Mission to Venus

Void · 2018-10-28 14:46:49

Nice work. However, as I look at it, the case for placing objects of limited survival is real, but the case for making a profitable living in the clouds of Venus looks to make me feel that we are "Not Ready".

My own bias which says we can generate a 1 bar +/1 pressure hydrostatically on Mars without nearly impossible trouble (Such as Venus), says that Venus atmospherics should be research. I do favor a limited presence in orbit to host "Research" of the atmosphere and surface, but of course that requires methods to protect humans reasonably from all significant hazards.

So, Venus small, Mars big.

Done

Last edited by Void (2018-10-28 14:49:50)

SpaceNut · 2018-10-28 16:28:19

Doing a cloud city even here on earth is not a for profitable living as its a fad for earth science and for the rich to vacation at, science for venus, a platform to teraform from for venus, simularly for mars its for science if we did do so....

kbd512 · 2018-10-28 18:12:30

SpaceNut,

My only thought about ADEPT is that the heat shield is still semi-rigid, so it might be difficult to fit a large enough model of ADEPT into the payload shroud of F9H. It's probably workable, though. ADEPT is a technology that could benefit from compliant structures. NASA has also been working on a new moldable 3D woven heat shield material from Bally Ribbon Mills that has withstood up to 7kW/cm^2 in testing. It's a composite that's placed into a metal mold to produce tiles, but it's capable of withstanding thermal fluxes far beyond what a reasonable thickness of PICA or PICA-X can withstand. It was created specifically for Venus and Saturn missions. Unlike the Space Shuttle's silica tiles, the "blanket" that attaches the material to the protected structure is the same material. For whatever reason, NASA's truly bringing their "A" game this time around with the heat shield technology.

Space Technology - Game Changing Development - Heat Shield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET)

Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET)

Overview of Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) Project

Progress Towards Providing Heat-shield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) for Venus and Other New Frontiers Missions

Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) – Enabling Missions Beyond Heritage Carbon Phenolic

Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) Development Status

ADEPT needs a compliant / adaptive deployment mechanism:

How FlexSys is Changing the World of Mechanisms

Both the rigging system and electrical wiring for VAS will use CNT's:

* CNT yarn can generate electricity when it stretches, the rigging system will stretch quite a bit, and NASA researchers eventually had to give up on fatigue testing of CNT fibers and fabrics after years of efforts trying to break the fibers through repeated flexure
* CNT fabric is tens of times stronger than the strongest fibers on the list I produced
* NASA already has braided CNT's with conductivity equal to copper, but now it's working on scaling it up
* NASA is now producing multi-kg quantities of CNT fibers and fabrics as a replacement for carbon fiber overwrap for cryogen tanks
* CNT fiber added to space suits caused the abrasive regolith dust to literally fall off, as if repelled, the second the astronaut moves

Lightweight CNT Cables for Aerospace

Highly Conductive Wire: Cu Carbon Nanotube Composite Ampacity and Metallic CNT Buckypaper Conductivity

Lightweight, flexible, high-performance carbon nanotube cables made by scalable flow coating

DexMat's 1mm braided CNT rope has a mass of 860mg/m and has a mean breaking load of 38kg. For comparison purposes, a 1mm braided 316 stainless wire rope has a mass of 4900mg/m and has a breaking force of 99kg. For equivalent weight, the CNT rope would have a mean breaking load of about 216.5kg. Unfortunately, DexMat's 1mm braided CNT rope also costs $1,000USD/m. NASA has a new manufacturing technology expected to lower that cost to roughly $50/m, but that's still far in excess of the cost of Spectra and Technora. Anyway, CNT products will likely supplant traditional polymer products like Spectra and Technora for rope, wiring (something Spectra and Technora could never be used for), and fabric for both flexible structures and use in composites within the next decade. Just a few years ago, it was well north of $10,000USD for the product, so cost is dropping like a rock, as better manufacturing methods become available.

DexMat High Performance CNT Products

Unlike so many other whiz-bang things NASA develops with tax payer money, DexMat's product are available for sale to anyone with enough money. I've no idea if there are any ITAR restrictions or not, but you should probably read the fine print before you put your money down.

If the cost drops to the cost of carbon fiber, CNT's will enable unprecedentedly lightweight and strong structures for aircraft and spacecraft.

We're rapidly entering the AI/NT/QT age, which was enabled by the Industrial Age and the Information Age. AI programs run on quantum technology using nano-technology materials will produce computer software / hardware / sensor networks that enable unprecedented productivity and spectacular errors.

