Floating Cities On Venus 501
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.'"
One question (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
Should put something on our moon.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Modify people, not planets. (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't post Interesting things next to Funny stuff, it confuses the moderators!
Re:So we'd need to... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is that all? (Score:3, Interesting)
"Well, we'd need all that plus the floating cities."
Haven't read TFA, but I've already seen similar ones. Breathable air is buoyant in the venusian atmosphere.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Scuba Gear? (Score:3, Interesting)
The suit doesn't need to withstand excessively high or low pressures, it just needs to cover you with something that wont react with the sulfuric acid and provide air. Think of a full body SCUBA suit, no good for work in space but assuming it's made out of the right materials would be quite handy for work on Venus.
Good idea for a 'blimp' space probe (Score:5, Interesting)
As many people have pointed out this is obviously infeasible in the foreseeable future (and I believe we're talking at the very least 50 years here), however it may be an interesting idea as a space probe. Technically gets there like a lander probe, except that at some point during the descent after the parachute slowed things down enough the probe would inflate a blimp, and thus float in the atmosphere at tolerable temperatures and pressures.
That would be good to study the atmosphere and also study the surface a bit closer, but what would be really really neat is if it could be the "aircraft carrier" for a UAV or two specially designed to go fly close to the surface, take pictures, and come back for a refuelling, which would be electrical, the source of energy being the solar panels on the blimp (or "solar paint") during day time (which would last I believe about 120 days). It should work fairly well because the skies must be pretty clear at a 50 km altitude, and a blimp can be pretty large so if its entire surface can be covered in "solar paint".. And during night the whole thing could stay idle.
Scientifically this would be very interesting as it would allow to study the atmosphere in situ for an extended period of time (several Venus days) on distances (since the blimp would be carried by the winds, but also the UAVs would explore up and down thereby teaching us so much about the atmosphere, its temperatures, pressures, winds, clouds, chemical compositions) and also we would get to see a lot of Venus' geology thanks to the UAV that would fly close enough to the ground. The question would be how hard would it be to conceive an electrical UAV that could fly in such an atmosphere with the chemistry it has under pressures of up to 95 bars and temperatures of up to 500 C? If it's impossible, would there be any chance to have a camera on the end of a 50 km long cable? (the question being I believe how much would such a long cable weight, considered it can't melt at 500 C or be corroded)
Re:Pure science-fantasy (Score:3, Interesting)
All things considered... (Score:4, Interesting)
Venus, although nearly identical in gravity, size and distance from the sun to Earth, does not contain any native water and has severe atmospheric issues. Mars, has water and serious atmospheric issues (such as insufficient gravity to retain one) and no magnetic field.
To successfully transform Venus would require first to construct large scale reflectors to reduce the sunlight reaching Venus thus cooling it down, implement a process to sequester the excess carbon in the atmospher, direct large numbers of comets at Venus to introduce sufficient water and then seed the planet with simple anaerobic biotic life to begin to oxygenate the atmosphere. Of course these are outstanding complex and far-future possibilities, but not impossible so far as I know.
In the long run (thousands of years or even tens of thousands), I speculate Venus will likely be Earth II to a greater extent that mars will; it may take Venus a bit longer to become habitable, but once it does payoff in quality of environment would be significant. All the more incentive to encourage twin terraforming endeavors rather than simply focus on Mars.
Battle Angel Alita aka. GUNNM (Score:5, Interesting)
The author, Yukito Kishiro always documents himself a lot before drawing and has the humans on Venus use floating cities in the "Last Order" series of his manga.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Angel_Alita:_Last_Order [wikipedia.org]
They did (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, that's actually the point: they did strip it of all hydrogen, for example. The solar winds ionize the atmosphere something fierce and break the molecules all the time. Heavier elements like C, N and O recombine, but H from (H20 or CH4) escaped into space.
Doing things in the wrong order (Score:5, Interesting)
What we should do is learn to build practical and sustainable space stations with artificial gravity (the classical spinning wheels, or the tethered ones, or whatever that _works_).
It's not as difficult as colonizing another planet since:
1) you don't have to fight yet another gravity well.
2) you can do it just "outside" your planet - much cheaper.
And you're going to have to do it anyway. If you send people to Venus/Mars - it will take months for them to get there, where will they live during those months? My answer is a space station. Not a NASA Suicide Vessel.
Once you've worked out how to build a practical and sustainable space station, you can use such space stations to go elsewhere in the Solar System - Mars, Venus, the asteroid belts and beyond. There is no _rush_ then. And it stops sounding like a "one way" trip.
To me it is a really stupid idea to try to colonize other planets before we figure out how to do space colonies.
Once people work out how to do space colonies, I bet most colonizers would rather live in a space station than live on inhospitable planets in something that is just as restrictive as a space station ( if not more so - it's trapped on the planet and can't move) - it's not like you'd be able to walk outside in Venus without a protective suit. So what's the difference?
