The Venus problem

[=SiouX= JuVa]

Hello everyone, I`ve been playing for a while, but Venus is not available for colonization.

I think that from a engineering point, if you can handle the hard temperature changes from Mercury, you would have a easier time on Venus. Even with the runaway greenhouse effect, acid rain and high atmosferic pressure, those habs should be able to survive.

It would be like living in a submarine 900 metres bellow the water, but the ocean is 450ºC and it's made of sulfuric acid and carbon dioxide. However, we already have materials who perform well enough in those conditions (ceramics, composites and steel alloys) and by the game rapid science evolution, the colonization of Venus would be not too far from the colonization of Mars and would come sooner than Mercury or the Jovian moons.

So, what is your opinions about it?

[Ark]

The tech for inner planet exploration indicates that they are trying to combat heat problems, whereas mission to venus is dealing with other problems, while the level of tech may be similar, I'm not surprised that they are different nodes due to them being a "mission" to focus on. Similar to the "mission to the moon" that we saw in the 60's. tbh I unlocked venus after like 3 years (and before I could really do anything w/ it) so it didn't really affect me either way.

[Fwiffo]

If you want to colonize Venus, the only realistic way with current or near-future level of technology is a floating city for the upper atmosphere.

Building a base on the surface is harder than just saying "these materials can stand up to it" because it's not enough to just drop a piece of a wall onto Venus and call it a day - you need to actually construct it, and even then the base will be subject to incredibly severe erosion which you would have no way of repairing, making long-term surface colonies impossible to make or maintain.

[ulzgoroth]

Could you? Maybe, though I think you're underestimating the problems.

Would you? Almost certainly not.

Suppose you've got a surface base on Venus. It can't collect solar power, because it's under the Venusian cloud layer. It can't shoot mineral packages into space, because it's under the Venusian atmosphere.

It might do some pretty cool planetary science, but that's exactly no one's priority during the alien invasion.

[Aranador]

Mercury is tidally locked - this makes colonising half of it about as easy as colonizing the moon sans the delta-V requirement. There is already a probe dancing with the fire of the Sun, just resisting the heat is 'solved' but that's radiant heat, you just need a sun shade. Venus heat is conductive, you cant just throw up a sunshade. Add pressure and corrosion to it, and suddenly the idea that there is a probe at the sun, but not on Venus, tells a lot about just how nasty Venus is.

[76561198859928956]

The tech for colonizing bases indicates they're building the bases in polar craters.

Also, Venus has an atmosphere (an incredibly dense atmosphere) while Mercury does not. Basically, think of the difference between sticking your hand under a grill and sticking your hand into a pot of boiling water.

[wmslone]

Even if you could safely land some kind of self-deploying infrastructure, there'd be no possibility of eva's for any kind of maintenance or repair. Basically if anything at all went wrong your crew is doomed, and marooned. Moreover, even with near future tech I don't know how you'd go about landing substantial infrastructure on Venus, we have enough problems developing hybrid medium craft on Earth, those challenges are just exacerbated on Venus.

[wmslone]

Not to mention the issues of getting anything useful off of Venus. Even assuming you could land, proceeding to then launch through 90 Earth atmospheres seems implausible even with the advanced techs offered in game.

[=SiouX= JuVa]

Originally posted by Fwiffo:

If you want to colonize Venus, the only realistic way with current or near-future level of technology is a floating city for the upper atmosphere.

Building a base on the surface is harder than just saying "these materials can stand up to it" because it's not enough to just drop a piece of a wall onto Venus and call it a day - you need to actually construct it, and even then the base will be subject to incredibly severe erosion which you would have no way of repairing, making long-term surface colonies impossible to make or maintain.

I took that into consideration, not just the construction, but actualy building a base with the near future tecnology. Like the Mercury bases, it would need to stand high heat, but less temperature change. The pressure and corrosion can be countered by pressurized and underground habitations. We have submarines that can go to the Chellanger Deep, we have materials that can safely hold <1 pH acids. We also have buildings with a architecture to hold winds of a CAT 5 hurricane.

With the game fast science evolution, something that would take 50 years or more, we can research in 4 or 5 years. And since we already have materials and basic knoledge, the game could offer a option to colonize Venus, since it`s a question of combining what we already have as technology and applying it.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by wmslone:

Even if you could safely land some kind of self-deploying infrastructure, there'd be no possibility of eva's for any kind of maintenance or repair. Basically if anything at all went wrong your crew is doomed, and marooned. Moreover, even with near future tech I don't know how you'd go about landing substantial infrastructure on Venus, we have enough problems developing hybrid medium craft on Earth, those challenges are just exacerbated on Venus.

Landing on Venus is hilariously easy, assuming your payload can survive being on Venus, since the enormously thick atmosphere gives you easy aerodynamic deceleration.

Getting anything off Venus, yeah, good luck with that.

[wmslone]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Originally posted by wmslone:

Even if you could safely land some kind of self-deploying infrastructure, there'd be no possibility of eva's for any kind of maintenance or repair. Basically if anything at all went wrong your crew is doomed, and marooned. Moreover, even with near future tech I don't know how you'd go about landing substantial infrastructure on Venus, we have enough problems developing hybrid medium craft on Earth, those challenges are just exacerbated on Venus.

