The Case For Colonising Venus by cryptogee

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· @cryptogee ·
$32.26
The Case For Colonising Venus
<center>![Venus-real_color.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmY32HXGwhXh5QeBDjURcPARbqydNLWTLqFRfPB6HzWQwD/Venus-real_color.jpg)</center>

In all our excitement to get to the moon and Mars, we had forgotten our pretty little sister planet Venus. Now though we are looking to perhaps reignite relations with our hotheaded sibling by sending some little scientific trinkets as we pop down the road again.

We were turned off Venus when we discovered she was a smoker. She huffs and she puffs and she covers her surface with carbon dioxide, which makes her unbearably hot. Even though she seems like an inhospitable host, she does have some charms.

It is those very same charms that have inspired a new collaboration between NASA and the Russian Academy of Sciences' Space Research Institute (IKI).

So are we missing a trick here? Or are we just being sensible and ignoring Venus for very good reasons?


## The History Of Humans & Venus

Back before spaceflight was possible and our knowledge of our solar system was limited. We looked up at Venus and felt that it could one day be a second home for us, a little holiday retreat that we popped to every now and again.

All that was before the Russian Venera missions of the 1960s and '70s. Those missions showed us that even though Venus is practically the same mass as earth, which would allow us to experience a similar gravitational force as our own planet. It is in fact a very alien and hostile environment, which no human could survive its surface.

So that should have been it really, case closed, the atmosphere will not support any earth-like organisms, and is downright hostile, containing a fair amount of corrosive sulphuric acid.

Even though our twin sister's looks have been changed, and she is anything but welcoming, we still can't get enough.

To date there have been forty three missions to Venus, around two thirds of which have been rated as successful. So what's the big deal? Why do we keep going back there, when we've only been to Mercury twice? What's more to the point, should we keep going there in order to one day colonise it?

## Venus Stats

First let's take a look at how Venus compares to our own glorious *Blue Marble*.

***Year Cycle*** - OK, this is definitely a plus one, being closer to the sun than earth it takes less time to complete one full orbit. So instead of 365.4 days it takes 224.65 days, so around four and a half months shorter. OK, we can live with that I reckon.

***Day Cycle*** - Hmm, not so good on this one, this is a minus ten. It takes 5,832 hours for Venus to complete one planetary rotation, or in other words, 243 earth days to every one Venusian day. A day on Venus is longer than the year!

On top of that it spins the 'wrong way', meaning that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, though you are only seeing that less than once a year.

***Mass/Size/Atmospheric Pressure*** - Okay we have a couple of plus points to add back with these stats.  The diameter of Venus is 12,103.6 km (7,520.8 mi), a mere 638.4 km (396.7 mi) less than Earth'sβ€”and its mass is 81.5% of Earth's. This means that the surface gravity of Venus is around 90% of that on earth.

Mars has only 38% earth gravity, meaning there are some real concerns about our bones and muscles just wasting away if we spend too long on its surface.

Even though the surface gravity of Venus would be very comfortable, the atmospheric pressure on the surface is ninety two times that of the surface pressure on earth. Equivalent to being under three kilometres of sea. To give you an idea of how crazy strong that is, one of the successful probes we sent was crushed 18km before it even hit the ground. Remember those probes are made with harder stuff than our bones.  

***Atmospheric Content*** - This one is minus one hundred points. The Venusian atmosphere is almost entirely made up of carbon dioxide (96.5%) with the remaining percentage being made up of mostly Nitrogen, along with trace elements of sulphur dioxide, argon, water vapour, carbon monoxide, neon and helium.

## The Cloud City Dream

So surely, given all the information above any colonisation plans should be thrown away, shouldn't they? Sure Venus is a rocky planet, but we can't breathe its atmosphere, and even if we could we'd be squashed into an area the size of a tangerine if we ever set foot on the surface. So why oh why would we even contemplate going there?

Well because of the thick Venusian atmosphere, there is a possibility to float huge balloons filled with breathable atmosphere, which would keep us floating at just the right height. So that we would not only experience gravity in much the same way, we could also float at a height that would ensure we experienced one earth atmosphere. Instead of ninety two.

There are also winds moving at ninety five metres per second which circumnavigate the planet in just four days. If we placed these balloons within these wind currents, our floating cloud cities would experience a much more reasonable 48 hour day/night cycle.

Not only that, if one of these balloons got a tear which we'd have to repair. The similar pressure outside and inside the balloon, would mean that the breathable atmosphere would suffuse fairly slowly. 

The main problems would be, finding a material that was light enough with anti-corrosive properties to overcome the acid rain periodically experienced on Venus. Plus of course, where are we going to find, and how will we replenish all this breathable air to fill the balloons with?

## The Tower Of Babel

In biblical mythology the ancient peoples of the earth constructed a huge tower to reach heaven. However when god saw that he was about to get some unwanted guests, he made it so that the people spoke many different languages so as to confuse construction. (Clearly heaven was located less than a kilometre above the earth in those days.)

It has been proposed that instead of airships, future humans, or at least their semi-sentient, specially constructed and shielded robots, might build their own Venusian tower of Babel.

The tower would need to be 31 kilometres from the surface in order to reach the one atmosphere that we need to survive without a pressurised space suit. The problem with this of course is not just the construction of such a complex structure, but the fact that we would go back to experiencing an eight month day/night cycle.

## Conclusion

It would seem that whilst it is theoretically possible to survive on Venus in relative comfort. It is by using technology that is just beyond us at the moment. Whereby we either already have, or will have in the near future the tech to go to, and start colonising Mars, or for that matter the moon.

