Venus vs. Mars colonization

[AngelLestat]

3 hours ago, peadar1987 said:

There's not much you could get from Venus that would be in any way worthwhile. Cheapest current launch prices from earth are about $4000/kg just now. Let's be generous and say we can get that down to $3,000/kg soon with mass production. If we send a payload to Venus to mine platinum (current price, around $30,000/kg), it will have to come back with about 10% of its weight in platinum just to break even on your launch costs from earth. A 10% payload fraction on a launch from Venus to earth is pure fantasy.

That's before you even begin to think about the things you'd actually need to bring to set up a colony and mining operation, and the consequences to the market of dumping huge quantities of things like platinum on it.

Point 1: spacex is very close to achieve a big % of reusability, they already made serious studies about skylon´s engine and its economic potential.  Now, we are talking about the potential of colonies that might have 40 to 70 years of development plus the years from the date that the colony was started..  So we can be talking about 80 years into the future.. but you just predict a reduction of 25% for the launch cost?
I guess that is close to the Elon musk goal for the next year  

Point 2: You can not flood the market even if you wanted..  First it will have a cost for you, all new industries starts with loses until their develope enough and start to compete, then they have the advantage of producing from a renovated source, so your industry can only improve meanwhile others goes down.
Even if you can produce a lot and export with a lot of profit, the demand will increase.  Now it does no really increase because we have a limited year production of 100 or 200T by year, this mean that you can no start a big business around platinum, because your big demand will increase the platinum cost, even if the current cost works for you.
And the platinum cost is increasing every year by the huge potential of future hydrogen catalysts. But if another source of platinum appear, many other business can appear because they know that the prices will stay the same or even lower.
 

2 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

 This is your one chance to seriously engage my curiosity. I'm pretty sure I've already wasted too much time on this, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt one last time before I write you off and move on...
And again, name a city and I'll tell you what it exports.

 In that link are named the two examples cities who grow up faster than anything with no real exports. They had few resources to become partially self sustain (thanks to technology) but they work in base to some of the lines that I explain in the link.

2 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

I wasn't asking for "a general" answer. I'm looking for a specific one. I suspect the problem is that you don't have one. What, exactly, do you propose the Venus colonists will mine that can't be had cheaper elsewhere? Specifically, not "heavy elements".

I explain a big part  in that link.. "I cant copy paste to here because is repeated content".
Again.. the profits for a location are not always based in your exports or the thing you mine.
I will answer just the venus vs mars case, in case you tell me that you can get that more cheaper from earth, then I will need to ask you to read that link again and then I will continue providing examples.

a)  why I can not mention heavy elements?  because other locations does not really have much?  What about normal metals?

b) energy cost will be less than half of earth and at least 4 times less than mars (this reduce the cost of all your process)

c) Turism, people always find exciting to meet different places of what they know..  for example people who lives in mountains and lakes places, they tend to choose other kind of landscapes that are different of what they know, the same for people who live in desert places. The experience to live in a floating city in other world will be of great attraction for many, with the addition that you can open a normal door and go out to the exterior of the city envelope just wearing some suit base on plastic, teflon or latex, with a oxygen mask.   No space suit required.

d) cheap and high quality carbon fibers

e) any process or products that requires heat will be cheaper, you just locate that process in the venus floor.

f) you can move to any planet location just wasting a small amount of energy, this also count for the cities.

[Spaceception]

1 minute ago, AngelLestat said:

Point 1: spacex is very close to achieve a big % of reusability, they already made serious studies about skylon´s engine and its economic potential.

Link pls

[GoSlash27]

 Alrighty, then....

Thanks for your response. I believe it confirms this entire thread as a waste of my time.

/moving along...

 

[AngelLestat]

15 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Link pls

Engine US force study

http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/press_release/AFRL-REL_CRADA_Press_Release_15April2015.pdf

Esa study:
http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/press_release/Press_Release_S-ELSO_Completion_V5.pdf

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27591432

I really need to put the link of the first stage landing or the upcoming launch of falcon heavy?

[Spaceception]

1 minute ago, AngelLestat said:

I really need to put the link of the first stage landing or the upcoming launch of falcon heavy?

