Out of all the options, what would be the best, most plausible,

>>8111450
Damun.

>>8111450
The moon, absolutely.

>>8111467
Cuz dey got cheese n shiet there.

>>8111470
Damn straight!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0qagA4_eVQ

>>8111450
Mars or the moon would probably be the easiest, (just don't expect it to be like the martian)

>>8111469
Mars by far. The cost of colonization will heavily outweigh the cost of travel,

before we start terra forming we need to start settling in the more exteme areas on earth.

We need to start colonizing Antarctica, the Gobi desert, and the deep sea before any valuable data about terraforming happens.

the moon should be the first.
but pioneers generally like to go as far as they can before laying tracks back to civilization so I can see why they would want to colonize mars first.
But I don't think its a good idea.

>>8111475
Don't expect astronauts to solve problems in space?

What?

>>8111496
I completely disagree because the moon requires very little in the way of thermal regulation, has a supply of water, and is easily reachable. Especially if there's a crisis it's far easier to reach the Moon for emergency support than Mars. I just don't believe Mars is viable until we first have a base on the moon.

http://www.space.com/27388-nasa-moon-mining-missions-water.html

>>8111505
I'm just saying it's probably not going to be like the martian, I never said they wouldn't solve the problems

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>>8111502
>We need to start colonizing Antarctica, the Gobi desert, and the deep sea
Given current trends, we can expect human population to top out and begin receding before any of that happens.
But let's say that's wrong.
Currently, to counteract population growth through off-world colonization, you'd need to relocate 1.5 million people every week.
So, yeah your options are more practical just because transporting that many people offworld just isn't going to happen in the foreseeable future.

The real point of offworld colonization would have to be an effort to stop keeping all our eggs in one basket.

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>>8111532
>probably not going to be like the martian
First, the mission in that movie wasn't colonization, it was more of a Gilligan's Island thing.
Second, the main issue with realism is that the atmosphere is so thin it wouldn't have been able to tip the launch vehicle over.
Aside from that, it's supposedly fairly accurate.

>>8111450
>Out of all the options, what would be the best
Depends on the goal really. Why are we colonizing planets? Resources? Lebensraum? International dick-waving? Trying to create Rapture but in space/to escape Earth for ideological reasons?

>most plausible
In the immediate short-term Luna, (I like this name) Mars, and Venus are the only real plausible options. Anything beyond our orbit is going to be hard, and right now Venus and Mars are about equal in terms of the shit we'd need to go through to make it happen.

As I pointed out in this comment >>8111492
>If you want to talk about the economics of colonization then acknowledge that Mars and Venus would enjoy a trade route between them.
Colonizing more than one would be ideal, especially if we're aiming to spread out the population. Sure, Venus with it's cloud cities has challenges with landing but moving things up really isn't that difficult. Since the atmosphere is so ungodly thick any transport drone that moves stuff from surface mines could use a lifting body with a simple propeller to fly up. Since the flying city is already part-way up in the atmosphere moving things up to orbit would follow "Earth rules."

Travel from Mars to Venus has a stiff delta-v penalty, but I think it's a price worth paying to spark interest in making interplanetary trade easier. That's why when people talk about colonizing other planets Mars isn't the only thing on my mind; I think both need to be colonized simultaneously.

I really think our first extraterrestrial colony needs to be on our own moon though, it's right on our doorstep and it has real opportunity for resource exploitation.

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The Sun.

...

At the night of course

colonisation is stopgapped by ONE technology

Energy generation

solar is absolute garbage on mars and requires constant maintenance

RTG's are very long lasting and maintance free but they still lack power required for splitting water into rocket fuel on a large scale

current nuclear is too heavy and too dangerous for space

>>8111625
>>>/b/
Kill yourself

>>8111626
>current nuclear is too heavy and too dangerous for space
Uh, no, it isn't. Closed-cycle light water reactors only have an issue with dumping the heat and that's an issue with radiator design; the available heat to dump can be reduced by slowing the steam using MHD generators to recapture some of the thermal energy.

There is no stopgap as far as power generation goes, and one more thing:
>solar is absolute garbage on mars and requires constant maintenance
Solar power is perfectly viable on Mars and what maintenance? I'm not sure you know what you're talking about here, the panels have no moving parts and nothing would interact with them aside from dust which can be solved by simply blowing compressed atmosphere at it when necessary.

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>>8111474
I thought the same thing

>>8111450
>Out of all the options, what would be the best, most plausible, or easiest satellites to colonize?

The one with gravity as close to Earth's as possibly. All other problems are easily fixed.

>Bonus: What's /sci/'s opinion on Terra forming? Is it a good idea?

Not that it isn't a good idea, it just won't be happening in the time frame of humanity. You'd also need to bombard the celestial body you wish to terraform with 1000s of asteroids/comets in a manner that is safe for the rest of the solar system. The process would take 1000s of years just for proper bombardment placements then 10,000s of years more to have it settle to a climate that is close enough to Earth's to allow humans to use it. This is for planets that don't have enough atmosphere (Mars/Ganymede). The biggest problem with this is that the atmosphere will evaporate eventually. Unaided, this will probably happen in 1000s of years for Mars. Thus, replenishment will need to be done.

For planets with enough atmosphere (Venus) it comes down to changing the chemistry, removing enough to reduce pressures, etc. Still that is 10,000s of years until something viable could be used by humans.

Thus, domes and floating cities it is. Just put them on stuff with enough gravity that humans don't turn to jello in a generation. Personally, I'm in favor of O'Neill Cylinders.

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>>8111554
Imagine being tens of millions of miles away from the nearest stupid person.

Imagine never having to walk through a rough neighborhood and keep a look out for roving gangs of bored assholes who might decide to knock you unconscious and rob you at a moment's notice.

Imagine being on a planet populated by people who earned everything they have, who know on a bone-deep level the value of hard work and determination.

Imagine being present as, painfully and beautifully, the first Martian human is born.

>mfw i will never get to experience this

ultimate sadness

>>8111859
We had that back in the 50's
It was called segregation

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>>8111859
Imagine being a hardcore "anti-government nutcase" who just wants to start over and build a society from the ground up that values everything you've said. Imagine scoffing at people on Earth who decry a basic income as "a pipe dream that will never work" while clamoring for more social programs and "affirmative action," in between screaming about government corruption in one breath and trying to make a case for why we need caps on our rights.

Yes, I want to make Mars into the USA 2.0 and to hell with anyone who doesn't like that. They can stay the fuck on Earth or something.

>>8111859
Imagine living on a planet who thinks just like you.

O'Neil Cylinders

>>8111450
Moon > Mars > Titan > Venus > Europa

Because launching cargo will be dominated by the cost per kg to orbit, so long as your colony still depends on imported shit from earth the cost per person/day is exponentially proportional to the transfer dV requirements. Sending spare parts for a nitrogen extractor to Titan will cost more then sending bottles of nitrogen to the moon.

>>8111959
Fucking this. Once asteroid mining is a thing it'll be far more economical to develop the shit out of Earth's orbit before we start in on other big rocks. Also,

>Muh Gundam.

>>8111966
You should switch Venus with Titan, and add Ceres in between Titan and Europa. Venus has an atmosphere so aerobraking and parachutes can be used. Titan is far away, the costs associated with resupplying it are high, but it's the most viable moon for colonization aside from our own. Ceres is small but easy to get to when compared to Europa, which also has Jupiter's wild radiation to deal with. So:

Moon > Mars ≥ Venus > Titan > Ceres > Europa

>>8111528
On the other hand, on the moon you've got considerably less variety in raw material to work with and have to deal with the full brunt of solar and cosmic radiation. Gravity is very low and very likely to cause issues with human physiology. It's too small to ever hold a meaningful atmosphere, meaning that we'll never have any help in protecting ourselves.

