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It would be a colony constantly depending on Earth supplies and you would be constantly rebuilding it. Just like every other planet, nothing can permanently sur

• Robotbeat 5mo ago
  Untrue. You can actually mine the Venusian surface for metals. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen (the vast majority of the elements used by life) can be extracted from the atmosphere, as well as sulfur. So from an elemental standpoint, it actually could be self-sufficient. Not that you’d WANT to avoid trade with other planets, but it is possible. It is also possible to terraform Venus, although much more difficult than for Mars.
  • p2detar 5mo ago
    Terraforming is possible but colonizing worlds hostile to humans has always meant genetic engineering to me. We need to drop the Star Trek idea that we can explore space in the sacks of water we call bodies.
    • pavel_lishin 5mo ago
      Let's take the idea further, and borrow cstross's belief that canned apes will never colonize or explore anything, and only digital uploads into mechanical bodies will be destined for space.
  • 21asdffdsa12 5mo ago
    [flagged]
  • gwbas1c 5mo ago
    > although much more difficult than Terraforming is so conceptual at this point that I wouldn't take a hard stance on either being easier or harder. You never know what a few generations of studies will teach us; and what misconceptions we hold dearly that our descendants will laugh at us for.
    • marginalia_nu 5mo ago
      At this point we're so deep into the science fiction that it might be easier to just hop into a time machine and colonize Mars before its atmosphere boiled off.
      • airstrike 5mo ago
        Some infinities are bigger than others.
    • vjvjvjvjghv 5mo ago
      From my experience there is a correlation between people who think science is nonsense while also believing in terraforming. I don’t think anybody can even remotely predict the outcomes of a terraforming project.
  • surgical_fire 5mo ago
    > It is also possible to terraform Venus We can't even properly terraform inhospitable places within Earth. Hell, if anything we are very quickly un-terraforming Earth into a place inhospitable to human life.
    • t_mahmood 5mo ago
      No shit! We are probably dead even before we can build a habitat on our own orbit. We are failing the great filter very hard.
    • vjvjvjvjghv 5mo ago
      We would have to work really hard to make Earth as inhospitable as other planets or moons in the solar system.
      • zabzonk 5mo ago
        But we are giving it a shot!
    • zqna 5mo ago
      If we could send all the terraformers from earth to mars we would so solve both problems at the same time
      • surgical_fire 5mo ago
        Sounds like a plan.
    • Robotbeat 5mo ago
      What do you call Phoenix?
  • glenstein 5mo ago
    Yes, but! It's very hard. But you are a million percent right that the Venusian surface has lots of fantastic metals, largely tied up in basalt and volcanic ash. The bad news to my understanding is that they're kind of pulverized and evenly spread out and requires lots of refining/processing, and not necessarily so much in the way of veins/ore deposits ripe for harvesting (though I could be mistaken). But back to how hard it is. There's mid-atmosphere winds that are effectively persistent hurricanes. It's hotter than a pizza oven, and the thick co2 air might as well be an ocean, because it has that much crushing force. In my opinion, people should get excited about the thick atmosphere, because it's also the secret superpower that unlocks all the near term possibilities. Floating in the upper atmosphere is more like being a ship in an ocean, and if we ever got materials strong enough (graphite-carbon composites?) we could do some really cool passive dragnet + air balloon lift kinds of things to recover surface resources and lift them to a hypothetical settlement. The one need-to-have resource that, as far as I know, there's none of on Venus whatsoever, is iodine. So even in the best case you'd have to import that. Oh, and water. You can get some out of the sulfuric acid rain but probably not as much as you want. Granted, these are all assuming technology advances and big time scales, but trying to practice a golden rule here and be as charitable to the exercise as possible and not bean soup the discussion to death, which is a pet peeve of mine.
    • mmooss 5mo ago
      How high does the ocean-like CO2 extend? Usually the idea for a base is ~50 km altitude.
    • aetherson 5mo ago
      It'd be interesting to try to imagine a Venusian colonization that's like two separated levels: an atmospheric area where most people live and where you grow food, and then a subterranean (yes, yes, sub... aphroditean?) where you mine and so forth, and there are brief, fraught transitions between the two layers but no actual habitation of the surface or lower atmosphere.
  • 0xAFFFF 5mo ago
    > It is also possible to terraform Venus, although much more difficult than for Mars. We are facing an existential crisis in the form of climate warming on Earth that we are unable to address properly. The thing is, terraforming Earth is the easiest thing to do: we already live on it, it's already liveable. Mars, Venus or any other body in the solar system is magnitudes harder to transform on almost every aspect. So unless humanity demonstrates it can tackle the easiest terraforming endeavour that be, anything else is firmly in the science fiction realm.
    • rapnie 5mo ago
      Exactly. I used to be a lifelong fan of anything space. But right now it is limited to people conducting actual science to get a better understanding of our universe. All the dick-swinging billionaires and geopolitical vanity projects of going to the Moon and Mars are utter follies. Every billion spent there, a waste of money that could be better spent. And I am not even talking about outer atmosphere ultra-rich people tourism in literal penis rockets. Utter pollution and waste. Let's wait to colonize other planets until after we get our own house in order.
      • Robotbeat 5mo ago
        I really doubt your veracity about this. It’s literally illegal for billionaires to geoengineer the Earth to stop global warming (at least in several states). Doubtless you would also object to that as well. In which case it’s not actually about solving Earth’s problems but about not liking those who are doing it.
        • dboreham 5mo ago
          But it is legal for them to fund politicians who believe greenhouse gasses should be limited. Strangely they don't do that, mostly.
