Venus vs. Mars colonization

[Spaceception]

Just now, SargeRho said:

Yes, because fish consume oxygen that's dissolved in the water. Which comes from the air, or from algae and plants in the water.

Dammit Jim! I'm a Spaceflight enthusiast, not a fish biologist!

[steve_v]

Heh, I assumed this was common knowledge, that's what the bubbly thing in fish tanks is for.
 

[Spaceception]

4 minutes ago, steve_v said:

Heh, I assumed this was common knowledge, that's what the bubbly thing in fish tanks is for.
 

I never learned, not because i didn't pay attention, but because I thought they were boring.

[AngelLestat]

You can have all kind of animals.. but we should know that animals are not 100% efficient machines..  so you will be able to feed more people if you use just vegan diets.  Of course they can sacrifice some efficiency and eat once a while meat.

 

19 hours ago, DBowman said:

1. Materials sourced from planets pay a deltaV penalty to make them usable anywhere else, I'm imagining the asteroids as the 'industrial bread basket' for the solar system. I guess I should work out some numbers that include the effect for escaping the planet from low orbit and getting to different destinations (which is what I think you are talking about above), but just getting stuff 'up' costs like:
   1. Earth - 9.3 - 10 km/s
   2. Mars - 4.1 km/s
   3. Venus - infinity - well good luck getting stuff off the surface (I'm sure it's possible)
   4. Asteroids - 0 km/s

First.. if we are talking of colonization.. at that point, beat gravity is just as common as refuel. (we are almost there with spacex alone, maybe just 10 years more for 2 reusable stages, you may have skylon too) So if you are trading rare metals (or products already manufactured), the cost of the fuel is nothing in comparison.. earth already waste many tons on fuels just to get few kgs of rare metals.
About venus infinity..  things made from the atmosphere only needs 8.5kms to reach low venus orbit. And things from the surface; can be rised with ballons (submarines are more accurate) to the cloud level with almost no energy cost. So they have the same deltav.

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There is going to be a lot of empty space, but future surveys will give us some real numbers to work with. There is not much practical difference between 2 in 10^12 and 4 in 10^12, also Earth is a gravity 'magnet' so that would tend to increase the likely hood of being hit by something in it's vacinity compared to what you'd expect?

But that magnet was cleaning this orbit by billions of years.  The asteroid belt orbit is pretty much virgin, the chances for collision are greater, no sure how much greater..
Many scientist said that mostly all asteroids close to earth were belt´ asteroids which orbit was disturbed.  This mean every few millons of years, earth has enough time to get a collision with any close orbit asteroid, that is why there are so few in comparison with the asteroid belt. And if we look in the asteroid map, jupiter is the planet with the most clear space. So you only need to be worry on the new ones, that is why being in space is not safe enough, atmospheres are a great thing, they give pressure, radioactive shielding, resources and protection from meteorites. If you just trade the 5 or 10% of your most expensive resources then is not a bad place to be.

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I saw your excellent post on potential power sources for Venus Cloud City and was about to correct myself. I particularly liked the Thermal Gradient one. The kites can be used to navigate the city also? It looks like you think there is a factor of 2 or 3 advantage to Venus in atmosphere PV generation, I kinda doubt it counteracts the material/structural penalty associated with building in the atmosphere.   

Thanks. Venus has its disadvantages as well as Mars has its.  Water is not so easy to get in big amounts, this rise the cost of fuel for rockets, then you need to counter close to 3m/s of meridional winds, maybe there is a passive position where this is reduced, but it force you to design (kinda) aerodynamic cities and waste a bit of power on that. About material structural penalty, you already have to make the city to resist at least 6m/s in propulsion (but with lower acceleration), on the other hand change of winds are not a real problem. About build things in the atmosphere.. may have its drawbacks, the same as build in vacuum and with dust.
There is a way to navigate the city using kites. I am finishing a scientific paper and starting a patent (which does not have real practical use in earth by legal motives). 

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I guess we'd need some detail re Venus import requirements to see how likely it is to find a conveniently small asteroid with close to the right balance of elements, some balance between search costs and refine and separate in the belt. If what Venus needed happened to be what was easy to find a good match for then you have to decide if you manufacture from it in Venus orbit (++solar power) or in Venus cloud city. I imagine you'd probably end up with a substantial Venus orbital presence.

Yeah that is the economic motive that a cloud city should chase.

 

18 hours ago, Spaceception said:

I dunno, here's a couple of articles from the early 2000s though (When I guess they were discovered): 

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/marss-bumpy-magnetism/

 Although apparently from the second article, it's a few percent as strong as Earths magnetic field, so it could provide at least some radiation protection.

