Colonizing Venus - looking for sources

[nrrusher]

Small Bathyspheres?? <br /><br />Crazy, <br /><br />On the moon as well as on mars, the issues are pressure differentials, radiation exposure, and temperature differentials. On Venus (in the upper atmosphere) you have no/little pressure differential, reasonable temperature variance, and much less radiation exposure......Heavier? A plastic bag and a few rubber bands would almost do the trick....???? Where do you get heavier?

 

[mithridates]

My thoughts on the matter are that terraforming the planet is so hard that it'll be impossible to do so without having a huge number of people first living in the cloudtops, and that by the time that happens I'm not sure that people will even be interested in altering the atmosphere to the extent that their livelihood will disappear. The way things are now it's 462 degrees and 90 bars on the surface, and about 385 degrees and 50 bars at Maxwell Montes, and humans can live best at 50 km above the surface. So even if people in floating aerostats are interesting in retaining their livelihood in the clouds, there's still a great deal of leeway where the habitable range could be shifted downward to 30, 20 km or so.<br /><br />Possible terraforming is a long ways away so suffice to say that what we need now as a first step are a few solar flyers, as they can stay up in the air 24 hours a day (Earth day) and we'll be able to see exactly what that area 50 km above the surface is like. Let's not forget that people still surmise that there might even be microbial life there.<br /><br />A solar flyer is also a ridiculously easy mission - delta v is super low, only four months to the destination, no landing is even required, communication is easier than anywhere except the Moon, launch windows are every fifteen months, solar power is ample both from above and below and the day lasts forever. A mission sending a solar flyer to Venus is also easy enough that not only the US can consider doing so but also Europe, Japan, Russia, and maybe China and India can think about doing so. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>----- </p><p>http://mithridates.blogspot.com</p> </div>

 

[nrrusher]

Sounds like you have your s__t together, although I do not see the need to have thousands of people there in order to do what needs to be done. Most of the work would be getting done far away around L1, though some supportive infrastructure would be needed.<br /><br />Eye on the ball baby!<br /><br />Interesting thought though, and there are parallels all over the place. Once something is established those who have a stake in it tend to want to maintain the status quo, even if the alternative provides a payoff far greater for the masses.<br /><br />I agree terraforming is a way off. My general idea that I feel like I am having trouble getting across is the step by step process here. I feel like everyone is saying that it is so far off, why even go in that direction. <br /><br />Why not do what we need to do, but keep things like that in mind. If we are going to send a probe to Venus anyway, why not include a package or two that could investigate the possibility of an L1 shade, a floating base, etc. <br /><br />This does sound like something that would be right up Japan's, China's, or India's alley....Japan especially.

 

[daggaz]

>Jupiter's radiation is way too intense to allow floating cities, or even close in habitats.<br /><br />What radiation? We're talking about Jupiter's atmosphere here. Only thermal infra-red and sunlight there.<br /><br />The radiation people talk about for Jupiter are those electrons and atomic nuclei emitted by the Sun that are trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field many thousands of kilometers above the atmosphere. Jupiter's inner moons are immersed in this radiation but none if it gets into Jupiter's atmosphere (except at the poles and only in the uppermost region of the atmosphere where it produces aurorae).

 

[nexium]

Reducing the pressure by 25% = 68 atmospheres is a little better but not much. Humans have a very narrow comfort range of temperture above about 20 atmospheres. 90 degrees f is too cold and 98 degrees f is too hot.<br />The pressure would drop perhaps one atmosphere, after the surface was below the boiling point of sulpheric acid. Water can be separated from sulpheric acid by fractional distallation, but the equipment is big and a lot of energy is required. Very little solar energy can be harvested at the present surface of Venus, but the altitude where the temperature is about 55 degrees f, likely is better than Earth's surface for harvesting solar energy. Waste heat disposal, however may be as complex as on Earth at sea level at the equator.<br />The present sulpheric acid clouds are below this altitude and are thus not a problem, unless the dirigible sinks lower due to loss of liftting gas. This is a serious danger for a balloon habitat in upper atmosphere of Venus. Neil

 

[nexium]

Last I heard the cloud tops of Juipter have about 2.25 g but Saturn is about one g which would be ideal for humans. Radiation levels are likely tolerable at the cloud tops, but not much higher. The low temperature likely is not a serious problem and it makes waste heat disposal easy. Loss of lifting gas would be a disaster in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Loss of heating the mostly hydrogen air of Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus or Neptune, would be a somewhat different disaster. Hot air balloon. Neil

 

[nrrusher]

Where do you get this information????<br /><br />What is the tolerable pressure range for a person anyway.....20 atmospheres is way more than I would have guessed....

