• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Colonising Venus

I mean if you had structures that could withstand heat and pressure on Venus as it is now.

The people would permanently live inside them.


Of course if we had this technology, we'd surely have advanced robotics technology too, so we wouldn't necessarily need any people there at all.
 
Octavo said:
Excuse my ignorance of density and lift, but would a rigid "gas bag" containing a vacuum not give more lift than helium?
Click to expand...

A helium airship on earth has a much better chance of flying than a vacuum-filled airship, because the strength needed to avoid collapse under vacuum would make the latter enormously heavier.

Even if you invent a marvellously rigid balloon material, there's little benefit from switching from helium since the buoyancy depends on the difference between the density of the balloon and the density of the air around it.

Helium is plainly heavier than vacuum, but both are much much lighter than air.

A quick Google tells me air is around 1.2g per cubic metre and helium is only 0.17g per cubic metre at the same temperature and pressure. Switching to vacuum at 0.0g per cubic metre doesn't gain you much.

It seems to me that the 'zeppelins' will have to be more like submarines supported by helium gas bags. I don't think the idea of having the whole volume of the craft at comfortable air pressure for humans is going to work.

Of course we could use a deep sea diver's mix of helium and oxygen for the atmosphere, and just put up with speaking like Mickey Mouse...
 
I vaguely recall reading something recently that a cold spot had been detected on Venus.
I'll see if I can find it.
 
Octavo said:
I suppose the wind is probably pretty fierce given that Venus has such a long day. I wonder if current technology could construct an airship or habitat capable of withstanding the wind. We needn't anchor the thing to the ground, provided we give it some navigational control. Perhaps we could find something like the trade winds and just sail endlessly around the planet :)
Click to expand...
Actually we have already had two balloons floating in the Venusian atmosphere (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program#Balloon). They sailed along the high-speed winds of atmospheric super-rotation high in the atmosphere.

The balloons were dropped onto the planet's darkside and deployed at an altitude of about 50 kilometres (31 mi). They then floated upward a few kilometres to their equilibrium altitude. At this altitude, pressure and temperature conditions of Venus are similar to those of Earth, though the planet's winds moved at hurricane velocity and the carbon dioxide atmosphere is laced with sulfuric acid, along with smaller concentrations of hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid.

The balloons moved swiftly across the night side of the planet into the light side, where their batteries finally ran down and contact was lost. Tracking indicated that the motion of the balloons included a surprising vertical component, revealing vertical motions of air masses that had not been detected by earlier probe missions.
Click to expand...
 
^ How come? You mean because of the winds? The balloon (or airship/zeppelin) would float along the super-rotation. And because it travels with the wind the relative air movement would not feel like a hurricane.
 
spin0 said:
^ How come? You mean because of the winds? The balloon (or airship/zeppelin) would float along the super-rotation. And because it travels with the wind the relative air movement would not feel like a hurricane.
Click to expand...

Might not the high speed vertical motion make one want to puke? Like here on Earth?
 
anglolawyer said:
Might not the high speed vertical motion make one want to puke? Like here on Earth?
Click to expand...
It depends if the motion is high speed enough to begin with. Vega balloons did measure vertical components of the winds, they were typically about 0.5 m/s (max. about 3 m/s) and were associated with convection cells in the middle cloud layer. Probable solution would be not to float in the clouds but above them avoiding the turbulence of convection cells.
 
Hellbound said:
"Free amusement park admission with every condo!"

:D
Click to expand...

The weather reports will be interesting.

Today will be sunny, with a moderate breeze and a 90% likelihood of freefall followed by some scattered 3g ascent.
 
Last edited:
BenBurch said:
What we need if we want to really understand Venus' atmosphere better is a nuclear-powered hot air balloon that can keep instruments aloft for years.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't we be able to power such a device from the awesome resources of the Venusian atmosphere?
 
I support efforts to colonize Venus, if for no other reason than to get a juvenile titter out of all things Venerial. Similarly, Uranus.

According to the wiki, Venus's earth-normal atmospheric layer is down among the clouds of sulfuric acid. Hard to imagine a long-term settlement exposed to those conditions.

Cool it off, condense out the sulfur, then think about castles in the sky.
 
How to Colonize Venus in Two Easy Steps

Step One: Colonize Earth's continental shelf, desert reaches, mountain ranges and antarctic landmass.

Step Two: Don't colonize Venus.
 
quarky said:
Shouldn't we be able to power such a device from the awesome resources of the Venusian atmosphere?
Click to expand...

No, because all of the chemical reactions that could occur in that environment have occurred. You don't have anything to react with anything else to make heat to keep the balloon up. And if you carried some oxidizer with you wouldn't be able to carry enough of it for a long duration mission.
 
BenBurch said:
No, because all of the chemical reactions that could occur in that environment have occurred. You don't have anything to react with anything else to make heat to keep the balloon up. And if you carried some oxidizer with you wouldn't be able to carry enough of it for a long duration mission.
Click to expand...

I defer to your larger knowledge on this point, but might not we thought the same of Earth's fossil fuel stash, had we come at it from another planet?

Perhaps carry a catalyst instead of an oxidizer?
 
Jack by the hedge said:
So living on the surface would be like living in a diving bell in a furnace. I wonder if living inside a fleet of air-filled 'zeppelins' might be a better habitation in the upper atmosphere.
Click to expand...

The heat alone is hotter than the inside of a self-cleaning oven. The redundancy on the cooling systems would be astronomical just for mild safety.
 
quarky said:
I defer to your larger knowledge on this point, but might not we thought the same of Earth's fossil fuel stash, had we come at it from another planet?

Perhaps carry a catalyst instead of an oxidizer?
Click to expand...

No. Chemistry is the same regardless of the planet you're from. Catalysts change the rate of reactions, not the energy content. The atmosphere of Venus is the end of the line for reactions. You have to supply energy to move them away from that state.


Light does reach the surface. Some sort of microscopic autotroph that can use what sunlight there is to sequester the CO2, liberate O2, and tolerate the rest of the stuff would go a long way to changing the temperature of the planet.

Isn't going to happen in 500 years though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom