Designing a Venus Cloud Base

[Rakaydos]

It has been mentioned in other threads that a self sustaining Venus base could be established in the upper venesian atmophere, mining the CO2 and acids from the atmosphere to chemcally assemble organic materials.

This thread is for looking into exactly how that could be made to happen, preferably by an automated (or at least teleoperated from high orbit) probe. Lets keep all the mars discussion in the correct thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/129619-venus-vs-mars-colonization/ And not littering this one. No discussion of politics or scientific justification for such a base. Just focus on the basic requirements of our hypothetical probe, and how it can be filled.

Our hypothetical probe needs, what? A thermal protection system for the initial entry, a buoyant lift bag capable of supporting the payload, enough gas to inflate said lift bag. Then some kind of chemical labratory, capable of breaking down atmospheric compounds and assembling new compounds to demand. A means of assembling these new material into useful objects like more lift baloons. And a way of maintaining itself over the long term.

I'd prefer not to see "finished colonies" that assume human workers for maintanace- can we design an automated venus base that can grow faster than it breaks down? And can we get it to mass less than 100 Tons, based on the theoreticcal numbers for SpaceX's planned MCT superlift rocket?

 

Edited January 10, 2016 by Rakaydos

[Spaceception]

Gah!! I have an idea, but I don't know how to put into words!

 

[Kaos]

I will start with some considerations.

Extracting the lifting gas might be one of the most important things, so I will start with that.

Venus atmosphere has an molecular weight of roughly 42 u. You can extract nitrogen from there as well as carbon dioxide. From the carbon dioxide you can generate oxygen. So you can create a mixture of 80% nitrogen and 20% of oxygen, which has a molecular weight of 27 u. So we have a good lifting filling for the balloon that can be refilled in-situ, that also can be used for a human colony. For starting the project it might be preferable to just use nitrogen, though.

The clouds below are reflective, so solar panels below the base also might be useful, as long as the base is not overwhelming big.

Chemical element you can get from the atmosphere are: Oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, hydrogen, chlorine, fluorine and some noble gases.

With carbon, hydrogen we can synthesize some plastics. With the other things in there, we have even a wider range of possible plastics. With these plastics we can get produce some lifting balloons.

I think this might be doable in just some tonnes of stuff, so we do not even need the MCT, so a Delta Heavy might even suffice for this starting base.

With docking balloons we can make this base automatically bigger with mission after mission.

 

What are your ideas?

[fredinno]

10 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Gah!! I have an idea, but I don't know how to put into words!

 

Make it in KSP then.

[Spaceception]

2 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Make it in KSP then.

Don't have the full version yet, I may have to wait for the end of the year.

4 minutes ago, Kaos said:

I will start with some considerations.

Extracting the lifting gas might be one of the most important things, so I will start with that.

Venus atmosphere has an molecular weight of roughly 42 u. You can extract nitrogen from there as well as carbon dioxide. From the carbon dioxide you can generate oxygen. So you can create a mixture of 80% nitrogen and 20% of oxygen, which has a molecular weight of 27 u. So we have a good lifting filling for the balloon that can be refilled in-situ, that also can be used for a human colony. For starting the project it might be preferable to just use nitrogen, though.

The clouds below are reflective, so solar panels below the base also might be useful, as long as the base is not overwhelming big.

Chemical element you can get from the atmosphere are: Oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, hydrogen, chlorine, fluorine and some noble gases.

With carbon, hydrogen we can synthesize some plastics. With the other things in there, we have even a wider range of possible plastics. With these plastics we can get produce some lifting balloons.

I think this might be doable in just some tonnes of stuff, so we do not even need the MCT, so a Delta Heavy might even suffice for this starting base.

With docking balloons we can make this base automatically bigger with mission after mission.

 

What are your ideas?

That's somewhat similar to what I was thinking of, only better.

[Kaos]

2 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Don't have the full version yet, I may have to wait for the end of the year.

That's somewhat similar to what I was thinking of, only better.

I doubt that this kind of thing is doable in KSP yet (despite I'd love to see that flexibility).

Thank you

[fredinno]

10 minutes ago, Kaos said:

I will start with some considerations.

Extracting the lifting gas might be one of the most important things, so I will start with that.

Venus atmosphere has an molecular weight of roughly 42 u. You can extract nitrogen from there as well as carbon dioxide. From the carbon dioxide you can generate oxygen. So you can create a mixture of 80% nitrogen and 20% of oxygen, which has a molecular weight of 27 u. So we have a good lifting filling for the balloon that can be refilled in-situ, that also can be used for a human colony. For starting the project it might be preferable to just use nitrogen, though.

