5 ms·

We still don't have a set of robots whose lifetime will be measured in days, not hours. Really, if the atmosphere was fixed a bit then most of what you said wou

We still don't have a set of robots whose lifetime will be measured in days, not hours. Really, if the atmosphere was fixed a bit then most of what you said would become possible, but it's unclear just how that's going to happen, especially at first.

shostack 11y ago
What sorts of implications might there be if we actually had a way of fixing the atmosphere? I imagine that it is intimately connected to other aspects of the planet.
- cstross 11y ago
  One huge problem with Venus, even if we could "fix" the atmosphere, is that there's no working plate tectonic system. It's hypothesized that the build-up of stresses actually leads to the crust liquefying every couple of hundred million years. There's also the slight problem of the Venusian "day" being 116.75 Earth days (compared to a year 243.69 days long). It's not tidally locked but there are some pretty fierce winds in the stratosphere (at ground level the atmosphere is so dense -- 92 bar pressure -- that wind speeds are on the order of 1 m/s). Next, there's a huge amount of heat trapped in the atmosphere. "Fixing" it isn't just a matter of dumping comets full of water into the atmosphere, there's the slight matter of Venus being a whole lot closer to the sun that Earth, and receiving a much higher level of insolation. All in all, the lack of a magnetic field is relatively minor compared to the other issues. Flip side: Earth atmospheric gas mix at STP is actually a pretty efficient airship lifting gas on Venus and would provide about equivalent lift per unit volume 30-40km up in the stratosphere as hydrogen provides to a terrestrial airship at sea level. (In other words, you could in principle build a zeppelin where you could walk around inside the lift cells of in shirt sleeve conditions.) And there's still a chunk of atmosphere above that to provide radiation shielding. So a human "base" in the Venusian cloud tops is conceivable, albeit technically challenging.
  - shostack 11y ago
    Thanks for all the details! Given your knowledge of the science fiction space, are you able to recommend any books that delve into what living/working in a Venusian cloud-top base might be like at the scientific level of Seveneves, or similar to the "slice of life" approach of PlanetES? I always had a thing for wanting to know more about the nitty gritty of living in such a "Cloud City" type of place.
    - lmm 11y ago
      Coming at this a little sideways, the Eclipse Phase sourcebooks might be what you're after - Sunward ( http://eclipsephase.com/releases/sunward-inner-system http://eclipsephase.com/releases/sunward-inner-system ; it's liberally licensed so there are legitimate torrents around as well ) is likely to have the most about the Venus aerostat habitats in-setting. Eclipse Phase is intended as an RPG but it's extremely hard sci-fi that at times feels it's as much a futurological thesis as a game.
nine_k 11y ago
One of the solutions proposed since 1960s is to engineer a kind of atmosphere-floating algae that would synthesize just the right amount of H₂ to keep themselves afloat in the habitable belt of the atmosphere. Without predators and with plenty of CO₂ and access to NH₄ and such, they would multiply quickly and deplete the excess CO₂ from the atmosphere in a century or two.

shostack 11y ago

What sorts of implications might there be if we actually had a way of fixing the atmosphere? I imagine that it is intimately connected to other aspects of the planet.

cstross 11y ago
One huge problem with Venus, even if we could "fix" the atmosphere, is that there's no working plate tectonic system. It's hypothesized that the build-up of stresses actually leads to the crust liquefying every couple of hundred million years. There's also the slight problem of the Venusian "day" being 116.75 Earth days (compared to a year 243.69 days long). It's not tidally locked but there are some pretty fierce winds in the stratosphere (at ground level the atmosphere is so dense -- 92 bar pressure -- that wind speeds are on the order of 1 m/s). Next, there's a huge amount of heat trapped in the atmosphere. "Fixing" it isn't just a matter of dumping comets full of water into the atmosphere, there's the slight matter of Venus being a whole lot closer to the sun that Earth, and receiving a much higher level of insolation. All in all, the lack of a magnetic field is relatively minor compared to the other issues. Flip side: Earth atmospheric gas mix at STP is actually a pretty efficient airship lifting gas on Venus and would provide about equivalent lift per unit volume 30-40km up in the stratosphere as hydrogen provides to a terrestrial airship at sea level. (In other words, you could in principle build a zeppelin where you could walk around inside the lift cells of in shirt sleeve conditions.) And there's still a chunk of atmosphere above that to provide radiation shielding. So a human "base" in the Venusian cloud tops is conceivable, albeit technically challenging.
- shostack 11y ago
  Thanks for all the details! Given your knowledge of the science fiction space, are you able to recommend any books that delve into what living/working in a Venusian cloud-top base might be like at the scientific level of Seveneves, or similar to the "slice of life" approach of PlanetES? I always had a thing for wanting to know more about the nitty gritty of living in such a "Cloud City" type of place.
  - lmm 11y ago
    Coming at this a little sideways, the Eclipse Phase sourcebooks might be what you're after - Sunward ( http://eclipsephase.com/releases/sunward-inner-system http://eclipsephase.com/releases/sunward-inner-system ; it's liberally licensed so there are legitimate torrents around as well ) is likely to have the most about the Venus aerostat habitats in-setting. Eclipse Phase is intended as an RPG but it's extremely hard sci-fi that at times feels it's as much a futurological thesis as a game.

nine_k 11y ago

One of the solutions proposed since 1960s is to engineer a kind of atmosphere-floating algae that would synthesize just the right amount of H₂ to keep themselves afloat in the habitable belt of the atmosphere. Without predators and with plenty of CO₂ and access to NH₄ and such, they would multiply quickly and deplete the excess CO₂ from the atmosphere in a century or two.