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.'"
Instant Global Warming (Score:5, Funny)
Just move closer to the Sun.
Re:Instant Global Warming (Score:5, Informative)
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!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, my libito does weird things to.
Fix Venus with Limes (Score:5, Funny)
...You put de Lime in de Venus and She drink it all up
You put de Lime in de Venus and it stop de Global Warming.
Doctor...
Re:Fix Venus with Limes (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not to take the bait, but Venus is a lot hotter than Mercury.
Surface temperatures yes, but is the temperature 50 km above the surface of Venus hotter than the temperature 50 km above the surface of Mercury?
The all-important albedo can have a much bigger impact on temperature than distance!
I doubt albedo is all-important in this instance. For a start Venus has a far higher albedo than Mercury, which would make it cooler, no? What is all-important is the composition of Venus' atmosphere, which is largely
Re:Instant Global Warming (Score:5, Insightful)
but is the temperature 50 km above the surface of Venus hotter than the temperature 50 km above the surface of Mercury?
Probably. I can't imagine Mercury having much of an atmosphere at all above 50km.
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:"LV-426 Shake-and-bake" Terraforming... (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, I wouldn't list Venusian chemistry as the primary barrier to terraforming. Yeah, there's acid and CO2 out the ying-yang, but there are other, bigger problems.
The atmosphere is incredibly dense. Think "deepest trench in the ocean floor" dense. We'd need to get rid of most of it. Burying it seems unwise, if only because all it would take is one major geological upheaval to undo all our hard work.
That leaves dragging vast amounts of mass up past escape velocity. We'd also need to make sure that the gas didn't subsequently get pulled back onto the surface by the planet's gravity, which means doing more than just bottling it on the surface and decompressing it in orbit. Barring teleportation, artificial black holes, or direct conversion of matter into energy, this problem may be unsolvable.
On the plus side, any measure that we could use to eliminate the gas could probably also be used to retool the atmospheric chemistry. In other words, if we solve the pressure problem, the problems of acidity and CO2 levels become moot.
Additionally, Venus' rotational period is too long. Venusian days are on the order of two hundred and forty Earth days. If the surface were otherwise habitable, in terms of chemistry and pressure, you'd still get extremes of temperature during the day/night cycle. The current level of insulation prevents this - the whole planet is blanketed, so that sunlight never reaches the surface, and heat gets spread evenly. A less dense atmosphere would pave the way for scorching days and freezing nights, not unlike Mercury (though admittedly less so if the surface isn't in vacuum).
Increasing the planet's angular momentum would solve this, but the sheer amount of energy needed is mind-bending. I'm not even sure what spinning up a world would do to it's surface or internal structure. Forget centuries, we'd need a millennium or two to fix this.
Now, that being said, I've long believed that attempting to predict future technological advances is futile. Past attempts at prediction bear this out. I do not like to say that something is impossible, because it is all too likely I'll be proven wrong in the long run.
It is entirely possible that at some point in the future, some unknown or presently implausible techniques may exist for dealing with the listed problems. However, there is not a single thing we can do now, or in the foreseeable future, to drastically change Venus into something remotely habitable. If we wanted to live there, my choice would be the way mentioned in TFA, since that at least we could do if we really put our minds to it.
CO2? (Score:3, Funny)
What is all-important is the composition of Venus' atmosphere, which is largely made up of C02 and other greenhouse forcing gases.
What does CO2 have to do with planetary warming? I thought that was still a theory? ;)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The all-important albedo can have a much bigger impact on temperature than distance!
Erm, your statement does not make any sense at all. The albedo of Venus is roughly 65%, Mercury's is below 20%. That alone should make Venus much, much cooler than Mercury, which it isn't.
In fact, Venus' albedo is high enough that it receives about as much solar heating as Earth (Earth's albedo is roughly half of that of Venus, Venus receives roughly twice as much solar input of Earth) - the only reason that Venus is such a
Re: (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)
uhh huh (Score:4, Funny)
Atmospheric dynamics (Score:3, Insightful)
Do we know enough about the atmospheric dynamics of Venus? Is there something similar to a jet stream that might catch your city and throw it around?