What if you cover Chester´s Mill dome with some superconductors to create a strong magnetic shield, not sure how much will be the energy requirement.
  

Edited January 16, 2016 by AngelLestat
english errors

[Spaceception]

4 minutes ago, AngelLestat said:

What if you cover the Chester´s Mill dome with some superconductors to create a strong magnetic shield, maybe the energy requirement is big.

When we figure out sustainable Deuterium Fusion, it should be possible, really difficult, but possible

[Albert VDS]

17 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

What is the rush?

I already show with math that a 5000 tons habitat using air as lifting gas will take 44 days to mix 1/4 of its air with a 3m diameter orifice in the envelope.
The envelope will be a sphere of 150m radius (just to make the math easier)

Yeah is an issue, but from the beginning all the things that you bring from earth needs to be the most lighter possible.. the same for mars xd.
And once you are enough advance in venus, each time you increase the surface envelope by a 30%, it means you can double your payload, so each time you have more lift by less cost. And one of the lifting gases is almost free in Venus.. Nitrogen.
Envelope radius and habitat mass:
150m--> 5000T
500m-->183000T

The rush is to get something fixed if it doesn't support your base anymore when it fails and it will fail at some point.

Sure for Mars mass is an issue to if you are looking at the cost of it all, but it doesn't have a mass restriction because the hab wouldn't handle it or needs to be increased because of it.

 

 

 

 

[DBowman]

On 1/15/2016 at 9:16 AM, AngelLestat said:

 

Edited January 16, 2016 by DBowman
BB error

[fredinno]

8 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

First.. if we are talking of colonization.. at that point, beat gravity is just as common as refuel. (we are almost there with spacex alone, maybe just 10 years more for 2 reusable stages, you may have skylon too) So if you are trading rare metals (or products already manufactured), the cost of the fuel is nothing in comparison.. earth already waste many tons on fuels just to get few kgs of rare metals.
About venus infinity..  things made from the atmosphere only needs 8.5kms to reach low venus orbit. And things from the surface; can be rised with ballons (submarines are more accurate) to the cloud level with almost no energy cost. So they have the same deltav.

You need to make and maintain larger rockets for that, so no, it is more expensive for higher gravity wells.

[DBowman]

@AngelLestatFirst.. if we are talking of colonization.. at that point, beat gravity is just as common as refuel. (we are almost there with spacex alone, maybe just 10 years more for 2 reusable stages, you may have skylon too) So if you are trading rare metals (or products already manufactured), the cost of the fuel is nothing in comparison.. earth already waste many tons on fuels just to get few kgs of rare metals.
About venus infinity..  things made from the atmosphere only needs 8.5kms to reach low venus orbit. And things from the surface; can be rised with ballons (submarines are more accurate) to the cloud level with almost no energy cost. So they have the same deltav.

Bathyscaphes? anyway cool enough. I don't think one can ignore the economic effect of deltaV even with reusability etc, Once you have the materials and infrastructure on Venus (thanks asteroids) and have solved the development of the mining robots that operate above the melting point of Lead, Tin, & Zinc then Venus could be a source of non atmosphere materials paying an 8.5 km/s penalty. It just seems like Venus and Earth are natural material resource sinks.

@AngelLestat There is a way to navigate the city using kites. I am finishing a scientific paper and starting a patent (which does not have real practical use in earth by legal motives).

Great! 

@AngelLestat But that magnet was cleaning this orbit by billions of years.  The asteroid belt orbit is pretty much virgin, the chances for collision are greater, no sure how much greater..

I meant to mean that Earth region of space probably has a higher chance for being hit than you would expect just from the clarity of it's orbital region. I think we'll just have to agree that we don't know the collision chances for asteroid facilities for some years, I'll work on the assumption that 'it'll be fine'.

 

I wish we had a big physics & economics based sandbox for this ...

[AngelLestat]

 

 

12 hours ago, Albert VDS said:

The rush is to get something fixed if it doesn't support your base anymore when it fails and it will fail at some point.

Sure for Mars mass is an issue to if you are looking at the cost of it all, but it doesn't have a mass restriction because the hab wouldn't handle it or needs to be increased because of it.

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".  

5 hours ago, fredinno said:

You need to make and maintain larger rockets for that, so no, it is more expensive for higher gravity wells.

Yeah the cost in that case increase, but is a sum of pros and cons.

