AngelLestat

For the first missions yeah, but after 20 years just following our current progress, the cost would not be much higher than the fuel. Also.. many other technologies will make their debut in that time frame. airship technology is pretty obvious from 1911, but only when you try to do the math of how to reach self sustain is when you realize the real problems that you might have.. So if it is so obvious, make the plan with others. Let´s make a review. I imagine you will find 10x more info about this than venus.. so it should be easier. Voting does not prove nothing.

With repairs? if I need to explain it, is not a joke anymore

that stage seems in good condition.. let's reuse it.. PD: The barge should be one of the spacex workers best paid considering its task.

Ok, now explain me in what I am wrong with my solution to this same question in the post above yours. Seriously guys.. if you are going to keep saying that venus surface can not be exploited, then try to explain what thing is wrong from my proposals to deal with that issue? We are working on that on the venus cloud thread, I guess we are in good direction. We need somebody with better understanding on chemistry to know an estimative of the energy required for some process. What about mars? I saw many votes saying that is better.. but only few try to come out with some solutions. transportation cost is only for the things you want to export or import (which is reduced from the export). But as I explain in the mars goods thread, there is many ways how a city can by self sustained with different incomes that are not related with raw materials or different exports.

Part of this answer is included in this post that you also reply: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/130009-what-would-a-mars-colony-have-to-offer-in-the-way-of-goods-and-services/&do=findComment&comment=2370208 About long term.. is not needed, because for your time would be always steps in which you will want to participate or collaborate. Mars exploration would be carry on with or without long term plans, these are only steps that can be taken after that.. Look Elon Musk, he is interesting in all those plans even if there is nothing builded yet. Also not be so sure that these things happen so slowly, dubai was created in few years. Yeah. there is a huge distance with mars.. but if you have an reusable rocket which only cost is refuel plus the technology growth in the next years.. everything is changing faster than before. Not sure why so many find 450c and 90 bar so hard to overcome (no acid down there) Restaurant ovens deal with that temperature all the time, we have materials that can resist 2000c, 3000c or even more without compromise its material integrity. We have already electric motors that can operate without problem at 550c, we have electronics that operate at 350c, and new electronics in the way that would overcome that. Pressure is only a problem when you have a pressure differential (not sure why a teleoperated vehicles should have different pressure inside), and even if it has, we build in 1960 a manned submarine who resist 12 times venus pressure. One of the veneras probes drill venus surface.. now we can drill up to 12000 m in earth where pressures and temperatures are higher than venus. We can use explosives too. Or mine the top of the mountains in venus (100 c less), or inflate some ballons with no external energy to rise our vehicles until they cool down for them go back just using working fluids and valves. We see many venus characteristics as something wrong because they are different than earth. But many of those characteristics can be of great help to manufacture some products at lower cost than earth.

is the same I am saying in the other thread and in this thread. Here to find a plan and understand the problems, then in the other thread to compare that plan with a mars plan.. trying to solve problems is the only way to understand the difficulties of each case. The only way to ensure that safety margin is letting the envelope to expand or contract. (venting gas or adding gas helps, but is not enough) But there is no problem with heat if you go down to 50km or even less for few days in case the city is big. Take into account that volume/surface ratio increase with scale. This mean the heat capacity (volume) is bigger over the heat flux (surface). In simple words.. it will take a lot of time to heat that huge volume. The only thing that can compromise a big envelope, would be a huge break of epic proportions due bad design. If you design your surface well enough, you can limit until what point a damage/rift can spread, that way to separate volume into pods is a nice way to do it if you want to increase the safety, but it brings other drawbacks with light and view (if the city is inside the envelope) and with cost/weight because you are increasing the surface area. For example expand the city using many modular envelope that can be added.. increase a lot the surface and decrease the aerodynamics. Not sure if we can be able to figure out what could be the best city/envelope design. For example in airships manuals they always talk that rigid airships are way more superior to blimps, but those airships are designed to travel at 40m/s, a city should be designed to have a maximum speed of 7m/s, even if in normal circustances only needs 2m/s to maintain its latitude. Because if you reach the poles it would not be possible to leave the twin cyclones. The people would not die because it has a huge diameter, but you need to counter as 20m/s of meridional winds to go back. Another question is: envelope bag with cables, or envelope bag with city inside, or rigid structure (allowing some expansion). If the city is not inside the envelope, you can take advantage of the sun heat and different surface emissivity top and bottom to trap heat and increase your lifting. But few degrees in temperature should not be such a big deal of change in altitude, I don't remember rubisco calculations..

The different wind speed with just 4 or 5 km difference is not a big deal.. The 5 km of air conduct should be thermally isolated. But in resume, just cool the habitat is not so energy intensive, but it may be a inflection point in that decision with bigger habitats.. not sure the magical number. We already have many things solve, it would be good to sum it all up in a plan and then compare this with a mars habitat plan. With the first steps and deltav using rockets (delta heavy or others) to make an small outpost, and then the long term of how a city would be and its economy. It would be nice to set this once for all, what planet has more sense.

These things needs to be seeing as long term. Questions like: where is easy to survive? It can be answered easily, but question like: What place has more development potential? Not so easy to answer, even if we are talking about Mars vs the middle of an African field. Things to have into account: Adventure: There is no real challenge to live in a boring place here on earth, many may go to another planet not because is easy, because it is difficult, because they can be the first, or as a way to do something meaningful with their lives. Intellectual property: Imagine you are one of the best engineer or professional in a field, and someone said to you, we need the best, we have huge problems which need amazing solutions.. The paid is normal, the life is hard.. But the best people is trying to solve those issues, Are you in? (Who does not like the challenge to fulfill its ego?) If someone studied how was the development of different cultures, is obvious to notice that harder and colder places, develop much faster than those who live in abundance, because they had the "need" to solve those problems for survive.. that encourage their tech and intellectual development, like the case of Prehistoric Europe vs Africa, Or even Nordic countries vs others, they live better in hard conditions without extra resources. The need makes you efficient and creative, that is the main good of those countries. That people create wealth; selling services, knowledge, technology or just being efficient in everything they do. Tourism: Many cities was build in the middle of nowhere in a desert without a single resource at sight, now some are very popular with millions living there (Dubai, Las Vegas, etc). Resources: That is something that everybody ask.. What you have to offer and at what price? Mostly asking for raw material or other commodities, as the only way to survive is selling everything you get to earth. But does is not true, you can live without sell anything if you are able to be 100% sustainable by your own means. Or just with the help of the other 3 points already mentioned. You will use mostly all resources for the same colony, and then you will select the most value things to sent earth, this will help you to get those things you can not get yet (or maybe never will). Investments: These are sources of money that reach your colony for free, in fact a country can sustain itself if is good attracting investments . If someone thinks that can sale or offer a service (using local resources) at better price from the current (something really probably because at the beginning there is not much competence), they will do it. They can generate electricity at lower price, or make X product, etc. The investment needs bring all the tech needed for that, paid to locals for work or to get the resources needed to start to produce. The investor is losing that money? No.. is a capital that can offer profits, you may reinvest those profits to keep improving your product, or you may return some to earth, he/she can also sell that company wherever he/she wants recovering its initial investment, but the money stays in the "colony", it just change owner. So to answer that question, we need to review all these points first (I might forgetting some), now I think we are in the time where we can take the first steps into a future colony.. First as science missions, then other niches. If mars really has potential or not.. I guess that should be studied and explained by Mars advocates in the Mars-Asteroids-Venus topic. At least studying what level of sustainability they can achieve and at what cost.

We need new breakthrough in cooking tech to eath that thanks for the link. If you want to sale sand or ice.. then yeah. Venus had an ocean before.. mars could have too. Why? In any case venus will have more heavy elements because is closer to the sun. Of course, is not a question of dig in anywhere and you will get it, you need to study the terrain and learn where you can find the most concentrate resources.

next falcon9 launch? or mission? month estimative?

You really think that a constant change of 10 degree in your landing pad is fine? https://youtu.be/ivdKRJzl6y0?t=29m40s

I am not sure.. the leg system of falcon9 is good enough, they find a good solution to the deployment issue without affect the aerodynamic much. It has its weakness but it needs to be also light. Pictures from falcon9 legs: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/CRS-6_first_stage_booster_landing_attempt.jpg http://i.stack.imgur.com/qPirl.jpg But maybe there is a way to design a landing system that can deploy without using rigid structures, which can expand the leg radius. This can be achieve it with tensairity beam structures. So using cables instead rigid structures, you can achieve an structure that can be deploy using extra hellium from the tanks, which transform into a rigid structure, without the deployment and weight limits of rigid legs. You can read more about tensairity beams on internet, there are videos.

Gyros are much stronger of what you believe by some grades of magnitud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBVztfLN3lk If you used them in a ship, the ship will only be moved half up, and half down (keeping its horizontal angle) by each wave. Other methods as deep level stabiliser surfaces may work, Still i am not in position to said what method would be better for stability. But any counter thrust method should be hard to do, it would be difficult to predict the movement pattern to counter, propellers take some time to generate thrust, and you need them not just in the landing moment, also all the way back generating a lot of drag.

Yeah, internet and any kind of communication is an issue, but it can be "solved" until certain degree. It will be more issue for mars, it has close to double average distance than venus, this decrease the connection speed and the delay. But as Albert said, it can be manage it, first I would sent all the most important (no repeated) from internet in solid state. With the new 3d memories that would be easy, you can sent thousands of terabytes without problem. Then the Mars/Venus server will learn what pages or content is the most seeing or requested, so it will update those before is asked. I imagine laser in many channels will be the best choice, using a net of sats to repeat the signal.

Here on earth there is people living in high latitudes, which they have 6 months of night and 6 months of day. So I guess yes.. we can adapt. Even crops if we select those seeds in each generation that work best in those conditions. We can improve that with genetic manipulation, or just lights and shadow as I said. Wait 10% less between day/night cycles by flying high would not do much. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now we need understand the estimative cost cost of each element, material and energy to know what strategy looks better for an hábitat. Materials and elements, from the cheapest to most expensive. Atmosphere: Nitrogen---> the most cheap useful element, weights less than oxygen, leaks 4 times slower, number 1 lifting gas. Oxygen --> it will come from plants and as bioproduct of co2 to carbon fibers. Co2 to carbon high quality fibers --> This will be more cheap than earth due co2 concentration, Link. You can do almost all with carbon. Argon--> useful as thermal gas insulation. Sulfur --> very usefull as construction material and other process. Sulphuric Acid --> The most chemical used in industry. Water--> This will have a high demand, h2 as lifting gas is not recommended. Helium--> It said 12ppm which is higher than earth atmosphere, Not sure the amount at cloud level, but it will be very welcome. Surface: All kind of elements can be mined in concentrations that will depend on location, it can be done with current tech, 10 to 15 years of extra development to the final design. There is a big chance to find water reservoirs trapped in the ground, this would be of great help for the Venus Economy and its development. Energy Cloud Level: This will be cheaper than earth depending on the materials used and how advanced we would be in manufacture. Surface: We can exploit thermal differences between 800c and 450c on geologic active locations. It will be possible to use microwave beamed energy from the floating habitats. Habitat lifting capacity Volume-Surface mass ratio: Radius Volume/Surface Mass T 25 8 22 50 17 183 100 33 1466 200 67 11700 400 133 93866 800 267 750933 That is simple math to see how the volume increase much faster than the surface which give us that ratio of difference. But is not very accurate because the surface should be stronger to carry bigger mass and for structure support, plus all problems related with bigger scale, but even taking all those thing into account, we can expect that the cost for surface will decrease in respect to the lifting gas cost for bigger habitats, so big habitats can float at higher altitude. Cooling requirements with respect height This give us another estimative, we need 1/150 to 1/300 the amount of energy needed to cool the whole envelope. Because the habitat volume will be 150 times smaller than the envelope, and it will also depend on the insulation. This ratio does not change depending the size of the habitat, the only that change is the power consumed depending the height. But that extra cost should be similar to the surface cost increase to allow passive cooling. I will like to make a graph with real values when I have time. Then we need to add other pros and cons due height and size. This can all be resumed in a graph of Height / Cost relation with different lines matching each factor and for the 3 cases, small outpost, medium city, big city.. That will give us an estimative of the best choice for each case. Not sure, that can be only done with bag envelopes, no rigid. There are many issues with bag envelopes for big structures. Look.. you are helping.. but when you enter in this mode "lets ignore what he said and lets focus to twist and counter the thing I can, just to disagree", is not helping and takes us nowhere. I explain that even without that tech.. you only need 1/150 or 1/300 (with insulation) the amount of energy needed to cool the habitable zone, even if it share the same volume, because cool air stays down. And you dont need 22 degrees for comfort zone, 28 C with 25% of relative humidity you are perfect. You are just trying to ignore any kind of drawback? UV increase, ionized radiation increase.. we know just that.. UV protection carries an extra cost for the surface, we can not do much with the other, so we need to accept it as a low drawback that it may be worth it. by the way.. only airline crew receive high doses, not the passengers. If you include plants, the volume does not increase much, also plants does not need so much cooling. Is the sun or UV what it kill them, not so much the temperature. Ok, help me to calculate how much the cost increase with 30% more surface, rigid structure and scale difficulties vs insulation. I admit it.. the same than many other things, you are the one allergic to admit something xd Flying at higher altitude can be a good choice depending the size of the habitat and its design or purpose. But I want to understand those cost choices better. Yeah, but only if that does not decrease the growth rate too much.. if we put the plants in vertical structures as buildings, then it will be more easy to provide artificial shadow-light when is needed.

