5 ms·

And what are we going to do there? Mine sulphuric acid from the clouds?

by meindnoch 4y ago

haarts 4y ago
Enjoy the view obviously. Cruise!
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  In case that wasn't sarcarsm - you won't see much, as you would be inside the acid clouds.
andbberger 4y ago
what are we going to do from mars
- ben_w 4y ago
  Everywhere but Earth is really inhospitable, but if it were up to me, I'd pick the Moon first, then Mars, then some asteroids, then way down the list — after we've got space industry sufficient to make planet-sized mirrors — then I'd pick the planet where the surface-level condensation is lead vapour in an acid pressure cooker.
  - kspacewalk2 4y ago
    Okay, asteroids presumably make economic sense due to mining potential, but otherwise - why the hate for Venus? What's so special about being on the surface of a planet? Just don't go to where the lead vapour is, enjoy the cloudy view from 50km above the surface instead.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      Might be a monkey brain, but the mere possibility of falling 50km through crushing boiling acid is the kind of thing that'll stop me getting to sleep. More so than a deadly vacuum on the other side of a wall.
      - kfarr 4y ago
        Yeah but iirc because of atmospheric density it's not crazy to build a floating habitat. At least no crazier then the tech required to get a crew and equipment to Venus in the first place
      - wolverine876 4y ago
        If your habitat somehow fails on Mars, you have just as much chance of living. Mars' surface is much less hospitable than Venus at 50 km.
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    The one big thing that Venus has, and every other option does not - is earthlike gravity. That is a big deal, so I am all for exploring options of terraforming Venus to remove that acid somehow, because despite as Space enthusiastic as I am - living inside hot acid clouds is also not my dream.
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    The thing is about a space economy IMO: 1) getting enough stuff out of Earth's gravity well 2) getting a reasonably self-sufficient population for survival and manufacturing of survival goods But once you get there, the lack of a big gravity well makes this a lot easier. Low-G or zero-G is a lot easier to move stuff around at the small scales. How much could I lift on the moon? I'm torn between a moon base and doing enough near-earth asteroid captures to build a space hab. Political support would probably be behind the moon base first, but a space hab built from captured asteroids might be cheaper. Anyway, once you get a big enough base in space and some manufacturing, build a couple orion pulse nuclear ships, or some nuclear thermal equivalent to hop around the solar system quickly. Then we can probably start mining high value asteroids. Then Mars and Venus start making sense. Maybe we can find a closer brown dwarf than Proxima. THEN, we can go for some nearby stars.
- elihu 4y ago
  Tourism, mining high value minerals for Earth, mining low value minerals for construction on Mars, manufacturing rocket fuel so that Mars can be the gas station for ships headed for the asteroid belt (enabling more high value mineral mining), low-gravity retirement communities for people with mobility issues who would be wheelchair-bound on Earth, real estate speculation, movies, sports, manufacturing space infrastructure (easier to launch things into orbit due to lower gravity), and basic science.
  - einpoklum 4y ago
    If I were living on Mars, I would absolutely not be willing to let the rare minerals get sent up into space then down to Earth. Learn to recycle, damn lazy Earthers.
    - gridspy 4y ago
      I think you'd appreciate the complex manufactured items and goods requiring plastics that only Earth can export to you. If tons of mined materials or produced goods thereof were the cost, you would be keen to pay it.
      - vlovich123 4y ago
        Quick research shows that Martian atmosphere is 95% CO2. So if you had a fission / fusion reactor, one use of energy might be to extract carbon from the air. That would also generate oxygen btw.
    - elihu 4y ago
      I mean, sure, how can you expect to live a normal middle-class lifestyle without a few hundred tons of ytterbium? What are they going to want next? Lanthanum? Terbium? Praseodymium? Dysprosium? What else are we supposed to build our palaces out of, plain old ordinary gold? How impractical and gaudy would that be?
    - smegger001 4y ago
      If we can get enough minerals from space then we can stop mining on earth which is a horrible process that has horrible effects on the environment. make earth a park nature/nature reserve and move all the industrial base to space where toxins wont poison the rivers, and industrial waste wont kill the animals
LarryMullins 4y ago
Tie things to string and dip them into the acid clouds. Upload the results to youtube for profit.
unsupp0rted 4y ago
Build a second basket for our eggs. There are obviously better baskets than Venus though. I'd sooner choose an orbital habitat.
- smegger001 4y ago
  its not one or the the other though it is very possible to do all of them. build floating Venusian bubble cities, make O'Neill cylinders orbiting around every celestial body of note, while building tunnel cities on mars and the moon and hallow out asteroid and build Stanford Torus in them . We are planet of over 7 billion people we can do more than one thing, and the more varied and distant the baskets humanity is spread to the better.
- poulpy123 4y ago
  There is no second basket possible and the idea that there is one is a recipe for disaster
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    And NOT doing it is a good idea? Like the world governing fuckheads have their heads out of their asses yet after 30 years of the IPCC being validated? Like we keep being told that population will level out, but I've seen, what, HOLY CRAP, 4 billion people added since I was born, 3.7 --> 7.7. Because we are totally on top of species depletion? And the world government totally is stable with China and Russia and the US and EU and North Korea and Islam-land and everyone trying to get nukes? You know what is mind blowingly dumb? Wasting a trillion dollars a year on defense spending, in the US alone. With China starting to get greedy over space, I think we'll see plenty of investment soon.
pfdietz 4y ago
Yes, for the deuterium, which is enriched by two orders of magnitude over the value here on Earth.

