Venus vs. Mars colonization

[Rakaydos]

Venus "surface" mining condists of flying over a volcano and collecting all the free rock you can ftom the airborne ashe.

[Kaos]

Are you sure there are rocks lying around? I find the images that I have seen inconclusive. Albeit it seems plausible, I am not sure about that. If so that would be surely the way to go, at least at the beginning.

[Rakaydos]

5 minutes ago, Kaos said:

Aise you sure there are rocks lying around? I find the images that I have seen inconclusive. Albeit it seems plausible, I am not sure about that. If so that would be surely the way to go, at least at the beginning.

"Lying around" ISnt exactLy how ID describe IT. On earth, the materiAl IM talking about collecting IS generally called "pyroclastic missiles".

[K^2]

3 hours ago, fredinno said:

How would an incoming crew rendezvous and dock their crew capsules to a cloud base?

Ever seen a fighter hit the deck of a carrier? It's not the only option, though. I would also consider an autogyro landing or even a rocket propelled descent. Either way, you aren't going to try and do docking in flight. You are looking for a landing on a deck, then transfer to a hangar where the pod would either be docked, or the entire hangar would get vented with clean air.

[andrewas]

Or the lander deploys a blimp and docks with the base the same way local vehicles do. 

Anyway, I'm not convinced that diving into a gravity well is the way forward. What do Mars or Venus offer that the asteroids don't?

[SargeRho]

Solid ground in the case of Mars, and natural gravity in the case of Venus. Also on Venus you don't need to build radiation protection, even on Mars you need less than on an Asteroid. I, for one, wouldn't be able to live permanently in a space station or floating base.

Edited January 11, 2016 by SargeRho

[Kaos]

36 minutes ago, andrewas said:

...

Anyway, I'm not convinced that diving into a gravity well is the way forward. What do Mars or Venus offer that the asteroids don't?

More energy (because of more light, because of proximity to the sun), faster communication home (proximity to earth). Then we have an atmosphere where we can extract resources uniformly from. And a gravity, so you have to build less or smaller (in case it turns out that mars gravity is to low to live healthy) artificial gravity stuff. Not to forget the better protection from radiation and micrometeorites by the atmosphere.

Nevertheless, asteroids are valid targets, too.

[K^2]

2 hours ago, andrewas said:

Anyway, I'm not convinced that diving into a gravity well is the way forward. What do Mars or Venus offer that the asteroids don't?

Well, you wouldn't build a base on an asteroid, because it'd be all sorts of painful to build centrifuges on it if said asteroid happens to tumble even the tiniest bit. And they pretty much all do. So we're really talking about a deep-space habitat in proximity of some asteroids. And probably not just one, because it's very unlikely to find just one that will have everything you need. Of course, you want your colony pretty close to asteroid for mining, so you'll really end up needing a whole bunch of colonies next to a whole bunch of asteroids, mining different resources and exchanging them. Long term, I think that's the way forward for a civilization. But it'd take enormous effort to make these self-sufficient.

Yes, we'll probably start building mining outposts like that long before we can make them self-sufficient. They will rely on constant shipments of resources they can't mine locally, but it will be worth it for the resources they can mine. And it's all good for the march forward. But there is also value in establishing a fully self-sufficient outpost somewhere as soon as possible, because life on Earth is somewhat fragile. We can establish a colony on Venus that can survive the end of Earth faster than any other location. Yeah, it will still take a very long time, but we can do a lot of useful atmospheric science while we get there.

So to reiterate, very long term, yes, gravity wells aren't the way forward. Medium-long term, we're stuck with them. And Venus makes far more sense than Mars if we want to build anything that doesn't rely on Earth.

[Motokid600]

6 hours ago, K^2 said:

. And Venus makes far more sense than Mars if we want to build anything that doesn't rely on Earth.

You honestly picture a cloud city being the first off world colony as opposed to a Martian one? I see it. But not until after or during the Martian colony is well underway.

Theres nothing for humans to do on Venus. Again you walk outside and do... What? Walk the cat walks in an acrophobic nightmare? 

Edited January 11, 2016 by Motokid600

[Gojira1000]

Neither. Large permanent habs at the LaGrange points will be the first real "colonization" (at least in my own fantasy world)

[magnemoe]

15 hours ago, K^2 said:

With exception of flammability, airship have fantastic safety record on Earth. Additionally, we have a lot of experience with huge floating structures in sea, including their ability to withstand weather. It's not quite the same thing, but in terms of being able to resist stress due to variations in buoyancy, a lot of this knowledge would carry over.

Airships even with helium had an terrible safety record leading up to WW2, the airships used during WW2 was mostly smaller blimps.used for searching after submarines. 
No word about safety but as aircraft during WW2 had very high losses it was not interesting however they was dropped after WW2. 
Note that blimps might be safer than huge airships with skeleton who broke up in turbulence or stormy weather.

It has been some interest in airships the last 20 years, VTOL of +100 ton oversize cargo to locations with bad roads is interesting, both for industry and military 
An flying cruise ship would also be interesting as you could travel inland visiting remote locations and holding far higher speed than an ship. 
However none of this projects has come far. Better materials and good weather forecasts would make it far safer.

[magnemoe]

16 hours ago, Spaceception said:

Still Venus is better than Mars for 4 reasons:

1: .9 gees, which means much lower chance of having bone atrophy than on mars (Which has .4 gees),

2: If you're 50 km or higher, you would have a 1 bar (Or less) atmospheric pressure (Compared to the almost vacuum on Mars),

3; You would get 2x more solar energy compared to Earth, so solar panels would be a great option for power (Compared to getting less than half on Mars),

And 4: The temp. 50 km and higher would be 64 c or lower (Compared to well below freezing on Mars), so you'd only need good air conditioning, Very good sunscreen, summer clothes, and an oxygen mask on Venus, pretty good, huh?

Now, Mars is better, only because it's less complicated to colonize, but in the long term, Venus is better.

Also, there's a chance that there's little to none sulfuric acid 50 km high, we'd need to go there to confirm it, but for now, Venus is pretty good.

We don't have experience with lower gravity, just zero g, Wearing an lead vest should compensate for the legs at least, I think that training is more important than low partial gravity. 
air condition from 64 c down to 20 c is an major undertaking you would need to get rid of all the heat also the heat generated by all the equipment in the colony on earth you rarely have to cool more than 15 c and you only cool living areas. 65 c will kill you. heating is trivial, it -10 c outside my door now, people survived -40 c with stone age tech. With an reactor you end up with vaste heat anyway.

Venus is better if you can teraform it and that is an major undertaking who has to wait until we are an class 1+ civilization. 

[Motokid600]

How far fetched would it be to say that underground on Mars there is a temperate area with good pressure? Maybe even simple life.

[Spaceception]

12 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

How far fetched would it be to say that underground on Mars there is a temperate area with good pressure? Maybe even simple life.

It's been theorized, I don't remember where I heard it, I think it was an episode of "The Universe" or something like that..

[Kaos]

There is a region underground with a good temperature. As it is solid, you can choose kind of freely, which pressure you want to have, if you build something there. So in some way this hypothesis is true. Another advantage there, is that you are better protected against radiation there.

Whether there is life, I do not want to speculate for myself, but I once heard a talk where they argued that because of radiation, genetic degeneration and possible reproduction rates, one should search for life on mars at least 10 m below the ground.

[Motokid600]

Mars is cavernous. That much we know. An underground infrastructure doted with bio-domes on the surface. Digging and mining would be easier in the low gravity. And itd nearly take radiation out of the equation. That sounds like a place for a future colony where people can actually live. Venus sounds more like a fuel plant for industry that will come sometime after.

Edited January 11, 2016 by Motokid600

[Fl0oo]

Better fix our home(Earth), stop the war, make one state (The Earth State) and make the planet more stable.  It's to early to think about colonization, when we hardly go to the Moon. If we accomplish all of this, then we can focus at colonization, the hole solar system is by our side! 

Maybe we can terraform and shape the Mars/Venus/Titan/Europa before we step on it(with probes idk).

Why do you wanna live in a dead planet and at the same time kill your own.

Edited January 11, 2016 by Fl0oo

[Albert VDS]

There are 3 things which should work perfectly to have a successful Venus blimp hab:
- A never leak gas pocket which can stand the Venusian atmosphere.
- Predictable path of the blimp hab for rendezvousing in the atmosphere, you want to send the crew after the blimp deployed.
- A blimp hab which can hold a orbital rocket and cable of launching it.

Unless someone can prove otherwise, a Venus colony is at the very least very dangerous unpredictable(especially winds) adventure compared to a much "easier" Mars colony.

For Mars you would only need to solve landing large payloads.
 

[Panel]

What about ascent from Venus? I can't imagine it would be easy to build something that could take off in the air and reach orbit.

[Spaceception]

40 minutes ago, Panel said:

What about ascent from Venus? I can't imagine it would be easy to build something that could take off in the air and reach orbit.

A SSTO VTOL plane maybe?

[AngelLestat]

On 11/1/2016 at 3:53 AM, Kaos said:

No, we had rockets over 1000 years ago and balloons in 1783.

Another note: We do not need helium or hydrogen as lifting gas. Breathing air is totally fine as lifting gas on Venus and can be produced in-situ.

I said a tech we mastered in 1910,   1783 was the beginnings, nothing mastered there, just experiments.

About what lifting gas we should choose, that is a good question.. but is not Breathing Air because it does not have economic sense..
Me previous example with a sphere envelope of 150m radius, was able to lift 5000 tons with air and 17000 tons with hydrogen at 52,5km.
You may said, oxygen is much more cheap than hydrogen in venus.. yeah.. but..  to fill those  14100000 m³ , you only need 1175kg of hydrogen..

Is that a lot?  lets see how much methane we can do with that:  1kg of hydrogen + electricity can produce 12 kg of methane --> 14100 kg of methane --> 30000 liters of methane..  Where you go with that?  A 747 consume 200000 liters of kerosene and the falcon9 400000 liters if I remember...
With hydrogen your envelope is 282857m2 and with air 636428 m2, so an envelope with air cost 3 times more. The only pro for air, that a leak would be 5 times slower.   

Ok I have a huge mistake there with . and , differences between reading systems.
That volume would require 1775 tons of hydrogen, which in fact is 1000 tons due the pressure at 52,5 km. We can produce 12000 tons of methane with that, which is 24.000.000 liters of methane, that is enough for many launches.

So yeah, breathing air as lifting gas sounds good for big hábitats.

On 11/1/2016 at 4:17 PM, magnemoe said:

Airships even with helium had an terrible safety record leading up to WW2, the airships used during WW2 was mostly smaller blimps.used for searching after submarines. 
No word about safety but as aircraft during WW2 had very high losses it was not interesting however they was dropped after WW2. 
Note that blimps might be safer than huge airships with skeleton who broke up in turbulence or stormy weather.

It has been some interest in airships the last 20 years, VTOL of +100 ton oversize cargo to locations with bad roads is interesting, both for industry and military 
An flying cruise ship would also be interesting as you could travel inland visiting remote locations and holding far higher speed than an ship. 
However none of this projects has come far. Better materials and good weather forecasts would make it far safer.

An airship is like a ship.. if you have a boat.. it will sink with anything you do, but a big one, is not so easy. Those WW2 hellium airships was like a boat (for airship scale). A rigid airship with no flammable envelope and hydrogen, (500m long airship) it will support higher missiles and damage than the biggest naval ship around.  Is all about volume.. the math said so.. 

About today airships.. you choose a really bad moment for comment.. you did not hear?  all airships are making a comeback..
Russia.. China build new airships that are being tested right now..  Aeroscraft - Lockheed Martin - Airlander are all airships companies that already start production for their new models, Airlander is ready and will be test it next month.  All the advantages that provide, is something that all people in the world is waiting.. also europe with their new plans to include them in their logistics.

On 11/1/2016 at 5:20 PM, Motokid600 said:

Mars is cavernous. That much we know. An underground infrastructure doted with bio-domes on the surface. Digging and mining would be easier in the low gravity. And itd nearly take radiation out of the equation. That sounds like a place for a future colony where people can actually live. Venus sounds more like a fuel plant for industry that will come sometime after.

We are going back to the caverns like 30000 years ago?    What about the land..  the sky...  sorry. but I prefer my 5 star room with balcony in my flying hotel.
By the way.. a mars habitat is way more expensive than one in Venus..  we can made the math if you want.

On 11/1/2016 at 5:31 PM, Albert VDS said:

There are 3 things which should work perfectly to have a successful Venus blimp hab:
- A never leak gas pocket which can stand the Venusian atmosphere.
- Predictable path of the blimp hab for rendezvousing in the atmosphere, you want to send the crew after the blimp deployed.
- A blimp hab which can hold a orbital rocket and cable of launching it.

Unless someone can prove otherwise, a Venus colony is at the very least very dangerous unpredictable(especially winds) adventure compared to a much "easier" Mars colony.

For Mars you would only need to solve landing large payloads.
 

I imagine that for prove you are waiting to someone do it for real in venus.. but you not need any proof for mars? What kind of argument is that?
1- there are a lot of good light materials in market that block hydrogen by many years, graphene oxide is in development and will work better and be cheaper.  

2- not sure what is the issue with this..  you think that is not possible to track the position of a vehicle without gps?  Or that is not possible to have a propeller to move in the atmosphere.