SpaceNut · 2020-05-19 16:09:08

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi … 013601.pdf
Radioisotope Stirling Engine Powered Airship for Low Altitude Operation on Venus

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi … 016542.pdf
Radioisotope Stirling Engine Powered Airship

SpaceNut · 2020-07-27 21:30:02

bump materials plus

SeaDragon · 2020-07-28 12:56:03

To me, Venus is a pointless waste of resources for a colony destination this century but one of the richest and most technologically advanced places in the solar system next century when human synthetic biology becomes more ambitious. Currently, making new microorganisms means injecting small loops of DNA (plasmids) to make single enzymes to do simple chemistry tricks but technologies like CRISPR (eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR ) might well change all that, permitting the editing of DNA for fully developed multicellular organisms. There's no fundamental law in physics that says you can't make a capsule the size of an acorn that, planted in Mars' soil and left for a century, turns the entire surface into a sprawling cityscape enclosing millions of square kilometres of forest and high technology. The right strings of DNA in the right tiny organisms ought to be able to hold many times the information required for this - Human DNA, after all, contains all the information required to make one of us in only 3 billion base pairs. Of course, the engineering problem of designing such an acorn and in particular the algorithm that must run going something like "if I wanted this structural shape and properties, what DNA pattern would I need?" is so laughably impossible for us that I can't find any biologists who've even considered it seriously before. They should. At least, I think they should. Printing and reading DNA is getting cheaper and cheaper, molecular chemistry more and more sophisticated. The technology to try things like this and the computing power required to predict which sequences of DNA you need for your intended tasks may eventually come into our hands. Well, maybe our descendants' hands.

Nonetheless, long before anything that ambitious there are many potentially world-ending organisms that would have to be tried and tested. Never mind the conspiracy theories that say COVID-19 escaped from a lab, even if untrue it certainly could have been true. Searching for the cures to all human disease (the tip of the iceberg of what is possible for biotechnology) requires extremely dangerous research. This should not be done on Earth. Hence where Venus cloud cities come in. It provides an environment in which:

- All the bulk materials for life are available in abundance.
- Vast habitat volumes are cheap to build and maintain.
- Conditions outside are extremely hostile to life (that is sulphur dioxide, sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid, harsh UV etc.) so that anything that got out by accident would quickly die off (and there's no good reason to breed organisms resistant to these conditions!).
- The gravity well is quite steep so that it's difficult for any escaped organisms to find their way out into the solar system even if they could survive.
- A rapid self-destruct mechanism exists for all cloud habitats: you vent the internal air and rapidly decend into the hellish conditions of the lower Venusian atmosphere, very definitely sterilising all biological entities onboard in the process.
- Launching from the planet is difficult so that even if pirates or agents of some nefarious organisation were to try stealing COV-AIDS or whatever is being tested and you couldn't self destruct in time it would be difficult for them to get physical samples off world.

Venus, as I see it, is analogous to the perfect playground for toddler Clark Kent to get comfortable with his own limitless powers without the threat of accidentally blowing up all of Smallville when he tries his laser eyes for the first time without appreciating exactly what that does.
Needless to say, the power of the advances that might be made if only experiments with biotechnology could be performed safely while our wisdom on the subject grows could be extraordinary. Medicine is already a multi trillion Dollar field, even if it stops at permitting people like the late Robert Bussard or Freeman Dyson to continue working for more than a poultry 50 years of career before leaving us forever (I'm massively pro cryonics as a short term solution to this) I imagine the monetary gains for humanity would dwarf the entire world economy as it exists today. Hence why I see Venus as the Silicon Valley of the next century and synthetic biologists as the new programmers and consumer electronics designers, filled with high-tech floating laboratories manufactured in Martian orbit for use there. Not today though. Mars is just so much better a colony destination as a whole package, in fact it can certainly provide reasonable isolation and security for biotech firms, perhaps even good enough that the advantages in my list that Mars doesn't have aren't worth the extra hassles that come with colonising Venus in the first place. I dunno. This is how I see it anyway.

Last edited by SeaDragon (2020-07-28 12:59:35)

Calliban · 2020-07-28 15:51:22

Venus is a complete waste of time as a destination for human beings. The surface is a searing hell that nothing can survive on. The atmosphere contains no resources that are worth exploitation. Worst still, the planet has substantial gravity, so meaningful exports do not make sense.