 

[nexium]

I don't have a link, but it is discussed in very deep scuba diving literature. Divers rarely go deeper than 20 atmospheres, and don't stay down long, so the long term effects on humans are largely unknown. There was a recent discussion in the questions section of www.bautforum.com <br />On page 3 What is the lowest/biggest pressure human can survive? page 2 of that thread, Ilya typed "First, wind chill would not be "more noticeable" -- it would be terrible. Even with no wind at all you would need heavy warm clothes at anything below 70 F or so, and since heat flows both ways, human comfort zone would be very narrow -- temperatures in excess of 100 F would be quickly fatal." Some of the later posts (by others) confirm this idea. Neil

 

[mithridates]

That's one thing I've always wondered about, the exact nature of these winds. On Earth for example jet streams are quite fast and have been known to reach these speeds before but since they don't move in random directions they're not dangerous and we make use of them to save time on airplane flights all the time. With winds its not speed that matters so much as direction, and whether the wind is carrying anything dangerous (rocks, pieces of houses etc.). It's possible that we might not know the answer to this yet re: the winds on Venus, or maybe that only the Venus Express people know now and aren't telling us just yet. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>----- </p><p>http://mithridates.blogspot.com</p> </div>

 

[rasun]

Alliright, no radiation at Jupiter's clouds.<br /><br />How about the strength of the magnetic field at the cloudtops? Can they be harmful to humans? Do we know at all, whether they are harmful or not?

 

[rasun]

mith:<br />Videos from Venus Express <i>do</i> already show some winds that may be dangerous:<br /><br />Check the video of the South Pole winds.<br /><br />More of the same, at the bottom of this page.

 

[nrrusher]

Good to see it is mainly on the south pole though, as far as they know yet anyway.<br /><br />I could see having to go up/down some now and then to avoid the worst.<br /><br />That would be another pretty incredible power source if you could use wind shear to power generators......not as easy though as solar I suppose. Like a reverse kite. Drop a control/electical tether/rope, that has a propeller turbine attached, down a couple of atmospheric levels, weigh it down a little so it stays there, and let the wind get the thing screaming. If the level you are in has a much slower/reverse direction, or if you are tethered to that holy grail, an L1 Venus Space Elevator that will hold you there nice and tight, you could light up Chicago.<br /><br />Come to think of it, why don't they do that here? A large floating hotel/casino that lets the jet stream "drag" them around the globe while providing all of their power at the same time. <br /><br />Mith,<br /><br />The changes in the thermal conductivity of the atmosphere as the barometric pressure rises/lowers being an issue....that is something I hadn't thought of, but makes sense.<br /><br />Good thing we will have the solar shield in place with which we can adjust the temp at will....... <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[rasun]

mith:<br /><br />I think the idea of putting balloons at 55 km is a really cool one, whoever thought of it first. Maybe "colonization" sounds a little far-fetched to some, but we could just as well call it "manned exploration of Venus". I know it's not enough for you ;-), but initially it would be an exploration anyway.<br /><br />And once you decide to send men to Venus, probably this is the way to do it. Why would we send them to Venus? One reason of course is to explore the planet. Maybe they could be lowered from the balloons to the surface in a special craft, just like we can lower people to the bottom of the ocean on Earth. Not easy - but certainly easier than a spaceship from Earth landing directly on Venus, and then return.<br /><br />The hardest things would be:<br />1. putting there an initial large balloon.<br />2. sending astronauts to the balloon-craft from orbit.<br />3. sending astronauts from the balloon back to orbit. (from there the return to Earth is relatively straightforward.<br /><br />For 1, you either aerobrake with an aeroshell or with a parachute and then inflate your balloon in the atmosphere, or inflate your balloon in space and let it sink into the atmosphere. The first option is proven by the VEGA balloons, but i don't know how do they scale with mass. You can read about the second one on my page if you're interested (see Archimedes balloon probe to Mars), but it's only going through tests right now, and I don't know if it works on Venus (with a much denser atmosphere and higher orbital velocity).<br /><br />As for 2 - reaching the given height might be easy, but how do you find your balloon and navigate exactly to it? Looks like you need a craft for this too - and one that can hoover in place - a helicopter, a blimp, or an other balloon. Not easy.<br /><br />For 3, you need a rocket that is able to send you to orbit from a balloon. This may be possible, but

