6 ms·

Good read. Perhaps we need a competing Venus religion? Consider building a floating airship community in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Perhaps we could also co

Good read. Perhaps we need a competing Venus religion? Consider building a floating airship community in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Perhaps we could also control contamination easier being close to edge of space where we could put waste into an orbit for collection and disposal at a later time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operational_Concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operationa... Doesn't this seem like a much more exciting and compelling option compared to landing on Mars?

phaedryx 4y ago
I think that Venus makes more sense as a next step than Mars does.
Apocryphon 4y ago
Thankfully this essay does discuss Venus, briefly, in a footnote. I'm a big proponent of exploring that planet, partly as contrarianism against the Martian cultists, mostly because of this discussion on HN alerted me to the idea - even Mercury colonization is worth considering! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5734333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5734333
- idlewords 4y ago
  I agree with you; I also wish Bezos would go all-in on Venus and make things fun.
elihu 4y ago
What would people do there in their airships? It seems kind of anti-climatic to settle a planet without ever actually being able to descend to the surface.
- zwilliamson 4y ago
  Perhaps fly around in personal size drone ships. Hop between different air ship settlements. I would find that more climatic than the barren Martian surface.
saberdancer 4y ago
It may be more exciting and visually attractive but it misses all the things that make Mars colony interesting. Venus airship will be unable to get raw materials - you are effectively making a space station in atmosphere of Venus. You can only capture gases and get energy from sunlight. You can't mine.
- m4rtink 4y ago
  The atmosphere is IIRC quite turbulent in places, so you might be able to get some energy from that as well, by exploiting wind speed in different places and heights. Or maybe if you can achieve a stable anchor in the hell down there, won't that turn your floating station into a forever running wind turbine ? Or maybe exploit the huge temperature differences between the surface and much colder cloud layers ? Some sort of pipe or thermocouple or even winching materials with high thermal capacity up and down ? Now thinking about it I could imagine a "Venus forge" where you winch up and down batches of materials in heat resistant containers! As for gas mining - most of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, which is a good start - carbon for construction and food, oxygen for internal atmosphere and combustion engines and rockets. Then there is apparently a lot of nitrogen, so you could have a "real" atmosphere and not a pure oxygen flame fest. Looks like there is also water vapor, that gives you even more input for life support and hydrogen for combustion and rockets. Possibly for fusion tech in future as well. Look like there is also a bunch of noble gases, chloride, fluoride - could be useful as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus As for surface mining - that's actually an intriguing idea! Two options come to mind: 1) Essentially strip mining using suspended grappling claws. Grab stuff, winch it up or dump it elsewhere. Is the rock down below too solid ? Drop a well isolated liquid nitrogen dewar on it, the thermal stress from that should be enough to tear it apart. Or go the other way around and make the stuff melt & scoop it. 2) Underground mining - the biggest issue would be to get a mine running, but once underground, the main extremes of the Venus environment could be overcome provided rock temperature underground it sane (is it ? not sure :P). The main issue would likely be atmospheric intrusion from the surface - at 93 bars it like about 1 km under the ocean, so likely solvable.

phaedryx 4y ago

I think that Venus makes more sense as a next step than Mars does.

Apocryphon 4y ago

Thankfully this essay does discuss Venus, briefly, in a footnote. I'm a big proponent of exploring that planet, partly as contrarianism against the Martian cultists, mostly because of this discussion on HN alerted me to the idea - even Mercury colonization is worth considering! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5734333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5734333

idlewords 4y ago
I agree with you; I also wish Bezos would go all-in on Venus and make things fun.

elihu 4y ago

What would people do there in their airships? It seems kind of anti-climatic to settle a planet without ever actually being able to descend to the surface.

zwilliamson 4y ago
Perhaps fly around in personal size drone ships. Hop between different air ship settlements. I would find that more climatic than the barren Martian surface.

saberdancer 4y ago

It may be more exciting and visually attractive but it misses all the things that make Mars colony interesting. Venus airship will be unable to get raw materials - you are effectively making a space station in atmosphere of Venus. You can only capture gases and get energy from sunlight. You can't mine.

m4rtink 4y ago
The atmosphere is IIRC quite turbulent in places, so you might be able to get some energy from that as well, by exploiting wind speed in different places and heights. Or maybe if you can achieve a stable anchor in the hell down there, won't that turn your floating station into a forever running wind turbine ? Or maybe exploit the huge temperature differences between the surface and much colder cloud layers ? Some sort of pipe or thermocouple or even winching materials with high thermal capacity up and down ? Now thinking about it I could imagine a "Venus forge" where you winch up and down batches of materials in heat resistant containers! As for gas mining - most of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, which is a good start - carbon for construction and food, oxygen for internal atmosphere and combustion engines and rockets. Then there is apparently a lot of nitrogen, so you could have a "real" atmosphere and not a pure oxygen flame fest. Looks like there is also water vapor, that gives you even more input for life support and hydrogen for combustion and rockets. Possibly for fusion tech in future as well. Look like there is also a bunch of noble gases, chloride, fluoride - could be useful as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus As for surface mining - that's actually an intriguing idea! Two options come to mind: 1) Essentially strip mining using suspended grappling claws. Grab stuff, winch it up or dump it elsewhere. Is the rock down below too solid ? Drop a well isolated liquid nitrogen dewar on it, the thermal stress from that should be enough to tear it apart. Or go the other way around and make the stuff melt & scoop it. 2) Underground mining - the biggest issue would be to get a mine running, but once underground, the main extremes of the Venus environment could be overcome provided rock temperature underground it sane (is it ? not sure :P). The main issue would likely be atmospheric intrusion from the surface - at 93 bars it like about 1 km under the ocean, so likely solvable.