Re:Atmospheric dynamics (Score:5, Funny)
Do we know enough about the atmospheric dynamics of Venus? Is there something similar to a jet stream
Yes, Venus has her Quintessential Upper Electroionosphere Enchanted Fluvial (QUEEF) zone. Most people don't think its air you can breath safely, but that mostly comes from old wive's tail. Some think you would be fortunate just to be in the area of an honest-to-god Venus QUEEF zone.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
Re:One question (Score:5, Funny)
Just think of the limericks!
There once was a man on Venus..
Re:One question (Score:5, Funny)
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: (Score:3, Funny)
If you want limericks, colonizing Uranus would be funnier.
Re:One question (Score:5, Funny)
There once was a man upon Venus
Who'd originally been born on Minas
He came a long distance
With cheery persistence
But alas! His bride had a ten inch dick
Limricks are for lepricons (Score:4, Funny)
Why not a song for the rest of us pastafarians! Arrr, maties!
Aboard the good ship Venus,
You really should have seen us,
With a figurehead of a whore in bed,
And a mast of a phallic penis.
The captain of the lugger,
Was known as a filthy bugger,
Declared unfit to shovel shit,
From one ship to another.
The cabin boys name was Chipper,
A Randy little nipper,
He made a pass with a broken glass,
And circumcised the skipper.
The first mate's name was Morgan,
By gosh, he was a gorgon,
From half past eight he played till late,
Upon the captain's organ
The captain's wife was Charlotte,
Born and bred a harlot,
Her thighs at night were lily white,
By morning they were scarlet.
The captain's daughter, Mabel,
Though young, was fresh and able,
To fornicate with the second mate,
Upon the chartroom table.
The captain's younger daughter,
Was washed into the water,
Her plaintive squeals announced that eels,
Had found her sexual quarter.
The ship's dog's name was Rover,
We turned that poor thing over,
And ground and ground that faithful hound
From Teneriff to Dover.
And when we reached our station,
Through skillful navigation,
The ship got sunk, in a wave of spunk,
From too much fornication.
I am glad that slashdot has a/c
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
There was friggin' in the riggin',
Wankin' in the plankin'
Masturbatin' in the cratin',
There was fuck-all else to do!
A/C is for sissies. :D
Re:One question (Score:5, Funny)
There once was a man on Venus
Who decided to play with his penis
But the sulfuric acid
Made it far worse than flaccid
And he was left with no cock for his genius
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
there's an aura of sexual free-ness.
With no effort or money,
you can orgy with honey,
or have midgets paint poems on your penis.
Re:One question (Score:5, Funny)
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... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Too much minerals but... (Score:4, Funny)
kekekekekeke
Re:Too much minerals but... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Cheap electricity!
It's got the sulfuric acid, all we need is lead!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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:Doing things in the wrong order (Score:5, Insightful)
"Artificial" gravity does have some really weird effects. Coriolis force and all that.
1) you don't have to fight yet another gravity well.
I'd put "not having a gravity well" at the top of the list of disadvantages of space stations. If you have a gravity well, you can have all sorts of amenities known from Earth, such as a _real_ kitchen, plumbing, _real_ toilets, _real_ showers, and once the planetary outpost can support luxury items, maybe even a swimming pool.
Re:Doing things in the wrong order (Score:5, Insightful)
Build a big enough space station and you can have a swimming pool. Maybe even a 0.5G swimming pool - which could be amusing (if people can avoid killing/crippling themselves), and maybe even a "flying room" - where you can strap on wings and fly about for fun.
Whatever disadvantages space stations have, talking about building planetary outposts without knowing how to build sustainable space stations, is like talking about building space stations without knowing how to get off the Earth.
After all with current tech it is still going to take months to travel to another planet, and if you go down to the planet's surface, how are you going to get back up?
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: (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 col
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:One question (Score:5, Funny)
I sense a divide-by-zero error.
cost of getting things to Venus (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that all? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re: (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: (Score:3, Funny)
But aside from all that we are ready to move in.
Great! I'll need your first and last months rent and as soon as the check clears our company's Venus shuttle service will call you to schedule a pick up time.
Re: (Score:3)
Don't forget the space bounty hunters. Venus Sickness can be a real pain in the ass too.
"Floating Cities On Venus " (Score:5, Insightful)
Only? (Score:4, Insightful)
We'd need air to breathe and protection from the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere.
It's so simple!
