4 ms·

I think these are great points, but with my limited knowledge, it still sounds like "being able to walk on the planet" trumps all of those point. Wouldn't it b

I think these are great points, but with my limited knowledge, it still sounds like "being able to walk on the planet" trumps all of those point. Wouldn't it be significantly harder/more expensive to ship everything needed to make a floating city to Venus than to make a grounded city on mars? For example, humans need space to move around. On Venus, to give people space you need to build more floating city. On Mars, people can always go outside in their spacesuit and take a walk. How do you overcome things like that on Venus? I'm very ignorant on the subject, so any information would be very interesting.

ncmncm 6y ago
You would need to ship the machines to split abundant CO2 and H2SO4 into C, H, S, and O, and to put them back together in different, useful combinations--carbon fiber and polypropylene, in particular, and O2, H2O, CH4, and maybe even lignin, cellulose, and broccoli. (Polypropylene because it is not attacked by H2SO4.) But with such equipment on hand, making places to walk around is just a matter of construction. Where, on Mars, would you walk to? There is noplace outside pleasant to be. It's always colder than Antarctica, but with no water and no air. Survival on another planet would be no picnic on the Cam, dirt underfoot or no.