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Venus is a rare planet, Earth is just dumbfounded
Sun, 15 Oct 2006 16:06:28 +0000 (UTC) rec.arts.tv
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Brad Guth...
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The only problem with Venus is that it's relatively newish and simply
has too much easily available energy that's 100% renewable, and otherwise hosting vast resources of raw and complex elements that are on or near the surface. Other than that, it's surface environment is a bit on the toasty side because of all the newish planetology of being geothermally stoked and gassed with the active heat and chemistry from within. As you arrive it gets toastier near the surface because the surface itself is still hotter than the solar influx can manage to make that highly reflective atmosphere greenhouse hot. In many places the surface of Venus is alive and kicking out lava and mud/plastic flows that are in fact hotter than hell, but otherwise contributing amounts of viable elements for the ongoing process of building terrain and atmosphere. Considerable gas vent's have also been contributing vast tonnage amounts of everything from S8 to CO2 and even a touch of H2 and O2 that's unavoidably adding to the already vast bulk of the complex atmosphere that's also 65+ kg/m3 buoyant, along with a 0.905 gravity factor makes it even better. The environment is obviously quite humanly nasty/taboo but not entirely insurmountable. Robotically the environment is somewhat testy but chatnoir...
otherwise entirely within the realm of what's doable. Large and well insulated structures of R-1024/meter could be rather easily constructed from local resources that'll provide unlimited amounts of composite basalt fibers and of microballoons, and of the required energy in order to make everything happen is already there to behold. Not every square meter of that Venusian surface is geothermally hot, whereas at good elevation the surrounding temperature of that elevated terrain that's not currently volcanic and of the associated atmosphere may drop to as little as 500 K. At an airship cruising altitude of 25 km it's absolutely dry, crystal clear, sufficiently calm, a bit retrograde and considerably cooler, especially cooler within the extended season of nighttime. A rigid/composite airship could remain aloft nearly indefinitely, operating itself extensively between 25 km and 45 km is perfectly doable, as being extremely aerodynamically energy efficient and within the relatively calm and safe buoyancy environment for accommodating this rigid/composite airship and of those onboard. Humanly, Venus would take some getting used to, perhaps involving some physiological modifications and applied technology goes without saying. Pressure is not such a physiological/biological taboo factor, in fact pressure means that as little as 0.1% O2 could become sufficient for sustaining life as we know it, although a 1% factor of O2 might be a good starting point. There has been other intelligent life existing/coexisting on Venus that's most likely friendly and hopefully without intentions of hogging the entire planet, so we wouldn't be the first. There's potentially DougC...
lots to go around, and Venus certainly gets itself nearby and therefore becomes rather easily accessible every 19 months. Accessing Venus is technically a no brainer, although surviving there in the buff is clearly not an option. - Brad Guth |