Comments on: Havens over Hell — Ecosystems of the Venusian Tropopause https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/10/havens-over-hell-ecosystems-of-the-venetian-tropopause Safeguarding Humanity Sun, 04 Jun 2017 19:12:56 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 By: wassi zoe https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/10/havens-over-hell-ecosystems-of-the-venetian-tropopause#comment-177779 Sat, 02 Nov 2013 13:34:55 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=9045#comment-177779 I wonder if we would ever be able to find some kind life outside earth… if we do that we be one of the greatest discoveries of human history

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By: Tom Kerwick https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/10/havens-over-hell-ecosystems-of-the-venetian-tropopause#comment-177547 Wed, 30 Oct 2013 12:38:44 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=9045#comment-177547 To draw comparison — if one ventured 50km to 60km above Earth (yes — even Venice), we would be at the edge of the stratosphere — where temperature and air pressure would be rather too low to support life. Though the views there are of course quite spectacular -

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By: Tom Kerwick https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/10/havens-over-hell-ecosystems-of-the-venetian-tropopause#comment-177544 Wed, 30 Oct 2013 12:24:24 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=9045#comment-177544 Thank you, Phil :o Yes gondolas rather than lifeboats for Venice.

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By: Phil https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/10/havens-over-hell-ecosystems-of-the-venetian-tropopause#comment-177541 Wed, 30 Oct 2013 10:48:42 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=9045#comment-177541 You probably should change “Venetian” to “Venusian” in the title, since the former refers to Venice, Italy, whereas the latter refers to the planet Venus. I suppose you could build colonies in the tropopause over Venice if you wanted to, but the Venetian surface is not really a burning, hellish environment. Last time I was there, cute little gondolas were toodling around with starry-eyed tourists. The Venusian surface — i.e. the planet Venus — is another matter…

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By: Ted Howard NZ https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/10/havens-over-hell-ecosystems-of-the-venetian-tropopause#comment-177383 Sun, 27 Oct 2013 04:49:54 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=9045#comment-177383 It seems to me that floating craft on Venus, while possible, isn’t particularly useful, though Venus could serve as a great source of carbon and oxygen for space habitats in earth orbit.

The key to any large scale engineering seems to me to be to first create a self replicating self maintaining set of machines, then just feed them mass for 50 or so generations. If a doubling time of two weeks can be achieved (which seems quite possible), then in two years from building the first set of machines, everything changes.

The moon seems like a good source of mass — low gravity well, very little atmosphere.

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By: Randy Shelly https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/10/havens-over-hell-ecosystems-of-the-venetian-tropopause#comment-177299 Sat, 26 Oct 2013 02:10:58 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=9045#comment-177299 I once did some calculations to estimate how long it would take to cool Venus’s atmosphere to the point where terraforming could be done on the surface. By blocking the sun with very light material such as that used for solar sails, it looked like about a century would do it. Not bad compared with what it would take to create an atmosphere on Mars. Where I saw some difficulty was the apparent lack of water. Still, floating craft with a little water, which could be recycled, could pump out a lot of oxygen, if done on a large scale, and the planet could eventually be made liveable.

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By: Nicholas Carlough https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/10/havens-over-hell-ecosystems-of-the-venetian-tropopause#comment-177288 Fri, 25 Oct 2013 22:03:55 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=9045#comment-177288 This method would require the acquisition of a vast amount of resources if an effective bioregenerative life support system is to be cultured. Fortunately carbon is present in abundance. However; water, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other essential elements seem to be scarce, requiring unprecedented logistical support for importation.

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By: Tom Kerwick https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/10/havens-over-hell-ecosystems-of-the-venetian-tropopause#comment-177255 Fri, 25 Oct 2013 07:42:24 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=9045#comment-177255 Harish — the reason to do so would be to establish bases with the long term goal to terraform Venus (see earlier blog — the runaway greenhouse reversal — cooling Venus).
http://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/02/the-runaway-greenhouse-reversal-cooling-venus

Aircraft in the upper atmosphere of Venus is a much safer and more accessible alternative to interstellar or interplanetary craft — where your suggestion of any malfunction guaranteeing death is much more applicable — where you have to consider you have to transport your own oxygen, shield from cosmic radiation, heat the craft from near zero kelvin to our comfort zone, artificially generate gravity,.. you are dealing with a much more complex craft, in a much more dangerous environment — one air leak and you are in trouble — where repairs and reconstruction are MUCH more difficult, and much further from Earth to rescue if your ‘artificial ecosystem’ starts to fail.

On your consideration of Mars or the Moon as less volatile — consider how many seconds you would survive on Mars or the Moon — with no atmospheric pressure — if your eco-bubble ruptured. The Venus proposition by comparison is a solid one.

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By: Sam https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/10/havens-over-hell-ecosystems-of-the-venetian-tropopause#comment-177240 Fri, 25 Oct 2013 02:31:43 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=9045#comment-177240 Creatively we tend to get stuck in the loop of engineering and inhabiting environments similar to Earth. Given that the majority of planets found so far are gaseous i think this sort of approach provides exciting and possibly more practical solutions to the colonization of the solar system and beyond.

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By: Harish Shah https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/10/havens-over-hell-ecosystems-of-the-venetian-tropopause#comment-177230 Fri, 25 Oct 2013 00:31:53 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=9045#comment-177230 Food and water supply from plant growth — check
Solar energy to run the craft — check

With the above given necessities, one has to ask the simple question — why go to the trouble of constructing floating crafts and putting them into the atmosphere of such a dangerous planet where any error or malfunction guarantees certain death?

If we have the option of building craft with onboard aggricultural facilities, artificial eco-systems, why not build them in gravity-free space within the solar system away from planets, with systems to forewarn again meteoric or comet activity to move the craft out of the way as and when necessary, where repairs and reconstruction as and when needed can be carried out with lesser risks and without disruptions?

Until we develop the capabilities to create artificial eco-systems on less volatile spheres like the moon or Mars or the technology to travel at hyperspeeds to reach similar planets as our own, artificial worlds in space would be the safer and more practical options. We’ve already developed space stations, its time to work on building up upon that experience. No, its not easy, and trillions of times easier to talk about it. However, what is most feasible ahead is the litmus question.

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