the kinks out of everything by putting something on our own moon. A lot of science could be done on a moon base, as well as learning just HOW to put something on another large rock. Lots of reasons why the moon is reasonable:

1) We can already get to the moon. We've been there already. So there's not real jump in tech needed to get there.

2) We can get OFF the moon. The big gotcha with any other landing. Go to Mars? Yeah, could probably get there and land now. Getting off is the hard part. Don't have that problem with the moon.

3) It's speedy to get there. No months of travel. Need to swap people out or something goes horribly wrong--can get there pretty quickly.

Landing on Mars, or floating cities on Venus sound nice. But I'd like to see something a bit more practical in my lifetime of a moon base. It's possible, but there haven't been any major plans to do it.

Re:Should put something on our moon..

I think before we talk about other places, we should probably get the kinks out of everything by putting something on our own moon.

How about building cities that float in the oceans on earth first? We can already go there, and even do go there all the time. We can get back to land just as easily as we can get to the ocean. It's very fast to get there, weeks or hours depending on whether your city is large enough to have an airport. Going to the moon sounds nice, but we should make and follow through on plans to do something more practical first.

Re:Should put something on our moon..

Getting off is the hard part.

Actually, getting off could be easier on Mars. (minds out of the gutter, people!)

In situ propellant materials are definitely available on the moon, but in solid form, and even there the best alternatives look like aluminum with oxygen (hard to turn into a solid rocket) or hydrogen with oxygen (but in rare dirty ice form). So until we're ready to create a moon colony (i.e. with mining and manufacturing/refining equipment) rather than just a moon base, the only way to get off the rock is to do like Apollo did and bring all the rocket fuel you need all the way from Earth.

On Mars, on the other hand, carbon dioxide is most of the atmosphere - no need for mining equipment to bake O atoms out of rock, just an air filter to pull them in CO2 molecules out of the sky. We've already tested the sort of compact equipment that would let even a small mission turn that into carbon monoxide and oxygen. You can burn those together directly, or if you want higher performance you can bring your own H2 (which is only a small fraction of your total fuel+oxidizer needs by weight) and burn it directly against local oxygen or bulk it up into methane first using local carbon.

Your other points are all well taken, though. We've made enough flubs in Low Earth Orbit alone that it seems clear that we should practice walking before we run.

Pure science-fantasy

While possible in theory, I think it is incredibly unlikely that humans will build any kind of colony on other planets. Simply put : the projected technological growth curve suggests that we will have self replicating robots (and possibly artificial intelligence smart enough to control them) within a century.

Why would we go to the hassle of creating compromise habitats on other planets (moon, mars, the rest) when we could simply place linear accelerators (aka railguns) to launch raw materials into orbit? Self-replicating factories on the moon would mine materials and manufacture more robots and parts. The finished bots as well as raw materials would be launched into orbit, to be used to manufacture gigantic rotating habitats.

The habitats would be MUCH posh-er than anything that could be made on a planet, with near perfect control of the internal environment.

Re:Back to the future IV

100 years?

There are places that are like that NOW. You just don't hear too much about it on a regular basis.

I have actually been to China, and I can tel you.. I BELIEVE that 16 out of 20 of the worlds most polluted cities are in that country.

We don't need to go to Venus to have to take those kinds of precautions. I think we will need to take similar precautions in 25 years in certain parts of the world. Actually, scratch that. Those parts of the world will have people that cannot AFFORD to take those kinds of precautions.

Considering the cost of colonizing Venus though, I highly doubt that "regular" people will get to go at all.

Re:Back to the future IV

Those parts of the world will have people that cannot AFFORD to take those kinds of precautions.

Which means that they will eventually die or move out and thus the pollution will diminish a level of equilibrium again.

The invisible hand of free market will once again make everything come right!

Re:Huh?

CO2 will react with all sorts of things. The reaction with water produces carbonic acid. Add something alkaline and you get salt + water. Using lime water (a saturated calcium hydroxide solution) is the shortcut version (you get calcium carbonate + water). Once artificial photosynthesis is developed, you can always turn the CO2 into O2 - no shortage of sunlight.

Re:Spending

I wonder how long we should all be huddled up on a single ball of rock, waiting for another ball of rock to kill us all in one swell foop.

Eggs, singleton baskets, etc.