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Oh my gosh - I'd never considered living inside a Venutian blimp before. Of course! Why not? I still have fantasies about Venus being somehow a more likely [ve

Oh my gosh - I'd never considered living inside a Venutian blimp before. Of course! Why not? I still have fantasies about Venus being somehow a more likely [very] long-term prospect for terraforming, despite the planet's rotational problems. Seems like a thick atmosphere filled with (admittedly lethal) useful gases and potentially-organic compounds offers a much better resource than Mars' practical lack of a one.

pacala 7y ago
Why not? Because of the myriad things that can go wrong and bring doom to the enterprise. In due time one of them will happen. Stable systems are governed by negative feedback loops, blimps are not one of them.
- Sharlin 7y ago
  Neither are ships, but we have become pretty good at keeping them buoyant, primarily by properly compartmentalizing the internal space.
bilbo0s 7y ago
>I'd never considered living inside a Venutian blimp before. Of course! Why not? Are you aware of wind velocities at an altitude high enough to get you 1 bar on Venus? Think Goodyear blimp -- in hurricane Katrina. OK, now that you've got a picture of that in mind -- double the wind speed.
- omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
  Isn't the dv/dt really the issue? If Venus has stable high altitude wind, would the speed really matter?
  - klyrs 7y ago
    Call me pessimistic but I'd expect some pretty wicked turbulence... what'll happen to that blimp when each side is taking on cat5 velocities in different directions? "Artificial gravity" is not the right answer ;)
    - omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
      That doesn't seem to be the case for the most part, although I'm sure something would need to consistently monitor weather conditions to avoid anything close to that. This altitude is within the high-velocity "superrotation" region of the Venus atmosphere, where a constant wind moves at a velocity on the order of a hundred meters per second. This means that over the two days of the mission, the balloons traversed about 11,000 km, from the night hemisphere into the day hemisphere. About two days into the mission, the primary batteries were depleted, and contact was lost. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110016033.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/201100... Edit - According to this the zonal winds are ~60mph at certain elevations. https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2014/44535/13-5079A1b.pdf?sequence=1 https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2014/44535/13-5079...
- yongjik 7y ago
  Oh, and the air has enough sulfur dioxide to kill you, because otherwise it would be too easy.
- detritus 7y ago
  Vega 2 Dropped a balloon probe over 40 years ago that lasted at least a few hours as it floated at its level and traversed 11,000Km. Why not hope that in another couple of hundred years we could make something that could last significantly longer, and could house a manned station? Before then, small steps? Venus is a hellscape by comparison to Earth, but we are incredibly resourceful apes with imaginations unbound by meagre constraints.
_Microft 7y ago
You might like [0] or even [1] in general. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operational_Concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operationa... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus

pacala 7y ago

Why not? Because of the myriad things that can go wrong and bring doom to the enterprise. In due time one of them will happen. Stable systems are governed by negative feedback loops, blimps are not one of them.

Sharlin 7y ago
Neither are ships, but we have become pretty good at keeping them buoyant, primarily by properly compartmentalizing the internal space.

bilbo0s 7y ago

>I'd never considered living inside a Venutian blimp before. Of course! Why not? Are you aware of wind velocities at an altitude high enough to get you 1 bar on Venus? Think Goodyear blimp -- in hurricane Katrina. OK, now that you've got a picture of that in mind -- double the wind speed.

omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
Isn't the dv/dt really the issue? If Venus has stable high altitude wind, would the speed really matter?
- klyrs 7y ago
  Call me pessimistic but I'd expect some pretty wicked turbulence... what'll happen to that blimp when each side is taking on cat5 velocities in different directions? "Artificial gravity" is not the right answer ;)
  - omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
    That doesn't seem to be the case for the most part, although I'm sure something would need to consistently monitor weather conditions to avoid anything close to that. This altitude is within the high-velocity "superrotation" region of the Venus atmosphere, where a constant wind moves at a velocity on the order of a hundred meters per second. This means that over the two days of the mission, the balloons traversed about 11,000 km, from the night hemisphere into the day hemisphere. About two days into the mission, the primary batteries were depleted, and contact was lost. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110016033.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/201100... Edit - According to this the zonal winds are ~60mph at certain elevations. https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2014/44535/13-5079A1b.pdf?sequence=1 https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2014/44535/13-5079...
yongjik 7y ago
Oh, and the air has enough sulfur dioxide to kill you, because otherwise it would be too easy.
detritus 7y ago
Vega 2 Dropped a balloon probe over 40 years ago that lasted at least a few hours as it floated at its level and traversed 11,000Km. Why not hope that in another couple of hundred years we could make something that could last significantly longer, and could house a manned station? Before then, small steps? Venus is a hellscape by comparison to Earth, but we are incredibly resourceful apes with imaginations unbound by meagre constraints.

_Microft 7y ago

You might like [0] or even [1] in general. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operational_Concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operationa... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus