Colonization of Venus

*Planet Venus is the best planet in the Solar System for colonization. *

First, it is the closest one to the Earth - about 40 million kilometers, compared to 50 million to Mars.
Also, there is a much frequent launch window (every 584 days), compared to the 780 days for Mars**.

It is similar to Earth by its size - slightly smaller than Earth, which provides almost the same gravity - 0,9g, compared to the 0.38g only on Mars. Gravity is crucial for the human's skeleton-muscular body system's health.

Venus_Earth_Comparison.pngthick, extremely hot (500 deg.C)

Venus has a thick, extremely hot (500 deg.C) and Sulfur-Acidic Atmosphere with a deadly Pressure of 100 bar on the surface, but with the PERFECT 1 bar and 27 deg.C temp, at 50 km altitude, far above the acidic layer. Also, there is a Quasi-Magnetic Field and more layers of CO2 atmosphere above that altitude, which are perfect shield against the lethal space and Solar radiation. All this cannot be met on Mars, for example.

Venus is closer to the Sun which offers much more solar energy, which could be harnessed by PV-solar panels, than on the Earth's orbit.

The CO2- and H2SO4-rich Venus's atmosphere will provide enough Oxygen for breathing and Hydrogen for Water-synthesis and Spaceship's Fuel. Also, the CO2 will be needed for food-plants farming and lots of Hydrocarbons as Polymers, Medicines, Textiles, and various Chemical raw materials', etc. production, needed for the future Venus's Human Colonies.

All these conditions make the Venus's Tropo-Stratosphere a perfect place for human's living and colonization - so perfect, that humans could also work outside the ship even without specially pressurized and thermally-insulated suits.

There are strong winds at that altitude with speeds of about 350 km/h, but they won't be a problem because the human's colony will fly inside, together with these wind streams, and will remain synchronized and still. These winds will help the Colony to make a full turn around the planet for less than 5 Earth days, instead of the regular Venus turn = 120 Earth's days, if fixed on a stationary Venus-synchronous orbit.

There could be built *giant cities hovering aloft *the Venus's atmosphere, by the help of large Hydrogen Airship Platforms, made of super-strong, super-thin and lightweight Basalt-Fiber SOH-Gas-Plasma-Welded Composite Textile, with high acid / oxidation, UV- and heat-resistance.

The Cities could be connected by flyroads, kept aloft by lots of electric propellers, powered by PV-Solar and/or MOH-Gas Fuel Stations.

The Electric-Propeller Option could be used for keeping the Cities aloft themselves as well.

Basalt Rock raw material will be mined on the Moon, where it is abundant.
The Basalt-Composite Construction Elements will be also produced there, in underground factories, well-protected against space/solar radiation and meteorites, and then delivered by spaceships to Venus at a low cost.
There is also enough water and oxygen on the Moon, and much more minerals, needed for the Basalt mining and various else products manufacturing.

Super-strong and High-melting point (2,715 deg.C) Zirconia-Fiber Composites could be used for building fully thermally-insulated and acidity-resistant Venus's On-Land Stations as well.
Zirconia is the best thermal insulator and 100% chemically inert ceramic.

Here is a link to a video about the NASA's Project *for the *Venus's colonization :

https://youtu.be/0az7DEwG68A

WIKIPEDIA : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColonizationofVenus

Grainis ltd. Hydrogen Bulgaria -- https://fuels.alle.bg , [email protected]

VENUS COLONIZATION

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Suzana Bianco

Space Architect

I really love the concept of building cloud cities on Venus. But appart from being closer to the sun and easier to get to, I don't really see why we would want to settle there as a species. What do you see as the compelling reason why people would want to settle Venus's clouds, instead of the Martian lands? The way I see it, when we settle on the ground - and are able to work it, mold it, and grow our cities on it, we're actually making a connection with the planet and making our presence permanent. While settling on the clouds of Venus seems, well, sort of temporary, and lacks a direct connection with the planet itself. What do you think?

Grainis Hydrogen Bulgaria

Thanks for your reply, Suzana.

There is one very important reason, amongst others for the humankind to search for a backup Earth 2.0 . This reason is the mankind's survival.

If some mass-extinction event occur on Earth, as for example an Asteroid hit, or a combined eruption of Yellowstone plus Campi Flegrei supervolcanoes, or a stronger solar flare eruption, or fatal climate changes, or a nuclear world war, etc., there won't be life on the Earth for decades and probably centuries.

Actually the Venus option is designed to be stratospheric, OVER the clouds, where the weather is always sunny and there is abundance of moderate heat all day long, unlike the Mars, where we observe freezing colds of -120deg.C.

Actually, it will be impossible for us to colonize Mars for long decades ahead, because of the high radiation and low gravity.

While the Venus's atmosphere option offers almost a normal 0.9g gravity, 27 deg.C temperature, 1 bar pressure and a decent anti-radiation protection.
Almost ideal, Earth-like conditions.

Aerostat Platforms will offer fixed and stable enough artificial ground for development of million-population cities with no difference if they'd be on the planet's ground.

Starting with the Cloud Cities on Venus, we'll start a long-ahead going process of terraforming the planet, in order to remove the clouds and the greenhouse effect, to transform the atmospheric acids and dioxides into oxygen and water and to cool down the surface to normal levels.

Josh Perry

Student, engineering / plasma physics

It would be very difficult for a colony on Venus to be self-sufficient and the capital costs involved in getting to that point would be a lot higher. Just surviving on the surface long enough to mine it is a huge engineering challenge, and doing trade between Venus and the Earth-Moon system with a set of reusable spacecraft would involve some kind of high performance nuclear-thermal ramjet as an SSTO for Venus.

Radiation levels from cosmic rays in low-lying parts of Mars like Arcadia can be as low as 130 millisieverts per year, which just over three times the standard yearly limit for radiation workers (a limit that is meant to very conservative). Exposure to the outside environment should be minimized, but it’s certainly far from lethal. Most large-scale habitats would be constructed as vaulted brick structures or built underground, which could bring radiation levels down to earth background level or even lower. Even with the radiation, I suspect that Martian colonists would have lower cancer rates than the average person on earth, since they would be eating a lot healthier and wouldn’t be exposed to the same environmental pollutants.

When it comes to the low gravity, I suspect most of the heath issues with bone development and so on would be counteracted by remaining in a low gravity environment. Humans are a very adaptable species, after all. Reproduction seems like the weak link in the ability of mammals to survive in low gravity, and if it is a serious problem, a Martian colony could have a rotating space station in orbit as a maternity ward and nursery. Of course, all of this is just my guesses. There isn’t much data one way or the other on these health effects, which is why I think we need to go and find out rather than assuming the worst and not trying at all.

Grainis Hydrogen Bulgaria

Just look what a cocktail of rays will be exposed the guys to.

NASA says it'll be 2.5 times more than on ISS. Having in mind the laptops on ISS smoke off because of the radiation soon and they change them every month. What should we say about the human brains ?

Yes, if they dig their homes deep into the ground on Mars, they'll be protected, more or less. The question is : what the hell will they do there underground and what the hell kind of life this would going to be ?
About Venus - of course, mining on the Venus's ground is out of discussion. There is no material to survive in a 500deg.C, 100bar and boiling H2SO4-droplets environment. But H2SO4 will give us the hydrogen fuel, the breathable oxygen and the drinkable water. Adding the abundant atmospheric CO2, we'll produce all hydrocarbons needed for food, medicines, chemicals, etc.
The main Construction material - Basalt Fibers and Composites, plus many more minerals, materials and goods, will be delivered from the Moon at a tiny cost, by huge water-fueled cargo spaceships, equipped with water-reusing SOH-Gas Implosive Engines.
Venus's Stratosphere sounds to me much better than Mars for colonizing. There is no other place in the whole Solar System, except the Earth, where you could get out of the station dressed just with your jeans and t-shirt on, with an oxygen mask only on your face. And you'll have a 100-hours non-stop-sunny day over the clouds.

Josh Perry

Student, engineering / plasma physics

This is my source for radiation levels on Mars. According to the paragraph below the chart, radiation levels on the ISS are much higher than low-altitude regions on Mars.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA03480

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission puts the yearly dose limit for radiation workers at 5 rems, which someone on mars would reach if they spent over nine hours a day, every day working outside in a spacesuit or in a large pressurized dome.

https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/health-effects/info.html

Grainis Hydrogen Bulgaria

In some statements NASA says lower altitude receives lower level of radiation, due to the larger atmosphere thickness.
In other statements it says the level of radiation is 2.5 times higher than that on the ISS.