4 hours ago, DBowman said:

Bathyscaphes? anyway cool enough. I don't think one can ignore the economic effect of deltaV even with reusability etc, Once you have the materials and infrastructure on Venus (thanks asteroids) and have solved the development of the mining robots that operate above the melting point of Lead, Tin, & Zinc then Venus could be a source of non atmosphere materials paying an 8.5 km/s penalty. It just seems like Venus and Earth are natural material resource sinks.

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.

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Great! 

I will share when I finish.

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Someone thought about internet?   How you get internet in Mars, Venus, Asteroids.. etc..?
That is a very important tool that can not be ignored.

 

 

 

 

[fredinno]

8 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

You can't get internet from interplanetary destinations- at least not FAST internet.

[Albert VDS]

4 minutes ago, fredinno said:

You can't get internet from interplanetary destinations- at least not FAST internet.

So they can get internet.

One way of making internet a lot more useful is to have the usual stuff be send in intervals. Let's say every 4 hours a website gets updated in the cache of a server.
But anything instant doesn't work, but we were used to that when letters were the only way of long distance communication.
 

[AngelLestat]

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. 

[Kaos]

On 16.1.2016 at 4:13 PM, AngelLestat said:

You can have all kind of animals.. but we should know that animals are not 100% efficient machines..  so you will be able to feed more people if you use just vegan diets.  Of course they can sacrifice some efficiency and eat once a while meat.

... 

You could eat maggots. That way you could produce about 5 times the meat with the same feed as when you eat mammals.

 

16 hours ago, Albert VDS said:

So they can get internet.

One way of making internet a lot more useful is to have the usual stuff be send in intervals. Let's say every 4 hours a website gets updated in the cache of a server.
But anything instant doesn't work, but we were used to that when letters were the only way of long distance communication.
 

If the colony gets bigger they will produce some Internet content themselves. So Earth will also need to cache the Mars/Venus Internet

Then it is not necessary to send the useful stuff on intervals. The server on the regarding side might just send all new content itself for which can be expected to be requested. Then only one time the communication delay has to be waited until the content is new, not twice.

There was already some development to solve the technical issues of an interplanetary Internet. Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet

[kerbiloid]

(99% of Internet content is p**no and cats. They could just take the Internet on CDs.)

1. Even Antarctica and Sahara colonization looks fantastic, whene there is much air and water around. Venus & Mars are both much worse.

2. Most of useful mineral resources are either hydrothermal or sedimentary or require water in some another form. Because originally all good things are dissolved in a rock in a very low concentrations. So until they are washed out, moved up or down and concentrated as a hot spot, they are useless. Without and ocean and hydrothermal processes - Mars, Venus and asteroids may have much rare elements in mass, but their concentrations would be much less that the Earth's rock wastes have. So, probably extraterrestrial mining would stay in "Expanse" series.
So, anything would be brought from Earth. Except CO₂. If so, you can just build your colony in Antarctica or Sahara more easily. Cloud bases and dungeons can also be built faster on the Earth instead of another planet.

3. If the main purpose of a planet base is to avoid a cosmic catastrophe, then every new planet colonization decreases (indeed ?) the probability of simultaneous humanity extinction, but increases the probability of billions of people death. Just because every new colony is a new target for evil asteroids. Much better and more easy put those efforts to enforce the Earth colony protection instead of building crystal palaces ready to be hit.

[fredinno]

15 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

(99% of Internet content is p**no and cats. They could just take the Internet on CDs.)

1. Even Antarctica and Sahara colonization looks fantastic, whene there is much air and water around. Venus & Mars are both much worse.

2. Most of useful mineral resources are either hydrothermal or sedimentary or require water in some another form. Because originally all good things are dissolved in a rock in a very low concentrations. So until they are washed out, moved up or down and concentrated as a hot spot, they are useless. Without and ocean and hydrothermal processes - Mars, Venus and asteroids may have much rare elements in mass, but their concentrations would be much less that the Earth's rock wastes have. So, probably extraterrestrial mining would stay in "Expanse" series.
So, anything would be brought from Earth. Except CO₂. If so, you can just build your colony in Antarctica or Sahara more easily. Cloud bases and dungeons can also be built faster on the Earth instead of another planet.

3. If the main purpose of a planet base is to avoid a cosmic catastrophe, then every new planet colonization decreases (indeed ?) the probability of simultaneous humanity extinction, but increases the probability of billions of people death. Just because every new colony is a new target for evil asteroids. Much better and more easy put those efforts to enforce the Earth colony protection instead of building crystal palaces ready to be hit.