The cloud city idea is a non-starter. Consider this: the Hindenbourg had a total lift of 230 tonnes and was the size of the Titanic. How big would it need to be to lift an entire human city, complete with houses, parks, offices, factories, etc? It boggles the mind. We are talking airships dozens of cubic miles in volume. So large that you could probably see them from Earth with a decent telescope. Where would they be built? How would you get them to Venus? And why would anyone in their right mind want to go there? Now consider that to be sustainable, we must somehow mine rocks from the surface and use them to make more cloud cities, in industrial facilities within a cloud city. That means having things like steel works hanging from a balloon. It is about the daftest idea that has ever been entertained on this forum. Consider also, that the only source of water on Venus is in the form of concentrated sulphuric acid.

Venus colonisation is a good example of what one can imagine when one allows the imagination to run away with itself, without restraint. But falls to pieces as soon as one looks at the logistics of it.

The only reason to go to Venus is to gain scientific understanding of how the planet evolved. And that is of limited value in itself. It is unlikely that we would ever send people there. The only realistic scenario is for people to control robotic surface probes from low orbit, eliminating time delay. That would require something about the same size as Skylab, with half a dozen relay satellites around the planet. Orbital stays of perhaps two years, for a half dozen or so people. That is likely to be the extent of humanity's colonisation of Venus. For human beings, it is one of the worst destinations in the solar system. Pluto would be an easier place to colonise.

Last edited by Calliban (2020-07-28 15:58:44)

tahanson43206 · 2020-07-28 18:00:29

For Calliban re #257

Your pessimism about livability of Venus is understandable.

I don't share it, but I concede the difficulty of setting up shop there.

I tend to look for (and find) optimistic projections of various alternative futures, so I can assure you that when you are in the mood to let your imagination roam a bit, there are authors who have done the physics homework to support the story telling that folks pay money to read.

An example of such a view of Venus is running in Analog right now.

I personally tend to skip over the social interactions that are (apparently) considered important for story telling these days, and concentrate on the vivid word pictures of a great variety of technical challenges and how a future society might handle them.

(th)

SeaDragon · 2020-07-29 15:55:29

Calliban and tahanson,

As in my post I'm literally halfway between you two but I do think it can be done. In the interest of demonstrating that living on Venus requires not quite so open a mind that your brains fall out I offer the following analysis:

- Balloons can be made only with what is present in the atmosphere

You can get ample water from sulphuric acid without literally boiling it out using the following method:

1) S + 2H2SO4 -> 2H2O + 3SO2
(Sulphur + sulphuric acid -(maybe 200 oC, can't find much info online, catalyst would be amazing)-> water + sulphur dioxide)

2) SO2 + 2H2 -> S + 2H2O
(Sulphur dioxide + hydrogen -(700oC, activated carbon catalyst)-> sulfur + water)

Compare this to direct bioling:

3) H2SO4 -> H2O + SO3
(Sulphuric acid -(350oC in low pressure, crazy membrane separation, high tech ceramics like sapphire glass etc.)-> water + sulphur trioxide)

Reaction 1 doesn't need such high temperatures as direct boiling and gives no SO3, which is great because sulphur trioxide is almost as corrosive as H2SO4 and rapidly recombines with H2O to give H2SO4 again unless you separate it by expensive ceramic membranes etc. Reaction 2 which regenerates the sulfur for 1 is the price you pay: lots of electricity to split H2O to get your H2 gas and relatively high temperatures. In any case, 10 MWe gets you 86 tonnes of water a day provided you can condense that much sulphuric acid across the enormous surface area of your floating city's exterior walls. That's definitely a lot of electricity but luckily there's plenty of sunlight on Venus, running hot with silicon carbide solar cells and solar concentrators is my favourite trick and should be helpful here.

- What is the colony even made of?

Poly(phenyline sulphide) (usually called PPS) provides excellent corrosion resistance so you coat a strong structural plastic like PET with it and you have yourself a balloon skin material strongly resistant to those sulphuric acid clouds. Maybe reinforce with carbon fibre or Keflar etc. All of these things can be made simply from carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and sulphur, all in great abundance in Venus' atmosphere. The reactor vessels and so on of course have to be brought from off-world but hopefully they last long enough that vast amounts of habitat can be built with what is imported.