Estimated radiation dose from galactic cosmic rays (GCR) on the martian surface, from MARIE orbital radiation data and MOLA laser altimetry. **The lower the altitude, the lower the expected dose, because the atmosphere provides shielding.**
*Without a global magnetic field and with little atmosphere to provide shielding, the surface of Mars is bombarded by two types of primary radiation. Solar flares are bursts of low-energy protons from the Sun; they are intermittent and relatively easy to shield against. Galactic cosmic rays (GCR) are extrasolar, high-energy atomic nuclei that damage DNA; they are continuous and cannot be shielded against, so determining the dosage an astronaut would receive is necessary prior to any human exploration. Mars Odyssey’s Mars Radiation Environment Experiment (MARIE) provided the first direct information about the martian radiation environment. **It found radiation exposure at the martian surface to be about **two and a half times** that at the International Space Station, **in agreement with calculated values.
Zeitlin, C. et al. (2004). Overview of the Martian radiation environment experiment. Adv. Space Res. 33, 2204-2210.
Another question : What about the huge planetary sandstorms? Don't they mix the sand particles with lower and higher radiation doze consumed, and stir them into an EVEN radioactive dust mass?
Isn't this AVERAGE radiation doze, evenly spred across all the planet, that one NASA says is 2.5 times that of ISS ?

https://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/topten.cfm?topten=10

Josh Perry

Student, engineering / plasma physics

I suspect this graph is where that 2.5 times figure comes from, but it says that it applies to mars orbit, not mars surface. It was made in 2002, so it probably comes from the actual Mars Odessey team.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA03745

The website you cited cites a paper from 2009, so must have been written much later. I'd guess whoever wrote it remembered that number but didn't bother to check where it came from.

As to radioactive dust, I havn't seen it mentioned by any papers, but it is possible. Cosmic ray collisions produce thermal neutrons which have been measured on the surface of mars, and thermal neutrons can transmute atoms they interact with into radioactive isotopes, but in almost all cases, these would be alpha or beta emitters that are only hazerdous when inhaled or injested.

Grainis Hydrogen Bulgaria

Even astronauts who live on the International Space Station, which sits inside Earth's protective magnetic field, are exposed to 10 times the radiation they would if they were back on Earth, NASA officials said in a statement and series of videos from the agency's Human Research Program.
Anyone who traveled through deep space would be at much greater risk from radiation exposure. Outside of Earth's protective shield, radiation can increase cancer risk and damage a person's central nervous system (which would cause altered cognitive function, reduced motor function and behavioral changes), NASA's Human Research Program said. Other dangers of being exposed to such high radiation include nausea, vomiting, anorexia, fatigue, cataracts, cardiac disease and circulatory disease.

The most immediate threat to human health on Mars is the low pressure of the planet's atmosphere, which is about 100 times thinner than Earth’s.
If you are unprotected on Mars … your blood would boil, even at ambient temperature,said planetary scientist Pascal Lee, who's based at NASA's Ames Research Center and the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, both in California. [How Living on Mars Could Challenge Colonists (Infographic)]. All the gases that are dissolved in your bloodstream [would] just turn into bubbles, he said during a webcast interview at the 2017 Humans to Mars Summit, which is underway this week in Washington, D.C.
Like popping a can of Coke, you would fizz to death, Lee said. And that's within seconds.
So low atmospheric pressure would kill an unprotected Mars explorer faster than anything else.

Grainis Hydrogen Bulgaria

In the terms mentioned above, Mars looks to me very unlikely to be used as a Backup Earth 2.0 option in case of some global-destruction and mass-extermination event (MEE). In some terms even the Moon and/or the 100km Earth's space orbit looks better for such a purpose.
If the MEE threat wasn't so real, there would not be so big reason for the enormous billions of dollars expenses for space missions, instead to be invested in Earth projects, for mastering the Earth's oceans, deserts, mountains, stratosphere, improving the humankind's life here and now.

Forrest White

Another reason for Venus is that phosphine found in its atmosphere - a possible sign of life. This may indicate the existence of life cause here on the Earth, it is produced by anaerobic organisms. Either life processes take place on Venus, or gas on the planet is produced in a different way, unknown to science.

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