A Cloud City on Venus: Why Venus is a Better Choice

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[FunderDuck]

Personally, I’m a big Earth fan. It’s a nice place, can sustain life, fairly cozy, and all my stuff is already here..

[umbracolt]

Gives 'Choose love, not war.' a whole new meaning.

[hherpdderp]

Me : "god I hate flying or being on boats, never feel safe"

Also Me: "god yeah I'd love to ride a bomb through a vacuum to live on a dirigible surrounded by superheated sulphiric acid gas"

[j.s.c.]

Yesterday, I selected an episode of Megaprojects about building artificial seas in the Sahara. I fell asleep to the sound of Simon’s voice, and when I woke up, he was talking about the Oregon Trail. I listened to that for a while before falling asleep again, and ultimately waking up to Simon telling me how convergent evolution relates to Mermaids. Three different channels, but Simon the entire time. Simon is developing a monopoly over Youtube. You should do an episode about it.

[congobongo]

Having a floating city slowly losing altitude and having seven hours to evacuate before crushing pressure would make for an exciting thrill ride of a sci fi story…I’m sure chatgpt could write it up a classic😂

[shockruk]

First person on Mars will be one thing. First person around Venus will be another. Imagine the first human to visit them both! Now that's a future I'd like humans to strive for.

[kirtmanwaring]

I’d take this over Mars easily. I do think though our future in space probably will be mostly in O'neil cylinders or other kinds of artificial habitats. Venus could be a good way for us to learn how to make those better too.

[vic]

I once read a book about colonizing Venus that *must* have been written in the '50s since it got the surface conditions of Venus *wildly* wrong.

[tompotter]

Fascinating. Had no idea this was so possible from an engineering standpoint, and extra awesome with the heat engine hot-low-atmosphere probe tech giving you tons of energy letting you fly/hang out wherever, including the dark side of the planet w/o solar — love that. And the dense atmosphere lets you both float extra-well and fly extra-well with props working really effectively with all that dense gas. Wonderful! I hope I get to visit such a flying city in my own lifetime. That would be incredible, I’d be so proud of us.

[belochai]

I’ve long held this view. Nice to see others talking about it.

[Jeff]

In the Venusian Cloud City Colony, I think it would be a common pastime to sit watching the clouds pass by. I think it would be cool to have observation areas that provide a high degree of visibility. More or less the glass bottom boat concept.

[ArgosySpecOps]

I remember the local library back in 1986 showed the film "All Summer in a Day" (based on the Ray Bradbury short story), and thinking colonizing Venus would be RAD! I cracked open Encyclopedia Britannica to do a report on the USSR Venera missions, but I was crestfallen when I read how insurmountable such an undertaking would be 😔. The fact that people are giving the colonization of Venus another look from a different angle gives my inner child hope for the future!😃

[wompa]

I've read a few books set on Venus colonies. But as far as movies and tv shows go, all you have to do to mimic Mars is head to one of the many deserts and throw a red filter on the camera. Much cheaper than trying to mimic Venus. Still, with today's CGI you could easily do stuff set on Venus. I think it's just momentum that keeps Mars king.

[chriss]

Gives "the floor is lava" a whole new meaning

[AmosIrontree]

Finally a mega project worthy of the name! ❤️

I’ve always thought Venus doesn’t hold enough mindshare in the planning of our first colony. I love the thought of floating sky cities!

[samsschool]

The Ability to walk around with just and oxygen tank on another planet is insane (without pressurised space suit)

[Falconlibrary]

UPDATE: It's 2030, and Simon becomes the world's first multi-trillionaire because he acquired all of the airspace rights to Venus in 2023 for £15.

[dotter]

About water, it seems to have been turned into sulphuric acid (H2SO4) by whatever processes. Crack the acid, perhaps with microbes that have been suitably altered, and you'd get water, (H2O), oxygen (O2) and some sulphur. The latter might be useful; if not, the colonies could use abundant solar energy to launch it into orbit where it could eventually form a moon.

[sparkyparky]

I’ve always been fascinated by our little rocky trio. Up first (well, second) is Venus: once lush, now a smoldering example of runaway greenhouse gases. Last is Mars: thought to perhaps once have been home to liquid water oceans, lakes, etc., it’s winds now sweep a dusty and barren frigid wasteland just as solar winds have ravaged and stripped its atmosphere. But situated right in the middle is green Earth: teeming with life and opportunity. If only we could hear the cries of our distant neighbors; that we might finally heed their warnings.

[grantmccoy]

The acid rain suggests water, just in a bad mixture. So it's probably there in ample supply.

My vision involved floating trees, literally plants that grow with high buoyancy. The atmosphere seems to have lots of co2 (dirty air) so it's possible to breed plant species that could take advantage of the conditions. Even if the plants themselves can't float, you could make solar balloons that utilize the heat or electricity to maintain the pressure that keeps the plants aloft. Eventually, if enough plants grow, they would litter the sky, cool off the planet, absorb the atmosphere, and make the planet more habitable. BTW, I don't see any reason why a woody plant wouldn't be able to develop a structure with very hollow and therefore lightweight internals, enough to float. The only problem would be the water, but it's possible that the plant could absorb that too.

I really like thinking about stuff like this. Hanging gardens of Venus sounds really cool.