Damm, they was real close, perfect landing perfect accuracy.. Is incredible how they are improving.. I imagine they will make corrections to prevent this problem in the future. The SWATH design sounds good, but it said that it has many drawbacks which directly impact in the cost. They need a barge cheap to operate, or their profits by re usability decrease. Not sure how big are the gyroscopes in the barge.. But a really big gyroscope should not have any problem

This happen to me in ksp with the leg part from spacex mod... that part is too weak! I mean.. too accurate.

there is a big difference in size between an aircraft and a carrier, this thing is just like a little boat in comparison with the rocket.

I dont think that the wind and waves move the drone.. its proppelers should be able to correct those things. The problem is the lack of stability, in the video it seems to experience 20 degress change in each wave. They need gyroscopes to solve that.. and a bigger ship.

Someone said waves of 3 m before, but in the video they look as 6 m. In my opinion, the droneship needs to be bigger and with huge gyroscopes, that sea location has always high winds, it is possible to achieve that if they keep trying.. but not with a good rate of success. But well, official mission seems a success. congrats.

Leaks can be detected and fixed fast, there is nothing that the aluminum tape can not fix The real dangers on venus comes with total structure fail due a big error in the design. In that case a lot of people die. But that also can happen in mars or even in a building on earth. About mass, each case needs their procedures.. is not the same mars procedures dealing with vacuum and dust vs venus with "not look down". Yeah the cost in that case increase, but is a sum of pros and cons. Ok. but how much fuel and energy we are wasting for different kind of materials here? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Bingham_mine_5-10-03.jpg Each time you need to go few meters deeper, you need to make all the hole bigger and redesign the routes, with a lot of maintaining by rain. How much fuel waste a rocket? Similar to 2 747.. Which people use all days to fly.. the cost of 10 tons of platinum is u$s 260.000.000, even without reusability I see profit with that.. When a planet is closer to the sun, it means that all heavy elements from the previous supernova remain closer to the explosion (because are the ones who was in the star core). Of course asteroids looks better for many cases, but you will always find niches when venus had the perfect conditions to get a good price.. Also you can have a lot of people living in venus, but few will be able to purchase live in a centrifuge spaceships due the high cost and risk ). If you find a diamond of 4 cm diameter, that alone can match the platinum paid the platinum shipment. So no because is not economically viable right now it means that it would not be in the future. I will share when I finish. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Someone thought about internet? How you get internet in Mars, Venus, Asteroids.. etc..? That is a very important tool that can not be ignored.

