Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

NASA wants to build a floating city above the clouds of Venus
cnet.com ^ | 22 December 2014 4:11 am GMT | Michelle Starr

Posted on 12/22/2014 7:32:55 AM PST by BenLurkin

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-33 last
To: BenLurkin

Send astronut ø. He can command that whole planet from there.


21 posted on 12/22/2014 8:09:18 AM PST by onedoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: IllumiNaughtyByNature
In b4 the Uranus joke?

And the one about the red spot ju have on Ju piter.


22 posted on 12/22/2014 8:17:39 AM PST by Maceman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

23 posted on 12/22/2014 8:39:23 AM PST by JPG (The GOPe will always find a way to surrender)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

Sometimes people try too hard. I know of a new mission computer system that is supposed to link together multiple platforms, sending time critical data back and forth. They named it Minotaur, after a mindless, fierce half bull, half man, that wandered a maze, eating young people sacrificed to him.


24 posted on 12/22/2014 8:40:56 AM PST by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

25 posted on 12/22/2014 9:13:53 AM PST by pgyanke (Republicans get in trouble when not living up to their principles. Democrats... when they do.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SampleMan

Yes I agree. Most future space exploration IMO will be done with robots. They don’t need oxygen or 3 squares a day.


26 posted on 12/22/2014 9:18:22 AM PST by plain talk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: NicknamedBob

Hey Bob, wasn’t this an idea you floated a while back?


27 posted on 12/22/2014 9:19:37 AM PST by Dead Corpse (A Psalm in napalm...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: al baby

Finally; Al Sharpton for Mayor.


28 posted on 12/22/2014 10:13:47 AM PST by DPMD
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Dead Corpse; BenLurkin
"Hey Bob, wasn’t this an idea you floated a while back?"

It's one I've been thinking about for a while. Jokes abound, but Venus offers the most Earth-like conditions of any other planet in the solar system, at the appropriate altitude.

Here's the right way to think about it: Venus is like a water-world, with a globe-girdling ocean of carbon dioxide rather than water. If you float around on the surface of that "ocean", you'll enjoy remarkably Earth-like conditions. The gravity is just under Earth's. Remember that Venus is Earth's "twin".

And up at fifty kilometers altitude, you're above the sulfuric acid clouds, where the pressure and temperature are at Earth-normal values.

So how do you stay up? In a carbon dioxide atmosphere, such as Venus has, ordinary air is a lifting gas. Oxygen and nitrogen have half the lifting capacity in Venus atmosphere as helium has here.

The big advantage is that you can walk around inside your balloon component instead of just hanging in a gondola from it.

Picture a really big "jungle gym", such as we had on the elementary school playgrounds when we were kids. For extra safety, make it a double layer, and pump the space between the frames with pure nitrogen (which you get from Venus!). Then the rest of the interior has regular air, a mix of nitrogen and oxygen, eighty/twenty. The oxygen comes from plants, which take it out of the carbon dioxide. Basically, you're living inside a greenhouse!

You walk around in your greenhouse, smell the flowers, pick the fresh vegetables, and live a peaceful existence, just being wafted along in your cloud city at about 300 kilometers per hour.

At Venus' super-rotation ("Jet Stream") speed, your day will be closer to a week, so you'll have to adjust to being really off the clock. I think it would make a great retirement facility.

29 posted on 12/22/2014 2:51:50 PM PST by NicknamedBob ("Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel. May all my enemies go to ...." -- Ogden Nash)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

From a country with no manned space program.


30 posted on 12/22/2014 2:54:54 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NicknamedBob

Interesting!


31 posted on 12/22/2014 3:36:17 PM PST by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

I can add details. I expect that dealing with wind, and maneuvering to stay in the proper part of the stream will be important.

Picture a modified Star Trek-like craft, with the “saucer section” being the living compartment, and two “ample” nacelles used for energy production and propulsion.

Three, or six, sealed chambers dip down to somewhat hotter altitudes, and then rotate up again, making a heat engine out of their slow rotation, and using the energy produced as well as their large surfaces to drive left, right, up, and down to avoid collisions and stay on course.

Of course, transporting all that mass and material from Earth to Venus would be horrendously expensive, so I propose that we build as much as possible out of locally available materials.

“Ahem, Bob,” you say, “you’re floating around in the sky of an alien planet. Where are you going to get building materials?”

Out of thin air, I say breezily. Thick air, actually. When we scavenge oxygen out of Venus atmosphere, we’re going to have leftover carbon. Now, soot buildup may be a problem on Earth, in our chimneys and such, but on Venus, it can be used to produce carbon fiber for synthetic two-by-fours, and rods, pipes, chambers, plywood, canvas, and so forth.

Anything you can make out of metal or fiberglass, you can make out of carbon fiber. And don’t forget carbon nanotubes for tension cables and such.

So what we would do is set up camp in our minimum configuration space-traveling vessel, and expand it as soon and as much as we can. Eventually we would be extending whole arms or sections out to improve our stability and controllability, and there’s no limit to how much we could expand it.


32 posted on 12/22/2014 3:59:48 PM PST by NicknamedBob ("Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel. May all my enemies go to ...." -- Ogden Nash)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

Was just wondering...

http://thespiritscience.net/2015/10/18/hundreds-report-seeing-a-floating-city-appear-in-the-skies-above-china/


33 posted on 10/21/2015 10:44:00 AM PDT by Beowulf9
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-33 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson