4 ms·

I wonder if you could make a huge steel balloon float in the Venusian atmosphere. You'd run into problems with the atmospheric acid eating away at the skin, bu

I wonder if you could make a huge steel balloon float in the Venusian atmosphere. You'd run into problems with the atmospheric acid eating away at the skin, but I wonder if you can at least float high enough to have a pleasant outdoor temperature. At least the Sun wouldn't appear tiny and cold as from Mars! https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsts/14/1/14_1_11/_article/-char/ja/ https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsts/14/1/14_1_11/_arti...

marcosdumay 2y ago
You'd make a tefflon balloon. Steel is not good for using there. Besides, you can mine the material for tefflon right from the atmosphere. You can't do that for steel.
- Teever 2y ago
  I love the idea of floating, self replicating factories on Venus that launch comets made of dry ice to Mars to build up an atmosphere on Mars and reduce the atmosphere on Venus.
- andrewflnr 2y ago
  I'd think you actually just use whatever plastic they use to make the container they ship sulfuric acid in?
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    Among the chief arguments for a balloon-based Venus station is that the high atmosphere doesn't have (much?) sulfuric acid, as the surface does. So surviving H2SO4 isn't highly salient.
    - andrewflnr 2y ago
      It doesn't take a lot of acid to cause problems over time. You still wouldn't want to use steel, as mentioned above. But yeah, you don't need Teflon either. Honestly I'm pretty sure I remember HDPE showing up in real proposals for Venus missions, which is why it was top of mind.
  - kuschku 2y ago
    Yes, that's PTFE aka Teflon.
    - andrewflnr 2y ago
      Looks like you can use HDPE, actually. I think that's what it's usually shipped in, too. https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=157030 https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=15...
      - marcosdumay 2y ago
        Well, HDPE would be way easier to manufacture there. But people on your link are mostly unanimous: "Quite often the caps are the weakest point. And as mentioned above HDPE bottles tend to sweat over time. I would vote against long time storage (years on end) of sulfuric acid in HDPE bottles."
        andrewflnr 2y ago
        They are not nearly unanimous. > I have also a HDPE bottle of 98% sulfuric acid over a decade old without single hint of issue. And they're talking about almost pure acid, which is not nearly what's going on in at atmosphere that's mostly CO2. Venus is probably not even as strong as drain cleaner.
rkagerer 2y ago
There's absolutely a school of thought which views Venus as a better colonization candidate than Mars, and as early as the 70's scientists envisioned floating cities. From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus: In effect, a balloon full of human-breathable air would sustain itself and extra weight (such as a colony) in midair. At an altitude of 50 kilometres (31 mi) above the Venusian surface, the environment is the most Earth-like in the Solar System beyond Earth itself – a pressure of approximately 1 atm or 1000 hPa and temperatures in the 0 to 50 °C (273 to 323 K; 32 to 122 °F) range. Protection against cosmic radiation would be provided by the atmosphere above, with shielding mass equivalent to Earth's. Humans working outside could wear simpler breathing masks rather than full pressure suits. In fact I came here to offer a counterpoint to this statement in the article: "Nearby Venus has far too much atmosphere, whose pressure and noxious gases would crush and choke visitors from Earth." Of course high windspeeds and the constant bombardment of acid rain would be a problem. I could imagine Venus one day being an exotic, cloud-top paradise for the rich (reminiscent of BioShock Infinity) that's expensive to maintain, and Mars a brute workhorse that eventually displaces it as a more resilient habitat over the very long term (eg. after terraforming).
- helpfulContrib 2y ago
  [dead]

marcosdumay 2y ago

You'd make a tefflon balloon. Steel is not good for using there. Besides, you can mine the material for tefflon right from the atmosphere. You can't do that for steel.

Teever 2y ago
I love the idea of floating, self replicating factories on Venus that launch comets made of dry ice to Mars to build up an atmosphere on Mars and reduce the atmosphere on Venus.
andrewflnr 2y ago
I'd think you actually just use whatever plastic they use to make the container they ship sulfuric acid in?
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  Among the chief arguments for a balloon-based Venus station is that the high atmosphere doesn't have (much?) sulfuric acid, as the surface does. So surviving H2SO4 isn't highly salient.
  - andrewflnr 2y ago
    It doesn't take a lot of acid to cause problems over time. You still wouldn't want to use steel, as mentioned above. But yeah, you don't need Teflon either. Honestly I'm pretty sure I remember HDPE showing up in real proposals for Venus missions, which is why it was top of mind.
- kuschku 2y ago
  Yes, that's PTFE aka Teflon.
  - andrewflnr 2y ago
    Looks like you can use HDPE, actually. I think that's what it's usually shipped in, too. https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=157030 https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=15...
    - marcosdumay 2y ago
      Well, HDPE would be way easier to manufacture there. But people on your link are mostly unanimous: "Quite often the caps are the weakest point. And as mentioned above HDPE bottles tend to sweat over time. I would vote against long time storage (years on end) of sulfuric acid in HDPE bottles."
      - andrewflnr 2y ago
        They are not nearly unanimous. > I have also a HDPE bottle of 98% sulfuric acid over a decade old without single hint of issue. And they're talking about almost pure acid, which is not nearly what's going on in at atmosphere that's mostly CO2. Venus is probably not even as strong as drain cleaner.

rkagerer 2y ago

There's absolutely a school of thought which views Venus as a better colonization candidate than Mars, and as early as the 70's scientists envisioned floating cities. From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus: In effect, a balloon full of human-breathable air would sustain itself and extra weight (such as a colony) in midair. At an altitude of 50 kilometres (31 mi) above the Venusian surface, the environment is the most Earth-like in the Solar System beyond Earth itself – a pressure of approximately 1 atm or 1000 hPa and temperatures in the 0 to 50 °C (273 to 323 K; 32 to 122 °F) range. Protection against cosmic radiation would be provided by the atmosphere above, with shielding mass equivalent to Earth's. Humans working outside could wear simpler breathing masks rather than full pressure suits. In fact I came here to offer a counterpoint to this statement in the article: "Nearby Venus has far too much atmosphere, whose pressure and noxious gases would crush and choke visitors from Earth." Of course high windspeeds and the constant bombardment of acid rain would be a problem. I could imagine Venus one day being an exotic, cloud-top paradise for the rich (reminiscent of BioShock Infinity) that's expensive to maintain, and Mars a brute workhorse that eventually displaces it as a more resilient habitat over the very long term (eg. after terraforming).

helpfulContrib 2y ago
[dead]