A 500 m wide cylindrical habitat 1 km long displaces some 190,000 tonnes of atmosphere, if the interior is breathable air then it lifts perhaps 70,000 tonnes of material. At a millimetre thick (pretty substantial considering only tiny pressure differences) and accounting for multiple structural layers by scaling our requirement by a factor of 10 our 2,250,000 m^2 habitat surface structure only needs to mass in at some 30,000 tonnes, leaving something like 40,000 tonnes of lifting capacity for a city with plentiful wide open habitable space, a rarity in space colonies. Building with high density polyethylene, choking minerals out of rocks scooped from the surface with hydrochloric acid (yeah, it's like getting blood from a stone but at least it's possible) means we can make our own solar cells and support some infrastructure without imports etc.

- What about launches?

Trade in physical goods manufactured in Venus' atmosphere with anywhere but Mercury is just not feasible but you can make methyl acetylene and use that as a fuel for relatively little hydrogen (plenty of CO2 in the atmosphere but water, as above, is expensive!) which performs just a little better than methane/LOx, should be enough for modest transport offworld so people can come and go/food can be sent to the mining operations on Mercury that your Venus colonists would surely rely on for cheap material imports etc.

Overall: possible and scalable but definitely not ideal.

Last edited by SeaDragon (2020-07-29 16:20:24)

SpaceNut · 2020-07-29 16:11:45

https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/adv_tech/balloons/venus.htm

The balloon from Vega 1 lasted 56 minutes, and the Vega 2 balloon transmitted data for 46.5 hours.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi … 016033.pdf
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/reports/ … 2-2015.pdf

Soviet Vega balloon mission flew in 1985 used a super pressure helium balloon that floated at 54 km altitude (0.6 bar, 40 degrees C) for over two days, measuring wind velocities.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn … -to-venus/

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi … 016033.pdf

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech … -balloons/

https://vfm.jpl.nasa.gov/venusdesignref … balloons2/

https://singularityhub.com/2018/10/26/n … iant-idea/

SpaceNut · 2020-09-14 17:43:18

Life on Venus? Astronomers See Phosphine Signal in Its Clouds Few have focused on the rocky planet as a habitat for something living.

phosphine was found about 33 to 39 miles (53 to 62 kilometers) above the surface of Venus

This is approximate where the air pressure and temperature is more earth like....

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-14 17:52:41

For SpaceNut re #261

Thanks for posting this news of the possibility of primitive live in the clouds of Venus. I've mentioned previously here in the forum, that Analog just published a three part series about a possible scenario for human life at Venus. The author did a lot of research to support the story, and published a follow up article about the science behind the story. The descriptions of the various cloud layers are quite detailed.

Among the elements of the story that were speculative were the possibility of non-intelligent plant life on Venus. It will be ** very ** interesting to find out what is creating the signal detected in the clouds, and there appears to be some speculation that NASA may give another Venus probe a bit more of a boost in the competitive standings for funding, following this report.

(th)

Void · 2020-09-14 19:29:50

That is very exciting.
I think I can suggest two ways microbes could float in the atmosphere of Venus.
Vacules containing Oxygen and Nitogen for flotation, and also electrostatic levitation.
-----
I visualized what would Venus have been like if it had a ~1 bar atmosphere dominantly CO2, over liquid water.
It occurs to me that especially if that atmosphere above the water was humid, the micobes might be able to float out of the water into the air, perhaps to get more light or to escape predators. They could float out of the water, in the same way we hope to have floating habitats in the clouds inflated with an air like mixture as floatation gas.
As the water might get too warm in places, that would also be an incentive for the microbes to float out of the water as well. Then perhaps at night they would re-enter the water for whatever purpose.
So, this suggests a possible pathway to micobes that would eventually evolve to not need a liquid water body at all.
How such microbes might tollerate the Sulfuric Acid clouds, I cannot say. But if given millions or even billions of years of chemestry transition, perhaps it was possible. It could be that the liquid water was already rather acid and so they might have had a prior adaptation to that.
The current microbes, if they exist would not be totally at the mercy of air currents. The may be able to control the chemical composition of interior vacules of gas. And on Venus the electric field is so intense that any Oxygen in existance is levitated into space. I read speculation that the electric field is so intense because the atmosphere is so dry.
Here is something from "The Angry Astronaut" has this interesting video. A bit of naughty language, so be warned. He is correct at one point where he says that Venus is dry. However he seems to have missed that there is indeed water vapor in the clouds, especially at the base of the clouds. The occurs because the Sulphuric Acid decomposes into water and Sulphur Oxides at a level where the pressure is about 10 bar.
Anyway he is very interesting. We all have to learn new things from time to time.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=th … ORM=WRVORC
I am very excited. Unlike Mars where it may take a very long time to be sure life does not currently exist, Venus should give a definite yes or no in short order if NASA does the Venus missions.
Of course the microbe sized swarms of objects observed might not be alive, but in that case it would be really interesting to see what they are and how they form.
Done