Mars has better raw material, way more water, considerably stronger gravity, and receives considerably less solar radiation (surface radiation on Mars is very mild compared to the moon). In the (very) long term, a thickened atmosphere would also dramatically cut down solar and cosmic radiation.

The moon may make a little more sense in the extreme short term for colonization, but really I think it makes more sense to push a little harder and colonize Mars instead.

>>8111652
>Solar power is perfectly viable on Mars
And it'll only become more viable as time goes on. The panels we have on Earth today are already significantly more efficient than anything roaming around on mars.

>>8111979
I hadn't considered Ceres, but I agree that it's a better candidate than any Jovian moon.
However, Venus is a shithole. I'm aware of the "cloud cities" concept, but the additional technical challenges of operating a floating permanent habitat seem enormous. Without access to the ground ISRU is limited to gas extraction, and while the upper atmoshpere is better than the surface environment, it's still a far from pleasant place to try and maintain any kind of structure.

Moon > Mars > Venus = Titan > Ceres > Europa ?

>>8111997
>The moon may make a little more sense in the extreme short term for colonization, but really I think it makes more sense to push a little harder and colonize Mars instead.
The "extreme short term" here still sounds like a pretty significant length of time; It'll take a very long time for any space colony to have any degree of resource independence. Also picking sites for colonies based on teraforming potential seems a little pointless - by the time terraformation in on the table building bases and moving people around would have to be nearly-trivial.

>>8111997
>I think it makes more sense to push a little harder and colonize Mars instead.
Why not do both? This isn't an all or nothing deal, we're more than capable of launching a lunar expedition in conjunction with a Martian, Venusian, Ceresian? and whatever other colonization effort.


>>8112018
>I hadn't considered Ceres, but I agree that it's a better candidate than any Jovian moon.
I like Ceres because it's small enough to bore into and essentially turn into a giant station.

>However, Venus is a shithole.
Really it's not, even being restricted to the middle of the atmosphere is better than having nothing.
>but the additional technical challenges of operating a floating permanent habitat seem enormous
No more than operating any other habitat, you have to remember that the technical challenge of maintenance is an aspect that influences design. Martian colonists have a distinct advantage over Earth and Venus in that they can lift twice the weight which means the associated equipment they use can do the same. Meanwhile on Earth and Venus there isn't a requirement for a pressure suit, in fact a cloud city can be serviced in jeans and a t-shirt, all you need is a mask to supply breathable air. I'm sure you have everything you need in your garage right now to be a successful colonist there.

Extraction of ground minerals is going to be a definite problem for a Venusian colonist though, robotic mining has been discussed in this thread and others but until there's a viable design to do that the colony will have to rely on materials from Earth or Mars.

I'm still going to call Mars and Venus equal in terms of difficulty, it's just the difficulty manifests itself in different ways.

>by the time terraformation in on the table building bases and moving people around would have to be nearly-trivial.
Also you make an excellent point here, when honest terraforming becomes a possibility we'll probably be constructing on the megascale with some frequency.

>>8112033
>Why not do both? This isn't an all or nothing deal, we're more than capable of launching a lunar expedition in conjunction with a Martian, Venusian, Ceresian? and whatever other colonization effort.
Nothing would make me happier, but good luck getting congress to even trying walking and chewing bubblegum at the same time, let alone actually succeed at it. They can't even fund a single manned mission properly.

>>8112033
>No more than operating any other habitat,
The atmosphere of Venus has violent hurricane winds and clouds of sulfuric acid. Trying to float a habitat in that would be far harder than the problem of building pressurized structures, which are simple and have been built in the past.

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>>8111979
OP here, I forgot Ceres is a viable option, yeah go ahead and add that one, little small though

>>8112084
>>8111450
bumping this thread and forgot to add my own post

>>8112018
Moon > Mars ≥ Venus > Titan > Ceres > Europa

is a pretty good sequence. Venus should be less than Mars for the sole reason that we understand the Mars environment better.

There should be a pretty big power gap between Venus and Titan. Titan is cold, far away, and cloudy. Sure you get some nice organics, but it is hard to generate power. Because it's a cold pressurized environment you gotta spend a lot of power to keep warm. A cold high pressure environment is harder to insulate from than the vacuum of space. If Earth decides to stop sending nuclear fuel to Titan, you're dicked if you can't reprocess your fuel. We don't understand Titan as well as we do Venus.

Ceres should probably be moved up. Although a simple greater than less than line is a pretty silly way to compare different colonization approaches.

In the long run, space colonies are probably the best bet.

>>8112080
>>hurricane winds and clouds of sulfuric acid.
the winds aren't a problem if you move with them. Sulfuric acid problem can be solved by not building your colonies out of stuff that will be corroded like plastic, which can be made from atmospheric gases

>>8112045
>Nothing would make me happier, but good luck getting congress to even trying walking and chewing bubblegum at the same time, let alone actually succeed at it. They can't even fund a single manned mission properly.
Yeah, don't expect the government to do anything. They have no incentive to do any of this and there isn't enough popular support to give them an incentive, so it'll be entirely up to private entities to do this. That means a financial interest (resource extraction, tourism, etc) or an ideological interest, both are a better driving force than "congress wants us to do this because they promised some stuff to get elected."

>>8112080
>The atmosphere of Venus has violent hurricane winds and clouds of sulfuric acid.
Hurricane winds really aren't a big problem and neither is sulfuric acid, we understand both quite well and the engineering challenges aren't any more insurmountable than engineering for a nearly airless environment with microparticles everywhere.
>Trying to float a habitat in that would be far harder than the problem of building pressurized structures, which are simple and have been built in the past.
We've had balloons for hundreds of years, almost half a millennia; they're not exactly a mystery.

Here, I'll tell you the biggest issue with a balloon habitat: deployment. Balloon structures are designed to be structurally stable when inflated, most rely on the tensile force exerted on the skin and are particularly vulnerable in the inflation phase. Creases can become folds which are a concern for structural failure especially in designs that rely on tensile stress for rigidity, so deployment is a big concern since being stationary isn't an option.

Floating a habitat in those winds is a hell of a lot easier if you use the lifting cells as airfoils and anchor the habitat in place. (sky anchor, ground tether, etc)

>>8112084
>little small though
Small, but surrounded by extremely mineral-rich real estate.

>>8112259
>Small, but surrounded by extremely mineral-rich real estate.
Not to mention how gratifying and amazingly cool it'd be to talk about Belt Mining Outpost Ceres as a real thing

>>8111450
>leave the Earth
>to colonize another gravity well

I want to live in space, slick.

I colonized your hamplanet of a mother last night.

>>8112259
So how are you going to put a tether down to the ground on venus? You need a tether around 50 km long. That has to resist high temperatures and corrosion.

The winds are not a problem if you just drift with the wind. No relative velocity no effective wind. If you anchor it to the ground then you have to deal with those winds. Balloon habitats could be built like zeppelins with an internal rigid frame.

Although if you can anchor the habitat to the ground you get access to a limitless supply of wind power at ~200 KW per meter squared of turbine and that's including the 40% efficiency of the wind turbine. I don't think it is worth dealing with the winds though

I want the Mars meme to stop. It is a shit colonization candidate compared to Venus which has obtainable water and co2 in the atmosphere and more fucking sunlight to work with. You can actually grow trees on floating cities there and can generate enough power with solar panels to power a calculator. Marsfags need to kill themselves

>>8111450
Depends on what you mean by colonise, if you mean a self-sufficient structure that periodically houses a group of people (not necessarily the same group of people) then probably the moon. However if you mean a group of people that live continuously on a particular planet then probably none, in such week gravity (~1/3 of earth gravity at best) your muscles and bones atrophy, if you lived there for any length of time then you'd need to undergo some intense physiotherapy when you returned to earth. Your only alternative would be to exercise constantly, but even with that I think you'd end up in a worse state them when you left. Also I think I read that micro gravity leads to birth defects in mice offspring, but that was about ~0 g, so it might not be much of a problem.