And what are we going to do there? Mine sulphuric acid from the clouds?

haarts 4y ago

Enjoy the view obviously. Cruise!

hutzlibu 4y ago
In case that wasn't sarcarsm - you won't see much, as you would be inside the acid clouds.

andbberger 4y ago

what are we going to do from mars

ben_w 4y ago
Everywhere but Earth is really inhospitable, but if it were up to me, I'd pick the Moon first, then Mars, then some asteroids, then way down the list — after we've got space industry sufficient to make planet-sized mirrors — then I'd pick the planet where the surface-level condensation is lead vapour in an acid pressure cooker.
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  Okay, asteroids presumably make economic sense due to mining potential, but otherwise - why the hate for Venus? What's so special about being on the surface of a planet? Just don't go to where the lead vapour is, enjoy the cloudy view from 50km above the surface instead.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Might be a monkey brain, but the mere possibility of falling 50km through crushing boiling acid is the kind of thing that'll stop me getting to sleep. More so than a deadly vacuum on the other side of a wall.
    - kfarr 4y ago
      Yeah but iirc because of atmospheric density it's not crazy to build a floating habitat. At least no crazier then the tech required to get a crew and equipment to Venus in the first place
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      If your habitat somehow fails on Mars, you have just as much chance of living. Mars' surface is much less hospitable than Venus at 50 km.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  The one big thing that Venus has, and every other option does not - is earthlike gravity. That is a big deal, so I am all for exploring options of terraforming Venus to remove that acid somehow, because despite as Space enthusiastic as I am - living inside hot acid clouds is also not my dream.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  The thing is about a space economy IMO: 1) getting enough stuff out of Earth's gravity well 2) getting a reasonably self-sufficient population for survival and manufacturing of survival goods But once you get there, the lack of a big gravity well makes this a lot easier. Low-G or zero-G is a lot easier to move stuff around at the small scales. How much could I lift on the moon? I'm torn between a moon base and doing enough near-earth asteroid captures to build a space hab. Political support would probably be behind the moon base first, but a space hab built from captured asteroids might be cheaper. Anyway, once you get a big enough base in space and some manufacturing, build a couple orion pulse nuclear ships, or some nuclear thermal equivalent to hop around the solar system quickly. Then we can probably start mining high value asteroids. Then Mars and Venus start making sense. Maybe we can find a closer brown dwarf than Proxima. THEN, we can go for some nearby stars.
elihu 4y ago
Tourism, mining high value minerals for Earth, mining low value minerals for construction on Mars, manufacturing rocket fuel so that Mars can be the gas station for ships headed for the asteroid belt (enabling more high value mineral mining), low-gravity retirement communities for people with mobility issues who would be wheelchair-bound on Earth, real estate speculation, movies, sports, manufacturing space infrastructure (easier to launch things into orbit due to lower gravity), and basic science.
- einpoklum 4y ago
  If I were living on Mars, I would absolutely not be willing to let the rare minerals get sent up into space then down to Earth. Learn to recycle, damn lazy Earthers.
  - gridspy 4y ago
    I think you'd appreciate the complex manufactured items and goods requiring plastics that only Earth can export to you. If tons of mined materials or produced goods thereof were the cost, you would be keen to pay it.
    - vlovich123 4y ago
      Quick research shows that Martian atmosphere is 95% CO2. So if you had a fission / fusion reactor, one use of energy might be to extract carbon from the air. That would also generate oxygen btw.
  - elihu 4y ago
    I mean, sure, how can you expect to live a normal middle-class lifestyle without a few hundred tons of ytterbium? What are they going to want next? Lanthanum? Terbium? Praseodymium? Dysprosium? What else are we supposed to build our palaces out of, plain old ordinary gold? How impractical and gaudy would that be?
  - smegger001 4y ago
    If we can get enough minerals from space then we can stop mining on earth which is a horrible process that has horrible effects on the environment. make earth a park nature/nature reserve and move all the industrial base to space where toxins wont poison the rivers, and industrial waste wont kill the animals

LarryMullins 4y ago

Tie things to string and dip them into the acid clouds. Upload the results to youtube for profit.

unsupp0rted 4y ago

Build a second basket for our eggs. There are obviously better baskets than Venus though. I'd sooner choose an orbital habitat.

smegger001 4y ago
its not one or the the other though it is very possible to do all of them. build floating Venusian bubble cities, make O'Neill cylinders orbiting around every celestial body of note, while building tunnel cities on mars and the moon and hallow out asteroid and build Stanford Torus in them . We are planet of over 7 billion people we can do more than one thing, and the more varied and distant the baskets humanity is spread to the better.
poulpy123 4y ago
There is no second basket possible and the idea that there is one is a recipe for disaster
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  And NOT doing it is a good idea? Like the world governing fuckheads have their heads out of their asses yet after 30 years of the IPCC being validated? Like we keep being told that population will level out, but I've seen, what, HOLY CRAP, 4 billion people added since I was born, 3.7 --> 7.7. Because we are totally on top of species depletion? And the world government totally is stable with China and Russia and the US and EU and North Korea and Islam-land and everyone trying to get nukes? You know what is mind blowingly dumb? Wasting a trillion dollars a year on defense spending, in the US alone. With China starting to get greedy over space, I think we'll see plenty of investment soon.

pfdietz 4y ago

Yes, for the deuterium, which is enriched by two orders of magnitude over the value here on Earth.