Colonizing Venus - looking for sources

green_meklar · Oct 8, 2006

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr />If all we can see when we look at the Solar System are places to mine raw materials then we should put ourselves out of our misery now. Trust me, people always find some way to make money.<hr /></blockquote> That much is true. Even on a slightly more practical level, there's still tourism, power, science, weather control, communications, etc. <blockquote>In reply to:<hr />Oh, I should mention that we should colonize the Moon first even in spite of its non-friendly and largely useless nature. It's just too close to ignore.<hr /></blockquote> Agreed. I mean, if orbit is halfway to anywhere, then the Moon is a third of the way to anywhere...and it's a third of the way that has a lot of minerals in it to build things out of, from drinking water to solar cells to rocket fuel. It's pretty much a made-to-order stepping stone to the rest of the Solar System. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ________________Repent! Repent! The technological singularity is coming! </div>

rlb2 · Oct 10, 2006

Does "Welcome to the Hotel California" but you can never leave ring a bell? Although I do share in your enthusiasms about a floating city above Venuses cloud tops at 1 atm Earth equivalence I do have one more compelling reason why it may not work if someone hasn't mentioned it here yet. If something goes wrong or you just want to go home to visit the kids how would you escape Venuses gravitational field and with what? The floating device that would hold the rocket propellant alone would have to be enormous. Although the gravitational field at its surface is 0.904 of that of Earth's, it would take a rocket the size and takeoff mass of at least the Saturn V to escape Venuses gravitational field and slice though its atmosphere. The 240 meter (804ft) Hindenburg had a gross lifting weight of 511,500 lbs and half of that weight was used by the lifting gas to support its total mass. The Saturn V takeoff weight was about 6,000,000 pounds. Sure you can do the math and reduce that a bit by using the slightly less gravitational field of Venuses to come up with a little less mass. Venus's escape velocity is a bit lower than earths but thats still a lot of mass to float above the cloud tops at 1 atm, over 10 times more than the total gross lifting weight of the Hindenburg. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

shydn · Oct 10, 2006

You know what we should do. Create some sort of bacteria that eats up the atmosphere in Venus and transforms it into something awesome. Something breathable. Has somebody mentioned that already?

shydn · Oct 10, 2006

That is, if your goal is to habitate Venus. But, I think we have enough space on Earth. Our real goal should be to achieve immortality.

shydn · Oct 10, 2006

But BEFORE that, our goal should be to control the bloody population of earth. Dang. Is this stuff only obvious to me?

shydn · Oct 10, 2006

I'm a woman by the way. In case that wasn't obvious by my voluptuousness.

shydn · Oct 10, 2006

casualphilosoph · Oct 10, 2006

Why did you use five posts instead of one? Well regarding the return to space there is atleast one advantage of Venus I already mentioned, the thicker atmosphere allows to use longer phases of conventional flight.(ok you still need to transport the oxygen but you can use the uplift of the wings)

shydn · Oct 10, 2006

Why did you use five posts instead of one? Why not? Maybe I'm a revolutionary.

mithridates · Oct 10, 2006

If we're still comparing Venus to Mars the argument could also be made that with launch windows to and from Mars taking around an extra 200 days that Mars would be more dangerous. Higher frequency vs. lower gravity, neither are perfect. Since the atmosphere of Venus goes up so much higher than that on Earth though you could float up to about 70 km through or more before you start to need a rocket engine to go the rest of the way. I've always assumed that the aerostat would have a rocket on the bottom that could leave the whole thing and take off back to Earth if anything goes wrong. Since Venus has a higher orbital speed around the Sun that would make getting home that much quicker too. In all honesty they both look pretty difficult, but just about everything away from Earth is. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ----- http://mithridates.blogspot.com </div>