>Terra forming
In principle simple. In practice hard and incredibly costly, time consuming and complex.

>>8111450
europa is a meme moon and it gets 540 rems of radiation per day
the moon are the best candidate because they're the closest

>>8112317
>So how are you going to put a tether down to the ground on venus? You need a tether around 50 km long. That has to resist high temperatures and corrosion.
Not entirely unfeasible, but anchoring it to the surface is not the only option.

>Balloon habitats could be built like zeppelins with an internal rigid frame.
Why? On one hand an internal frame is bad if you need to replace a gas cell and on the other why do you need a frame when the balloon's rigidity is more than enough. Sure, if the majority of the colony was built on top of a large bed of lifting cells you would need a rigid or semi-rigid frame, but that wouldn't be immediately available.

>I don't think it is worth dealing with the winds though
The winds are going in one direction, the atmosphere rotates faster than the planet so it's a consistent force that could be used for lift. Fixed in place the habitat could use airfoils or just have a lifting body design to help keep it at altitude.

>>8112484
>I want the Mars meme to stop
>Marsfags need to kill themselves
I'm probably one of the few here who truly understands what it would take for Venusian colonization to become a reality, and I don't see it happening instead of Mars. I wouldn't want it to happen without Mars anyway, both planets (and the moon) need to be colonized so we can expand our species and learn all about the extremes of the habitable zone around our star up close. Some day we're going to leave this solar system, a ship that's traveled decades or centuries isn't going to have a backup plan so we will need as much experience as possible to help those extrasolar colonies survive.

It seems to be Titan according to Cassini.

>>8112510
>>8112542
The problem with the Moon is that it doesn't have very much of volatiles like hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon

There is probably water ice in shadowed craters, but we don't know exactly how much.

But the moon is a great place to prove the tech, if we can survive on one airless rock, we can survive on others.

>>8112598
>> consistent force that could be used for lift.

Buoyancy provides a consistent lift force. And guess what? Regular air is Buoyant on venus. A 2 kilometer diameter sphere of regular air would be able to hold up 6 million tons.

I say it is not worth building one of these 'hell-kites' because of the forces it must withstand. It is much more difficult to build a giant airship(see zeppelin) than a giant airplane. A big floppy balloon is much easier to construct than a rigid wing.

But you do get ~200 KW per m^2 of wind turbine almost all the time(some variation in windspeed). Shit why hasn't someone written about this in scifi? It's like perfect for world building, a giant kite with a bunch of ram air turbines hanging off it.

>>8111977
>Earth's orbit

No need. Just orbit the sun.

>>8111780
/thread

Lack of macrogravity will fuck humanity over hard if you try to fully colonize something.

>>8112633
>Shit why hasn't someone written about this in scifi?

Read more sci-fi.

Imagine if you could genetically engineer floating trees for growing on venus

>>8112790
Almost no gravity (orbit) and weak but still somewhat strong gravity (mars) are very different. It's entirely possible that 1/3 Earth gravity is within the realm of human adaptation, but we don't know because nobody has tried living in such conditions yet.

This is precisely why somebody *should* try. The sooner these unknowns become known the sooner we can try to figure out solutions (if any exist). As long as we're sitting on our asses here, precisely jack shit is going to happen.

>>8111450
What I never understood was that there are many different plans to create an atmosphere on Mars in a millennia or so, but then what? It lacks a magnetic field like that of Earth, so this new atmosphere would eventually be blown away by the solar winds or whatever, in a period of tens of thousands of years or less afaik.
No matter how advanced we become, we have no reasonable way of heating up it's core, simply because we would just need such a large amount of energy to do that, and it would lead to seismic activities that would totally obliterate the already existing cities on Mars. Could we, however, create something like a large electromagnet at its core that consumes an amount of power that we could feasibly provide for millions of years?

>>8111859
It's really sad that life on Mars will suck for the first generations, and when it finally becomes kinda-livable, things will go into the shitter in one or two generations.

>>8112633
>Buoyancy provides a consistent lift force. And guess what? Regular air is Buoyant on venus
God damn it. We're not talking about either or here, I'm not sure why you think this because I've been very clear so far.

>I say it is not worth building one of these 'hell-kites' because of the forces it must withstand.
Except it is worth it, a single lifting cell filled with hydrogen gas shaped like an airfoil will provide an incredible amount of lift in the winds.
>A big floppy balloon.
I'm tired of explaining how any balloon that would support a habitat would work. They're not floppy, these are rigid structures that rely on tensile force exerted on the skin by the over-pressure of the lifting gas. Even if the habitat wasn't tethered the wind would eventually rip a balloon at ambient pressure apart, it's a major concern during the deployment phase of any balloon-based habitat. There's nothing floppy about this, you could walk on the skin and it would feel like walking across linoleum tile. Despite all of that though the balloon would still be subject to atmospheric stress and would have to be sufficiently flexible to ride out the (small) ripples and waves going across the skin, all the while the material has to be able to resist corrosion.

A single lifting cell is not a very good plan either, blimps and zeppelins control their attitude under flight by having a very precise control over balance and buoyancy using internal lifting cells called ballonets; a regular balloon is highly unstable in strong winds. I would argue for a tethered city (if only for navigational aid and landing assistance) that's built on top of a bed of lifting body cells with a mostly rigid structure linking them, with spires extending below the structure for various purposes. Outdoor activity could be possible because the living areas would be on top, this would also have the added benefit of disrupting airflow over the top (wind shields, "buildings," etc) which would induce more lift.

Would it be possible to build a big-ass 50 km tall mountain on Venus to live atop?

What about a 50 km deep valley on Mars?

>>8113268
You'd probably want the lifting bodies above it, doubling as umbrellas for acidic rain, if thats an issue.

Rigidity would be necessary since you are dealing with 200+ mph winds constantly

>>8113682
>You'd probably want the lifting bodies above it, doubling as umbrellas for acidic rain, if thats an issue.
At that altitude? No, not really. H2SO4 (sulfuric acid) in the atmosphere is in aerosol, at the altitude where humans can comfortably live it really isn't much of a concern at all; it's not concentrated and is found entirely in the clouds near the tropopause. Below that is this kind of soupy haze that contains the majority of the H2SO4 while the clouds at the "habitable altitude" are mostly SO2, which locks up the H2SO4 aerosol. Actually the H2SO4 rain never touches the ground, the heat in the lower part of the troposphere vaporizes it and pushes it back up driven by the very hot supercritical CO2.

Instead of putting the airfoil above the colony using the colony itself as the airfoil itself simplifies things, even if the colony was free-floating the potential lift gained from the uneven top surface would be very beneficial; every little bit helps. When I said "outdoor activity" I meant maintenance and such, any excursion outdoors would mean contending with a CO2 atmosphere, SO2 stench, and H2SO4 vapor; none of those things you want in your lungs. Even without the H2SO4 the atmosphere contains enough HCl to cause alarm, along with H2S which is toxic and also corrosive. These compounds can also be useful, and if we can push the habitat higher to an altitude of 55km then their concentrations drop significantly. (temperature at that altitude is also much more pleasant)

This would probably require several different methods of lift along with using a very light lifting gas, hydrogen is in somewhat short supply on Venus (trapped in the above compounds) but cells with heated hydrogen gas could push the colony up to a very good altitude.

>>8111859
So Mars is gonna be some Elysium-tier thing where all the rich people go to hide out?

>>8112633
As I said in another thread the inability to mine metals will be the Achilles heel of a Venus colony. This means it can never expand without supply from Earth. It can never be self-sustaining

>>8113268
see>>8113890
Also limited farmland. You can sprawl out easily on Mars, on Venus you need to build the land to put down new farming infrastructure.

