Venus First

Gregori · 2008-04-16 08:42:58

The only big problem with it is that much of the structural Material and life support for the colony would probably have to be obtained from asteroids/moons etc Other than that, its probably a good place to live and grow food.
What, other than Nitrogen, Carbon, Oxygen, Sulpher, and Hydrogen, do we need?

Iron, Aluminium, Titanium, Rare Earth Metals...

You can chemically fabricate structural materials out of basic elements in the atmosphere but that strikes me as very inefficient and energy intensive. Its doing things the hard way. They don't do that on Earth and for very good reasons, so lets not start doing it in space.

Why do it this way when its easier to get raw materials mined and processed from asteroids/moons. I think we should try to make the whole pallette of building materials available on Earth for use in space.

I'm astonished at the suggestions to cool and terraform the planet. What a fucking enormous waste of energy! If the floating colonies expanded to covered a lot of the area of the planet, being on the surface would no longer matter! You have all the access to light you need and can't rotate around the planet to provide day/night cycle!

Terraformer · 2008-04-16 08:48:28

Why would we be building a floating colony out of Iron when there's perfectly good Carbon and Energy in abundance?

Gregori · 2008-04-16 09:02:05

Why would we be building a floating colony out of Iron when there's perfectly good Carbon and Energy in abundance?

Because nearly everything on Earth is built out of the stuff. Very little structural stuff is built from carbon. If turning C02 into structural materials was easy with sunlight as a the power source, there would be no global warming problem

It may useful for building some stuff in the colony, but given that most structures on Earth are made from metals and industry is very good at them, It makes sense to keep with what you know best.

Don't worry, the Carbon will be useful for making steel.

Before suggesting anymore bare elemental approaches to colonies, I would suggest finding what everything single thing in your home is made from. You would be suprised how much shit goes into the simplest products!

noosfractal · 2008-04-16 09:48:16

It is quite possible that, within the next 50 years, carbon fiber and CNT fiber composites will become the predominant building material in developed nations. They are very strong, and will eventually become very cheap.

Gregori · 2008-04-16 09:56:49

It is quite possible that, within the next 50 years, carbon fiber and CNT fiber composites will become the predominant building material in developed nations. They are very strong, and will eventually become very cheap.

They still have their limits so a mixed approach is a lot better. Some stuff donee with Carbon Fibre, some with Metals. As soon as asteroid mining becomes possible, Metals will probably become a lot cheaper.

The machinery required to make CNTs and Carbon Fiber is a lot more complicated than those required for Metals.

Grypd · 2008-04-16 10:25:43

The major difference in missions to Venus and Mars is how hospitable the planet is and the journey there.

In the case of Venus not only can we not walk around the surface we are also actually heading towards the biggest radiation source that we know. It is doubtful if we can actually even get a crew to land there in the first place and if we have them in orbit they will be recieving high doses of radiation just to operate ROVs on the surface.

We have yet to develop anything like the technology to build a floating city on Venus and there is the question of just what need do we have for such. What will floating cities actually accomplish, what economic reason do we need for them.

Terraformer · 2008-04-16 11:01:06

We have had the technology to build a floating city on Venus longer than we have had the technology to build colonies on Mars. We've had the technology to build floating cities on Earth for hundreds of years, the tech to Paraterraform parts of Earth only a short while.

Why does everyone seem to think there is no point going to Venus because we can't walk around on the surface? I'd like to point out NASA were planning a fly-by Manned Mission to Venus in 1972 with Apollo hardware. Were they planning one to Mars at the same time? (This question is not rhetorical. I would like to know.)

Venus has an image problem. It's a lot safer than Mars in its habitable zone 50km up but people are just passing over it in favour of Mars because they have this image of Hell in their heads when they think of Venus.

Please can you tell me why you are all in favour of colonising Mars over anywhere else?

JoshNH4H · 2008-04-16 14:03:22

If you're going to export sulfur from venus, you might as well export it from earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyanhydrides polyanhydrides

Terraformer · 2008-04-16 14:30:50

What has Mars got that Earth doesn't already have? Last time I checked there were no wonder drugs or Unobtainium there.

louis · 2008-04-16 14:49:14

Sorry - please explain...when did we develop the floating cities technology on earth? Do you mean floating on water - or floating on air?

Gregori · 2008-04-16 15:19:17

If you're going to export sulfur from venus, you might as well export it from earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyanhydrides polyanhydrides

Why? There is vast clouds of Sulphuric Acid on Venus that could be directly tapped. On Earth, you need to create sulphuric acid in chemical plant from other minerals. The escape velocity of Venus is slightly lower than Earth. woot!

Sulphuric acid is one of the most useful and produced chemicals in the industry. The ability to produce large amounts of it is often cited as a indicator of a countries economic power.

Grypd · 2008-04-16 15:51:36

If you're going to export sulfur from venus, you might as well export it from earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyanhydrides polyanhydrides
Why? There is vast clouds of Sulphuric Acid on Venus that could be directly tapped. On Earth, you need to create sulphuric acid in chemical plant from other minerals. The escape velocity of Venus is slightly lower than Earth. woot!
Sulphuric acid is one of the most useful and produced chemicals in the industry. The ability to produce large amounts of it is often cited as a indicator of a countries economic power.