SpaceNut · 2020-09-19 17:23:58

We are going to get a chance to get more data Spacecraft to fly past Venus weeks after signs of life detected in planet's atmosphere

A spacecraft with the intended destination of Mercury is expected to make a close flyby of Venus in mid-October, providing scientists with the chance to gather additional information to back up recent revelations that the distant planet may in fact harbor life. The spacecraft in question - BepiColombo - is part of a joint international project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Void · 2020-09-27 16:43:18

I have a concern about Venus.
I think that there is a low possibility of life, but a possibility.
I also think that there could be an intellegence. Even at low possibilities we could think it through, I feel.
Hive minds. Are you sure that they could not exist in the potential swams of life in the atmosphere of Venus?
Power = V * I
Yes, I am rudementary. This is the problem of humans and hive minds. Hive minds mostly work by verbal communication in humans. It is a short cut to intellegence in human individuals. It is both a blessing and a curse, in my opinion.
The true war is with the hive mind of humans in my opinion. It's objective is to prevent the loss of intellegence with excessive and inappropriate communications. Nature does not value intellegence unless it promotes survival aganst competitors.
It is rather normal for humans to form teams, usually of two, and then to war for the survival of the fittest. But the fittest may not be the most intellegent. Should we care? Well to do space suggests continuation of patterns. To impolde into a war of words of sticks and stones between two opposing teams, at this time suggests to me cancer. Internal consumption without continuation, if nature would abandon us, as we might ask too much of it on this planet.
I am not an athiest. However I do not think well of people who have teachings that say that they get a free pass just because God loves them the best. Every one else "Need Not Apply", as they are just future food for the anointed.
But each human is a hive of cells. So at that point it did occur for life to use hiving. I think we should be concerned to promote the intellegence of individual humans, rather than to honor dominance by verbal communications.
If there was or is intellegnce on Venus, then as far as we know it did not have means to propagate into space, except perhaps in the wildest thinking intentional pan spermia to Earth.
Probabbly not.
Still, I feel we should look for and respect the potential for such a Venus life form(s) and just maybe even some form of intellegence.
Are you sure they cannot look at us with a hive mind? (If by some small chance they exist).
Done.

Well, I was not complete.

P=I*V

If communication represents communication, and V = those who may represent a large potential, then conductivity is an issue. If you have a short circuit, how can you have power?

This is the mistake that many cultures have made. Up till now the USA and some others have mediated it sufficiently. So, also some other cultures.

But it is a concern, and the real most important war.

Done Done.

Last edited by Void (2020-09-27 16:48:20)

Forrest White · 2020-10-05 03:29:05

I heard that Blue Origin company builds spaceships in order to send the hard production to Moon. I guess that's a great idea because recent research has shown that Jupiter pushes planets from their orbit, and most probably in the future, the Earth can be replaced with one of the planets from the solar system.

SpaceNut · 2020-10-05 19:45:57

Welcome to Newmars Forrest White and yes we are waiting on blue origin but that's in other topics.

Calliban · 2020-10-06 03:02:32

I find it hard to get excited about a mission to Venus. The surface of Venus looks a lot like what I would imagine Hell to look like. This isn't a place where anyone in their right mind would ever want to live. Unless they are really self-loathing and want to punish themselves.

The idea of floating in the clouds in giant airships is just absurd. The Hindenburg, the largest aircraft ever built, had total lift of 250 tonnes. How big would an airship need to be to actually carry a small town, along with all of the equipment needed by its people to survive in an alien environment?

The idea of life in the clouds of Venus is far fetched. The discovery of phosphine is intriguing. But any microbes would need to metabolise concentrated sulphuric acid for their water. And what about trace elements needed to build living cells that are solids and not present in planetary atmospheres? It isn't just a case of surviving in an extreme environment. It is an environment that appears to lack the basic elements needed to support life.

Why are we interested in going to this place? Would it not be better to concentrate resources on Mars? Even the moon has better long-term human prospects than Venus does.