Wait a minute...
don't trust the locals (Score:5, Funny)
Re:don't trust the locals (Score:5, Informative)
Re:don't trust the locals (Score:5, Funny)
Where else but /. could you accidentally replace a geeky reference with an even geekier reference?
Argumentative. (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:5, Funny)
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. (Score:5, Funny)
What jokes? I, for one, welcome them!
Re:Modify people, not planets. (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't post Interesting things next to Funny stuff, it confuses the moderators!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd beg to differ, and I bet you'll find the majority of folks agree with me. (Disclaimer: I am pro-genetic engineering and pro-stem cells. Also, I'm pro-Devil's Advocate.)
If you're against Stem Cell research, odds are it has something to do with the "Right-to-life," "Life begins at birth," and other such nonsense. That belief will almost never change in a person, it's too strong and central of a belief.
Genetic engineering has shades of gray. Most everyone supports advancing new drugs to fight diseases,
So we'd need to... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:They did (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know if you got that from Wikipedia, but if you did, it's an over-simplification of the linked ESA article [esa.int]. That talks about the solar wind stripping water molecules away before disassociation, not molecular hydrogen.
H2 molecules don't actually need any extra help to escape the atmospheres of Venus or Earth: even at the low temperatures of the very upper atmospheres of those planets, a statistically significant fraction of the molecules have a velocity that exceeds the escape velocity. Over long periods of time, almost all unbonded H2 simply wanders off in to space. This is something you examine if you take a statistical thermodynamics [wikipedia.org] course; it also explains why the Moon has almost no atmosphere, Mars a very thin atmossphere, and why the "gas giants" hang on to all that gaseous hydrogen and helium.
Besides, there is still plenty of hydrogen on Venus: in the sulphuric acid (H2SO4) already discussed. 8) Now, how do we convert sulphuric acid to water... is there any Copper on Venus?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Distance. Jupiter is 4.2AU away as the crow flies (3.1 if you use a perfectly osculating orbit), while Venus is under 0.3AU away.
That extra fuel is a deal breaker. For now.
Re:So we'd need to... (Score:5, Funny)
Distance. Jupiter is 4.2AU away as the crow flies
That's one crow I gotta see.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Temperature
Not exactly a problem unless you go outside and even then it's not much of a problem since spacesuits mostly are there to keep you from cooking to death (vacuum is a great insulator). That said equipment may benefit but that's only outside equipment and then you have the corrosion which evens it out.
2. Atmospheric Pressure
A mixed blessing given the toxic atmosphere since it will get in through holes which isn't a problem with vacuum.
3. Heat dissipation
A good argument however two of the places I mentioned are giant rocks into which heat will dissipa
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No it's not and I never said excavation since soil can be put on top of structures.
A layer of dirt isn't radiation shielding.
And floating cities in a poisonous acid atmosphere AREN'T science fiction?
Cities of any kind are science fiction. Flying habitats are not science fiction, no. We already have long-term aircraft prototypes. Hell, given a sufficient supply of fuel, all you really need is a more corrosion-resistant aircraft.
It is a meaningful way if you need 10000 times the volume to hold up something as then you need to ship in even more material.
What?
Just because it doesn't agree with your point doesn't make something implausible.
When did this become a binary discussion? We have a basic grasp on technologies for habitat modules, surface or floating. Rotating spacecraft and space elevators are not impossible, but they are extremely implausible. We don't
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:Should put something on our moon.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've often thought that more or less self-sustaining colonies in the oceans and on Antarctica would be a good indication that we're ready to start colonizing other planets. After all, both of those two environments are easier to live in than space and you don't have to spend millions to get to either one.
Floating cities (Score:5, Insightful)
How about building cities that float in the oceans on earth first?
We have already. They are called Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.
Re:Should put something on our moon.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Now THAT'S science fantasy!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Go look in the mirror.
Sentient, self replicating robots exist.
Go open a history book to 1908. Tell me I'm wrong.
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)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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]
Technology capabilities will determine its fate (Score:3, Insightful)
At the time you have the technological capabilities to start building cities that float in the atmosphere of Venus, one is probably well into the era of molecular nanotechology. That means one probably already has restrictions on the removal of CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere (don't want to kill all the plants, cyanobacteria, plankton, fish, etc.) and one is well along on stripping the ice-caps from Mars and the atmosphere of Venus of the easily available carbon. This is because carbon availability becomes a limiting resource and of significant concern in the nanotech era.
