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#326 2016-11-15 09:46:55

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Venus

Void wrote:

I am also thinking of Venus and Titan.  Venus is quite hot at the base of any tower put there, so, I presume new materials r directs the air currents underneath by sucking in air from the top and redistributing it elsewhere to mimic the weather patterns of Earth.equired.

As someone mentioned in another thread, carbon has a high melting point. I think we can manage a 10 mile high tower on Venus. The base may have to be wide, and we may need anchor cables to hold the tower erect. I am thinking this would not be a launch tower. Maybe instead as a means of paraterraforming the planet.
venus_sphere_by_tomkalbfus-daol047.png
The towers anchor the sky sphere, keeping it centered on the planet. the sky sphere serves the same function as the inner cylinder on my artificial planet, it provides illumination, and creates the illusion of a 24-hour day, a normal sized Sun as seen from Earth, a fake moon, and also directs the air currents underneath by sucking in air from the top and redistributing it elsewhere to mimic the weather patterns of Earth

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-11-15 09:49:09)

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#327 2016-11-15 12:33:36

Void
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Re: Venus

I'm not sure I said all that is in that quote.

Well Venus would be relatively easy once you had the materials which could endure.  After all, buoyancy is a factor which can be used on Venus.  I see no reason that a tower on Venus could not rise to very high altitudes on Venus, if you used buoyancy.

Of course your tower will have to cope with wind, and acid and heat at the bottom, and possibly ice at the top.  Not sure the wind issue can be conquered.


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#328 2016-11-15 12:51:10

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Venus

The roof would have a system of vents and fans. The air pressure underneath the sky sphere would not be zero, if you can remove some air pressure over some areas and increase it over others, you can create low pressure and high pressure cells, and as you know from meteorology, wind flows from high pressure to low pressure areas, so by this means, we can get the winds to flow in whatever direction we desire, perhaps even duplicate the prevailing wind patterns as seen over Earth. The towers would also me a means to reach the natural surface of Venus from the roof. the top of the roof would not be smooth but include fins to reject heat absorbed by the Sun. This heat rejection can also be used to generate electricity with would power the sunlight from the sky underside of this roof. A good portion of this roof would be made out of carbon, in whatever form is most convenient for construction, this would leave a lot of oxygen behind, which would then be combined with imported hydrogen to make oceans for the surface. Towers would descent all across the surface at certain intervals, whether it be land or ocean, they would be part of the landscape. I think if they were separated by say, 50 miles for instance, people can get used to them, the sky would appear blue during the days when it wasn't cloudy, and at night, it could show stars and a moon. Seasons would come and go just like on Earth, the calendar would be the same as on Earth, people after a while might even forget they are living on an alien planet. In this respect Venus is the most Earthlike of all the other planets in the Solar System.

It is an inside out version of my Cylinder idea, except that instead of depending on spin for gravity, it relies on the mass of Venus to create actual gravity.

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-11-15 12:56:22)

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#329 2016-11-15 13:00:12

Void
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Re: Venus

I believe I have read that even a small wind in a 90 bar atmosphere could knock over a skyscraper.


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#330 2016-11-15 15:29:56

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Venus

Could it knock over a pyramid?

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#331 2016-11-15 17:45:38

Void
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Re: Venus

I probably don't understand your plan very well.


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#332 2016-11-15 20:05:41

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Venus

Let me just back up for a minute The sky is built out of the carbon in the atmosphere. When you take the carbon out of Venus' atmosphere, what's left? Just oxygen and nitrogen, this is where we dump hydrogen. Hydrogen + Oxygen -> Water water fills the ocean basins and makes oceans like these:
VENUSMAP.png
The ceiling is just to solve Venus' problem of slow rotation and being too close to the Sun, we add in a moon that isn't there in the sky show, so it looks like were someplace on Earth, from the perspective of someone standing on the surface, and you know this is the only planet in the Solar System that we can do this with. Mars has too little gravity, the moment you jump up and down its a dead give away. If we ever want an "Earth 2" in our Solar System Venus is what we make it out of, if we don't want to go to completely artificial structures such as my cylinders. Cylinders give you a negative curvature, you need an inner sky cylinder to block off you view of the inverted landscape as it curves up and over your head. You will see some of this however. Venus will have a true horizon, but if you want it to be truly Earthlike, you have to create your own artificial Sun and sky, and maybe a moon and stars too.

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#333 2016-11-16 20:32:58

SpaceNut
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Re: Venus

To start with the construction of the solar mechanical machine will need to determine the orbital velocity that will allow for the structure to be built without falling to the planet. The speed or energy to keep it in orbit will increase as the structure is built towards the planet from that orbital platform as drag from the atmosphere increases. This will increase with each series of builds as we try to get to the planets surface.
Now how do we find the materials to construct the struture that is what we need to solve next.