I can see us one day having habitats on Venus, however at that point we'll probably start terraforming the planet to create a much more friendly breathable atmosphere. 

Whilst there might be some as-yet-undiscovered-technology just about to make itself known. I can't see us changing the ecology of a new planet anytime in the next century. However with a bit of exponential progress; who knows?

Maybe one day some men really will be from Venus and some women from Mars.

***Sources:***
>[Venus - *Wiki*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus)
>
>[List of Missions to Venus - *Wiki*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Venus)
>
>[Mission to Venus: NASA and Russia May Explore Hellish Planet Together - *space.com*](https://www.space.com/36064-nasa-russia-venus-mission-partnership-talks.html)
>
>[Colonization of Venus - *Wiki*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus)
>
>[High Altitude Venus Operational Concept (HAVOC) - *Wiki*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operational_Concept)
>
>[Exploration of Mercury - *Wiki*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mercury)
>
>[Tower of Babel - *Encyclopaedia Britannica*](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tower-of-Babel)

***Further Reading:***
>[Luna, The Jilted Wife: Leaving The Moon For Mars](https://steemit.com/science/@cryptogee/luna-the-jilted-wife-leaving-the-moon-for-mars)
>
>[The Case For Colonising The Moon](https://steemit.com/science/@cryptogee/the-case-for-colonising-the-moon)
>
>[The Case For Colonising Mars](https://steemit.com/science/@cryptogee/the-case-for-colonising-mars)

HOW DO YOU RATE OUR CHANCES AT COLONISING VENUS? ARE YOU EXCITED FOR THE US/RUSSIAN VENUS EXPLORATION COLLABORATION? OR PERHAPS YOU THINK THE SPACE BUDGET WOULD BE BETTER DIRECTED ELSEWHERE? OR MAYBE EVEN YOU BELIEVE WE SHOULD BE CONCENTRATING ON OUR OWN PLANET EARTH?

AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!

>Title image: Venus in real colours, processed from clear and blue filtered Mariner 10 images. Source images are in the public domain (NASA) Images processed by Ricardo Nunes 

[*Cryptogee*](https://steemit.com/@cryptogee)
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@hkniazi ·
I hope this is moon

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@cryptogee ·
What do you mean?

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@tobixen ·
$0.03
What about temperatures?  With such long days it must be quite huge temperature differences between day and night - or do the strong winds distribute the heat adequately?
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@cryptogee ·
$0.41
Ah yes, I forgot temperature. The surface temp of Venus is way too hot, getting up to over 800 degrees. However it does cool down higher up around the kind of height we would end up living the temps are kind of earth like, though more extreme.

As you rightly point out, the winds help distribute the heat so that the night side is still warmed for most of its day.

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@tobixen ·
$0.03
> OR PERHAPS YOU THINK THE SPACE BUDGET WOULD BE BETTER DIRECTED ELSEWHERE? OR MAYBE EVEN YOU BELIEVE WE SHOULD BE CONCENTRATING ON OUR OWN PLANET EARTH?

We still have plenty of unexplored space here at earth - in the deep oceans.  If we are to colonize other planets, I think we could do well to gain some experience building deep-water habitats.
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@cryptogee ·
Deep water habs are not a bad idea, though I wondering if the pressure issues make it actually more difficult than setting up extra terrestrial ones. Though I imagine the expense to be several orders of magnitude less!

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@greencross ·
$0.03
Women are from Venus, men from Mars... Or that's the way it was.

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@cryptogee ·
Ha! You spotted that, well done :-)

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@greencross ·
Cool article I enjoyed reading it :) 

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@greencross ·
Cool article I enjoyed reading it :) 

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@valued-customer · (edited)
I've been a Venus booster for a long time, precisely because of the 'cons' you mention above (along with the temperature, which you don't mention).  Mars has very little atmosphere, which makes it almost as challenging as the moon to colonize.  Venus' rich atmosphere is *a resource* - vital for industrial purposes, and unavailable on Mars.

Interesting thing about Sulphur Dioxide:  the deep sea vent ecosystems thrive on it.  It's the basis for chemosynthetic ecosystems on Earth that live under the kinds of pressures Venus' atmosphere creates.  The volcanic vents also are much hotter than people can tolerate, though nothing like 800 degrees.  

That heat is also a resource.  Chemical reactions are stimulated.  Metals become malleable.  IR (heat) can be used to generate solar power.  None of that on Mars.  

Given the resources Venus provides to colonizing industry, it's a much more attractive target economically, despite that it seems unwelcoming.  Since Earth life already uses Sulphur Dioxide to found food chains, creating novel life forms adapted to Venus specific conditions might well be possible.  Carbon Dioxide is also the essential feed stock for photosynthetic ecosystems, such as we are part of, and Venus has that in spades.

But, all that isn't really why I want to colonize Venus.

It was really the cloud cities that sold me on Venus, not the valuable resources necessary for industry =)  
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@quillfire ·
@cryptogee,

Good article, Crypt.

I started writing a long *(even by my standards)* comment on how to actually terraform Venus *(I've been toying with the idea for a decade)* and it's only slightly SciFi. It is at LEAST as realistic as terraforming Mars and quite frankly, probably a lot more so.

So then I thought, OK, I'll turn it into a post. But then I thought, why don't I turn it into a novel? Probably just a Steemit novel. But why not? It's not like doing a post would make enough to justify the effort ... so perhaps a series of posts. And if it's good enough, maybe I approach a few publishers instead.

Crypt, I have a feeling you'd pee in your pants because the ideas required are actually possible with today's technology, if not YET quite plausible. 

*Quill*
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