The clouds below are reflective, so solar panels below the base also might be useful, as long as the base is not overwhelming big.

Chemical element you can get from the atmosphere are: Oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, hydrogen, chlorine, fluorine and some noble gases.

With carbon, hydrogen we can synthesize some plastics. With the other things in there, we have even a wider range of possible plastics. With these plastics we can get produce some lifting balloons.

I think this might be doable in just some tonnes of stuff, so we do not even need the MCT, so a Delta Heavy might even suffice for this starting base.

With docking balloons we can make this base automatically bigger with mission after mission.

 

What are your ideas?

Sure, it might be small, but you would need SLS if you consider return rocket + transit propulsion + Heat shield + transit HAB + supplies.

[Kaos]

This one was an automatic start for a base. It can be extended without the help of humans. The human part has to be made different, that is true. But I did not want to construct here a complete base, only the start.

Indeed I would construct a base on venus first prior to the first manned mission. Manned you can fly a rocket without fuel there and generate the fuel on venus in the base.

I am unsure what an empty rocket capable of a launch from venus atmosphere needs to be transported to venus. But I am not convinced that you need SLS here.

Do not get me wrong: I support heavy launch vehicles, but I prefer to plan in a way that you do not need them. Every critical item less in your mission plans is one item less where it can fail. And we neither have SLS nor MCT right now.

[Kaos]

Also I would want a Falcon Heavy instead of an SLS, because then we can start several times a year and not only once every other year ;-p

[fredinno]

21 minutes ago, Kaos said:

This one was an automatic start for a base. It can be extended without the help of humans. The human part has to be made different, that is true. But I did not want to construct here a complete base, only the start.

Indeed I would construct a base on venus first prior to the first manned mission. Manned you can fly a rocket without fuel there and generate the fuel on venus in the base.

I am unsure what an empty rocket capable of a launch from venus atmosphere needs to be transported to venus. But I am not convinced that you need SLS here.

Do not get me wrong: I support heavy launch vehicles, but I prefer to plan in a way that you do not need them. Every critical item less in your mission plans is one item less where it can fail. And we neither have SLS nor MCT right now.

Still, an SLS would pull the 20+ T automatic start base (maybe containing life support and fuel production) module- simply since a Delta IV Heavy is too small (8T to Mars) and Falcon Heavy has abysmal BLEO capacities. Also, SLS is operational post 2018, only 2 years. You might as well wait.

15 minutes ago, Kaos said:

Also I would want a Falcon Heavy instead of an SLS, because then we can start several times a year and not only once every other year ;-p

Then you would almost certainly need some sort of orbital assembly of a transfer stage, increasing cost and complexity.

[micr0wave]

For that selfassembling base, i just wondered ... is there anything remotely similar in existance here on earth ?

Something like a container you drop somewhere, come back 2 weeks later and have a 4-room appartment with colour tv and a filled fridge, ready for moving in ?

[Rakaydos]

28 minutes ago, micr0wave said:

For that selfassembling bas s, i just wondered ... is there anything remotely similar in existance here on earth ?

Something like a container you drop somewhere, come back 2 weeks later and have a 4-room appartment with colour tv and a filled fridge, ready for moving in ?

Something that uses resources IIt collects by osmosis, solar powred, to expand and replicate? Im pretty sure trees qualify, coral reefs might as well.

Whether we can hack together a crude mechanical equivilant IS anoth Er questiOn.

[Kaos]

21 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Still, an SLS would pull the 20+ T automatic start base (maybe containing life support and fuel production) module- simply since a Delta IV Heavy is too small (8T to Mars) and Falcon Heavy has abysmal BLEO capacities. Also, SLS is operational post 2018, only 2 years. You might as well wait.

Then you would almost certainly need some sort of orbital assembly of a transfer stage, increasing cost and complexity.

Falcon Heavy can carry more than Delta IV. I would guess it will be possible to bring something between 12 t and 15 t to Venus with the Falcon Heavy (taking 21 t to GTO and use a transfer stage then). This should be enough for an empty rocket capable to lift 2-3 people from Venus atmosphere into orbit.

SLS might be better suited, but I think it is possible with a Falcon Heavy.

20 minutes ago, micr0wave said:

For that selfassembling base, i just wondered ... is there anything remotely similar in existance here on earth ?

Something like a container you drop somewhere, come back 2 weeks later and have a 4-room appartment with colour tv and a filled fridge, ready for moving in ?

Nothing further than experimental level I am aware of. The point is, that on earth workforce is much cheaper than this degree of automation. But there are some remote-controllable robots with high degree of freedom, with which one could do so.