And it will useful to us how. Why would we transport it anywhere at hideous expense when most of the places we are planning to go have stocks enough for use. And so why go to Venus to mine it from the atmosphere then build somehow an infrastructure to launch it around the solar system.

Especially as we will likely be going to Saturn just so we can get at the Helium 3 there so there is Sulphur there too and a willingness for us to develop infrastructure there.

Gregori · 2008-04-16 16:07:39

If you're going to export sulfur from venus, you might as well export it from earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyanhydrides polyanhydrides
Why? There is vast clouds of Sulphuric Acid on Venus that could be directly tapped. On Earth, you need to create sulphuric acid in chemical plant from other minerals. The escape velocity of Venus is slightly lower than Earth. woot!
Sulphuric acid is one of the most useful and produced chemicals in the industry. The ability to produce large amounts of it is often cited as a indicator of a countries economic power.
And it will useful to us how. Why would we transport it anywhere at hideous expense when most of the places we are planning to go have stocks enough for use. And so why go to Venus to mine it from the atmosphere then build somehow an infrastructure to launch it around the solar system.
Especially as we will likely be going to Saturn just so we can get at the Helium 3 there so there is Sulphur there too and a willingness for us to develop infrastructure there.

It can be obtained in bulk on Venus, whereas all those othe locations require finding the components in scattered mineral deposits and using expensive chemical factories to produce it. On Venus it can be refined straight out of the clouds.

Its extremely useful stuff. Even the Venus colony could make great use of it. We don't need to use the surface on Venus to make it habitable, we just need to bring materials from other locations in space and transport them so people can live above Venus taking advantage of its pressure, temperature and gravity at that altitude.

Nobody has fused D-T, never mind He3, so I wouldn't worry about that right now.

If we go to Saturn, It should be Titan, because of its vast hydrocarbon, water and nitrogen reserves plus the low low gravity. Large automated cargo ships built in space could transport material from this moon to the Earth, Mars, The Moon and Venus.

Titan would do wonders for bulk production of plastics, fertilizers and composite materials in space.

RobertDyck · 2008-04-16 21:10:50

RobertDyck
Why would floating colonies not work?

Floating colonies would have to be dirigibles, floating via lighter-than-air buoyancy. Using any sort of powered flight would require so much power that such a colony could not remain airborne for any significant length of time. That lighter-than-air buoyancy makes it delicate, and landing a space shuttle very difficult. A small gondola under a large air bag would be very difficult to navigate a hypersonic lifting body. Remember pilots say the space shuttle flies like a brick. The original 1968 specifications for the shuttle called for a lifting body, which handles well at hypersonic speed but has even less lift-to-drag ratio at supersonic. A lifting body has lower mass per unit of payload mass, it's more efficient, but don't expect it to land on a dime. HL-20 was able to land on a runway, but needed a runway.

Then there's resources. You can make some plastics out of CHON, but not all. You can make: polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, acrylic (Plexiglas), Polyethylene Terephthalate (known as PET or Mylar), nylon, polybutadiene rubber (BR), ABS. But you need hydrogen chloride and sodium hydroxide to make polycarbonate. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC or vinyl) also requires chlorine. Sodium and chlorine together are common salt; not available in the clouds.

Pheonol formaldehyde, also known as phenolic, is a common adhesive used in aircraft manufacture and to bond glass fibres to form pink fibreglass batt insulation, to bond wood to form oriented strand board (OSB), chip board, particle board, plywood, laminated veneer lumber (LVL), for lots of uses. It's a component in making styrene, used for polystyrene (PS), or polystyrene foam commonly called Styrofoam. Phenol can be made from benzene and hydrogen peroxide, but it's more commonly made from toluene and permanganate. Permangante is HMnO4, so manganese is used in the efficient production of phenol. There isn't any manganese in the clouds.

Most of the chemical reactions requires a metal catalyst. Where do you get the metal? If the colony isn't self-sufficient for basic materials, it will never be successful.

Now explain how you're going to build electrical wiring without copper, aluminum, or some other conductive metal?

To be effective, a floating colony would have to hover in the cloud layer. That has all the water, but it also has a temperature somewhere between freezing and boiling; reasonable if you stick to the middle where temperatures are moderate. At that altitude air pressure is roughly 1 atmosphere, fine for humans without need for a pressure vessel. It would have to be air-tight to contain oxygen, but the structure would be lighter without the stress of pressure. However, that means the floatation gas bag would have to be as big as on Earth. Helium is mined on Earth from deposits trapped in rocks, but you can't mine the surface of Venus from a floating colony. Are you going to use hydrogen? If you do, it will be lighter and hydrogen will not burn with CO2; just ensure you seal it from any breathable air.

And do you seriously expect to get any significant amount of resources if you have to condense them out of clouds? Remember dense clouds have the consistency of fog.

