Space Colonization Part 08: The Skies of Venus

diasdr (54)in #science • 7 years ago

Venus

We all know the sister planet of Earth, yea i mean the one that rotates around the sun the opposite side than all the other planets. Venus is called sister planet to Earth because it is about the same mass and about the same size, but similarities end there. Venus is also called a Hellish place to be, mostly because of the 450 degrees Celsius and the acidic rain.

Above the clouds

Well i told you what is going on at the surface of Venus and a few kilometers over surface, it is bad and our most successful mission Venera 13 actually survived 2 hours and seven minutes and it was 4 times more than we expected. So Venus is dangerous down there, but we humans have technology, patience and a great mind to put into good use. So NASA and ESA already proposed a mission to Venus's skies, 50 kilometers above the ground, over the acidic clouds where temperatures are like Earths at sea level. Airships come to the rescue for the mission, we could fill em up with some air from Earth which is by far lighter than Venuses air, like we do here with Helio. The future mission is proposed to be manned and the astronauts are to stay to Venusian skies for about 1 month, since in Venus they wont need so heavy equipment and suits because the atmosphere of Venus will protect them from radiation from the sun which means they will only need Oxygen. If the mission begins, goes well enough, and ends with success we might actually send a second mission for 1 year.

The future of Venus

If all these are to happen in the near future, we might be looking to Star Wars cloud cities. For Venus our technology is fine right now to go, and we do know how to build the airships and protect the astronauts. To build whole cities of course is something totally different, it would take tons of money and time since they are supposed to hover over the clouds. Venus does not have any water, so we would bring from Earth or we would go for asteroid hunting. Of course Venus is full of CO2 so growing plants would be easy to feed the hypothetical base but water is still a problem. Some scientists in NASA and ESA believe that actually Venus is a better colonizing target than even Mars.

In conclusion

Can we do it? Yes we are capable right now and if we are not we will be in 6 months if we want to do it. Is it worth it? Well not really. That of course is a personal opinion but if we are to get to a planet, i do believe we have to terraform the place and Venus is an extremely difficult target to terraform. I will explain why it is difficult and how we are thinking as a civilization to accomplish it in a future article.