No, I was asking for the link were you said SpaceX was studying the Sabre engine.

[AngelLestat]

Just now, Spaceception said:

No, I was asking for the link were you said SpaceX was studying the Sabre engine.

By "they".. I was speaking of ESA, sorry.  my english is bad, so if you focus in those mistakes.. you will find a lot.

[Spaceception]

Just now, AngelLestat said:

By "they".. I was speaking of ESA, sorry.  my english is bad, so if you focus in those mistakes.. you will find a lot.

Alright

[peadar1987]

31 minutes ago, AngelLestat said:

Point 1: spacex is very close to achieve a big % of reusability, they already made serious studies about skylon´s engine and its economic potential.  Now, we are talking about the potential of colonies that might have 40 to 70 years of development plus the years from the date that the colony was started..  So we can be talking about 80 years into the future.. but you just predict a reduction of 25% for the launch cost?
I guess that is close to the Elon musk goal for the next year  

Point 2: You can not flood the market even if you wanted..  First it will have a cost for you, all new industries starts with loses until their develope enough and start to compete, then they have the advantage of producing from a renovated source, so your industry can only improve meanwhile others goes down.
Even if you can produce a lot and export with a lot of profit, the demand will increase.  Now it does no really increase because we have a limited year production of 100 or 200T by year, this mean that you can no start a big business around platinum, because your big demand will increase the platinum cost, even if the current cost works for you.
And the platinum cost is increasing every year by the huge potential of future hydrogen catalysts. But if another source of platinum appear, many other business can appear because they know that the prices will stay the same or even lower.

Seeing as you mentioned Elon Musk, let's talk about SpaceX. The Falcon 9.1 has a payload fraction to GTO of 0.9%. Let's be very generous and assume that this is pretty much the same as a Venus transfer trajectory. Now let's be even more generous and assume that the costs can be reduced from the claimed $2,000 to $500/kg. You fly to Venus, land, and there is a lump of completely pure platinum just sitting there by the landing site. How convenient! You fire it back up into space and onto an earth-return trajectory using another improbably cheap launcher with a payload fraction of 0.9% and a cost of $500/kg.

That payload fraction of 0.9% means that for every kilo you lift off Venus, you use about 110kg in fuel, oxidiser and spent stages. And all of those things had to be put in earth orbit at $500 per kg. It means that every kilo of that platinum you bring back will have cost you $55,000 in launch costs, almost twice the current market value of platinum. And that's assuming highly implausible values for cost to orbit, while assuming no need for mining equipment, processing, life support, or energy production.

So let's talk about the economics. Unfortunately, flooding the market is totally a thing. Of course there are rebound effects, doubling the supply is not going to halve the costs, because demand will increase. However, these are never going to increase the price of the commodity. That's just not how it works, because if the industries who are now demanding platinum were viable at the original price, they would already have been in existence and making money.

Unfortunately, mining Venus is never going to be viable unless we have a complete game changer in space travel. We're talking space elevator or Epstein Drive here, not just SpaceX reusability.

[DBowman]

4 hours ago, peadar1987 said:

for every kilo you lift off Venus, you use about 110kg in fuel, oxidiser and spent stages.

I'm skeptical of the economic viability of ever mining Venus surface for Earth bound materials, however if you don't assume ISRU for propellant then it undermines your argument - because everyone will reflexively say 'hey ISRU' and dismiss you. If $50,000 is propellant lift cost that is eliminated by ISRU then by your other numbers you'd expect to quintuple your money ...

[AngelLestat]

7 hours ago, peadar1987 said:

Seeing as you mentioned Elon Musk, let's talk about SpaceX. The Falcon 9.1 has a payload fraction to GTO of 0.9%. Let's be very generous and assume that this is pretty much the same as a Venus transfer trajectory.