Last edited by Calliban (2020-10-06 03:10:23)

tahanson43206 · 2020-10-06 06:55:54

For Calliban re #268

Skepticism has it's place. Yours about the benefits of setting up shop on Venus seem reasonable (to me at least)

However, here are two facts of physics that are at the heart of the lure of Venus for some ...

First, the planet offers a "real" gravity that is close to that of Earth.

Second, the energy available in the orbit of the planet is greater than is available at Earth orbit, and far greater than at Mars.

The challenges of floating habitats in the atmosphere of Venus are ** just ** engineering problems ...

In answer to your question about balloon size, I would offer the comparison that thinking of building a building as tall as the tallest on Earth would surely seem like madness to any normal person. It takes a special mind set to imagine building such a building in the first place, and then to pull it off, by enlisting thousands of people in the undertaking. Humanity seems to have the capability to generate a sport like that every now and then.

Given the size of the population of Earth, there are more than enough people to mount significant settlement efforts at a number of locations in the Solar System without hindering any of the others. In fact, I would expect a multiple initiative exploration to be mutually reinforcing.

For comparison, even such a practical person as you appear to be has the imagination to conceive of wrapping an asteroid of loose rubble in an enclosure. It would probably seem impossible to the average person, but you have the capability of visualizing how it could be done, and with sufficient resources, I am confident you could pull it off.

In another topic, (Analog) I have reported on an in-depth analysis of how life might have evolved on Venus, and how humans might make a living there. The search for metals is recognized as a constant need, and solutions are proposed, starting with the obvious of import from elsewhere in the Solar System, but extending on to mining the planet itself as the technical problems are overcome.

(th)

Calliban · 2020-10-06 16:14:03

There is some speculation that deep subsurface rocks on Venus may actually be saturated with water. This gentleman posits an interesting theory.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-9C9Lm8z2e8

If true, then cooling Venus down would gradually release this water onto the surface as the rock cools.

SpaceNut · 2020-10-06 19:32:22

I do not think we will see cities in the clouds for a long time for venus and probably never for earth as there is to much space traffic to dodge now that we are firing rockets even not trying to go to space but to test military might for the 3rd world nations that want to be world rulers…

We did work out a means to deliver a carrier rocket the size of a Pegasus rocket to be a means to get back to orbit from a balloon.

First post has the venus blimp for the earth floating city question

kbd512 · 2020-10-07 00:55:24

Calliban,

Well, I rather fancy the idea of floating amongst the clouds. Real gravity, real radiation protection, real sunlight, Earth-like atmospheric pressure at the right altitude above the surface, functionally limitless wind and thermal power with the right conversion technology, therefore little need for nuclear power just to operate a colony, thereby opening up the playing field to nearly everyone with solid aviation technology. Venus has lots of things going for it. If the surface was a bit cooler, then nobody in their right mind would consider going to Mars.

tahanson43206 · 2020-10-07 05:51:51

For kbd512 re #272

Thanks for your nice summary of the benefits of approaching Venus as a potential fourth "home" for humanity.

SearchTerm:VenusBenefits Benefits of Venus http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 16#p172916

For Calliban ... thanks for the note of skepticism that produced such a result!

Bravo!

(th)

Calliban · 2020-10-07 06:54:55

For a small scientific outpost, I can see how it might be possible. But imagine building a balloon big enough to lift a steel works, or a factory or farmland for any significant number of people. For every tonne of those things that you need to lift, the balloon will need a volume of about 1000m3. Presumably, we would need a way of mining the surface to make new infrastructure. And we would need factories in balloons to make new balloons.

tahanson43206 · 2020-10-07 07:06:18

For Calliban re #274

You're on a roll! Please keep stretching your imagination. You're coming late to the party, but you are bringing a fresh set of insights.

Could you add a bit of detail to your mention of 1000m3 to hold a ton? I'm not questioning the figure! I'd appreciate an explanation of the gases that would be in play. I'm assuming (without anything other than intuition) that you are making your calculations for the region where atmospheric pressure is close to Earth sealevel.

It would be disappointing if you read the work of others first ... better to work from a clean slate and see what you come up with.

Your readers can compare notes at leisure.

(th)

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Re: Mission to Venus

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Re: Mission to Venus

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Re: Mission to Venus

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Re: Mission to Venus

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Re: Mission to Venus

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Re: Mission to Venus

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Re: Mission to Venus

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Re: Mission to Venus

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