If you want to send people on one way trips to other planets, maybe you should start with certain politicians (you could hold a reality show - Vote Them Off The Planet or something), in that case there could be a significant benefit
Anyway, I find it telling that the NASA and other "space" people keep talking about sending humans to Mars without seriously developing and advancing space station technology. So many stupid people making stupid decisions.
Learn to stand first, then walk, then run, then jump. Not the other way round.
Re:All things considered... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Doing things in the wrong order (Score:5, Interesting)
You can simulate comfortable gravity easily enough on a large station. Coriolis force is less of an issue further out from the center axis. Build yourself a ring or cylinder big enough, and you'd never know the difference.
On a station using centrifugal force (OK, centripetal force for the pedantic), you can even choose the gravity level most appropriate to the task you desire - closer to the axis of rotation for low-G, closer to the outer hull for earth-G. And zero-G is just outside the nearest airlock.
You can't simulate lack of gravity on a planet though. Nor can you change the gravity from whatever the local value is to what you want/need it to be.
Zero-G is advantageous most of the time from a tech perspective (gravity is just another design constraint), and from the perspective of using the station as a jumping off point for the rest of the solar system, since there's no need to climb out of yet another gravity well. The main need for gravity is keeping people's bones healthy, and making sure they can cope with the return home one day - spin gravity will cover these.
Not that those are reasons not to go build aerostats on Venus, but they are strong arguments in favor of orbitals for the nearer future. Plus, if we ever want to tap into the resources of this system, the asteroid belt is our best bet by far, and putting stations out there (either by converting existing rocks, or building completely man-made habs) is feasible.
Re:Doing things in the wrong order (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Instant Global Warming (Score:4, Interesting)
Couldn't one create a layer of floating trees then, at 50 km above the surface ? All you'd need is a (admittedly very large) grid to walk/root on. The trees would slowly convert all the CO2 to oxygen. How's the sunlight at 50 km above Venus ?
"LV-426 Shake-and-bake" Terraforming... (Score:4, Interesting)
You would need to develop a way to filter out the acids but trees on their own, don't seem a likely way to remove that much CO2. However I think you are on to something about finding a way to deal with its CO2. One solution to Venus maybe to engineer a way to deal with its overall chemistry rather than trying to endure its current state. The planet is in some ways similar to Earth, but would require some awesome advances in technology, not least terraforming to alter its chemical composition.
Maybe in the distant future, humans could combine billions of tonnes of lime with an artificially created seawater like solution and then bombard/rain the planet with it, over the course of a few centuries. (Its an idea thats been suggested to deal with CO2 on earth
Its engineering way beyond anything we could do I guess for many centuries, but its theoretically possible to deal with the CO2, plus it would give us small ocean like lakes over time. Plus once there are more favorable conditions for some life on the surface, then I think plant life, like your ideas about trees, would then add to the process of terraforming the planet. It would be an awesome engineering project.
Re:Doing things in the wrong order (Score:3, Interesting)
Assuming no FTL travel, by the time you've got the technology you need to send ships the dozens of lightyears required to explore new stars, you've already got the technology you need to build colonies in interstellar space. After all, once you can last out there for fifty years, you might as well just set up shop and call it home - nevermind exploring all those distant stars.
One thing we're fairly sure about deep space is that it's cold and almost empty - there's no energy to speak of. Since a colony would lose waste energy, I don't see that as sustainable unless we're wrong about conservation of energy which is probably more fundamental than lightspeed being top speed. I could imagine a interstellar voyage like recharge/rebuild by a star for 10k years, jump for 70k years to the next star and do it all over again but not staying out there permanently. Unless you mean to say colonies in interplanetary space, basicly hanging out in earth-like orbits which could permanently draw power from the star. Sounds ok but doesn't really give us any redundancy.
OK, lets picture this... (Score:2, Interesting)
We have a space faring capability which is sufficient to allow us to move LARGE masses of material to Venus and construct massive structures there. That would presuppose we had already a very large scale space based manufacturing capability (or else an equivalent which would be the ability to manufacture under the surface conditions prevalent on Venus).
What would motivate a society with that kind of technological and industrial capability to want to live on the surface of ANY planet? I don't see it. You would just live in space! Space, where practically limitless energy is free for the taking, construction is simple and easy, and whatever goods you need or produce can be shipped anywhere without needing to go up a massive gravity well.
The same argument applies for ANY planetary surface. Perhaps the Moon, being close to Earth and possessing a gravity well 1/81st as deep as that of Earth is a bit different case, but colonizing either Mars or Venus fails, under any conditions I can imagine, to be an economically sensible scenario.
In fact I will propose Tod's Laws of space exploitation.
1) The viability of colonization or exploitation of any area of space is inversely proportional to the energy required to enter or leave that region of space, and directly proportional to the amount of raw material and energy available in that location.
2) No autonomous space based facility can remain under the control of Earth.