rlb2 · Oct 10, 2006

Here are some folks that think Venus is an interesting place to explore with balloons. The article was just published on-line by ESA at: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=35987 The Venus Entry Probe (VEP) TRS studies approaches for in-situ exploration of the atmosphere of Venus by means of a balloon. Venus has been targeted because it is the closest object for such a technologically challenging in situ atmospheric investigation. Though the focus of the study is on Venus, many of the technologies required to enable a European ballooning mission to Venus are also applicable to other planetary bodies with a significant atmosphere (for example, Titan). A launch with a Soyuz-Fregat 2-1b from Kourou has been selected as the baseline for the Venus Entry Probe study because it is a cost-efficient and highly reliable launch vehicle with sufficient mass capability. The transfer phase typically takes between 120 and 160 days. A conservative reference launch date, November 2013 has been selected, which implies that the mission concept could be launched at least every 2.5 years. The launch vehicle capability for direct escape to Venus is 1509 kg (assuming a 20 day launch window around 2 November 2013). The VEP mission concept consists of an aerobot, which will analyze the Venusian middle cloud layer together with a remote sensing satellite. During flight, the balloon will deploy active ballast probes, which will measure basic physical properties of the lower atmosphere during their descent. A long duration aerobot flight is desirable in order to provide a global coverage for the descent probes as well as for determining spatial variations of minor atmospheric constituents. In order to provide regional and global context of the in-situ measurements, it is necessary for the remote sensing atmos <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

green_meklar · Oct 10, 2006

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr />You know what we should do. Create some sort of bacteria that eats up the atmosphere in Venus and transforms it into something awesome. Something breathable. Has somebody mentioned that already?<hr /></blockquote> I don't know if anyone's mentioned it in this thread, no. However, the idea has been around for quite a while. The main life form cited for such purposes is blue-green algae, that hardy little photosynthesizer the astrobiologists all love so much. How you'd get it to stay up in the atmosphere I'm not sure, but if you could do it you'd be well on the way to terraforming Venus. <blockquote>In reply to:<hr />Why did you use five posts instead of one?<hr /></blockquote> Yes, seriously, shydn, you should start using one post at a time and edit in new information if you need to. Right now you're stuffing up threads with way too many posts. : <blockquote>In reply to:<hr />All life requires liquid water.<hr /></blockquote> All known, terrestrial life requires liquid water. While this makes it less likely that Venus could support life, the possibility of other suspension mediums still exists. However, if we're talking about seeding Venus with bacteria, then yes, we're going to need liquid water. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ________________Repent! Repent! The technological singularity is coming! </div>

casualphilosoph · Oct 10, 2006

If i remember right introducing bacterias was one of the first thoughts of terraforming venus. A scientist named Carl Sagan and his colleague Josef Schklowski proposed what was called the Sagan-plan, which was to vaccinate venus with algaes that would transform the atmosphere, however this plan was dismissed as several factors would limit the algae grow(trace elements and water(hydrogen sources) mainly, well athough at this time the bacterias also where not thought of having a floating mechanism) and even if those algaes succeeded the carbondioxid within the atmosphere would be enough to cover the planet in hundred of meters of pure carbon and leave almost pure oxygen(well although the carbon would reignite before this could happen).

green_meklar · Oct 10, 2006

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr />even if those algaes succeeded the carbondioxid within the atmosphere would be enough to cover the planet in hundred of meters of pure carbon<hr /></blockquote> As far as I know, even just a hundred meters of carbon in Venus gravity weighs considerably more than the pressure of the Venusian atmosphere. And of course, about three-quarters of the mass of carbon dioxide is oxygen. So it might make a lot of carbon, but not that much. <blockquote>In reply to:<hr />well although the carbon would reignite before this could happen<hr /></blockquote> Uh...don't you think the fact that the carbon would burn in the presence of oxygen would cause the algae to strike a balance with the atmosphere still containing a reasonable amount of carbon dioxide? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ________________Repent! Repent! The technological singularity is coming! </div>