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#334 2016-11-17 06:44:37

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Venus

The structure floats in the atmosphere, and the construction material is carbon extracted from the atmosphere. Carbon is a solid and has a high melting point, and the Venusian atmosphere 10 miles above the surface is still quite dense and hot, about twice a high as the highest mountains You give it a highly reflective surface, so sunlight gets reflected back into space. When the surface completely surrounds the planet, it can form a solid membrane, using the difference in atmospheric pressure below and above to hold itself aloft, as it absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere, atmospheric pressure goes down. You probably need to make water at the same time you extract the carbon, to prevent the build up of oxygen from burning your membrane at such a high temperature. As you thicken this ceiling and add water, the air pressure goes down below, and drops even faster above. At some point you probably want to build those towers to support the ceiling when the air pressure below drops below a certain thresh hold. The columns support the roof. The towers can extend above the roof with cables to support it like a suspension bridge.

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#335 2016-11-19 22:13:43

SpaceNut
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Re: Venus

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#336 2016-11-20 09:20:13

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Venus

Nitrogen is a lifting gas on Venus, and the Venusian atmosphere has plenty of nitrogen, it just has a lot more of carbon dioxide. Now if you can get a balloon membrane which excludes the carbon-dioxide by lets in the nitrogen, you can have a balloon that floats. One idea is to put solar panels on the Balloon surface, have an air pump, and freeze the gases that flow through the intake into the Balloon so the carbon-dioxide freezes out leaving only nitrogen behind, the dry ice is then dumped outside and the balloon is kept inflated with nitrogen, to regulate altitude, some nitrogen is released, and to gain altitude more nitrogen is pumped into the Balloon. By excluding the carbon-dioxide from the interior of the balloon, the Balloon is less dense than the surrounding atmosphere and it floats. Give the balloons sticky surfaces so they clump together, and you have the making of a planet girdling membrane, make the surfaces shiny and reflective and it will reflect sunlight back into space so it doesn't get absorbed by the ground and reradiated as heat which gets trapped by the greenhouse effect. Do this long enough and the surface of Venus will cool down until we can finally put robots on its surface that can last a long time. I suspect th Sulfuric Acid clouds would rain out and be absorbed by the ground. And then Venus would be a dark desert planet. If we cool the planet enough, the carbon-dioxide would freeze out leaving behind 6 bars of nitrogen. We need to convert the carbon-dioxide into carbon and oxygen, import some hydrogen from Titan, combine it with oxygen and make oceans. Bury the carbon under the ground. Then make the balloon membrane transparent let some light back in. This is where we build the 10 mile high towers, put up a solid roof over this planet with solar panels and radiators on top. Put some light sources in the underside, so we can regulate the length of day and the seasons underneath. After this, we need not concern ourselves with the slow rotation of the planet or its proximity to the Sun.

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#337 2016-11-20 20:21:01

SpaceNut
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Re: Venus

Before the pyramid can float we need to deal with the EDL of coming from Earth to get to the altitude to which we would like at a near zero speed. Which means orbit and entry which is done with a heat shield......

https://www.scribd.com/document/2197724 … L-Overview

Aerocapture and EDL Technology Development Experiences

Atmospheric Environments for Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL)

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/501326main_TA0 … 2010-A.pdf

http://braun.gatech.edu/publications/

http://www.ssdl.gatech.edu/papers/maste … P-8900.pdf

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#338 2016-11-20 21:16:46

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Venus

SpaceNut wrote:

Before the pyramid can float we need to deal with the EDL of coming from Earth to get to the altitude to which we would like at a near zero speed. Which means orbit and entry which is done with a heat shield......

https://www.scribd.com/document/2197724 … L-Overview

Aerocapture and EDL Technology Development Experiences

Atmospheric Environments for Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL)

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/501326main_TA0 … 2010-A.pdf

http://braun.gatech.edu/publications/

http://www.ssdl.gatech.edu/papers/maste … P-8900.pdf

Obviously. Venus has a thick atmosphere, but since we are targeting the upper atmosphere, we don't need landing gear, We probably would pack a balloon within a capsule, deploy some parachutes once the heat shield is discarded to slow its descent while the balloon is inflated. Nitrogen would be the lift gas, and we need a means to obtain more nitrogen from the atmosphere to maintain the balloon's lift. the balloon would have to carry the replication machinery to make other balloons, and to inflate them with local nitrogen. Most terraforming schemes rely on self-reproduction, so the balloon is basically a gas cell that builds more gas cells that stick to its sides. Perhaps a flat somewhat hexagonal shaped balloon so that six other balloons can be stuck on its sides to block light from reaching the surface below. The elements for construction would have to be drawn from the atmosphere itself.

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#339 2016-11-21 00:00:32

SpaceNut
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Re: Venus

Nitrogen is a lifting gas listed in the previous post.... nitrogen is only 3% lighter than air, but would be a bit better in Co2....but then again Co would also be better....