Landing on Venus is hilariously easy, assuming your payload can survive being on Venus, since the enormously thick atmosphere gives you easy aerodynamic deceleration.

Getting anything off Venus, yeah, good luck with that.

For sure, landing a probe or a specifically designed craft, not hard, it was done in the 70’s after all. Landing an already built base though? That thing has to be built most likely in orbit, be able to fly there and then successfully land and deploy. That presents some significant engineering challenges at least. But ultimately I agree, what’s the point? You’re then marooned there haha.

[=SiouX= JuVa]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Originally posted by wmslone:

Even if you could safely land some kind of self-deploying infrastructure, there'd be no possibility of eva's for any kind of maintenance or repair. Basically if anything at all went wrong your crew is doomed, and marooned. Moreover, even with near future tech I don't know how you'd go about landing substantial infrastructure on Venus, we have enough problems developing hybrid medium craft on Earth, those challenges are just exacerbated on Venus.

Landing on Venus is hilariously easy, assuming your payload can survive being on Venus, since the enormously thick atmosphere gives you easy aerodynamic deceleration.

Getting anything off Venus, yeah, good luck with that.

Venus have a slight lower escape velocity than Earth (10.36 km/s² vs 11.19 km/s²), so getting of isn't something impossible. It would be similar to lauching a underwater missile from 900 metres (this is the problem). If you are sending materials to space, the game already have a railgun with more than enough projectile speed, the challange would be sending people back, but could be paid by requiring more boosters.

[Chimp Factory [M04]]

"It's the hottest planet in our solar system, even though Mercury is closer to the Sun. Surface temperatures on Venus are about 900 degrees Fahrenheit (475 degrees Celsius) – hot enough to melt lead...." - Overview Venus – NASA Solar System Exploration

And Wikipedia's quick info bar puts the atmospheric pressure at 92 atm or x92 our Atmosphere; with gravity close enough to us as well to really make it even harder.

Just like how any ship can be a minesweeper once; sure you can land on Venus but staying there is hard enough, not to mention getting off the surface.

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Getting anything off Venus, yeah, good luck with that.

[=SiouX= JuVa]

Originally posted by Aranador:

Mercury is tidally locked - this makes colonising half of it about as easy as colonizing the moon sans the delta-V requirement. There is already a probe dancing with the fire of the Sun, just resisting the heat is 'solved' but that's radiant heat, you just need a sun shade. Venus heat is conductive, you cant just throw up a sunshade. Add pressure and corrosion to it, and suddenly the idea that there is a probe at the sun, but not on Venus, tells a lot about just how nasty Venus is.

Not entirely, Mercury have a 30 day year and a 60 day "day". And the colony spots on Mercury aren't all in the poles or always moving to the penumbra area.

And the heat problem can be solved. It isn't exactly space science, but a refrigerator follow the same principle, only that in Venus the house is on fire while being engulfed by a vulcano.

[boom_badda_boom]

Well, colonising nearby planets is something technologically possible but not something we have done yet.

The pressure and temperature on Venus are not beyond our technology. We would have a double hulled colony. An outside hull to handle the pressure and made from a material that also won`t loose its strength at 450 degrees. We can find such materials being used for things like jet turbine blades, although they are expensive.

Then a vacuum in between the two hulls. Then the actual colony inside with a cooling plant.

Water would be easy to make as there is plenty of Carbon Dioxide and Methane. The soil would need to be treated to make it less acidic. Its doable. But due to the materials needed to make the outer colony hull it would be expensive. As would getting it all there in one chunk. We need nuclear engines not liquid propellant.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by =SiouX= JuVa:

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Landing on Venus is hilariously easy, assuming your payload can survive being on Venus, since the enormously thick atmosphere gives you easy aerodynamic deceleration.

Getting anything off Venus, yeah, good luck with that.

Venus have a slight lower escape velocity than Earth (10.36 km/s² vs 11.19 km/s²), so getting of isn't something impossible. It would be similar to lauching a underwater missile from 900 metres (this is the problem). If you are sending materials to space, the game already have a railgun with more than enough projectile speed, the challange would be sending people back, but could be paid by requiring more boosters.

If we pretend operating in the Venusian atmosphere is easy, sure, you could probably build an escape craft. Something like a nuclear thermal atmosphere-jet to lift to the upper atmosphere before igniting rockets, perhaps.

Launching a rocket would be essentially impossible. Rockets burn through fuel furiously, they need to get to thin air quickly where they can pile on speed. You can't do that on Venus, you have to crawl through the death soup a long way.

Shooting a payload into space from a railgun would probably be literally impossible. Sure, escape velocity isn't too high. Except if you shoot a payload from the ground at escape velocity even on Earth it is going to have a pretty bad time, and also not escape. Going hypersonic in the lower atmosphere means monstrous amounts of drag and thermal/ablation damage as well. The air column masses something like 85 kg/cm^2. Even if you shoot straight up, you're going to have a scary amount of your payload ablated away into the atmosphere. And a scary amount of speed lost. And you're not going to be shooting straight up, most likely.