Should venus be treated like saturn?

[daniel l.]

Gas giants technically do have solid surfaces but they are beyond reach, Venus is similar in that its surface is hell and nearly unreachable, Should venus be regarded and colonized in the same way as a gas giant?

[Lord Aurelius]

Yes and no. For actual colony modules, some kind of cloud city style habitat in the upper atmosphere would make sense, but you could additionally tether it to the surface and have small surface facilities at the base of the tethers to use as a base for surface exploration. Yes, the surface pressure is ridiculous, but is still a lot better than what a deep sea submersible has to deal with so limited surface facilities and exploration should be feasible.

A long term terraforming goal could be to bind up large portions of the atmosphere into solid/liquid compounds to gradually reduce the surface pressure to something more reasonable (and the floating habitats could gradually be lowered as the atmosphere is reduced).

[Motokid600]

Gas giants will never be colonized in the full extent of the word. Maybe automated stations that skim resources ala mass effect. Their moons however are prime real estate. And im not so sure the gas giants have a "solid" surface. The gases simply get so dense the farther you go down to the point where they’d condense into a liquid. Beyond that there may be some form of freakish solid, but its impossible as the pressures are beyond imagination. You’d float long before you got to that point. As for Venus. It has a MUCH smaller gravity well. You can float at a certain altitude without the pressure killing you. Not the case with gas giants where the gravity will just pull you down like a lead weight to the bottom of the ocean until your crushed.

Heres a relevant question. How much larger of a balloon would you need to float in Jupiter's atmosphere at a safe altitude as opposed to Venus? My guess is impossibly large.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Motokid600

[Kryten]

The question doesn't make a lot of sense, given what we're actually able and willing to do with either Saturn or Venus in the forseeable future. We can't treat Venus like Saturn because the main draw at Venus is understanding the geology happening at or below the 'nearly unreachable surface', and we can't treat Saturn like Venus because the main draws are the moons, atmosphere and magentosphere, two of which Venus doesn't even have.

[Hal]

Forgetting about colonization, Venus should definitely not be regarded in the same way as Saturn. While Venus' atmosphere is hellish, it has a definite end where it hits something different, the rocky ground. Gas giants are just the same thing all the way down, you'll never "hit" something, you'll just sink to where you can float (or, more likely, be crushed horribly).

Colonization is a whole other can of beans. If/When we do get to the point where we're seriously considering expanding onto Venus and the gas giants beyond something like a research outpost, technology will probably be so different that making plans to either settle in the air or on the ground now will be kind of pointless. It's a fun way to pass the time though, and there's no harm, so go ahead, just keep reality in mind.

[AngelLestat]

Gravity would be lower in saturn than earth if you are in the equator due centrifugal force.

1.06g in poles, 0.9g equator.

The problem with pressure is not "crushing" if your habitat air pressure is equal to the outside.

The only problem is the breathing gas mix, you need to keep the same amount of oxygen (not ratio) and avoid the limit of your secondary gases as nitrogen, helium, hydrogen to not produce bubbles when they are in your bloodstream. Also some become toxic as oxygen to certain levels.

Our bodies are incompressible, if we have the same pressure in our lungs than outside, we would not notice any pressure.

But saturn layer temperatures similar to earth (the same as other gas giants) are below the limit of breathing gases, which is close to 50 to 100 Bar.

But that is not the only problem to live there, in venus is pretty easy to float because the 98% of the atmosphere is co2 which is heavier than oxygen.

But in saturn the 95% is hydrogen and hellium, so no matter how deep you are, you will need to find something lighter than those gases.. The only way is heating hydrogen, but the netforce difference will be still much lower than heating earth air.

So is very difficult to float in the gas giants.

Edited September 29, 2015 by AngelLestat

[Requia]

As you point out, earth temperatures are very deep on Saturn, if you have a Earthlike temperature inside compared to very cold temps outside you don't need to use inherently lighter gases, because the high temperature gives you lower density at the same pressure. A hot air balloon instead of a blimp.

Though I'm not sure why you would. All you're doing is settling down into a gravity well instead of orbiting.

[AngelLestat]

You waste extra energy in heat, but still even if you ignore that, you are far far from solving the bouyancy problem.

In venus, at 50 km, each m3 of co2 weight 1.6 kg, so if you remplace that with hydrogen you have 1.5kg of netforce by m3.

Now in saturn at 15 bar, you have 1.5 kg by m3, but even if you have a thermal difference of 80K degrees, you would lift only 0.3kg by m3 (aprox)

[PB666]

Gas giants will never be colonized in the full extent of the word. Maybe automated stations that skim resources ala mass effect. Their moons however are prime real estate. And im not so sure the gas giants have a "solid" surface. The gases simply get so dense the farther you go down to the point where they’d condense into a liquid. Beyond that there may be some form of freakish solid, but its impossible as the pressures are beyond imagination. You’d float long before you got to that point. As for Venus. It has a MUCH smaller gravity well. You can float at a certain altitude without the pressure killing you. Not the case with gas giants where the gravity will just pull you down like a lead weight to the bottom of the ocean until your crushed.

Heres a relevant question. How much larger of a balloon would you need to float in Jupiter's atmosphere at a safe altitude as opposed to Venus? My guess is impossibly large.

This is all acedemic anyway. The problem for either is the delta-v retro required to safely seat at the density equilibrium point, assumming the vessel has negative relative pressure inside. Once you are on venus, its going to be really difficult tonget off the moon.

Anyway venus is a pn earth like planet that gets too much hv, so called greenhouse effect has substantially turned the outer few kilometers of its surface into basically a greenhouse gas source. Much of this could be reversed, not so for the gas giants.

[FleshJeb]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_Me_Joe

[WestAir]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_Me_Joe

Book may have been better suited for Venus, ironically.

[lajoswinkler]

Yes and no. For actual colony modules, some kind of cloud city style habitat in the upper atmosphere would make sense, but you could additionally tether it to the surface and have small surface facilities at the base of the tethers to use as a base for surface exploration. Yes, the surface pressure is ridiculous, but is still a lot better than what a deep sea submersible has to deal with so limited surface facilities and exploration should be feasible.

A long term terraforming goal could be to bind up large portions of the atmosphere into solid/liquid compounds to gradually reduce the surface pressure to something more reasonable (and the floating habitats could gradually be lowered as the atmosphere is reduced).

Pressure is not a problem. 92 atmospheres is more or less a piece of cake. The temperature is the main and the biggest issue. Any facility would require refrigeration.