18 points

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

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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.

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19 points

Except that venus is just absolutely hostile to everything

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6 points

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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2 points

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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5 points

City planners wouldn’t allow more buildings on Earth…

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2 points

But we need to build more pylons (into space)!

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32 points

https://poorlydrawnstore.com/products/our-future-in-space-print

In case you’re like my space friends who want this as a poster

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4 points

Are you by chance the author?

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7 points

I don’t think so but I can check my driver’s license

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3 points

Thank you

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10 points

How did you get friends from space?

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6 points

Met one on an airplane, actually

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71 points

Actually, it’s a lot better to dig, free radiation shield!

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25 points

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9 points

???

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33 points

Mood debuff from the game Rimworld where if you spend too long without going outside, you get a severe penalty.

In other words, being underground for long (or indefinite) periods would probably have a profoundly negative effect on people’s moods.

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6 points

My plan is to use concentrated sunlight to tunnel directly through an asteroid and use the material to build a small O’Neill cylinder inside. The rest of the rock would provide radiation shielding so the cylinder would be cheaper to construct, and we can send sunlight into the cylinder from either end using the same mirrors we carved the asteroid with.

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12 points

It’s so ridiculous. We can do that at home. There’s literally no point in living in Mars. No air no gravity, no radiation protection. Even if we make the air here radioactive and the water poisonous, at least there’s air and water.

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Go shit in someone else’s punchbowl. The future can be wonderful.

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6 points

I love space exploration for science, but living in Mars makes no sense, sorry. Even in the solar system there’s better places to settle. Heck, even venus is better.

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15 points

It’s not like this makes up for everything else, but there is gravity on Mars

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5 points

There’s also water and air, just not anywhere close to the amounts we want.

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8 points

We need that terraforming exercise to eventually leave the solar system though. Stars don’t live indefinitely. But we probably have to grow up first and try in a couple of centuries.

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0 points

We can get that terraforming exercise on Earth.

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