3- if an airplane can hold the shuttle.. why not an airship that is a lot more stable and does not need constant speed to fly. 

Edited January 13, 2016 by AngelLestat
Mistake with hydrogen volume mass conversion.

[Panel]

Breathing air is still has the advantage of being able to walk around in it, eliminating the need for seperate balloons.

[fredinno]

19 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Venus "surface" mining condists of flying over a volcano and collecting all the free rock you can ftom the airborne ashe.

Assuming you can collect the molten rock- or that it will be a explosive eruption instead of the more likely scenario of a shield volcano (no tectonic plates)

1 hour ago, AngelLestat said:

I said a tech we mastered in 1910,   1783 was the beginnings, nothing mastered there, just experiments.

About what lifting gas we should choose, that is a good question.. but is not Breathing Air because it does not have economic sense..
Me previous example with a sphere envelope of 150m radius, was able to lift 5000 tons with air and 17000 tons with hydrogen at 52,5km.
You may said, oxygen is much more cheap than hydrogen in venus.. yeah.. but..  to fill those  14100000 m³ , you only need 1175kg of hydrogen.. Is that a lot?  lets see how much methane we can do with that:  1kg of hydrogen + electricity can produce 12 kg of methane --> 14100 kg of methane --> 30000 liters of methane..  Where you go with that?  A 747 consume 200000 liters of kerosene and the falcon9 400000 liters if I remember...
With hydrogen your envelope is 282857m2 and with air 636428 m2, so an envelope with air cost 3 times more. The only pro for air, that a leak would be 5 times slower.   

An airship is like a ship.. if you have a boat.. it will sink with anything you do, but a big one, is not so easy. Those WW2 hellium airships was like a boat (for airship scale). A rigid airship with no flammable envelope and hydrogen, (500m long airship) it will support higher missiles and damage than the biggest naval ship around.  Is all about volume.. the math said so.. 

About today airships.. you choose a really bad moment for comment.. you did not hear?  all airships are making a comeback..
Russia.. China build new airships that are being tested right now..  Aeroscraft - Lockheed Martin - Airlander are all airships companies that already start production for their new models, Airlander is ready and will be test it next month.  All the advantages that provide, is something that all people in the world is waiting.. also europe with their new plans to include them in their logistics.

We are going back to the caverns like 30000 years ago?    What about the land..  the sky...  sorry. but I prefer my 5 star room with balcony in my flying hotel.
By the way.. a mars habitat is way more expensive than one in Venus..  we can made the math if you want.

I imagine that for prove you are waiting to someone do it for real in venus.. but you not need any proof for mars? What kind of argument is that?
1- there are a lot of good light materials in market that block hydrogen by many years, graphene oxide is in development and will work better and be cheaper.  

2- not sure what is the issue with this..  you think that is not possible to track the position of a vehicle without gps?  Or that is not possible to have a propeller to move in the atmosphere.

3- if an airplane can hold the shuttle.. why not an airship that is a lot more stable and does not need constant speed to fly. 

A Mars habitat is much more useful economically. Your options for economic activity are limited 70km away from a planetary surface- especially since a lot of people will go to see landforms.

[Bill Phil]

Space trumps all. I'd we can colonuze Mars, we could do better in space, using large scale habitats.

If I had to say between the two, I'd go with Mars. We've had the tech (to at least send people)  for decades. Plus, the Venus colony has more possible failures. If it falls, you're dead (without escape).

[magnemoe]

20 hours ago, K^2 said:

Ever seen a fighter hit the deck of a carrier? It's not the only option, though. I would also consider an autogyro landing or even a rocket propelled descent. Either way, you aren't going to try and do docking in flight. You are looking for a landing on a deck, then transfer to a hangar where the pod would either be docked, or the entire hangar would get vented with clean air.

Ok an flying aircraft carrier, sounds plausible, in fact its very plausible compared to first launching it into space sending it to Venus and insert it into the atmosphere and operate it. 
It has been done experiments with flying aircraft carriers, all used docking instead of landing, however here the base will be very slow and the plane fast so you need an floating runway. 

As I say this idea is insane even in KSP, please try to do it on EVE in KSP, use any mod you like but use realistic buoyancy on balloons. 
negative if you need stuff like orion nuclear pulse engines to get it of the ground. 

For the same weight requirements as this project you could easy build an major base on mars able to do expeditions over all over the planet with airplanes or suborbital rockets. Base should be able to produce much of the food it needed and lots of materials too.