>>8113890
>This means it can never expand without supply from Earth. It can never be self-sustaining
Neither will a Mars colony using that logic, you can't transmute metal into polymers so a Martian settlement will absolutely need trade from Earth.
>>8113895
>Also limited farmland.
Oh I remember you. Yeah, you're the guy who thought you could mix up human feces with Martian regolith without any repercussions at all. Mars is absolutely no different in Venus in regards to food production, both will need completely artificial (i.e. hydroponics) methods of growing food so the argument about available land is a ridiculous one. You have a point with surface mining, don't stretch it into inane rambling about farmland because it's irrelevant bullshit.

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>>8113885
>So Mars is gonna be some Elysium-tier thing where all the rich people go to hide out?
No, he clearly said:
>>8111859
>a planet populated by people who earned everything they have,
..so no, no rich folks.

>>8113909
You can manufacture bio plastics

You completely miss my point about farming. To feed a certain number of people you need a certain area of land. Less so if you are using hydroponics but you still need an area of land. On Mars you can just dump your hydroponic setup anywhere without much effort, on Venus you need to set up an entire new balloon platform. Second of all you grossly underestimate the amount of farmland that is needed for a large colony. Go on Google Maps and look at your country, the vast majority of it is farmland. I gave an example with French Canada vs British North America. French Canada lost out largely because there wasn't as much arable land. This meant smaller population which meant less revenue which meant the government was less keen to defend it against the richer British colony to the south. No one is gonna invade Venus but you can see that colonization is all about arable land. These cloud city fantasies always miss out the vast farming area to support it.

>>8114011
On venus you dump your platform anywhere too..
Obviously it would be all one habitat

>Second of all you grossly underestimate the amount of farmland that is needed for a large colony.
What can be done in greenhouses and hydroponics, is very different than what is done on flat farmland.

Hell, you might be able to just grow plants in the venus atmosphere, since high CO2 can increase yields

>>8114011
>You can manufacture bio plastics
That's a fraction of the necessary materials to build additional structures on Mars.

>On Mars you can just dump your hydroponic setup anywhere without much effort, on Venus you need to set up an entire new balloon platform
Building outward versus hanging a new level, I'm not seeing a significant difference here. There is some merit to the idea that having solid ground (at less than half of Earth's gravity to boot) makes construction simpler, but Mars needs either subterranean structures or heavy, sturdy construction for it to work. Venus needs roughly the same amount of materials, at a cost of having higher gravity but in a (relatively) pleasant environment.

>Second of all you grossly underestimate the amount of farmland that is needed for a large colony.
Uh, no, I don't. I grow my own food so I'm actually intimately aware of how much space a hydroponics system produces and how much a single person eats. Two and a half square meters will comfortably feed one person, so a cube-shaped farm with four levels of 250 square meters each will feed forty people. This is painfully small, I think you're overestimating the amount of farmland necessary because you've never had to physically handle it.

>I gave an example with French Canada vs British North America. French Canada lost out largely because there wasn't as much arable land.
You do realize we're talking about colonizing other planets right? Every single time you bring this up I shake my goddamn head because it truly is irrelevant bullshit; there is -no- arable land on Mars or Venus or anywhere else but Earth. Every farming endeavor is going to be artificial, the physical requirements for it aren't going to change from one location to the other, it's a universal pain in the ass across the board.

Using an 18th century example and trying to shoehorn it into this discussion as reasoning for why Venus isn't viable for colonization doesn't work. Stop.

>>8114021
You can reduce the area it doesn't disappear. You seem to think hydroponics is some magic singularity. No it still needs many acres for a couple thousand people.
>>8114043
>Building outward versus hanging a new level, I'm not seeing a significant difference here.
Are you retarded, you can't just hang a new level you need to upgrade it to handle the extra weight.
> I grow my own food
How convenient
>This is painfully small,
No it isn't when that 250 square meters needs to be built out of metal and floated on balloons 1000 people is 6250 square meters or about 1 and a half football fields. This is a lot of weight which would need an even more vast volume of gas to support it. You seem to think lifting gases are magical antigravity, no you need a lot of it to lift a little. All these technical challenges you are comparing with simply covering some Martian land with a dome and farming there.
>You do realize we're talking about colonizing other planets right
The same concept applies to colonization today. Land and resources.
>there is -no- arable land on Mars or Venus
I define arable land as land where you can set up your hydroponics farm. Venusian land is not arable because you can't build anything on it, Martian land is.
>Every farming endeavor is going to be artificial,
See this is why you're a retard, you think that because the farm is artificial the area requirements disappear

>>8114069
>Are you retarded, you can't just hang a new level you need to upgrade it to handle the extra weight.
Since we're discussing very basic terms I assumed this was implied. I offered you that courtesy, I know when you say "dump your hydroponics setup" that includes all the things needed to run the structure, the actual components of the structure like the frame, pressure vessel, airlocks, radiation shielding, and so on, and I even imagine of the ancillary stuff like power cables, interior grow lights, the growing area itself, the water, nutrient storage... I mean there's just so much that goes into building on Mars, why mention every little thing? Why are you expecting the same?

>How convenient
Yes, and I have strict control over the plants themselves. I grew up on a dairy farm with fifty acres set aside for field, between that and the hydroponic NFT method the pipes and water wins hands down.

>No it isn't when that 250 square meters needs to be built out of metal
Why metal? It's vulnerable to H2S and H2SO4 and requires treatment or plating, it would be better to use lightweight composites in a polymer shell.
>and floated on balloons
Balloons that provide 60% more lift than Helium in our atmosphere with normal oxygen-nitrogen mix, even more with pure hydrogen, staying airborne is not at all a concern.
>This is a lot of weight which would need an even more vast volume of gas to support it.
You don't even know, do you? You haven't even looked at it. At 50km the atmosphere has a density of 1.594kg/m^3 at 1.066 bar, a cubic meter of breathable air could lift 0.5kg by itself and a cubic meter of hydrogen would lift 1.5kg, more if it was heated. A spherical balloon 100m in diameter could lift 785 tons, just by itself, and we're not even touching on the balloon acting as a lifting body.

I'm confident you had no fucking idea about any of this:
>You seem to think lifting gases are magical antigravity, no you need a lot of it to lift a little

Continued below:

>>8114265
>>8114069
>The same concept applies to colonization today. Land and resources.
No it fucking doesn't you goddamn dunce, there's infinite land and a very finite amount of resources; comparing that to the bountiful opportunities that North America offered in the late 1600's doesn't work. Sorry, but life is actually more complicated than a video game, which is where I suspect you're gleaming your information from because it's just so bizarre.

>land where you can set up your hydroponics farm.
Which is everywhere you can walk on Mars and everywhere you can float a balloon on Venus.

>Venusian land is not arable because you can't build anything on it, Martian land is.
That's not even the definition of arable land, you can't just make things up and then expect me to sit here and take you seriously. That isn't how it works, you might as well start talking about warp drives and magic because you're just inventing things that have no basis in reality.

>See this is why you're a retard, you think that because the farm is artificial the area requirements disappear
I'm not the one talking about uninhabited wasteland like it's premium real estate, that's you and the "area requirements" (what?) for farms are truly irrelevant when you're not using 18th century farming techniques. You can't either, but you're still persisting in thinking that Martian colonists are going to have vast acres of pressurized habitat for their plants.

No. They won't.

It's painfully obvious you have no idea what you're even talking about, you don't understand basic concepts like balloons and buoyancy and are convinced that French fur traders are somehow relevant in a discussion about fucking space colonization. When I point out how completely stupid this is you kick your feet and call everyone else retards, if you act like a child I will treat you like a child.

Shut the fuck up and sit down, the adults are talking here.

>>8114265
>Since we're discussing very basic terms I assumed this was implied. I offered you that courtesy, I know when you say "dump your hydroponics setup" that includes all the things needed to run the structure, the actual components of the structure like the frame, pressure vessel, airlocks, radiation shielding, and so on, and I even imagine of the ancillary stuff like power cables, interior grow lights, the growing area itself, the water, nutrient storage... I mean there's just so much that goes into building on Mars, why mention every little thing? Why are you expecting the same?
On Venus you need the extra of the floating mechanism
> it would be better to use lightweight composites in a polymer shell.
Still building materials that you need. All these fancy lightweight composite materials add cost as well. On dry land you can use heavier but cheaper building materials
>Balloons that provide 60% more lift than Helium in our atmosphere with normal oxygen-nitrogen mix, even more with pure hydrogen, staying airborne is not at all a concern.
Woop de freakin doo helium lifts like 1kg per m^3
>A spherical balloon 100m in diameter could lift 785 tons, just by itself,
Ok so that's two 747 sized objects that's about 1000 people if you cram them in like sardines so probably more likely 200. Some city this is turning out to be. Meanwhile on Mars we just used the already existing lava tubes to house 10x that with no need for balloons and fancy composites, just some steel walls.
>there's infinite land. comparing that to the bountiful opportunities that North America offered in the late 1600's doesn't work

There is not infinite land. Name one colony that succeeded despite the land sucking. It's the same principle You can't support as many people on Venus as you can on Mars therefore the profits will be lower. Why you believe having people live on a Hindenburg sized blimp is easier than digging a tunnel or putting a dome up is beyond me.

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I'm just not finished yet:

>>8114069
>You can reduce the area it doesn't disappear.
Are you even aware of how much farm land your stupid, inefficient, and dangerous methods would take up? I know you're convinced you can pinch one out on a pile of regolith and think you'll grow some potatoes, but I'm convinced you have never, ever once set foot on a farm because if you did you would know it sucks. Everything about farming fucking sucks. It's labor intensive, resource intensive, takes up a lot of space and uses up a lot of labor to eke out as much production out of a few inches of soil. There simply isn't enough manure to go around to fertilize the world's crops, I hope you know that, because soil farming is not efficient at all.

I said something here:
>>8114266
>you're still persisting in thinking that Martian colonists are going to have vast acres of pressurized habitat for their plants.

I want you to carefully read that and try to put yourself into my shoes, somebody who isn't convinced he's the smartest person in the room and relies more on experience and wisdom than bullshit popsci fantasy. When you talk about "arable land" like it's some sort of vital requirement for a colony I know what you're imagining. I know you think of semi-circular vault habitats that stretch for acres, rows of them, filled with delicious pure CO2 atmosphere that they will walk into and gingerly operate some neat looking combine.

This will never work. It's stupid. Get the fuck out of the 1970's Popular Mechanics article you live in because that's a recipe for disaster.

When you talk about farming like it's some critical aspect and colonists will need acres and acres I know you're a clueless fucking fool because a real farm on Mars will not need that. Instead it will look a lot like a farm that could be suspended from a balloon on Venus: a boring cube with artificial grow lights. Oh and,

>You seem to think hydroponics is some magic singularity
>singularity meme
Pic related.

>>8114266
>Which is everywhere you can walk on Mars and everywhere you can float a balloon on Venus.
To build your farm on Mars you need to bring the farm and the structure to shelter it in. To build your farm on Venus you need to bring the farm, the structure to shelter it in and the flotation devices. This is extra cargo and cost. you can build on Mars for less because the foundation is already there.
>That's not even the definition of arable land, you can't just make things up and then expect me to sit here and take you seriously. That isn't how it works, you might as well start talking about warp drives and magic because you're just inventing things that have no basis in reality.
Chill the fuck out it's an important distinction which may bot be the autist's textbook description but it is useful for this discussion. Before you can set up your farm building on Venus you have to "build the land" because none exists. This is extra expense.
> but you're still persisting in thinking that Martian colonists are going to have vast acres of pressurized habitat for their plants.
Because it's fucking true. Go read a book on agriculture. You are not feeding thousands of people from a little room. Even with hydroponics you need many acres and this costs building materials. Moreso if you need a fucking balloon as well.

New France got fucked over because of not much land to farm and your dumb cloud city will meet the same end.

In any case you are moving the discussion away from the real nail in the coffin of your retarded concept which is that you can't mine any sort of solid material on Venus. It will forever be dependent on Earth supplies just like the ISS.

Youc an stay as mad as you want. NASA is not taking your ideas seriously besides one zany study and they never will. Meanwhile they are aiming to reach Mars 2030s, SpaceX maybe sooner. Kill yourself.

>>8114285
You yourself said feeding 1000 people with hydroponics will need 1.5 acres. Now you're feeding a whole city with "a little cube"?

Yeah, just going to insult you now
>>8114284
>On Venus you need the extra of the floating mechanism
On Mars you need the extra of the radiation shielding and of makings of pressure safes!
>Still building materials that you need.
Mars doesn't have magic resource trees and replicators, get your head out of your ass.
>All these fancy lightweight composite materials
Yes, apparently technology we've had since the 1990's is "fancy" according to Zebulon Pike here.
>add cost as well
Space is expensive, dipshit. Get used to it, do you think going to Mars is going to be free?
>On dry land you can use heavier but cheaper building materials
Where are you going to get it?

Oh that's right, Earth. Oh wait, you're one of those retards who seriously think there's magical Martian metal mines already in place!

Setting up a mining, processing, smelting, refining, and manufacturing industry is just opening some boxes and assembling an IKEA Instant Industry Set, what was I thinking!
>Ok so that's two 747 sized objects
>that's about 1000 people if you cram them in like sardines
>so probably more likely 200
I like how you need to think in basic terms like this to process simple things.

Oh man, I say one thing and you turn it into something else, the world must be a wild ride from your perspective.

>Meanwhile on Mars
Your colonists died of heavy metal poisoning and hypoxia because you're an idiot.
>we just used the already existing lava tubes to house 10x
Right, so how are you doing all of that again? Give me a game plan, I really want to read that.
>with no need for balloons and fancy composites
"Those fuckin' pinko faggot balloons with their high fallutin' composites!"
>just some steel walls
Yeah, actually a space habitat needs more than "just some steel walls."

>There is not infinite land
Literal autism.
>You can't support as many people
>therefore the profits will be lower
>is beyond me
It's like listening to a piss-soaked hobo telling me to get a job.

>>8114301
on mars you need a pressurized habitat, you don't need that on venus because its roughly 1 atmosphere

Is it easier to operate in close to vacuum, or on 1 atmosphere but floating in mid air?
Obviously the floating is easier, and the question is how hard mining on venus would be.

>>8114301
>To build your farm on Mars
>To build your farm on Venus
>he doesn't know its the same
It's clear you haven't been paying attention.
>This is extra cargo and cost. you can build on Mars for less because the foundation is already there.
On Venus you don't need a foundation.

This is coming from a guy who says we need to do both, by the way. You're not going to try and "win me over" to the "Mars side." Especially not by being a dumb shit for brains who thinks things like this:
>New France got fucked over because of not much land to farm and your dumb cloud city will meet the same end.
>Go read a book on agriculture.
Yes, tell me all about agriculture, it's not like I actually know anything about it first-hand.

>You are not feeding thousands of people from a little room.
You are not feeding thousands of people from a structurally unsound field using a deadly and inefficient method. Mars will have a cube for a farm. A fat, ugly cube that will have several floors (above ground or underground, doesn't matter) dedicated to growing beds. All those hundreds of acres of open space vulnerable to radiation will be compacted down into an efficient, easy to manage space because hydroponics isn't restricted to a foot and a half of topsoil, you can even grow things off a wall if you wanted.

Moving on though,
>In any case you are moving the discussion away from the real nail in the coffin
lmao you're the retard who brought up the 1700's and farming, not me
>you can't mine any sort of solid material on Venus
Two things:
Why mine?
Why isn't it possible?

We tried to walk you through robotic mining in the other thread (protip: this is how it will be done on Mars as well) and the benefits of having a thick atmosphere, you're plugging your ears and screaming like an infant.

>Youc an stay as mad as you want.
I'm not the one who's grammar and spelling have been going down the shitter, you're the one flustered.

