You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
18 points

Lol, we ain’t making it off earth, especially not Venus

permalink
report
reply
53 points

Ironically, between Venus’ earth-like gravity and high atmospheric density, it might actually be easier to build cloud colonies on Venus than ground colonies on Mars.

permalink
report
parent
reply
19 points

Except that venus is just absolutely hostile to everything

permalink
report
parent
reply
24 points

Nah, we just need to crash Mercury into the surface of Venus, get the rotation sorted out and a moon going. After that, buildings.

permalink
report
parent
reply
14 points

Yep, yet it’s my understanding that it’d be easier to colonize Venus than Mars. Venus is closer, Venus’ gravity is similar to Earth’s, the air is extremely dense which means balloons would be very effective, iirc Venus has more opportunities for inter-planetary transit, high-altitude temperatures (where the balloons would float) are more similar to Earth’s, etc.

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

Yeah what would be the benefit to colonies Venus vs just living in space? Gravity?

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

That’s why balloons! You can have sick blimps on Venus and IIRC you can capture atmospheric gasses to burn as fuel for them and to create water too.

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points
*

The hard part would things like water and raw building materials, one of the benefits of ground is that it’s mostly iron, oxygen, and other metals, while basically everything on Venus would need to be shipped in from off world.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

In the long term, it’s also possible to alter the atmosphere on Venus until it’s approximately the same as Earth. It would be a massive undertaking, but a hell of a lot easier than getting Mars to a comfortably habitable state. And you could potentially get an entire habitable planet out of the deal, which would be nice.

Kurzgesagt had an interesting video on the topic.

Obviously it would take a significant investment of resources that would benefit some future generation, but not our own. So, back to being impossible, at least for now.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Right cause getting food/oxygen/water is so easy while in fucking hot air balloons.

permalink
report
parent
reply
14 points

They’ve come up with a way they could do it. I dunno why you’re mad about that, I was just wanting to share an interesting tidbit I’d learned.

My understanding is that the reason why scientists like playing with the idea is that it’s more feasible than it immediately seems, and it’d solve some of the issues that a Mars colony would have (increased solar radiation due to low atmospheric density and weak electromagnetic field as well at very low gravity).

Would it be expensive? Yeah. We’re talking about colonizing another planet though. It already is going to cost hundreds of billions if not trillions to do.

permalink
report
parent
reply
12 points

I remember reading some old sci-fi that thought Venus was going to be paradise. The next earth.

Then they found out how awful it really was.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

Yeah, lot of “Alien from venus!!” stuff. Too bad all the planets and moons are FAR from hospitable, we’d be better off fixing our own planet than trying to build a new one from scratch

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

Yeah but people and corporations would have to change and that’s too difficult instead we should do something easy like colonize another planet. /s

permalink
report
parent
reply

Science Memes

!science_memes@mander.xyz

Create post

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don’t throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

Community stats

  • 11K

    Monthly active users

  • 3.7K

    Posts

  • 94K

    Comments