RobertDyck · 2008-04-16 21:24:58

Then again, terraforming anaerobic archaea will have the same clouds to work with. But microorganisms are self-replicating, and multiply exponentially as long as sufficient raw material and energy is available. How long will it take to terraform Venus?

polyanhydrides, an interesting review. They are biocompatible, and easily metabolized by the human body. That is if they are a co-polymer with something the human body can easily break down; if they aren't then it's pretty innert. If you polymerize anhydride with only itself, that is the R group in the Wikipedia diagram is just another anhydride group, then it is unsaturated polyanhydride. That is highly crystaline and insoluble in common organic solvents. Considering aromatic polyanhydrides have a melting temperature above 100°C, unsaturated polyanhydride would be higher. It should also be even more hydrophobic than aromatic polyanhydride, so it would repel water. What would it's reaction be to the current atmosphere of Venus?

Commodore · 2008-04-16 22:12:59

Even if floating cities were technically possible, the real value of Venus is the planet itself. You will want to get the resources on the surface. The promise of creating a new Earth will always be the overriding objective for Venus. Solar shades and mirrors are the most effective ways of doing that.

That doesn't mean some interim concepts for floating cities are not useful, but I doubt they will ever resemble a colony. The most likely function is extracting the vital volatile gases.

louis · 2008-04-17 02:55:53

I think the matter will be decided on a cost-benefit analysis. Essentially will it cheaper from an earth based cost analysis to fly resources from Venus to Mars or to develop them on Mars with ISRU or to send stuff direct from earth to Mars? I have no doubt in my own mind that for most applications, the middle course will be best. And the reason is the abundance of energy and land. It is always easier to maintain facilities on land rather than in floating facilities - for a variety of reasons. The abundance of energy (on a per capita basis) will allow for energy substitution. So, although in terms of an earth based approach, it might seem like a wasteful procedure, every often on Mars the right thing to do will be to "throw energy" at the problem to get it fixed. If we took creating an artificial soil. It might seem simpler to jsut fly it in from earth. But a cost-benefit analysis will likely show it is better from an earth cost analysis to expend a lot of energy on robot digging, sifting, chemical sorting etc to create the soil in situ on Mars.

Of course we have to remember the aim is also to create a self sufficient community on Mars, one that coudl ultimately survive the complete demise of earth civilisation - so sometimes we will develop ISRU operations even if cost-benefit analysis suggests an earth export solution is more effective.

Terraformer · 2008-04-17 09:35:51

The colony will not be suspended under a large bag of Air. I envision the life support, housing, extraction systems etc below to act as a counter weight to the landing pads on top.

The bottom half could be coated with PV cells to collect energy as well.

Using H2 for a lifting gas will allow a much smaller size than using, say, N2 or O2 (both of which are lifting gasses on Venus). N2/O2 mixes on Venus have the 60% of the lifting power of Helium on Earth.

louis · 2008-04-17 11:51:08

Only takes a vortex, a sudden pressure drop, something similar and you could have several thousand dead people on your hands. Or being eaten alive by sulphuric acid in the case of Venus!

I remain a firm Mars advocate. I think it can be a new earth almost from the start. We will soon have domes and acres of vegetation.

louis · 2008-04-17 11:52:15

Only takes a vortex, a sudden pressure drop, something similar and you could have several thousand dead people on your hands. Or being eaten alive by sulphuric acid in the case of Venus!

I remain a firm Mars advocate. I think it can be a new earth almost from the start. We will soon have domes and acres of vegetation.

Terraformer · 2008-04-17 12:58:42

A sudden pressure drop? WTF?

Do you intend to use inflatables on Mars? If you do then you a seriously insane.

I suppose you meant a pressure drop as in the lifting gas or the inhabited quarters. If you did then here's news for you: unlike Mars, the gas won't go suddenly, it'll take time.

What do you mean 'a vortex'. How would a Vortex destroy a colony if it's had an intelligent designer.

Face it: Venus is safer than Mars.

(I wonder if there's a forum of people who aren't so locked up in colonising one body to the exclusion of all the other. Putting your eggs in two baskets doesn't help if the new basket is a lot more dangerous than the one you were using before.)

Commodore · 2008-04-17 15:42:07

I think he's referring to atmospheric turbulence that could cause catastrophic levels of mechanical stress on large rigid structures.

The question remains, what is it about the Venusian atmosphere that makes it an attractive residential target for colonization?

Commodore · 2008-04-17 22:47:53

If nothing else, I think its important to note that a manned presence at Venus can and should play and important role in supporting and furthering exploration.

What eventually becomes of the planet, of course remains to be seen.

noosfractal · 2008-04-17 23:22:44

Venus does have a nasty gravity problem. The further we can live out of the gravity well, the better, in the long run.

louis · 2008-04-18 00:53:33

Terraformer -

All fluids can have vortices can they not? And all "light fluids" like air can experience sudden pressure drops where aircraft can fall tens of thousands of feet in a few seconds. I doubt we know enough about the Venusian atmosphere to say how difficult it would be to live in.

My suggestion for inflatables on Mars is that they would be entrenched and covered in a large amount of regolith. Also inflatables have been developed for space (by Bigelow). If they are suitable for space, they must be suitable for the surface of Mars I would think. However, I would still prefer to entrench inflatables.

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Re: Venus First

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