I just feel bad for your parents.

Why has no one here mentioned that Venus's atmosphere literally has Sulfuric Acid in it?
Also, Mars is the best place for colonization. One, it's gravity is closest to that of earth compared to any of the moons named. Two, Mars already has water in the soil (somewhat lower, can be found in large craters and both poles), and while contaminated by minerals that are toxic, it can still be purified. Three, The moon's soil cut through layers of the suits the people on the Apollo 11 had on. I doubt that we could freely walk on the moon forever without losing a few space suits (and people).

I don't get why low-gravity is a problem.

Wear weighted clothes. Boom, problem solved.

>>8114354
The Moon or Titan would be great places for a rocket base (places that are used solely for launching rockets in places with little gravity, or no atmosphere.)

>>8114362
u ain't piccollo

>>8114354
Sulfuric acid is not that big of a deal. We routinely work with it in laboratories on Earth. Just coat the habitat in whatever they make lab-grade glassware out of.

>>8114364
Didn't Goku do it in the time chamber too?

>>8114362
I'm this guy >>8114354
There is scientific data stating that places with little to no gravity affects the growth of bone marrow, making people weak, and their bones weak as well.

>>8114371
Is it a micro-scale effect or a macro-scale effect?

What I mean is, is it because gravity is important for the internal functions of each cell, or is it because the whole organism is under less weight?

If it's the latter, weighted clothes will work fine.

>>8114309
>You yourself said feeding 1000 people with hydroponics will need 1.5 acres.
No I didn't, I never said any of that. Here's precisely what I said:
>>8114043
>Two and a half square meters will comfortably feed one person, so a cube-shaped farm with four levels of 250 square meters each will feed forty people.
250 square meters for ten people is not a lot of space at all, if you took an upper middle class house in suburbia and used all the floorspace (and garage) it would come out to about that and it would feed both the next-door neighbors.

>Now you're feeding a whole city with "a little cube"?
Like the moron stuck in the age of sail, you're not understanding what "little" means, but you're being civil so let's look at this.

Using the 2.5m^2 per person we're going to need 250m^2 for 10 people, so that's 25,000m^2 for 1000 people. That's about six acres, if we were using traditional methods (using the 1.5 acre rule) we would need 1500 acres or 6,070,285m^2 and that's all on a flat open plane. Our hydroponics farm can take those 25,000m^2 and cut it up, say a 5000m^2 decks stacked five levels high, in a building or a cave or whatever.

Yeah, I'd say that is a very little cube, wouldn't you?

>>8114354
>Why has no one here mentioned that Venus's atmosphere literally has Sulfuric Acid in it?
I did here >>8113799 and here >>8114265

It's not nearly as much of a concern as the hydrogen sulfide. (H2S)

>>8114368
I'm this guy >>8114354
Borosilicate? No. For one, Teflon would be better than glass because it's more chemically resistant than glass, and chances are, covering your base in glass would most likely break the glass because of projectiles and shit. People will also have to walk on Venus, and our spacesuits aren't used to dealing with ACID. Also, in a few billion years, the sun will consume Venus, so there for Mars would be better for a longer scale colonization planet.

>>8114378
I'm this guy >>8114354 (You)
My friend that's true. H2S would be worse. This guy is not a faggot and knows his shit.

>>8111626
>solar is absolute garbage on mars and requires constant maintenance
You're absolutely stupid and don't know a thing about solar.

>>8114376
I'm this guy >>8114354
A little of both. When people come back from the ISS, they cannot physically stand due to the loss of bone marrow, and shock of gravity change. They're bone marrow is lost for quite awhile, and this is just six months aboard it.

>>8111626
This guy has a point >>8114388
I'm this guy >>8114354
Solar on Mars works very well (not as well as on earth, but it worked for DAWN so it could work for large scale energy plants.)

>>8114383
A ground-based Venus colony is stupid. 90atm at ~700 degrees is insane.

But a floating colony is a great idea. At around 50km altitude, the air pressure is 1atm, and the temperature is around -30C. Plus, oxygen is a lifting gas on Venus, so your living areas are also your lifting volumes. And since there's no pressure differential, it's nothing like popping a balloon. It'd be a very slow leak; over the course of weeks before you notice any loss of buoyancy. Plenty of time for repairs.

>>8114392
The ISS is zero gravity though. That's a far cry from 1/3 Earth gravity like on Mars or 9/10 Earth gravity on Venus.

>>8114383
I'm the Venus/Mars/Moon advocate.

What you want is just about any consumer plastic out there, it's cheap for one and for two very readily available. H2S and H2SO4 won't attack polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) or polyvinyl chloride (PVC, Type I and Type II) and even milk jug UHMW will do the job, but I think that readily absorbs H2S.

Best one is probably PPS, it's got enough heat and UV resistance to survive and obviously it's resistance to corrosion is great. I love the stuff.

>>8114386
>My friend that's true. H2S would be worse. This guy is not a faggot and knows his shit.
Thanks!

>>8114399
>And since there's no pressure differential, it's nothing like popping a balloon.
Reliant on the design, I'm a proponent of superpressure designs because of the added structural benefits and the ability to act as a rigid airfoil.

>>8114399
I'm this guy >>8114354
I'm just saying if we make a moon base. Also what would lift up these cities? They also need to be supported by something like teflon or some chemically resistant metal like Nickel. And how will we build this in the first place? Piece by piece by robot until we hit 50km? The robot will most likely be destroyed. Mars colony is the best option right now. Then places like Ganymede (largest moon in our solar system, has salt water ocean under the surface.)
Hey it's true, you know your shit.>>8114411

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I'm this guy >>8114354 >>8114416 >>8114397 and more. Just look for "I'm this guy"and you'll know who I am.
Dumping this image. Looking at it and debating with smart people like this >>8114411 gives me hope for the future.

bump for intrest

>>8114423
>>8114354
>>8114416
>>8114397
>Looking at it and debating with smart people
>Playing pretend-scientist making senseless smalltalk about science fiction is "debating with smart people"

you are the fucking cancer killing /sci/

>>8114416
The first floating cities are built in space, either Earth orbit or Venus orbit, and dropped in.

From there, we can mine via dredge. We don't need any sensitive equipment to head to the surface.

We never really settle on the surface; we just ride the air currents.

The Moon is a great destination for an automated colony though. Because of it's low gravity, and the fact that it's tidally locked it's perfect for mining. Because it's tidally locked, there is a point on the Moon's surface where straight up coincides with retrograde on the Moon's orbit. So you build a railgun there, aim it straight up, and use it to fire the resources back to Earth/LEO. Since the Moon is tidally locked, once it's set up you never need to correct your aim.

>>8114428
I'm this guy >>8114354 >>8114416 >>8114397 and more.
You are the cancer that is holding back humanity from progressing further. Go back to Tumblr, and whine about the wage gap, and talk about your gender studies degree.

>>8114434
jesus christ you people are fucking cringey
why the fuck would you come here and act like this? what the fuck is wrong with you?

>>8114437
playing pretend scientists while talking bullshit popsci smalltalk isn't helping humanity do anything

stop fucking around. i'm not going to tell you to go study because you're clearly too retarded to, just fuck off.

>>8114434
Those are fair arguments. And I'm supportive of mining operations on the moon. Like I said here >>8114363 the moon is a good place to be launching rockets, and creating fuel.

>>8114447
you can't really believe you're making any sense here, do you? are you schizophrenic? holy fuck

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>>8114446
getting butthurt isn't helping humanity do anything either.

you fuck off.

>>8114446
I'm this guy >>8114354
>playing pretend scientists
>doesn't bring up a fair counter argument
>rejects info stated above, and doesn't look into it at all.
>>8114449
The only "argument he stated was that this is "science fiction." There was no reason why he called it that, no proof or arguments listed, just said it because (insert reason why here.)