mithridates · Oct 10, 2006

"The Vega 1 Lander/Balloon capsule entered the Venus atmosphere (125 km altitude) at 2:06:10 UT (Earth received time; Moscow time 5:06:10 a.m.) on 11 June 1985 at roughly 11 km/sec. At approximately 2:06:25 UT the parachute attached to the landing craft cap opened at an altitude of 64 km. The cap and parachute were released 15 seconds later at 63 km altitude. The balloon package was pulled out of its compartment by parachute 40 seconds later at 61 km altitude, at 8.1 degrees N, 176.9 degrees east. A second parachute opened at an altitude of 55 km, 200 seconds after entry, extracting the furled balloon. The balloon was inflated 100 seconds later at 54 km and the parachute and inflation system were jettisoned. The ballast was jettisoned when the balloon reached roughly 50 km and the balloon floated back to a stable height between 53 and 54 km some 15 to 25 minutes after entry. The mean stable height was 53.6 km, with a pressure of 535 mbar and a *temperature of 300-310 K in the middle, * most active layer of the Venus three-tiered cloud system. The balloon drifted westward in the zonal wind flow with an average speed of about 69 m/s at nearly constant latitude. The probe crossed the terminator from night to day at 12:20 UT on 12 June after traversing 8500 km. The probe continued to operate in the daytime until the final transmission was received at 00:38 UT on 13 June from 8.1 N, 68.8 E after a total traverse distance of 11,600 km. It is not known how much further the balloon travelled after the final communication. " <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ----- http://mithridates.blogspot.com </div>

casualphilosoph · Oct 11, 2006

Well meklar my concern was not that we would have no carbondioxid left, more that its impossible to get the right pressure on the surface by infusing bacteria (even the oxygen alone is actually enough for large pressure[65 bar says my source]) and the carbon is a little bit to much for the surface to bear. If my numbers were wrong I apologize, I merely stated the values given by the webiste of the DRG (german space society). Although I ask myself if the reignition of carbon would not solve one of my mentioned problems and transport enough dust etc into the atmosphere to cover the needs of trace elements? Well although that would probably be wishful thinking.

green_meklar · Oct 11, 2006

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr />Well meklar my concern was not that we would have no carbondioxid left, more that its impossible to get the right pressure on the surface by infusing bacteria (even the oxygen alone is actually enough for large pressure[65 bar says my source]) and the carbon is a little bit to much for the surface to bear.<hr /></blockquote> Well, presumably the carbon in the form of dead algae (because the algae is what's extracting it) would form a solid surface. We might add several meters onto the current surface, but my guess is we'd probably still end up with something solid to stand on. A bigger concern is probably the pressure of the remaining oxygen atmosphere, which might be too high to make colonizing the surface very easy, although there might be other ways to get rid of it (such as burning hydrogen in it and forming some oceans). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ________________Repent! Repent! The technological singularity is coming! </div>

casualphilosoph · Oct 12, 2006

Steve, excuse me but you seem to blabbering on without even taking notice what we say or that the facts you state are wrong atleast in the way you are stating them. If we talk about the atmosphere you speak of hellish surface conditions and claim that the atmospheric temperature is the same although we already gave you references used by scientist that say otherwise. If we talk about changing the conditions trough terraforming, you state the current conditions instead of thinking about the states that would result from certain actions. Also you claim that Venus is so supertoxic that all bacterias would get sterilized,however right now in my stomach which is filled with hydrocchloric acid live bacterias , bacterias live in hot spots, ice, underground, places without oxygen or horribly amount of sulfur and whatever and even in the clouds of our very Earth(planet). Besides by using alkali metals we can light fires in the oceans(divers use torches consisting of magnesium). MEKLAR: Well if solid or not what the hell will be the endform of all that carbon? I mean, are there even enough other elements to convert all that carbon into biologigal matter? Will the new soil prevent the access to any minerals? Will it somehow mix with the existing minerals creating strange minerals consisted of Silicon-carbon molecules? Will we sit on coal, graphit or diamond? Its just I have now idea how all that stuff will influence the chemical balance of atmosphere minerals etc.