Oh thank you for your generosity, but I don't need it
Falcon heavy lift around 40 tons to Leo in reusable mode (at least the 3 main stages), without reusability cost 90 millions, this time the 3 main stages are the 90% of the rocket cost or more. So it will cost around of 10 millions in reusable mode.
But we dont need to launch a rocket to carry fuel to venus to launch a rocket and send things to earth.. that is crazy.
We just need to calculate how much cost launch a rocket from venus.
Venus requires less deltav to leave the atmosphere, at that height the gravity is 8,7 m/s2 and venus circumference is lower.
That decrease only a 15% of the deltav, the good news is that recover a rocket stage in venus is pretty easy.
You just add a 10m diameter balloon to the stage (which also has hydrogen gas inside the tank) and it will float around 35km height.
You only need to consume fuel to reduce the reentry speed of each stage.  No need for fins or legs.
So you can have a heavy falcon venus version that can lift 50 tons to Low venus orbit in reusable mode (much more easy to reuse because you dont need to land or do a back boost to your base)

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there is a lump of completely pure platinum just sitting there by the landing site.

Oh thanks, that is convenient.. I take it then..  XD
Nah speaking seriously.. you will mine searching all elements, in places where you get heavy elements and in different places for metals or other elements.
In the separation process, you get these % of gold, platinum, paradium, etc.
All those heavy things that you might not use, you sell to reduce your general mining cost.
Not sure how much will be the cost.. so let's put a "??"  and it will be added to the transport cost to earth.
Right now gold is more expensive than platinum, next year can change.. I dont know.
Lets said that we transport a mix of heavy elements with a cost of 30000 per kg.  (gold is at 40000).
There is a problem with our rocket..  water in venus is no so cheap, no sure how much there is on the underground, electrolysis will be less expensive due lower energy cost, the same than co2 to make methane.
But lets imagine that the fuel cost will be 5 times more expensive. This mean 20 million for each 50T to venus low orbit.
Once in LEO, venus has another advantage.  You can capture an asteroid and use venus thick atmosphere to aerocapture, you previously paint the asteroid to make it reflective, and you mine that to get rocket fuel which that can feed a transport tug that goes from lvo to leo, dropiing the payload and doing aerocapture in both cases (go and back).
You can made solar sails of 500m x 500m in orbit using no more than 200 or 500kg of material.  Each one can transport 10 tons in 6 or 9 months at all moment in any time window.  They are reusable and the payloads always use aerocapture.

So at the end, your venus to earth transport will cost less than 1000U$S per kg for sure.  So you have 30000U$S of material minus the mining cost.
The rest is profit. As you can see, it can be a big margin.   

Quote

So let's talk about the economics. Unfortunately, flooding the market is totally a thing. Of course there are rebound effects, doubling the supply is not going to halve the costs, because demand will increase. However, these are never going to increase the price of the commodity. That's just not how it works, because if the industries who are now demanding platinum were viable at the original price, they would already have been in existence and making money.

You mine many things, so you would not have 100 tons of platinum.. you will have 100 tons divide between many metals and heavy elements. 

Edited February 22, 2016 by AngelLestat

[peadar1987]

Dah, the stupid forum deleted the post I spent half an hour putting together!

If you're using reusable rockets on Venus, then you have to ship out all the infrastructure to make rocket fuel and to overhaul your boosters. That's more mass you have to lift out of earth's gravity well. You have to design a rocket that will work properly in Venus' atmosphere.

Then your plan requires you to redirect an asteroid. Those things are huge. That's even more mass you have to lift to do your asteroid redirect.

You need to do a full survey of Venus to find places where there are high concentrations of the resources you want. This can't really be done from orbit, you need rovers and samplers on the ground. More mass. More R&D. More time. More money.

You need to design mining equipment that will work in the hellhole that is Venus' surface. I know you say it's no hotter than industrial ovens, but we've never had to make a heavy moving machine that will work in an industrial oven. Then you need to process your ore for transport. That takes energy, which takes more mass.

You have to generate energy. You have to produce food, you have to house your workers. That's even more mass you have to send up from earth. In all of your figures you are assuming that the cost of your R&D and infrastructure is essentially zero. In reality they are likely to be the most expensive part of this.

And here's the real kicker. Any technologies you develop to mine precious metals on Venus are also going to lower costs for your competitors, the people mining those things on near-earth asteroids. Asteroids are undifferentiated, which means they will generally contain far higher concentrations of these metals than the crusts of earth and Venus. They don't have a deep gravity well to escape from, which means less propellant requirements which means less mass, or at least, a lower requirement for ISRU. We already have vacuum rated electronics and rocket motors, so the new design requirements will be less than for the heavy equipment that will need to operate at 400 degrees and 90 bar. You can identify the rough composition of an asteroid from its spectrum, and it is cheaper to send a probe to verify it than an autonomous Venus survey rover. No matter how scarce platinum becomes on earth, it will always be cheaper to bring it in from an asteroid than from the surface of Venus, because anything that will make recovery from Venus cheaper (ISRU, lower launch costs, a space elevator, space-based manufacturing) will also have the same effect on asteroid mining.

[AngelLestat]

3 hours ago, peadar1987 said:

Dah, the stupid forum deleted the post I spent half an hour putting together!

Yeah I hate when that happen, but using chrome some of those accidents are avoided, like when the power go off.
In some cases you may try control + z

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If you're using reusable rockets on Venus, then you have to ship out all the infrastructure to make rocket fuel and to overhaul your boosters. That's more mass you have to lift out of earth's gravity well. You have to design a rocket that will work properly in Venus' atmosphere.

Here is the problem.  you are imagine that you have an small floating base in venus and you want to mine and export right away trying to be economically viable from year one.
I am analysing future potential of each location.  This mean evaluate how it will behave a developed community with all its infrastructure on venus vs different locations or cities equally developed.
There is no location in the world that would not require high investment and subsidies from start, no matter its potential.
Look at Dubai and Las Vegas, they started with high investments but no resources, now they are 2 of the most growing cities in the world, once you start with some investment and good economic policies, you generate an avalanche of private investments which generates all the most part of the income with a increase help from the tourism and other movements.
Again, I could not explain better this starting point for a colony than in the link I post some pages back. 
Venus has another advantage.. companies would not require go through high bureaucracy and environmental studies over each step of their production process with the complaint risk that some local communities might have.
You want to produce energy.. take some extra money...  you want to make your own floating city for only tourism.. take some extra money.
You want to provide internet or a location service.. take some more.
All that generates extra income and employment which require extra colony space and increase the profit of each business already in venus.
After some point you attract the most intelligent people in the world because this is the location when the dreams come true and the best solutions and tech are needed.
So many smart people together creates more wealth.
 

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Then your plan requires you to redirect an asteroid. Those things are huge. That's even more mass you have to lift to do your asteroid redirect.

This however can happen early in the colony development (5 or 10 years later) , is not hard, it all depends on how big is the asteroid you choice and its orbit.
A 22m diameter asteroid has 10000 tons, you can install a small nuclear reactor inside that would use the same ice as propellent.

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You need to do a full survey of Venus to find places where there are high concentrations of the resources you want. This can't really be done from orbit, you need rovers and samplers on the ground. More mass. More R&D. More time. More money.

That is another advantage on venus.. the city is always moving from east to west, takes 6 days to complete the circumference.
You can change latitude very easy just tilting the same wind turbines you drag on lower altitude.
You can map and drop drone explorers very easily and recover them 6 days after. Reach other location in mars requires a lot of energy and tech (if you fly you can not land).

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You need to design mining equipment that will work in the hellhole that is Venus' surface. I know you say it's no hotter than industrial ovens, but we've never had to make a heavy moving machine that will work in an industrial oven. Then you need to process your ore for transport. That takes energy, which takes more mass.

Because we never had the need, no because it can not be done.  Neither less take a look to this firefighter vehicle:
https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/automotive/robotic-firefighting-vehicles
It can stand 700c by 15 min (a lot) and 400c by 30min.  This taking into account that this vehicle does not really had the need to be close to the fire by longer times.
It use a combustion engine, if it uses an electrical engine would have less problems.

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And here's the real kicker. Any technologies you develop to mine precious metals on Venus are also going to lower costs for your competitors

You mean venus competitors or earth competitors?  If it is venus I dont find any trouble, extra investment (and of course they can choice no share the tech), about earth competitors.. no sure what are you trying to said, because the environments are very different.