>>8114459
you realize you're demanding me for evidence, when all this thread is nonsense taken from movies and games, right?

tell me you do. please. tell me you're just pretending to be retarded and you're not really like this.

>>8114460
I'm this guy >>8114354
Hey that's the other guy.
Also you are defending this >>8114428
>Looking at it and debating with smart people
>Playing pretend-scientist making senseless smalltalk about science fiction is "debating with smart people"

you are the fucking cancer killing /sci/
>Playing pretend-scientist making senseless smalltalk about science fiction is "debating with smart people"
>Playing pretend-scientist making senseless smalltalk about science fiction
That's not a counter argument

>>8114470
this is NOT a counter argument. this is me telling you you're fucking retarded for coming here to play pretend scientist when it's painfully obvious to anyone you're full of shit because you're making small talk about sci fi

>>8114465
I'm this guy >>8114354 (You)
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=iss%20bone%20loss
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=water+found+on+mars
https://www.google.com/search?q=largest+moon+in+the+universe&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS553US553&oq=largest+moon&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l5.4259j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=ganymede+ocean
https://www.google.com/search?q=mars+one&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS553US553&oq=mars+one&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.1605j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=does%20solar%20work%20on%20mars
learn to use google.

>>8114477
I'm this guy >>8114354
>sci fi
How is it sci fi? You have given no reason to prove or support your claim that it's sci fi.

>>8114478
please tell me you're fucking with me. I won't be able to sleep ok if you're actually serious here.

>>8114481
no post in this thread shows the most basic knowledge of physics or engineering related to space. it's all buzzwords and small talk related to fashionable sci-fi topics.

believe me when I tell you it's really fucking obvious to anyone over the age of 13 that you're absolutely full of shit and clearly don't know anything about this topic. you just like to play pretend scientist for some idiotic reason.

just don't. seriously. are you trying to save face or some shit? this is a fucking anonymous board. stop with you ridiculous "im this guy" shit too, holy shit. it's like you've been here for 5 minutes

>>8114482
I'm this guy >>8114354
Would give you better citations, but it's late, and I did it in a hurry. Just saying look into the stuff we're saying.

>>8114483
Okay Mr. I Work for SpaceX or NASA give me your real "data" here. Citations needed, or your straw man will collapse on you.

>>8114490
>ok i'm full of shit but you don't know anything either!

what are you trying to do? are you trying to look good? posts are anonymous

>>8114488
>look into the stuff we're saying
terraforming? levitation technology? off world colonization? asteroid mining?
these are all popsci subjects that should be a huge red alert that whoever's talking about this doesn't know anything and is playing pretend scientist

>>8114494
Well it is true that sci fi uses these subjects, it is still possible. By just claiming that it's impossible doesn't mean it is. Also, give me some actual statements, papers, or general proof from a real scientist or astrophysicist saying that this stuff is impossible.

>>8114507
stop acting like a fucking child
it's obvious to me and to everyone else you're just playing here and you don't know shit about science
fuck off with your "prove me wrong" idiocy and fuck off with your senseless popsci.

>>8114416
? Venus has an atmosphere just like earth
You put wings on your rocket so it can fly around giving it time to deploy balloons

Now you have your habitat started, keep building from there.

>>8114512
>look mom i'm a scientist!

>>8114514
NASA policy is set by obongo, fgt
They would love to go back to the moon, but they are not allowed while obongo is president

Man this thread really went down hill. I mean it was pretty much popsci from the get go, but the amount of butthurt here is incredible.

You man children seem rather attached to your own personal space colony plans(I am guilty of this too). I mean the name calling is just fine, but could you guys at least back it up with some numbers and data? Saying something is blatantly obvious is a poor cop out.

Otherwise, you might as well be arguing about which anime character would win in a fight. Without numbers, data, and citations, you're just talking science fiction.

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>>8114556
>Man this thread really went down hill.
I just came back, what the fuck happened.
>Without numbers, data, and citations, you're just talking science fiction.
I put down some numbers on the balloons and the farms, I don't know if anyone else did or not.

Venusian colonization isn't very attractive because a return on the investment in the colony wouldn't happen for awhile, and it's "down" instead of "up" according to simpletons. I'm a proponent for Mars, Venus, and our moon all being colonized simultaneously, but I'm not going to pretend that a Venusian colony would be difficult to fund.

Also,
>556
Pic related.

>>8114556
OP here, I agree, but let it go, you gotta pick your battles

We can have a civil discussion about it later maybe, HERE'S TO THE MOON

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>>8114575
What sort of return on investment do you get for any space colony?

The Moon does have the potential to provide some of the same stuff we have on Earth, only cheaper to get into orbit. In the near term Moon water might be a pretty valuable product for refueling satellites.

We know the moon has moon water in permanently shadowed craters and everywhere else actually. Everywhere else it may be about as energetically intensive to extract as helium 3. Read heating up and sifting through 1 ton of regolith to get 10 mL of moon water (10 ppm concentration).


The shadowed craters we are fairly certain have moon water, exactly how much is a big question, but it ain't exactly swimming in it. A study of 40 permanently shadowed craters estimates there's about 600 million tons of it.

This sounds like a lot, until you realize this amount of moon water occupies about the same volume of Sydney harbor.

Why am I saying moon water? Well because there is this silly new health scam that is polluting google search when one types in moon water.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water

Oxygen is another big one, unlike water it can be attained rather easily, the Moon is 43% oxygen. And this can be obtained by getting regolith really hot. Not having to ship oxidizer up could offer some big savings.

The other case for same stuff, but higher up is using the material to build stuff. IE shit like solar power satellites and space colonies to build solar power satellites. O'neill's original space colonization plans had the space colonies producing solar power satellites to sell clean electrical power to Earth.

If you make a couple questionable assumptions, like the space shuttle not sucking, it's actually a sound business case. Except that it requires a HUGE investment over something like a 20 year period. There cost of not knowing what the price of electricity will be over the payback period is also an issue. IE fusion power getting invented

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>>8111450
What do you mean by colonize? Is it a colony if just one dude lives there alone forever? Do people have to be born on the surface? Does it need the world need to be self sufficient so if Earth is no longer able to send supplies the offworlders won't be fucked?

I'm guessing Mars because water. The moon is nice and close but nothing useful for large populations
>inb4 muh South Pole ice, it was a lie
If you're thinking Venus, those aerostat/blimp cities could never grow that big could they?
>inb4 some fedora says Europa
The radiation will kill you.

In the near term:
Mars> Luna > Ceres > Venus > Titan

With kooky sci-fi tech that can do anything:
Teleport instantly through hyperspace to the surface of Betelgeuse and terraform the star into New Hawaii populated by millions of anime-tit girls.
Don't ever mention terraforming because it's /x/ tier.

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>>8114639
Lunar south pole ice is not in fact a lie. We know from the LCROSS impactor that these craters contain water:
http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/observation.htm

However, current conservative estimates are disappointing, as in 40 permanently dark craters contain about as much moon water as a decent size lake on Earth.

>> venus cloud cities could never grow that big could they?
The atmosphere certainly contains the necessary elements, (H, C, O, N, S, F, Cl) to make more cloud platforms. From these we can make structural materials such as plastics and carbon fiber.

The issue is processing them. The equipment to turn atmosphere to stuff probably can't be made completely out of plastic. In the near term, any colony is going to require significant amounts of equipment from Earth until we have self sustaining industry in space.

>>8111997
Forgive me for being inept and possibly full blown retarded, but what effects would long term exposure to low gravity have on the human physiology?

>>8113397
I mean im sure it would be possible, but at this point why we would we do something like that? I always thought it would be cool to create a "Cloud City" on venus tho.

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>>8114745
Venus is a really cool idea.

Imagine you could actually go out on balcony with just an O2 mask and a poncho.

>>8111450
Sputnik

>>8114757
>but what effects would long term exposure to low gravity have on the human physiology?
We have almost no idea.
No-one's ever spent more than three days in a low gravity environment.