rlb2 · Oct 12, 2006

Now if you want to talk about terraforming Venus then I think this might work. I haven’t read enough about the different Terraforming ideas to know if someone already thought of this before. A simple and cost effective solution to this would be to have a nuclear powered mass driver / mining device sent out to the outer part of our solar system and mine an iron type asteroid. The mass driver would mine the asteroid and through chunks of it off using the kinetic energy to maneuver the asteroid to the L1 position of Venus. The mass-driver has been talked about before in the science media for moving comets-asteroids around. After reaching Venuses L1 position the mass driver would launch small pieces of its mass off into orbit around the asteroid. After a while of dong this it would create a large solid looking ring that would block a large portion of the incoming solar radiation from reaching Venus. Saturn’s ring, depending on different times of it’s year, blocks up to half of the planets incoming solar radiation. In Venus case the ring would be positioned around the asteroid perpendicular to the Sun - Venus orbital plane. The asteroid would have to be of a sufficient size and mass to retain the orbits of its artificial satellites once it gets in place at Venuses L1 position. The resultant disk shaped ring could be huge because its gravitational field is centered towards the asteroid's central remaining mass. It would have to be of a substantial size to make a difference. Now if stopping the solar radiation from the sun isn’t good enough then the nuclear generator on the asteroid could create a permanent resultant magnetic field from the asteroids iron core, The small resultant magnetic bubble created from this would redirect some of the solar wind away from Venus. Some of this is a spur of the moment thought folks, its not meant to substitute reality. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

mithridates · Oct 13, 2006

Sure I deny the existence of those hot clouds. I think I think I'm going to make an extraordinary leap of faith and choose raw mission data from that altitude vs. anonymous dude on a message board. Sorry. Read up. http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1984-125F "temperature of 300-310 K in the middle" Since you likely don't know what Kelvin is: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=300+kelvin+in+celsius HTH. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ----- http://mithridates.blogspot.com </div>

rlb2 · Oct 13, 2006

There would have to be layer upon layer of these dust particles, some in polar orbits, and they would have to be stabilized by some mechanism, because any orbit around Venus by such would not stably rest in an orbit. One must eliminate 1/2 of incoming solar radiation, it order to create conditions, which if there were no atmosphere like Venus has, might do as one suggests. Who said anything about installing a ring around Venus, although that could be done with two less dense asteroid - one placed in orbit around Venus and the other one inpacting the first. What I said was an asteroid place at Venuses L1 position less than apx 1,000,000 miles towards the sun which would have a disk perpendicular to Venus’s orbital plane constantly casting a shadow on Venus. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Ron Bennett </div>

mithridates · Oct 13, 2006

Finally. Took you long enough to admit the clouds aren't hot. Can we expect no more "Venus is a searing hellhole at all altitude" posts from you now? As for the acid, we have the following from the Landis paper: "While the atmosphere contains droplets of sulfuric acid, technology to avoid acid corrosion are well known, and have been used by chemists for centuries." <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ----- http://mithridates.blogspot.com </div>

mithridates · Oct 13, 2006

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr />It lasted 2 days, and who knows what brought it down?<hr /></blockquote> They ran out of batteries. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> ----- http://mithridates.blogspot.com </div>

casualphilosoph · Oct 13, 2006

To make it simple: No biggie terraform, cloudliving good ugh! XP P.S: Why would it need to be decelerated when its at an lagrange point? Well although I must agree that solarshielding with dust and asteroid is probably to expensive. Rdl idea of using rotation to counter the inward pull from sideward position towards the true lagrange point however is very good.

silylene old · Oct 13, 2006

Tho probably putting that continually being renewed dust cloud around Venus would be the least expensive of the 3 major problems of terraforming Venus: 1) removing the dense atmosphere by striking it with 50-100 cometary impacts, 2) reducing the incoming solar radiation by 50%, taking it to about htat of the earth's, 3) adding enough water to more or less terraform it. Another problem is that Venus does not have a substantial magnetosphere (it is only about 10^-5 of Earth's). This would be a hard thing to fix. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center">I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function. </div> </div>

Colonizing Venus - looking for sources

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