16 thoughts on “Venus”

1. Geoff Landis has a science fiction story, and I believe a published scientific paper on the concept of cities floating in the atmosphere of Venus. It turns out that the temperature at the 1-bar altitude is quite comfortable.

2. You just want to see Spock go after the blond girl.

   Venus is a much more interesting

   Yes, much. Exactly why you don’t want to colonize it this century. Boring is much more practical.

   Atmospheres contain gases. You need the solids as well. Can’t [easily] get to them on Venus. Venus therefore has some of the same problems as space itself. You can’t walk to the resources. This is an extremely important [for actual, you know, independence?] fact that is amazing in being overlooked.

   Venus is a practical place for terraforming since we can’t actually hurt it by any attempts.

   a desire to redescend into a gravity well

   That certainly is an extra cost, but it comes with extra benefits. In space, it’s very easy to go places if you have the delta V. You don’t need high thrust. But then, you have to go places for resources. Are you going to do that in little effient ships or big colonies? What are the politics of big colonies in space. It’s still a ship. It will still have a captain. Nobody else will have the captain’s independence (nor will the captain who will have to get some consent of the passengers.)

   Everybody imagines themselves the captain of these space colonies. Ain’t gonna happen (for most.)

   Why is it the boring place (mars) a bridge too far, but the interesting (more difficult) places the land of bliss and harmony (and much easier socialist utopias?)

   1. Ken,

      You actually have a whole planet of solids with mountain peaks covered in metal “snow”, just a tether away. Yep, its nasty down there, but then that is what robots are for 🙂

      1. Absolutely right Thomas, and quite an interesting spectacle. Boring is better for colonization.

3. Now if there is a big asteroid with all the elements of the periodic table in abundance, do colonize that. Mars will allow industry on a scale that will make it a better place to launch rockets from than any asteroid.

   The only thing that would prevent mars industry is politics preventing them from having abundant energy (as we have sadly allowed on our own one planet.)

   1. Ken,

      Ceres, Pallas, Vesta are all asteroids, (actually technically they are now dwarf planets) that would probably satisfy that definition. So ready to give up on the great red distraction?

      1. Actually, only Ceres is a dwarf planet. The others aren’t quite spherical enough to qualify.

         I think Ceres will turn out to be the most valuable piece of real estate in the Solar System — vast amounts of easily mined water ice, low but non-zero surface gravity, shallow gravity well (unlike Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, which orbit too close to massive Jupiter), benign radiation environment (burrow into the ice!), and relatively easy access to other asteroids for any resources not available on site.

         1. But we could convert them to dwarf planets with a bulldozer to level them out. 🙂

            1. They’re called fixer uppers.

      2. I’m looking forward to the day when the asteroids become homes. Mars first.

4. By the criterion of avoiding descents into gravity wells, Venus’ upper atmoshpere is quite unattractive, for it is deeper in a well than are the surfaces of the moon and Mars.

5. Rand,

   Any good recommendations on SF novels that depict human civilization outside the gravity well?

   I enjoyed Consider Phlebas, and Dan Simmon’s Hyperion novel (the Ousters lived outside the gravity well.)

   1. It’s kind of odd now that I think of it how few protagonists come from near zero gee civilizations in books that portray such societies. Larry Niven had the “Belters” (inhabitants of the Asteroid Belt), but I can’t recall a book which had them front and center ( apparently, protagonist Gil Hamilton was a Earth-side law enforcement detective who formerly working as a Belter, but none of his stories are based in the Asteroid Belt).

      Hyperion treats them as mysterious figures throughout the two books and you never get a close look at them.

      Charles Sheffield had his own Asteroid Belt inhabitants who got in a nasty war with Earth (resulting in the death of something like seven billion people including the entire population of the Northern Hemisphere) (“Cold as Ice”, “The Ganymede Club”). But they almost never get portrayed in the books. He does portray a thriving civilization on the Jovian moons, Ganymede and Callisto. He also protrays a few asteroid-based societies in the very different “Proteus” books, but those are pretty far out there (humans in that series have considerable ability to radically alter their form and physiology – some can breath methane or survive for a time unprotected on the surface of Mars).

      1. Sticking just with Larry Niven, and sticking just with novels as opposed to short stories, the majority of characters in two books, Protector and World of Ptavvs, are Belters. There is Descent of the Anansi. The Integral Trees and the Smoke Ring depict zero-G societies but in habitable gas torus.

         As for what Jon is really looking for, I suggest “The Endless Frontier”, volumes 1 and 2, edited by Jerry Pournelle. “Bring In the Steel” and “Spirals” stand out in my memory as two stories Jon might like. Although, well, hmmm. “Bring In The Steel” is great from an asteroid mining point of view, but could be pretty offensive to many people. A lot of the social issues whooshed right over my head when I read it as a 12 year old. Here’s a review that neglects all the things that make the story one of the great asteroid mining stories of all time in favor of considering mushy stuff like sexism and the welfare of children: http://everythingisnice.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/bringing-in-the-steel-by-donald-kingsbury/

         1. Thanks, gentlemen. Good info.

      2. I think it is in Fall of Hyperion where some of the characters are captured and brought to an Ouster colony. Simmons did a great job in using 3 dimensional architecture. In one part they took a boat and rode a river that connected two portions of the colony.

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