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Colonization of Venus

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Re: Colonization of Venus

#61

Post by 1970-01-01 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55
1970-01-01 wrote: post #3

It would be a colony constantly depending on Earth supplies and you would be constantly rebuilding it. Just like every other planet, nothing can permanently survive in upper atmosphere. It would be easier to have a massive ISS-style station in orbit, with a tethered cable elevator for research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposing_Microorganisms_in_the...

> would be a colony constantly depending on Earth supplies and you would be constantly rebuilding it To be fair, this is true for all planets with known science and engineering. I'm not sure it's obvious that Venus (with its higher pressure and better radiation shielding) has fewer fundamental problems than Mars (with its surface that doesn't melt metal).

True fact, but not by much, as plans are already in-progress with Artemis V and a lunar colony.

Re: Colonization of Venus

#62

Post by dboreham »

Robotbeat wrote: post #58
rapnie wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I used to be a lifelong fan of anything space. But right now it is limited to people conducting actual science to get a better understanding of our universe. All the dick-swinging billionaires and geopolitical vanity projects of going to the Moon and Mars are utter follies. Every billion spent there, a waste of money that could be better spent. And I am not even talking about outer atmosphere ultra-rich peop…

I really doubt your veracity about this. It’s literally illegal for billionaires to geoengineer the Earth to stop global warming (at least in several states). Doubtless you would also object to that as well. In which case it’s not actually about solving Earth’s problems but about not liking those who are doing it.

But it is legal for them to fund politicians who believe greenhouse gasses should be limited. Strangely they don't do that, mostly.

Re: Colonization of Venus

#63

Post by b65e8bee43c2ed0 »

nine_k wrote: post #54
b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote: post #50

space colonization, even if there were habitable planets within our reach, is not possible anymore. you could, for example, send a million settlers to Kepler-69420, and with the TFR of 1.5 - an unrealistically high number - the colony would be extinct in just a few centuries. 1m becomes 100k in 200 years and 10k in 400 years.

I bet the colonists would be highly (self-)selected for many traits not common in the majority of the population, likely including the willingness to have many children. I suppose that colonists on other planets, like colonists on other Earth continents, would largely consist of people who are unhappy with the status quo at their origin, and would have some strongly-held ideas about a different way of living.

>likely including the willingness to have many children.

why exactly do you find it likely? on the contrary, most of the colonists would need to be highly educated professionals for the colony to be self-sufficient, so they would be even less likely to have many children than average people.

besides, in very near future, the TFR of 1.5 will pass for "willingness to have many children".

Re: Colonization of Venus

#64

Post by [deleted] »

Robotbeat wrote: post #57
0xAFFFF wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is also possible to terraform Venus, although much more difficult than for Mars. We are facing an existential crisis in the form of climate warming on Earth that we are unable to address properly. The thing is, terraforming Earth is the easiest thing to do: we already live on it, it's already liveable. Mars, Venus or any other body in the solar system is magnitudes harder to transform on almost every aspect. So…

Geoengineering of Earth is remarkably easy. The reason it’s not already being done is political, not technical or even necessarily economic. For less than NASA’s budget, it’s possible to do things like stratospheric solar radiation management. See: Mount Pinatubo. Some places (Florida, etc) have already made laws prohibiting it. As far as being science fiction… obviously? Terraforming Venus is a very long term projec…

[deleted]

Re: Colonization of Venus

#65

Post by nine_k »

b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote: post #63
nine_k wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet the colonists would be highly (self-)selected for many traits not common in the majority of the population, likely including the willingness to have many children. I suppose that colonists on other planets, like colonists on other Earth continents, would largely consist of people who are unhappy with the status quo at their origin, and would have some strongly-held ideas about a different way of living.

>likely including the willingness to have many children. why exactly do you find it likely? on the contrary, most of the colonists would need to be highly educated professionals for the colony to be self-sufficient, so they would be even less likely to have many children than average people. besides, in very near future, the TFR of 1.5 will pass for "willingness to have many children".

I don't think that the highly educated people who would join the expedition would at the same time be happy to se their colony die out, and would find it too onerous to have children and pass their knowledge and fervor to the next generations.

Again, I don't think that a self-sustained colony on another planet would be organized by Earth governments, and by people who are happy to live on Earth. I bet on projects like (the declared) Musk's Mars colony, and even more, on religious groups (remember Mayflower). It takes a lot of grit to leave the comforts of Earth and go live in highly inhospitable and limiting conditions of another world, for life. Do not compare it to traits of a typical middle-class college-educated coastal city dweller. Those are going to be very different people, with very different views on everything, including fertility and raising children.

Re: Colonization of Venus

#66

Post by ShinyLeftPad »

b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote: post #63
nine_k wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet the colonists would be highly (self-)selected for many traits not common in the majority of the population, likely including the willingness to have many children. I suppose that colonists on other planets, like colonists on other Earth continents, would largely consist of people who are unhappy with the status quo at their origin, and would have some strongly-held ideas about a different way of living.

>likely including the willingness to have many children. why exactly do you find it likely? on the contrary, most of the colonists would need to be highly educated professionals for the colony to be self-sufficient, so they would be even less likely to have many children than average people. besides, in very near future, the TFR of 1.5 will pass for "willingness to have many children".

Because willingness to have many children depends on safety. Birth rate falls not (just) because "education".

Re: Colonization of Venus

#67

Post by ultratalk »

whoisthemachine wrote: post #9

If only Venus had a moon like ours to encourage rotation.

Duplicate of my previous comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47887938)

  If I remember correctly, the habitable-ish cloud layers have super-fast winds that circle the planet once every 4 days or so. [0]

  [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_super-rotation

Re: Colonization of Venus

#68

Post by ck2 »

Not this century. Just like Mars not this century.

Humans cannot survive long-term space travel, yet, the technology does not exist

The radiation alone will kill you and then there is the problem is you will go blind from changes in your body and brain fluids

Re: Colonization of Venus

#69

Post by amanaplanacanal »

PaulHoule wrote: post #34
sl-1 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. And how all of our meager steps towards trying to learn the pre-requisites of sustainable colonies (eg. closed cycle ecology) have failed miserably. For example Biosphere program ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2 ). And the only working ecological system we can study is being destroyed by humanity and capital on record pace.

Biosphere 2 had the problem, not least, that it didn't have enough of an atmosphere to buffer swings of CO2 concentration between day and night. It's like "what did they think would happen?"

I assume the reason nobody has tried to fund a biosphere 3 is because we don't yet have enough knowledge to make it possible.

Re: Colonization of Venus

#70

Post by teachrdan »

Robotbeat wrote: post #58
rapnie wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I used to be a lifelong fan of anything space. But right now it is limited to people conducting actual science to get a better understanding of our universe. All the dick-swinging billionaires and geopolitical vanity projects of going to the Moon and Mars are utter follies. Every billion spent there, a waste of money that could be better spent. And I am not even talking about outer atmosphere ultra-rich peop…

I really doubt your veracity about this. It’s literally illegal for billionaires to geoengineer the Earth to stop global warming (at least in several states). Doubtless you would also object to that as well. In which case it’s not actually about solving Earth’s problems but about not liking those who are doing it.

Billionaires could trivially fund uncontroversial projects like planting trees or solar electrification, especially in the developing world, both of which would help stop global warming. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for Elon or Larry to start doing either of those things, or anything else that would actually help mitigate or reverse climate change.
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