 

[rasun]

I've just read somewhere that they are considering attaching wind turbines to an anchored balloon that would float at high altitudes (30km? 60 km? I don't remember), where there are constant high winds.<br /><br />(On Earth, i mean <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />)

 

[nrrusher]

I could imagine several ways to do it, but they would require more infrastructure than simply one small floating science station. Three stations, each capable of holding up itself as well as the other two if the worst happens, could be arranged in a triangle, providing stability and control.<br /><br />Landing and navigating to the station, I think, would be fairly manageable, many options there. Taking off again, admittedly, woud be a bigger problem.<br /><br />Possible solutions:<br /><br />What do we have to work with? Plenty of power (solar and possibly wind generated) and air/gases....lots of it.<br /><br />We need:<br /><br />Three platforms, substantial enough to carry their own weight, plus a central launching tower/runway.<br /><br />The capsules to launch/land personnel and cargo would be the same as the landing capsules, so if the launch fails the capsule could just land, be recovered, and reloaded. The capsule would use parachutes frist, that would then be inflated, after descent was slowed enough, and become balloons instead, holding the capsule at a comrtable level in the atmosphre. They would need to be recoved by a powered craft from the Air Station, but could float happily for quite some time on their own.<br /><br />The central vertical Launching Rail would be magnetically accelerating, and would shoot the capsule as far as possible, at which point the capsules boosters, fueled by propellants derived from the Venusian Atmosphere, would fire and take it to the Orbiter. (Would really, really, pressurized atmosphere be enough to kick it into near orbit from that height, if the maglev could give it enough of a boost before hand. Then all we would need is a big, high pressure airtank. No explosives would be nice??)<br /><br />This scenario would use what we have in abundance on location, power and gases. Power could be used to process the atmospheric gases into oxygen, or other reactants, for the boosters on the capsule, if needed, as well. And the power dema

 

[nrrusher]

I REALLY like the idea of inflating the balloon prior to entry. You could still use booster assist to slow down a little, but that would take a load off when landing ( in this case, docking) in an atmosphere. The drag would start the very moment the first gaseous molecule was struck, thereby increasing the time of deceleration, and decreasing the stress/shock on the system.<br /><br />So many great ideas, so little money/time/interest to try them out.....frustrating.

 

[nrrusher]

Another idea, depending on our ability, might be to have the launching rail be a tube. We could set it as a vacuum, or at least have it closed at the bottom, open at the top, and the pressure inside would be set to whatever it is at the top of the tube. This would add bouyancy as well to the whole system, and reduce drag on the capsule as it is being launched, either electrically or magnetically. Additional push could be had by opening up the bottom once the tube is loaded, and have the differential in pressure shove it some as well.<br /><br />This is probably not possible either, but it will be fun trying to see if it is.<br /><br />I would also assume the higher we can take the Air Stations during launch the better.<br /><br />I am really curious about how much thrust could be gotten from a very, very compressed air tank versus an ignited fuel source. With some of the high strength/light weight composites out there, could we build something that would provide enough propulsion to take something into orbit/provide maneuvering capacity if we have already given it significant momentum via a powered launch tube? We would already be pretty high up, there would be less aero-drag at that height, and the "air booster" could be recovered and reused VERY easily. How sweet would that be if it could work !!!????<br /><br />Let's say we can allow for a 10 ft diameter booster that is 100 ft long. How must pressure, and therefore thrust, could we squeeze into that using comressed air. Another thing to keep in mind is that we will be using this in a near vacuum, so its effective thrust would be a little higher as well.<br /><br />

 

[nrrusher]

I read this <br /><br />http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/reports/2006/TM-2006-214452.pdf<br /><br />and found a couple things that didn't quite fit. <br /><br />The authors, Colozza and Landis, say that the high winds of 100 m/s are present up to about 65 km. Other information they point out also shows that the winds slow down, and even reverse up above that point (100 km), which would seem to make it much easier to have a station keeping aerostat located there, at least temp while it relocates. However, they do not seem to take that as a possible position when evaluating the possibility of an aerostat station holding its place on the sunward side. (we are not talking a manned station here yet)<br /><br />According to their written analysis, a location holding aerostat would not be possible at high altitudes because of the power requirements to fight the 100 m/s winds. What about having it reside primarily above that????? It could even ride one, change its elevation, ride the other current, etc. to give a little change of scenery.<br /><br />Simply put, it would seem that between 60 and 100 km elevation there is a lot more possibility for a station keeping aerostat, but they seem to ignore that......has anyone else read this and come to the same understanding?????

 

[mithridates]

That's actually exactly the type of document I was looking for when I first started the thread, though of course that paper was published a few months after this thread started so nobody could have known back then.<br /><br />I just took a quick glance over the paper but it looks like they only took a look at powering flyers either through solar or nuclear power, and they state that fighting against the powerful winds would be a losing battle in terms of keeping the craft afloat at that altitude but there's also the possibility of filling the craft somewhat with a type of gas, probably helium since there will be no humans that need to breathe it.<br /><br />I should read the paper again though before I write more. I see Landis was one of the authors. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>----- </p><p>http://mithridates.blogspot.com</p> </div>

 

[nrrusher]

If it is true that the atmospheric winds in the higher elevations, around 80 kms, rotate in the opposite direction, I have another idea. <br /><br />A possibility to reduce the energy required to hold an airship/station in place could be done by having bouys tied to it and draped upward to secondary airship/s. These higher buoys/airships would function as an anchor in the higher elevation where they could anchor the lower ones being pulled in the other direction. As a system they would be mutually stablizing. The resistance for each could be dynamically adjusted to accomodate shifting winds. <br /><br />This would also provide a significant power source. Each level would be pulling against the other and generators/turbines could be driven with the opposing forces.....<br /><br />It would probably be rather handy having stations at two levels anyway. Maneuvering would also be more controllable, provided the tethering sustem could be managed. A downside is the a walk on the patio might not be as fun.....<br /><br />

 

[nexium]

I likely posted some of this previously, But here is my latest thoughts: With mistakes made in terraforming Venus, there will likely be details that still need fixing after a million years at a billion dollars per year = 1000 trillion dollars. We likely will not start, unless we are over optimistic. We can, however, start spending the money now. We can develop the sun shades for Earth to later be towed to Venus when Earth gets too cold. For best results the shades will allow the wave lengths best for algae photosynthesis to pass while blocking or reflecting most of the other wave lengths. We can genetically alter the algae for best performance in the Venus upper atmosphere. If the algae can fly, they will fix more carbon dioxide before they are scorched by heat and acid as they drop lower into the atmosphere of Venus. We can plan the first human outpost in the cloud tops of Venus. We can start the development of robots that can work on the hostile surface of present day Venus. We can develop the technology to send comets from the Oort cloud to crash into Venus. We can gather more data about the Oort cloud and Venus, so we make fewer engineering errors.<br />My tentative plan is to build a snow fence that approximates the Arctic circle of Earth, but perhaps with a circumfrence as short as 3141 kilometers = diameter 1000 kilometers. With the pole shaded, Venus will have a polar down draft which will remain centered on the North pole as Venus is tited on it's axis less than two degrees. The algae will be carried by the upper winds and be brought to the surface near the North pole as algae charcoal, later algae humas, if the shades can cool the north pole sufficiently. The first 10,000 years the algae will not burn as it will take the algae more than 10,000 years to get the atmosphere of Venus to 1% oxygen. Venus has an enormous amount of atmosphere. The snow fence will keep the dead algae and unused fertilizer from being pushed off the polar plateau by the prevaili

 

[h2ouniverse]

Or:<br /><br />genetically modify some homines sapientes so that they breathe CO2, become tolerant to H2SO4, and fly in Venus 20°C layers, gliding from one balloon city to another.<br />Both romantic and inexpensive, when we know how to do.