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the people mining those things on near-earth asteroids. Asteroids are undifferentiated, which means they will generally contain far higher concentrations of these metals than the crusts of earth and Venus.

asteroid mining has more sense to export to earth, but you need to export the 100%.
In the Venus mining case, the 99% will be bought by the same venus companies to produce products and sell that to the venus population at lower price than minerals from asteroid to earth.

So I repeat.. if you have people living in venus, this mean that it has a local economy, so you don't need to export things to earth, you just need to attract investments, play with the tourism, the adventure, the intellectual property, etc.

Edited February 22, 2016 by AngelLestat

[fredinno]

On 2/21/2016 at 6:58 AM, AngelLestat said:

Which increase the cost..  but well, I already help you in that matter with the under the ice pole location. Radiation shielding, meteorit shielding, vacuum proof, close to the main resource, close to the energy source (nuclear) and much easier and safe to dig in ice than in dirt.

North pole should be the best of the two, it does not have a 8m deep dry ice layer, it is a lower altitude than the south pole which give you a bit more of radiation shielding for surface operations.

You mean by the almost 0 wind speed on the surface? Yeah it is very dense.. but you don't need harpoons.  In fact one venus rover design use sails to take advantage of any trace of wind that might be there.
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/early_stage_innovation/niac/2012_phase_I_fellows_landis.html
Look how light it is.

The explanation is right there in the 5 lines that you are quoting!  Is not the first time you do that, everybody is pointing you the same thing, you don't even read the things you are answering.
It seems that your only goal is to spam as many comments you can, no sure if it is just trolling or what.. 
You had learned before how to quote just the part of the post you want to reply, but it seems that it take you much time which is against your spam goal.
And I forget to mention in case was no obvious enough.. you can recover the balloon with the hydrogen too, which it will be welcome for the venusian people.

You dont really need airplanes in venus, but in any case, airplanes will look like this:
Half airplane, half airship, even without propellers will float at 50km, it can reach an altitude of 70km.



VIDEO

And you get to that conclusion following what info or logic? Because all your past comments had a big lack of info or understanding.
Dont me get started on venus surface mining??
Lol, what does it mean?  What could you possible add that I did not crush before with tons of evidence and logic.
Machines able to mine the venus surface would be as common or simple as any industrial cooking oven. If you will make a reply, do it base to all the info that I already provide on that matter.  
    

Why you can not launch a rocket from a blimp?  a whole nasa venus concept is base on that.. HAVOC.
We also launch rockets to space before under airplanes, which are no as stable as an airship.
 

Only if you want to float at 10 or 20km altitude, that seems good to recover emply rocket stages, but no for an habitat.
 

Wow a lot of comments on this forum and you never read any of the benefits of venus?  
Mining atmospheres is the most cheap and efficient to do (you need to pressurize mars atmosphere to take advantage of that), and you can mine the venus surface very easy (read 2 pages back).
Venus has more heavy elements than mars because is close to the sun and it is geologically active (this mean high concentration locations of certain minerals)
It does not really need to have export to pay imports, take a look to many cities on earth and tell me what they export.. There are cities with huge exponential grow with no exports, I explain that with more detail here:

By the way, there are tons of other pros than a Venus colony has over mars.

Sorry. I skim through this stuff.

[Findthepin1]

We could lower costs for Venus a lot if we had air-breathing engines that work there.

[Spaceception]

16 minutes ago, Findthepin1 said:

We could lower costs for Venus a lot if we had air-breathing engines that work there.

Like a scaled-up Skylon.

[Findthepin1]

1 minute ago, Spaceception said:

Like a scaled-up Skylon.

Kind of. Skylon uses a SABRE. SABRE needs O2. Venus has no O2, but it has CO2. We have to find a way to make it work with that. 

[Spaceception]

Just now, Findthepin1 said:

Kind of. Skylon uses a SABRE. SABRE needs O2. Venus has no O2, but it has CO2. We have to find a way to make it work with that. 

Maybe a SABRE engine that works as a Nuclear air-breathing engine, as long as there's enough air, it produces thrust.

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

[Findthepin1]

3 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Maybe a SABRE engine that works as a Nuclear air-breathing engine, as long as there's enough air, it produces thrust.

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

I read the article. It looks like the same tech as in hot air balloons, put into a jet engine. Does it basically heat the air and put it through a ramjet? I doubt it is as efficient as a co2-breathing engine. 

[Spaceception]

1 minute ago, Findthepin1 said:

I read the article. It looks like the same tech as in hot air balloons, put into a jet engine. Does it basically heat the air and put it through a ramjet? I doubt it is as efficient as a co2-breathing engine. 

Yeah, I think so.

Also, look at our post counts

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, Findthepin1 said:

We could lower costs for Venus a lot if we had air-breathing engines that work there.

Wouldn't an air-breathing engine need to convert Co2 to O2 before burning?

[AngelLestat]

I never had faith in a mars colony, because I always thought it needed to be in low latitudes.

There you can no cool any nuclear reactor and it is also very dangerous due the low mass of mars atmosphere vs ours (204 times lower).
It does no have oceans so any polluting will make a mess in mars.  The cost of energy in those places can be as 3 or 4 times more expensive than earth.
For your habitat you need to dig into the ground to escape the radiation, but in many places the soil is not solid or safe.
You might have just water for consumption, but no enough for industrial process.

But if we change of paradigm and we start to think on the poles, then it has more sense.
Energy cost with nuclear can go down to half o less compared to the equator, it will need to be developed the thorium reactor and buried into the ice 50m at least, with extra tunnels and wells to be used as cold spot, in case you have a meltdown, the water and ice keep it isolated.
There is no much dust in the poles, that dust is danger and very annoying.
You can dig much more easier using heat, and the ice is a more safe structure material than dust and dirt.

There is no need of sunlight, you can grow plants like this, it is much more efficient:
http://www.gizmag.com/farmedhere-vertical-farm-west-louisville-foodport/41569/

That is just a cut, from above is radial and symmetric, two different artificial machine designs.
At the begining, the ice will have a temperature of -70 Celsius approx.
You need insulation panels attached to the ice walls to no melted and extra energy for heat.
Meanwhile the heat travels more far from the tunnels to the ice which each times the heat flow is reduce because it need to pass more ice layers. So after some years it reach the point where you just need to heat from 0 degree (ice instead -70).

Edited February 24, 2016 by AngelLestat

[SargeRho]

@AngelLestat Radiative cooling.

What is it with you and centrifuges? If something happens and the centrifuge jams, people will die. It's an unnecessary risk.

[AngelLestat]

46 minutes ago, SargeRho said:

@AngelLestat Radiative cooling.

cooling by radiation is one of the less efficient ways to cool something.
In space is already difficult even when you can use very light surfaces and cool from both sides..
In mars on the other hand, you can only use 1 surface, you need to clean that from the dust which reduce your emissivity coefficient and it needs to be kinda strong to deal with wind storms (the pressure can be low, but the density depends on co2 and the dust in the air, the reynold number is low so the friction at higher wind speed rise.. then wind speed is what most matter in wind force, no the density).
This just mean that your radiators will be at least 3 times less effective than in space (which already are low efficient compared to other cooling methods)
 

46 minutes ago, SargeRho said:

What is it with you and centrifuges? If something happens and the centrifuge jams, people will die. It's an unnecessary risk.

Why we have trains, or airplanes, or even blenders (what if somebody put the hand inside?)..
Because we need them and the risk is negligible.
What is the risk of live in 0.38g?   
We don't need much experiments to have an idea of how at least muscles density and strength will react to low G (ignoring all the other factors).
Is a lineal function..  0g--> bad / 0.5g --> half bad / 1g --> good.
I made this graphs some time ago:

[SargeRho]

@AngelLestat Trains kill people when they crash, as do aircraft, and underground centrifuges on Mars. We have no data on the effects of 1/3g, and only several days at a time of 1/6g. We know how the human body reacts to 1g and 0g, but we don't know how extended periods between those two, or above 1, will affect the body. The only way to find out is to test it with humans.

[Buster Charlie]

25 minutes ago, SargeRho said:

The only way to find out is to test it with humans.

OR animals....

 

I read we were not even sure people could survive in orbit, so we sent animals first. 

Edited February 23, 2016 by Buster Charlie