Depending upon how much carbon is stripped from the atmosphere of Venus, one doesn't have the hellish temperature problem which exists now and it can be made quite comfortable on the surface. The magnetic field problem and lack of water are more significant problems and one may need to consider a phase of planetary comet bombardment to replenish the water. And unless means are developed to restart core circulation to beef up the magnetic field one is facing the problem of a very dry planet (all water circulating in pipes rather than streams or rivers). Though one could speculate as to whether sufficient particle accelerators could be developed to split the available C or O back into H so one could maintain the atmospheric H2O content even with a solar wind stripping away the H.
Now, of course if one has the capabilities to play with planets and the solar system as a whole like this, as I discuss in my chapter in "Year Million", then one is also likely to have the resources which can dismantle the whole planet, presumably to contribute to the construction of our solar system's Matrioshka Brain. Now whether to use the material in Venus for this purpose, or whether to turn it into a water world with lots of islands upon which many different evolutionary scenarios are played out (using real matter as the computronium for evolution). [For those of you who don't see this, think hundreds of thousands to millions of independent "Jurassic Park"s] is going to be one of the fierce debates we have later in this century or perhaps the next one.
Burying the Lead... (Score:3, Funny)
Sulfuric acid...yes, that's quite a pickle, that atmospheric sulfuric acid...gets you every time...might want to think carefully about ways to deal with that one....
We don't even yet have (Score:3, Insightful)
...floating cities on the oceans of THIS planet...
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:Back to the future IV (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
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:Venus proves GW skeptics (Score:4, Insightful)
Thus, the curious mind might be tempted to reasonably ask, why is Venus not 2250 times as hot as the earth?
Because no one who knows the science behind it and is in their right mind would suggest a completely linear relationship between "mass of CO2 in the atmosphere" and "surface temperature of planet". You can linearize it around a point, but the difference between Venus and Earth is so massive that a linearization for one of the planet will be completely bogus if applied to the other. (The heat loss by radiation, for example, is proportional to the fsckin' 4th power of the temperature. And that's just one of lots of nonlinearities.)
Or, conversely, if we examine the two knowns of CO2 planetary heating in the entire human experience, we could probably conclude that a doubling of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere would yield a fraction of a degree in heating, not the massive amounts of heating preached to us by the IPCC.
CO2 amounts for about 10% of the total greenhouse effect on Earth (i.e. the difference in temperature between an atmosphere-less black body receiving the same solar irradiance (-18C), and the actual avergae temperature of Earth's surface (14C) ) ... so about 3.2 degrees.
The problem with Earth is that _any_ warming will trigger a number of positive feedback effects, such as increasing the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere (which is also a greenhouse gas, and amounts for a whopping 36% of the total greenhouse effect mentioned above), liberating trapped methane from clathrates and previous permafrost areas, reducing the planets albedo by reducing ice cover, etc, etc.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
aciiiiiiiid raaaaaaaaain
on venus in your lungs it causes pain
aciiiiiiiiid raaaaaaaaain
to colonize some say is just insane
aciiiiiiiid raaaaaaaaain
see cities well they just don't fly like planes
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
**i move away from the planet to breath in
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (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.
Re:Spending (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
He's talking about the far future.. of course, you probably think human-kind doesn't have a far future.
Re:Don't spend ... save (Score:5, Funny)
Are the stairs that steep?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, of course, at some point we could instead stop multiplying exponentially. That would solve the problem, too. Given the fact that the first world coun
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, it's not: It's in 3:2 resonance [wikipedia.org] with the sun. One mercury year is 1.5 mercury days.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Because people here know that pressure drops as altitude increases. For others, this fact might be "news" or "rubbish".
Note that there are hazards when you're outside that floating city, but pressure isn't one of them. Lack of oxygen, presence of sulfuric acid, and of course the need for SPF measured in powers of ten are.
Re: (Score:3)
Think about it, if you were 'the Republic of The Moon' why would you need anything from Earth?
Yes. I would need not having a few megatons of fireworks dumped on my behind the instant (plus IPBM travel time) I declare independence.
Re: (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?)