There are ways to concentrate minerals w/o water and similar processes. For example, M-type Asteroids were likely the core of other asteroids- due to differentiation, they have huge amounts of precious metals. Mars's Tharsis has lots of valuable minerals, being a hugely scaled up, desert-like Canadian Shield- heavy metals were brought up from the core via volcanoes.

[Spaceception]

Here's a great quote:

" The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space - each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision." - Randall Munroe

[AngelLestat]

On 18/1/2016 at 4:21 AM, Kaos said:

You could eat maggots. That way you could produce about 5 times the meat with the same feed as when you eat mammals.

We need new breakthrough in cooking tech to eath that

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There was already some development to solve the technical issues of an interplanetary Internet. Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet

thanks for the link.

On 18/1/2016 at 6:24 AM, kerbiloid said:

1. Even Antarctica and Sahara colonization looks fantastic, whene there is much air and water around. Venus & Mars are both much worse.

If you want to sale sand or ice.. then yeah.

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2. Most of useful mineral resources are either hydrothermal or sedimentary or require water in some another form. Because originally all good things are dissolved in a rock in a very low concentrations. So until they are washed out, moved up or down and concentrated as a hot spot, they are useless. Without and ocean and hydrothermal processes -

Venus had an ocean before.. mars could have too.

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Mars, Venus and asteroids may have much rare elements in mass, but their concentrations would be much less that the Earth's rock wastes have. So, probably extraterrestrial mining would stay in "Expanse" series.

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.
 

Edited January 20, 2016 by AngelLestat

[Kaos]

15 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

We need new breakthrough in cooking tech to eath that

As far as I know, there are already regions where they are eaten as long as some research in that direction.

[Panel]

23 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

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.
 

It would be extremely difficult to do surface mining on Venus. The temperatures wouldn't really allow mining equipment to run, and even if we could solve that problem, we still have to deal with getting the materials back up.

Balloons could be used to lift it, but getting it to the colony would be very difficult. Adding an engine would be extra mass to lift. If everything is already moving with the wind, sails won't work. I can't think of any other light means to return to the cloud colony.

[fredinno]

 

On January 19, 2016 at 9:51 PM, AngelLestat said:

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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

But.. no venus, neither mars are the best...

Jeje, fun.

 

"If you want to sale sand or ice.. then yeah."

The Sahara and Antarctica actually have lists of resources under their surface.

You could also farm the Sahara with current tech, as long as you have enough water- requiring good desalination and piping tech, but even that is easier than another planet.

"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."

As long as Venus was formed closer to the Sun than Earth- we do know planets move during formation.

 

 

[AngelLestat]

13 hours ago, fredinno said:

"If you want to sale sand or ice.. then yeah."
The Sahara and Antarctica actually have lists of resources under their surface.
You could also farm the Sahara with current tech, as long as you have enough water- requiring good desalination and piping tech, but even that is easier than another planet.
"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."
As long as Venus was formed closer to the Sun than Earth- we do know planets move during formation.

Sure, you can make up reasons why Mars is a great place for investment with lots of potentail, but  a long term benefit can't be seen by most people if it takes longer than their lifetime to materialize, which is the case with Mars.

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. 

14 hours ago, Panel said:

It would be extremely difficult to do surface mining on Venus. The temperatures wouldn't really allow mining equipment to run, and even if we could solve that problem, we still have to deal with getting the materials back up.

Balloons could be used to lift it, but getting it to the colony would be very difficult. Adding an engine would be extra mass to lift. If everything is already moving with the wind, sails won't work. I can't think of any other light means to return to the cloud colony.

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.

 

[magnemoe]

16 hours ago, Panel said:

It would be extremely difficult to do surface mining on Venus. The temperatures wouldn't really allow mining equipment to run, and even if we could solve that problem, we still have to deal with getting the materials back up.

Balloons could be used to lift it, but getting it to the colony would be very difficult. Adding an engine would be extra mass to lift. If everything is already moving with the wind, sails won't work. I can't think of any other light means to return to the cloud colony.

yes, it would make both deep ocean and deep space look hospitable. For one thing anything will overheat in hours yes you could bring liquid gass for cooling but this is only practical for sensors or very short term stuff not anything like mining. 

[Albert VDS]

So is a Venus colony ever going to be self sustaining?

[Spaceception]

4 minutes ago, Albert VDS said:

So is a Venus colony ever going to be self sustaining?

If you have an automated space station getting water and metals from the Asteroid belt, and a SSTO fleet going to and from the station to Venus, then kinda.