        • teachrdan 5mo ago
          Billionaires could trivially fund uncontroversial projects like planting trees or solar electrification, especially in the developing world, both of which would help stop global warming. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for Elon or Larry to start doing either of those things, or anything else that would actually help mitigate or reverse climate change.
  • mikestew 5mo ago
    It is also possible to terraform Venus, although much more difficult than for Mars. We’ve not terraformed anything, ever, but now we can compare the difficulty of terraforming of one planet versus another? “It’s possible”? So is turning lead into gold.
    • benced 5mo ago
      Your point is taken but we've turned lead into gold: https://home.cern/alice-detects-conversion-lead-gold-lhc/ https://home.cern/alice-detects-conversion-lead-gold-lhc/
      • mikestew 5mo ago
        I said it was possible. “…fleeting quantities of gold nuclei”, and probably worth far, far less than it cost to make. Given that, I stand by my statement. :-)
  • jsbisviewtiful 5mo ago
    > You can actually mine the Venusian surface for metals By "surface" do you mean the ground of Venus? The odds of a mining operation happening on the ground of Venus seems like science fiction at best, impossible at worst. Between the high winds, corrosive atmosphere, outlandish heat and extreme pressure any vehicle on the surface would be torn to shreds likely within a few hours (which has so far been the case for all landers that actually survived the landing) - and that's not even getting into the idea of getting things off the ground. Extraction from the atmosphere would likely be the only method unless something significant changes with the entire planet. Refining those materials would require a lot of machinery being in Venus's orbit that we'd have to get there, as well. Speaking of the conditions though... > It is also possible to terraform Venus Everything is hypothetical at best regarding this and would require a level of time and resources no government nor company would want to invest for an outstanding "maybe". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Venus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Venus
  • pasta67 5mo ago
    >>>It is also possible to terraform Venus, although much more difficult than for Mars. I would argue that it is very much opposite. Venus has already 80% mass of Earth. Mars on other hand have not much different gravity than that of Moon and Moon is much closer to Earth if you plan to make something suitable for older folks that look for lighter gravity.
• seszett 5mo ago
  At 50 km altitude above Venus (where pressure is about 1 bar) you are not really in the "upper atmosphere" as there is still about as much atmosphere above you as on ground level on Earth. So UV radiation is not a problem. The atmosphere of Venus is just very thick. Also it contains many useful elements, C, O and H, which can be used to build basically anything if you have enough solar energy. The problem is the (comparatively small) amounts of other elements.
  • adrian_b 5mo ago
    From the point of view of exploitable resources, Venus is the opposite of Mars. On Mars, metals are very abundant and easy to extract, and also minerals suitable for making glass or ceramic materials are abundant, but the raw materials for making food and organic materials, like plastics, are very scarce and expensive to concentrate. On Venus, there are abundant resources for making organic materials and food (except for a few metallic bioelements required in small quantities, i.e. Fe, Zn, Mn, Cu, Mo, Co), but there are no resources for making metallic, vitreous or ceramic materials. However, the materials that are missing on Venus are easier to transport from elsewhere, because they are required in smaller quantities and they are dense solids that occupy little volume. If not enough water would be found underground on Mars, that would be really difficult to transport from elsewhere.
    • pavel_lishin 5mo ago
      > If not enough water would be found underground on Mars, that would be really difficult to transport from elsewhere. I was under the (uneducated) impression that there was a fair amount of water ice locked up in asteroids that are fairly easy to redirect into a Mars capture orbit.
      • neaden 5mo ago
        "Fairly Easy" Is doing a lot of work there. Theoretically possible yes.
      • bhelkey 5mo ago
        Mars also has two polar ice caps [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_polar_ice_caps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_polar_ice_caps
• FrustratedMonky 5mo ago
  They are all impossible without supplies from Earth. But wonder if a floating balloon contraption isn't more likely than a base on Mars. Which is more deadly? Venus seems to have more potentially useful compounds in the atmosphere.
  • marcosdumay 5mo ago
    Mars is more deadly. Easily so. Venus atmosphere has the right amounts of radiation, temperature, and pressure. And close to the right gravity.
• JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
  > would be a colony constantly depending on Earth supplies and you would be constantly rebuilding it To be fair, this is true for all planets with known science and engineering. I'm not sure it's obvious that Venus (with its higher pressure and better radiation shielding) has fewer fundamental problems than Mars (with its surface that doesn't melt metal).
  • 1970-01-01 5mo ago
    True fact, but not by much, as plans are already in-progress with Artemis V and a lunar colony.
    • adrian_b 5mo ago
      The results of some experiments done with mice on the ISS have been published recently and they cast doubt about the possibility of living for a long time on the Moon. For mice, at least a third of the Earth gravity was required to prevent serious health problems and at least two thirds to avoid any health problems. So it seems that the gravity of Mars is close to the minimum compatible with long-term staying, while that of the Moon is insufficient. Therefore people would have to spend only a limited time on a Moon base, much like on the ISS.
      • JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
        > results of some experiments done with mice on the ISS have been published recently and they cast doubt about the possibility of living for a long time on the Moon We’re too early in low- (versus zero-) g research to draw conclusions. And from drugs to resistance routines, we haven’t even started researching mitigation. The best argument for Moon and Mars bases is to enable this sort of research at scale.
    • JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
      > plans are already in-progress with Artemis V and a lunar colony Artemis aims to establish lunar and Martian colonies. Not self-sufficient settlements. That's still at least a generation away, probably two or three.