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gas-d … d_158.html

Pumping the heat into the lifting gas will make it able to lift a higher level of mass for floating in the atmospher of venus to allow for even greter level of manufacturing from the insitu carbon in the air.

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#340 2016-11-21 13:22:58

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Venus

The Sun would do a lot of heating in the upper atmosphere of Venus, but the point is to reflect that light back into space before it can be turned into heat and trapped in Venus' atmosphere. I suppose the balloons could also be inhabited in the meantime. Add some oxygen to them and water vapor, the balloon would need to be bigger to accommodate these things and still remain aloft Reflect half the sunlight back into space in this case, the other half would be used by the colonists on the inside of this balloon. Not every balloon will be inhabited of course, but some can be.

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#341 2016-11-29 15:58:41

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Venus

Another idea would be to use the EmDrive to speed up the rotation of Venus.
http://www.space.com/34797-impossible-s … ished.html
Just think about it, Venus has a thick atmosphere, it would not be practical to mount rocket engines on its surface and fire them tangentially to the planet' surface and fire them to spin up the planet, the atmosphere would get in the way, it would however not get in the way of an EmDrive, since it does not use action reaction, it has no reaction mass, it can push on the planet's crust without having to expel a reactant past Venus' thick atmosphere. If one can do thi long enough and with enough force to overcome the Sun's tidal forces, then you can increase the spin of the planet, and when you d this, you create a magnetic field provide a shorter day, and then all you would have to do is shade the planet somewhat and you can fully terraform Venus!

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#342 2016-12-12 21:13:00

SpaceNut
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Re: Venus

Just exploring and from a void link from another topic http://cloudsao.com/#CLOUD-CITY

rather interesting images....

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#343 2016-12-14 18:47:38

Antius
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Re: Venus

Living on a balloon in Venus' atmosphere is about as practical as living on an airship in Earth's atmosphere.

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#344 2016-12-14 20:08:40

SpaceNut
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Re: Venus

Yes limited space to roam in but at least we are there trying to live, learn and grow beyond earths protective sphere....something very important for man's step to space....

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#345 2016-12-15 00:52:13

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Venus

Antius wrote:

Living on a balloon in Venus' atmosphere is about as practical as living on an airship in Earth's atmosphere.

Easier to do it on Venus, as there is no one to shoot you down if you drift into someone's airspace. The Russians have been know to shoot down balloons that happened to drift into their airspace on the wind currents. On Venus, there is no one on the ground with ground to air missiles to shoot down your balloon! Another think about Venus' atmosphere is you have a practically endless supply of lifting gas. You pump in the Venusian atmosphere and using solar power, you freeze the carbon-dioxide into dry ice leaving only nitrogen behind, you fill your balloon with Venusian nitrogen, if you balloon drifts to high, you let out some nitrogen, if it drifts too low, you pump in some more nitrogen from the atmosphere.

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#346 2016-12-15 18:21:44

SpaceNut
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Re: Venus

I do not think Nasa will even try doing a venus simulation cloud craaft as it would seemingly not do much for space science. So how would we go about do just that in order to prove out the conditions for survival of a cloud city blimp....

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#347 2016-12-16 11:15:15

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: Venus

Use the SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System, if it can get to Mars, it can also get to Venus.
spacex_its_diagram_01_by_william_black-dajb75b.jpg
It should be able to carry quite a sizable Balloon to Venus.

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#348 2016-12-16 21:17:13

SpaceNut
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Re: Venus

The size is due to the heavy items we will need to pull the air into the processing plant within the ships compartments as these are pumps, motors, batteries, life support for crew ect.....

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#349 2017-02-12 10:27:08

Void
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Re: Venus

What I consider a major component of inhabiting Venus has had an advancement:
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-nasa-elec … rface.html


Here is another article that includes a probe that can sail on Venus.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02 … chip/Quote:
The mechanical side of engineering a Venus lander would still be difficult today, but thanks to advances in materials science, oil drilling, and other high-temperature industrial pursuits, it should be within our capabilities. A rover, with more moving parts, would be a lot harder—though apparently NASA Glenn is working on a land-sailing rover that could be ready for 2023.
I think the idea behind the sail, is a rover on Venus will have to be very low power, so they will try to use sailing.
Isn't that something?
venus1-800x401.jpg

There have been various suggestions about how to work with Venus.  Cloud Cities, Towers, Cables.  I think the solution could involve all of those in a assembly.

I am thinking of a cloud city platform, linked to the ground with both tubes and cables.

Perhaps resembling an oil platform on the oceans.
The use of three primary methods would be present.  Buoyancy, Compressive strength (Tubes), and Tensile strength (Cables).

As for the "Platform" I see that as extending down to just below the cloud deck, perhaps ~10 bars, and upwards to high altitudes, as high as is useful.

Multiple decks "Land".  Some of them shirt sleeve habitable, some not so much.

The tensile cables attaching the platform to the ground might also serve as electrical conductors.

The tubes will be pneumatic elevators.  They also might serve as electrical conductors.  And the elevator cars could be buoyant as well.  So that might ease the notion of an elevator car crashing to the ground at great speed during a power outage.

Some tubes might conduct liquids to the ground Liquid water, Liquid CO2, as coolants, and those coolants might also be used to generate electricity, or drive machinery.  Not sure about that.

Both the tubes and cables will be supported by buoyancy tanks periodically, so as to not impose ridiculous loads on them.

It would be hard for me to see justification for humans in suits to be working on the surface of Venus.  Robotics/Telepresence then.

The resources available could include nuclear fission products extracted from the ground, wind energy, Solar with U.V. on the top deck.
Near infrared on the bottom deck, disequilibrium in the chemistry of Venus's atmosphere.  Thermally driven disequilibrium in machine guided solutions.  Various solutions of CO2 and Water, and maybe Sulfuric Acid and Water.

While aircraft could exist, I would think the tubular elevators and cables would be the primary method to lift material goods from the surface to the "Decks" of the platform.

It is rather far fetched, but just for the purpose of speculation suppose the deck became a "Sphere" which entirely encompassed Venus.  Then you might try to place an atmosphere of N2 and O2 over the top of the uppermost deck.  If you moistened that atmosphere just a bit, then perhaps the electrical force that lifts Oxygen off of Venus could be stopped.  As for Ozone, I presume, that in a N2/O2 atmosphere, where the quantity of chemicals which destroy Ozone is kept low enough, then you could have an Ozone layer.  As for the induced magnetic protection for the atmosphere that currently exists, I don't know how well that would work for a N2/O2 atmosphere.

If the above encompassing enclosure method were used, then either the lower layers have to be kept at thermal equilibrium by some method, or a planed method of transition would be needed.  A plan of metamorphic transitions.

I don't see this being done as a substitution of other objectives, such as Mars, but as a parallel behavior.

If the above could be accomplished, then it should be a very energy rich environment.  It should be possible to leverage that into useful biological processes.  Below suggests this.
http://www.popsci.com/have-we-found-alien-life

Have We Found Alien Life?
Microbes that eat and breathe electricity have forced scientists to reimagine how life works—on this planet and others
By Corey S. Powell January 21, 2015

It seems that we emit electrons out of our lungs into Oxygen, and get electrons from our food I presume.  So we are electrical as well at the base.

And it seems that photosynthesis and chemosynthesis (KeneticSynthesis?) break down to a electrical process in the "Basement", which drives all life form that we know.

So the point being that I think that Venus could be fantastically biologically rich, if the proper methods were employable.

Skip Mars?  No, not unless some planetary protocol forces humans to leave Mars alone.  Skip the Moon?  No,  Lunar and Asteroid materials will be important for jump starting the habitation of Venus.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2017-02-12 11:01:19)


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#350 2017-02-12 18:26:56

SpaceNut
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Re: Venus

Yes The article "We finally have a computer that can survive the surface of Venus Sulphuric rain? Easy. Not burning up at 500°C or crushed by 90 atmospheres? Hard." is quite unique in that these parts were used in the aircraft industry.....A little digging showed thatNASA Commissions Ultra High Temp Chips for Venus Landsailing Rover By Evan Ackerman Posted 5 Aug 2015 | 18:10 GMT

VenusLandsailingRoverNASA-1438708034497.jpg

https://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/early_ … andis.html

http://www.svmi.com/nasa-commissions-ul … ing-rover/

For a Venus lander mission, active cooling of most of the electronics would be necessary, but it would also need sensors, actuators, and microcontrollers that can stand up to Venus’ surface conditions. Trying to keep this stuff from immediate “puddleificaion” isn’t easy, but NASA has just thrown a quarter of a million dollars at a University of Arkansas spinoff to develop Venus-resistant chips for a weird little rover.

NASA, understandably, wants to minimize the amount of electronics that need to be actively cooled on any Venus lander, because keeping things cool on the surface of Venus is going to suck down a massive amount of power. Photovoltaics won’t really work under all those clouds. But one slightly counterintuitive option might be a cooling system powered by a Stirling engine, which depends on the rover generating as much heat as it possibly can. Stirling engines convert a heat differential into mechanical energy, so the idea is that you’d bottle up a bunch of plutonium-238, which would heat itself to 1,200 °C through radioactive decay. With one side of a Stirling engine acting as a heat sink for the plutonium and the other side exposed to the comparatively frigid Venutian atmosphere, a Stirling engine could generate several hundred watts of power—enough to keep the electronics of a well insulated rover under 300 °C.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi … 001338.pdf

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