[fredinno]

57 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Something that uses resources IIt collects by osmosis, solar powred, to expand and replicate? Im pretty sure trees qualify, coral reefs might as well.

Whether we can hack together a crude mechanical equivilant IS anoth Er questiOn.

But we don't have anything mechanical like that yet... let alone in space. Teleoperation might be easier though.

52 minutes ago, Kaos said:

Falcon Heavy can carry more than Delta IV. I would guess it will be possible to bring something between 12 t and 15 t to Venus with the Falcon Heavy (taking 21 t to GTO and use a transfer stage then). This should be enough for an empty rocket capable to lift 2-3 people from Venus atmosphere into orbit.

SLS might be better suited, but I think it is possible with a Falcon Heavy.

Nothing further than experimental level I am aware of. The point is, that on earth workforce is much cheaper than this degree of automation. But there are some remote-controllable robots with high degree of freedom, with which one could do so.

If you are going to build a new transfer stage, you might as well be using SLS for the cost involved in making the transfer stage.

[Kaos]

A new transfer stage is not as complicated as a new rocket. It needs only to make a bit over 1 km/s and has much more time to do than in a launch. In fact I just realized that you can use your return rocket as transfer stage itself.

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, Kaos said:

A new transfer stage is not as complicated as a new rocket. It needs only to make a bit over 1 km/s and has much more time to do than in a launch. In fact I just realized that you can use your return rocket as transfer stage itself.

No, but it would basically like making a new upper stage- not to mention Falcon Heavy's tiny 5m payload fairing is a serious limiter.

[Kaos]

Technically the upper stage will become the middle stage and this will be the upper stage. But the upper stage has like 4 km/s, 1 km/s is much easier. On the other hand some new stuff has to be developed for a new mission.

In fact I believe that the Falcon Heavy can send that mass directly to Venus, but I am not sure of that, so in case it is not possible, a new transfer stage would do the trick.

I did indeed not think of the 5m payload fairing. I still think it is doable, albeit perhaps a bit more challenging. When we compare for example with Ariane 4, which is bigger a rocket, that what you probably need. Then you have 60 cm of space around to implement the stuff that will produce the balloon to bring the rocket to float in Venus atmosphere.

[Kaos]

On another thought: For a long-term colony, we should get some resources from the ground. Furthermore we will want some samples for scientific reasons. For that I see in principle three methods:

1. A heat-proof fixed mining station on the ground
2. A heat-proof mining device with inflatable balloon. It sinks to the ground, mines a bit and then goes back into the air where it is catched and the mined stuff is processed.
3. Like 2, but with a good temperature isolation instead of a heat-proof device. As it is only on the ground for a short time, it does not get too hot in the core.

I think method 3 is the most promising. But one still should try to make it as heat-proof as possible.

We would not get very far with plastic for this device. So perhaps we should build this with some mined material (and the first ones with imported material). But I did not find surface composition data for Venus, so I do not know, which material you can extract from.

[Rakaydos]

5 hours ago, Kaos said:

Technically the upper stage will become the middle stage and this will be the upper stage. But the upper stage has like 4 km/s, 1 km/s is much easier. On the other hand some new stuff has to be developed for a new mission.

In fact I believe that the Falcon Heavy can send that mass directly to Venus, but I am not sure of that, so in case it is not possible, a new transfer stage would do the trick.

I did indeed not think of the 5m payload fairing. I still think it is doable, albeit perhaps a bit more challenging. When we compare for example with Ariane 4, which is bigger a rocket, that what you probably need. Then you have 60 cm of space around to implement the stuff that will produce the balloon to bring the rocket to float in Venus atmosphere.

I dont think we should worry about the launch vehical. Not to step over my own line abut discussion mars, but... Everyone is already designing hardware to go to Mars, and Venus is easier to get to than mars. Using a Mars-rated launcher for Venus might be slightly overkill, but it means most of the hard parts of the launcher are done and we can focus on the payload. The only concern is the upper limit of staton mass, which I'm ballparking at MCT's intended mars payload rating. If wwe can stay under 100 tons, (and it sounds like we can) our actual llauncher is almost irrelivant.

 

For the "mining" if ground based resources, let me propose an alternative.

Build a big ball of sulfer, carbon whatever elements we dont use much of that twe take out of the atmosphere.

Launch it at the surface at meteor speeds

harvrvest the ejecta when it reaches altitudes that are safe to reach.

[Kaos]

1 hour ago, Rakaydos said:

I dont think we should worry about the launch vehical. Not to step over my own line abut discussion mars, but... Everyone is already designing hardware to go to Mars, and Venus is easier to get to than mars. Using a Mars-rated launcher for Venus might be slightly overkill, but it means most of the hard parts of the launcher are done and we can focus on the payload. The only concern is the upper limit of staton mass, which I'm ballparking at MCT's intended mars payload rating. If wwe can stay under 100 tons, (and it sounds like we can) our actual llauncher is almost irrelivant.

 

For the "mining" if ground based resources, let me propose an alternative.

Build a big ball of sulfer, carbon whatever elements we dont use much of that twe take out of the atmosphere.

Launch it at the surface at meteor speeds

harvrvest the ejecta when it reaches altitudes that are safe to reach.

I do not worry about the launch vehicle, I just want to make a somehow complete planing and try to be minimalistic. Minimalism can force to enhance the plan. Then using the better plan with more resources can be even better.

The plan of dropping the ball of dirt is funny, quite kerbal and might gain extra science. But I am not convinced how good it works, especially as the venus-soupmosphere will slow down the thing quite considerable.

Perhaps explosives will work better? But on the other hand you need an enormous amount to make an explosion that will throw stuff that high through that atmosphere.

Another modification of the plan would be to let fall a big ball of cold sulfur-snow. That way it will be locally cold enough for a while to drill a bit and go up again, before it gets to hot again.

I feels like this would also not work that good, but it is a somehow nice construction.

[fredinno]

10 hours ago, Kaos said:

Technically the upper stage will become the middle stage and this will be the upper stage. But the upper stage has like 4 km/s, 1 km/s is much easier. On the other hand some new stuff has to be developed for a new mission.

In fact I believe that the Falcon Heavy can send that mass directly to Venus, but I am not sure of that, so in case it is not possible, a new transfer stage would do the trick.

I did indeed not think of the 5m payload fairing. I still think it is doable, albeit perhaps a bit more challenging. When we compare for example with Ariane 4, which is bigger a rocket, that what you probably need. Then you have 60 cm of space around to implement the stuff that will produce the balloon to bring the rocket to float in Venus atmosphere.

Ariane 4 is smaller than Falcon Heavy. It's also retired.

[YNM]

Does anyone have any plans (or vision ?) for entry / return vehicle ? As I've said on the closed thread Venus atmo is pretty much ours on lower gravity. Launching a rocket from under a baloon isn't good I think, over a baloon ? How would it hold ?

[SomeGuy123]

Yeah, how do we escape?  What concerns me is the horribly thick atmosphere during ascent, even if we start off in a balloon.  

[Findthepin1]

Return vehicle might be a spaceplane. It's already been done, deploying a plane from an airship. Hang a plane off the bottom of the airship on a rail-runway-thing, that it accelerates on before it runs out of rail-runway-thing and falls a bit before curving back up towards space. Basically a spaceplane that takes off on a runway attached to the bottom of an airship.

EDIT: Air-breathing engines are possible in the CO2. See here.

EDIT2: We don't need to worry about Venus' souposphere on ascent because we're starting at a point where the air pressure is equal or possibly less than Earth's datum. So there's actually less delta-v to orbit from the base than there is from Earth's surface to Earth orbit.

EDIT3: Exactly what materials are available to us from the Venusian atmosphere?

Edited January 11, 2016 by Findthepin1
air-breathing engines

[Kaos]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Ariane 4 is smaller than Falcon Heavy. It's also retired.

I suggested a rocket to take with as return vehicle. And for to ensure that it can fit on the Falcon Heavy, I looked up the size of the retired Ariane 4, which is slightly more capable than what we need. So I believe it to be plausible that we can develop an return vehicle that fits into the Falcon Heavy.

31 minutes ago, Findthepin1 said:

Return vehicle might be a spaceplane. It's already been done, deploying a plane from an airship. Hang a plane off the bottom of the airship on a rail-runway-thing, that it accelerates on before it runs out of rail-runway-thing and falls a bit before curving back up towards space. Basically a spaceplane that takes off on a runway attached to the bottom of an airship.

EDIT: Air-breathing engines are possible in the CO2. See here.

EDIT2: We don't need to worry about Venus' souposphere on ascent because we're starting at a point where the air pressure is equal or possibly less than Earth's datum. So there's actually less delta-v to orbit from the base than there is from Earth's surface to Earth orbit.

EDIT3: Exactly what materials are available to us from the Venusian atmosphere?

@EDIT1: That is nice, I did not think of that.

@EDIT2: I only considered the souposphere when bombarding the ground, not for launching.

@EDIT3: I had that already in my first post in this thread, post nr. 3 in total: Chemical element you can get from the atmosphere are: Oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, hydrogen, chlorine, fluorine and some noble gases.