Think about it, if you were 'the Republic of The Moon' why would you need anything from Earth? What would Earth have that was of value they could exchange with you? Not raw materials, they will ALWAYS be cheaper to obtain outside the Earth's gravity well (in that sense the main belt asteroids are cheaper sources of raw materials even from LEO than the Earth itself is). Energy? Obviously Earth has nothing to provide there. People? Maybe to some extent at first, but once a population existed in space that grew on its own there would be little incentive to import 'landlubbers'. Culture? Yeah, but in the longer term that isn't a substantive basis for trade. Luxury Goods? This is the only category I can think of, it probably would be hard to produce a good Merlot on the Moon...
The same arguments would apply to any other planet. Planetary surfaces are actually the SLUM real estate of the Solar System. They're 'dirty', they come with stupidly expensive gravity wells, and the more valuable raw materials all sank to the core billions of years ago.
No, space itself, and the minor bodies found in it are the natural home of technological spacefaring civilization.
Re:Floating cities (Score:2, Interesting)
We have already. They are called Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.
They would be insignificant specks in the ocean compared to Project Habakkuk [wikipedia.org] if it had been built.
Re:Instant Global Warming (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, but the sunburn you'd get on mercury would be awesome.
And the radiation burns you'd get from living in the upper atmosphere of Venus would be no less impressive! (at least, I assume you'd get a wicked dose of radiation as Venus lacks a planetary magnetic field)
Hell yes! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm surprised I haven't seen a copy & paste from a wiki...this is my favorite topic and I frequently refer people to this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus#Aerostat_habitats_and_floating_cities [wikipedia.org]
Some of the difficulties that /. posters have mentioned have been dealt with in the wiki, but there are some others that have not been mentioned that the wiki deals with.
Personally I think the most difficult aspect would be mining the surface (and that is mentioned in the wiki.) Until we get more data I think this is a pipe dream (that I really want to happen.)
Speaking as someone t
Re:Doing things in the wrong order (Score:5, Interesting)
There are 3 major disadvantages to space stations: gravity, temperature regulation, and atmospheric pressure. These problems don't exist on Venus City. If we are going to talk about a significant population of humans living off the Earth (I'm talking thousands) I would bet on cloud cities on Venus before space stations. A hull breach on a space station would be a much more significant problem than on the floating city. However, Venus city has 3 major problems: distance from Earth, gravity well, and raw materials. What is needed prior to building Venus City is a space based infrastructure. This would include large space stations, perhaps built along the Stanford Torus model. I don't see those supporting more than a few hundred humans each, though. There could be orbiting space stations around Venus and Skyhooks for transfering raw materials. As far as building materials go, the atmosphere has plenty of carbon so your basic building blocks could be carbon nanotubes (I'm not sure how they hold up against sulfuric acid though). There is no shortage of solar energy at 50k up, you would get almost as much solar power from the clouds below you reflecting sunlight up as you would from above you. You would still need to import oxygen, hydrogen, and a few other important elements. Mercury could be mined and materials sent to Venus. The only alternative to large scale human colonization of space that would allow for Earth gravity and life style would be Oneillian Space stations (think Babylon 5) which I think would be a step up in difficulty.
People ask why should we go into space and try to colonize it. There are 2 good answers: energy and economies of scale. Energy is abundant and cheap in space (in the inner solar system). Once you are established outside of the Earth's gravity well, transportation is really cheap per kilometer traveled. If an economy of scale is built in space, the material needs of humanity would be taken care of in a way that could sustain billions of humans without polluting the Earth. The wealth generated in space could be rained down on the people of the Earth.
Re:Craziest idea this year ( so far ) (Score:3, Interesting)
Both of which someone posted solutions to later.
1. I don't know how we would get the materials there. Moon stopover maybe?
2. Floating in Sulfuric Acid/CO2: O2 and hydrogen/helium are all much more powerful lifting gasses in Venus' atmosphere, so while letting us breathe they would also serve to lift.
3. Not corroding in said Acid/CO2: Carbon nanotube mesh or graphene sheeting, or some kind of ceramics or metal sulphites etc (probably some metallurgical thing we haven't really looked for yet?)
Re:"LV-426 Shake-and-bake" Terraforming... (Score:3, Interesting)
Additionally, Venus' rotational period is too long. Venusian days are on the order of two hundred and forty Earth days.
Which is one of the really cool things about floating cities. The wind in Venus's upper atmosphere is really fast (up to 95 m/s). A floating city would be pushed along the sky by the wind, making the days considerably shorter.
Re:Doing things in the wrong order (Score:3, Interesting)
And zero-G is just outside the nearest airlock
Zero g for people who want to keep living at the station is out the airlock at the hub. The zero g express to parts uncharted is out the nearest airlock along the ring.
Re:"LV-426 Shake-and-bake" Terraforming... (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't forget the Sulfuric acid, H2SO4. If you have a source of lead, and some solar collectors, you can collect the acid, stick two blocks of lead into it, and apply electric power. You get hydrogen gas at one end, oxygen at the other. Keep oxygen for breathing, and burn hydrogen and oxygen together to get water.
There's probably a hundred engineering difficulties I haven't thought of, but it's chemically feasible, anyway.
Re:Doing things in the wrong order (Score:3, Interesting)