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People who bring this up seem to miss that there is likely no practical way out of the Venus clouds. You'd be stuck until some next generation rocket tech comes
by childintime 6y ago
People who bring this up seem to miss that there is likely no practical way out of the Venus clouds. You'd be stuck until some next generation rocket tech comes along.
Remember Venus has about 91% of earth mass, so a significant rocket would be needed to get into orbit. Maybe Starship could be a capable single stage LVO transporter, but I have difficulty seeing it floating in the clouds, fully topped up, tethered to a balloon.
- mkl 6y agoI'm not saying it would be easy, but I think it would be easier than Mercury. Even getting to Mercury is hard. I think getting off Venus from 50km up wouldn't be too bad. If you've got enough flotation to carry a research station or city or whatever, with water supply, food production, life support, etc., you can carry a fuelled up Starship and Super Heavy (if your base is smaller, use a smaller rocket [1]). Launching them seems like it would be doable: drop in belly flop orientation, it glides a bit away as it falls, then starts the main engines and pivots to upright, and away it goes. "Landing" or whatever arrival would entail seems more complicated, but you might be able to make a platform a bit like landing on a barge (but one that can go down to cushion the landing). [1] A fully fuelled up Falcon 9 weighs more than the ISS, so we're talking a big research station for this to be feasible.
- valuearb 6y agoA Starship/SuperHeavy combo weighs 11M pounds, that’s going to have to be one super large balloon you are living on.
- mkl 6y agoThat's tiny compared to a city though. This whole colonisation idea is predicated on super large balloons. Since breathable air is a lifting gas, it seems like the people would probably live inside them.