Ok, I have time to see your work, seems serious. And I did not forgot.. I never read it at that time. Is not like real tropical forest, where the water vapor rises carrying that extra heat that it took from the ground and transport 2 km up until it condense releasing the heat. In this case it carries that heat but it would not condense because is warmer. Unless you have a surface that is colder.. that is where the next breakthrough saves the day: From what I understand from this technology, the key is emitting heat in a frequency that can not be absorbed by the atmosphere and reflect at the same time sunlight or other types of frequencies. They have achieved 5 celsius of passive cooling against the environment. This should be tuned for venus, for example you have some heat spectrum free in the water region or other chemicals, so you choose an emission in a special spectrum range.. this mean.. that you only absorb in this same spectrum, and if nothing is emiting in that same spectrum then you are cooling. That is why is titled "radiating directly to space". You still need to fight against convective heat from the atmosphere, but it helps a lot. At the end, it will all depend on the cost/benefics The problem with radiation is mostly the unknown, because is very hard to prove if someone get sick due radiation, or if someone born with a defect by radiation, or if you get cancer.. or if your sperms receive damage and you pass a genetic error to your child's (or 2 generations before). Nobody wants to receive radiation if they can avoid it, so paid a bit more the electricity bill may be fine for them, more if its payload bill is reduced. You can have also those who dont care and they want other kind of cities designs with better view. Venus does not have magnetic shielding.. but the atmosphere works fine, I guess the risk limit should be 55.5km, no just for ionized radiation, also for UV and other drawbacks that I mention. The perfect altitude will depend on the needs and manufacture development, if you are just starting colonize, you need every kg you can get, then you can start playing with other designs. But I see your points, maybe we should fine a middle ground. The only point that I made is that at 5000m you have 2 times more shielding than at 7500m (for UV and Ionized), this mean that even if you have data at 5000m, it does not compare with 7500m. Heh.. the work you with the 55.5km base was fine, the other had many concept errors.. One problem was strategic choice, In the 50km case you choose to active cooling the whole envelope to 22c!! (you need coat for that, more if we take into account that the air is dry, your cooling by sweating increase) First, is not even needed, because hot air rise and cool air goes down, so if you start to cool the habitat in the bottom of the envelope, you will see that you can have 27c in the human space and few meters above the human zone the temperature will start to rise fast until it reach few tenths lower than the outside air. This mean that your average temperature inside the envelope, can be 65.5, and the outside air 66, and those 0.5c in the whole envelope are the ones you need to cool down from the habitat area. But that is not even the most effective way to do it. Because if you use very good insulators in the habitat area, and you dont connect the human area with the envelope. Then you will need a lot less of cooling. I made the math, and you are wasting as 200 to 400 times more energy this way.. (without count the 22c you choose) Now.. that is not even all.. when you decide to cool the whole envelope, you also decrease its lifting vs the outside air.. that is why you lifting capacity at 55km increased vs 50km. But well, we can merge many of these methods including yours to find the ultimate solution. If you have more layers you can pass argon (which you get for free trying to separate the other gases) by inside working as a very good insulator, is the one used in the most quality windows. Good point mmm... Even using the faster winds, you have a problem with the night hours that you need to solve with artificial light. Increase a bit the cost, but no the energy consumption.. There was a new breakthrough with incandescent lights, for example led had a lumen efficiency of 15, this new light bulb has an efficiency of 40, it works in any choosen spectrum and might be cheaper than led.. You need longer cable? mmm is not really an excuse.. taking into account this special case, it can be done without lost efficiency, instead use a kite, you can drag a small rigid wing with a turbine generator, it will be cheaper than the kite for this special use. The benefit of the kite that you don't need transport energy by the cable, and your generator unit can be in the habitat (this way you can use them above you) Very longer cables are not ideal to use the kites as propulsions. The habitats needs to counter the meridional wings.. so aerodynamic designs should be having into account. How it will look the kite:

ahh, I thought they were talking about alpha centauri A and B (focusing in B), when they show in the video the 2 stars.. I was expecting the short scale between A and B XD In that case yeah.. is possible. It will be existing

is nice to see astronomers focusing energy in what really matters (at least for us) But there is a problem.. they hope to find an earth like planet.. but I guess their are talking about "similar size". Because I dont think we have the accuracy yet to discover an earth like planet at venus distance or beyond. The amount of force that earth does over the sun at this distance is almost zero. So I think it can not be found a habitable planet with this method. Even if there is ten of them.

But propulsion using solar wind is 2 orders lower magnitud than solar sails. Some said that is possible to create a sail made with magnetic plasma that would reflect photons providing a low density area.