Floating City over Venus

I still wonder about how they'll get the natural resources they need. Granted, a closed ecology means you don't need to import a lot to keep going, but what if you want to grow? I think one of the appealing aspects of High Frontier is that there are all of those lovely asteroids at hand, and growth can be as robust as we like.

Some might argue that perhaps raw materials can be dredged up from the surface. But I think conditions on the surface of Venus not only preclude human visitation, but technical operations of any kind.

A molecular manufacturing enthusiast might argue that most everything we build in the future will be built from carbon. And we could certainly pull carbon in from the surrounding atmosphere. Still, it's difficult to imagine an entire industrialized civilization which doesn't need anything beyond carbon.

It's an entertaining idea, and I don't know that I could rule out someone doing it just to prove that it can be done. But I'm skeptical Venusian habitats could economically compete with orbital ones.

I think concepts like this derive from the kind of thinking which supposes we will inhabit the places which have the most benign environments. It other words, we'll live wherever the life-support requirements are lessened. But my thinking is that we'll live where the economic opportunities are, and do whatever we must to engineer life-sustaining environments there. Even if one says the economic opportunity is to build more habitats for more settlers, that brings us back around to my point about obtaining the resources needed for growth.

This kind of thinking is also why I think 9 out of 10 space enthusiasts take it for granted the first off-world settlements will be on the surface of Mars. And then when you ask them what the export is for Mars which will balance the trade, you get a blank look, and then an insistence that it will be easier to sustain humans on Mars than anywhere else.

Regards,
Mike Combs

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com [mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of sraj
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 4:06 AM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [spacesettlers] : Floating City over Venus

This idea dates back to the Russians in the 1970s. The surface of Venus is far too hot, and the atmosphere too dense, for Earth life. However, our air is a lifting gas on Venus with about half the lifting power of helium on Eath. A habitat filled with normal air will float high in the dense Venus atmosphere, The atmospheric pressure there is the same as Earth sea level (1 bar). Temperatures are perfect for Earth life too, just over 0C.

Also, just as weather balloons naturally rise to their operating level high in our atmosphere - and don't need to be engineered to hold in high pressures, so it works in the same way for our habitats on Venus. They float at a level where the pressure is equal inside and out, and can be of light construction. It is arguably the most hospitable region for humanity in our solar system, outside of Earth itself...

http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/blog/earth_air_filled_habitats_will_float_over_clouds_venus_future_home_humanity-127573

I still wonder about how they'll get the natural resources they need. Granted, a closed ecology means you don't need to import a lot to keep going, but what if you want to grow? I think one of the appealing aspects of High Frontier is that there are all of those lovely asteroids at hand, and growth can be as robust as we like.

Some might argue that perhaps raw materials can be dredged up from the surface. But I think conditions on the surface of Venus not only preclude human visitation, but technical operations of any kind.

A molecular manufacturing enthusiast might argue that most everything we build in the future will be built from carbon. And we could certainly pull carbon in from the surrounding atmosphere. Still, it's difficult to imagine an entire industrialized civilization which doesn't need anything beyond carbon.

It's an entertaining idea, and I don't know that I could rule out someone doing it just to prove that it can be done. But I'm skeptical Venusian habitats could economically compete with orbital ones.

I think concepts like this derive from the kind of thinking which supposes we will inhabit the places which have the most benign environments. It other words, we'll live wherever the life-support requirements are lessened. But my thinking is that we'll live where the economic opportunities are, and do whatever we must to engineer life-sustaining environments there. Even if one says the economic opportunity is to build more habitats for more settlers, that brings us back around to my point about obtaining the resources needed for growth.

This kind of thinking is also why I think 9 out of 10 space enthusiasts take it for granted the first off-world settlements will be on the surface of Mars. And then when you ask them what the export is for Mars which will balance the trade, you get a blank look, and then an insistence that it will be easier to sustain humans on Mars than anywhere else.

Regards,
Mike Combs

From:
spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com [mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of
sraj
Sent:
Tuesday, January 14, 2014 4:06 AM
To:
spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject:
[spacesettlers] : Floating City over Venus

This idea dates back to the Russians in the 1970s. The surface of Venus is far too hot, and the atmosphere too dense, for Earth life. However, our air is a lifting gas on Venus with about half the lifting power of helium on Eath. A habitat filled with normal air will float high in the dense Venus atmosphere, The atmospheric pressure there is the same as Earth sea level (1 bar). Temperatures are perfect for Earth life too, just over 0C.
Also, just as weather balloons naturally rise to their operating level high in our atmosphere - and don't need to be engineered to hold in high pressures, so it works in the same way for our habitats on Venus. They float at a level where the pressure is equal inside and out, and can be of light construction. It is arguably the most hospitable region for humanity in our solar system, outside of Earth itself...
http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/blog/earth_air_filled_habitats_will_float_over_clouds_venus_future_home_humanity-127573