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>>8111450

>>8114855
No offense to any people supporting sports.

Venus (high atmosphere), 1g, 1bar, near breathable air.

>>8114757
Spaceflight osteopenia

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>>8114839
>We have almost no idea.
Not true
two people have spent a year or more in space.

The result was a disaster, then instant they returned to Earth both had a heart attack and died instantly. An autopsy revealed their skeletons had turned to powdered sugar.

>>8111979
Europa should be removed from the list entirely.

>>8112957
>but we don't know because nobody has tried living in such conditions yet.

We'd turn to jello in a couple generations, if not 1 generation. Lack of proper gravity is actually the #1 health hazard for a colony than anything else in the universe. Most people wholly underestimate its importance.

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>>8114839
You kidding right?

>>8114446
sadpepeface.jpg

Posts like yours is what is killing /sci.
In an otherwise interesting thread on theme, various degrees of education and intelligence relay their opinions and thoughts on a matter of great relevance in modern science, discussing advantages and disadvantages of various technologies and approaches. Then you come along "hurr durr stop what you are doing don't discuss this here" your mindset is bad and you should feel bad.
..
Anyway,
I'm a Venus fanboy myself.
Great thread.

>>8114510
m8
>comes into a thread on /sci where people discuss the greatest topic of our generation
>Oh no, these guys don't have the credentials for this
>I must stop this
>CAPTAIN AUTIST REPORTING IN
>YOU GUYS ARE CHILDREN FOR TALKING ABOUT THIS STUFF WITHOUT HAVING STUDIED IT EXTENSIVELY
>HURR FUCK YOU GUYS

Annoying man-child. Don't derail threads because they offend you like some feminist bitch.

>>8114887
>>8115048
I meant "low gravity" as in "greater than microgravity, less than Earth gravity". Obviously people have spent large amounts of time in microgravity, but we don't know enough to infer very much about the effects low gravity from that.

>>8115039
>We'd turn to jello in a couple generations, if not 1 generation. Lack of proper gravity is actually the #1 health hazard for a colony than anything else in the universe.
We don't know that. It could turn out that even in 1/6g the health effects converge to about 4months microgravity-adaption-equivalent, then stay there. Or it could turn out that anything less than 0.8g has a fairly hard 1.5 year time limit.. We don't know.

>>8115129
>We don't know that. It could turn out that even in 1/6g the health effects converge to about 4months microgravity-adaption-equivalent, then stay there. Or it could turn out that anything less than 0.8g has a fairly hard 1.5 year time limit.. We don't know.
Exactly. We won't know anything until someone has been on the surface of mars for a year or more. Personally I suspect that losses will be within the realm of what consistently heightened physical activity can take care of, because while Mars' gravity seems weak compared to Earth's it's much, much stronger than anything people in orbit have encountered.

Whatever the case it shouldn't be a massive encumbrance to long-term Mars plans. Looking at the state of medical science today, by the time mass colonization begins the genes responsible for controlling bone mass, muscle mass, etc will have been isolated and getting oneself "Mars ready" will be a doc trip akin to getting vaccinations prior to travel today.

>>8115039
Well if NASA wasn't incompetent shits they would have done artificial gravity on ISS and we'd already know if 10%/20%/40% of a G are livable conditions for the long term

Really this is something that HAS to be tested before we send people to mars

>>8115258
>on the surface of mars for a year or more.
Or you know, a spinning habitat in orbit mimicking that gravity

>>8111997
Indeed I agree with you. The moon is step one, but as you point out it's a short lived step. The moon is a filling station for all points beyond but a necessary filling station indeed.

>>8115061
this discussion is clearly children pretwnding to be scientists making smalltalk about scifi

>>8114887
He didn't die.

>>8111450
The Moon Because :
-Is nearest.
-It has Helium-3 wich could be very necessary by the tme we discover fusion energy.
-It would be good to make and propulse Space Habitats
-It has less gravity so is cheaper the sent spaceships from the Moon to other planets than from the Earth cause you need less energy.
-We have already landed there be we didn't prube to be able to land on Mars, Titan or Europa (and in Venus yuo cannot even land)
So the Moon is the best by far and there might be other reasons.

>>8115510
*time
*be ->but
*yuo -> you
Sorry.

>>8115510
>>8115510
>muh helium 3
too much pop shit

>>8115381
The moon is not necessary for anything, perhaps producing fuel on it could be useful, but it'll be cheaper just to launch it in bulk to LEO via fully reusable rockets

>>8115739
Helium 3 dindu nuffin
Hewas a gud boi.

>>8115413
Not him but
>Still no rebuttal, just insults.

>>8115739
>The moon is not necessary for anything,
Right now NO off-Earth colony is necessary for anything. The point of these things is for scientific research (and to prove we can).

>>8114631
>What sort of return on investment do you get for any space colony?
>stuff about the moon
Yeah, that one is likely going to be the one to return a profit relatively quickly. Problem right now is there isn't really any demand for anything the moon could offer aside from some trace helium-3, once things get moving around in space with some degree of consistency then yeah; the lunar colony will have a lot going for it.

That's why I advocate for colonization of Mars, Venus, and our moon. A lot of people seem to think that we're just going to do the one thing and call it quits, go to Mars and we'll be good. Me? Mars isn't enough, we need to go to Venus and Mars to understand the edges of a habitable zone around our star. We need to go to the moon to understand our own home even better. We need to go to as many places as we can as quickly as possible, the faster we can move on this the sooner we can look beyond our solar system. If we can plop down a colony on Mars and have it thrive and fly a city on Venus, I think whatever the hell we'll find in our first extrasolar expedition will be a challenge we can beat. We'll need to have as much wisdom and experience for that because if those colonists need help it's going to take decades for it to arrive; they'll be effectively isolated.

>>8111474
My childhood...

>>8113885
I think when he talked about "people who earned everything" he is more talking about scientists and engineers. Not just faggots born into wealth or greedy, civilization destroying jews.

>>8116769
Moon rocks, moon gems, rare metals, building material/fuel supplied to LEO, etc

>>8115048
microgravity =/= macrogravity

>>8115129
>We won't know anything until
>We don't know that

I certainly know it. It like asking if water is wet.

We are talking about colonization, as in families living there for generations. Total fuck over for the human body. Infants most won't have their skeletal structure firm up properly in the first place. They will be encased in exoskeletons if they need to do anything otherwise suffer debilitating or even life threatening fractures. Provided of course they reach adulthood in the first place.

>state of medical science today

Not at all promising.

>>8117615
We can't just start removing matter from the moon, man. Once we start that, we'd never stop, it would become more and more, until we removed so much mass that we accelerated the moon's eventual separation from Earth orbit. It's moving farther all the time and we don't need to fuck things up that quickly. Let's get out of the terrarium before we start breaking the glass.

What I don't understand about terraforming other planets is; that if we have the means to, why don't we just terrafrom earth into a super earth ??

>>8117615
I think the moon would shift more toward a habitat because of environmental concerns once we start really moving out into space. We've got an entire asteroid belt, hundreds of thousands of satellites too small to name (Earth has a whole garden of rocks orbiting around it) all easier to pick apart.

Aside from that any colony on Mars and Venus will need the manufacturing base of Earth for decades, possibly even centuries, and looking for hydrocarbons elsewhere in the system is really the only other alternative.

>>8118293
How do you explain "the means to terraform"? We can't "terraform Mars", for example, because that planet's electromagnetic field is hardly functional, as Earth's is, so it cannot "hold" an atmosphere. We could ship trillions of cubic meters of oxygen, they'd just "bleed off" dispersing into space.

>>8118301
>Any colony on Venus
Stop right there, criminal scum.

>>8118306
>Stop right there, criminal scum.
No, fuck yourself.

>>8118311
If you have plans to visit Venus, I'll let you, and people who believe you, go first. I'd rather build Sealab 2020 around the Marianas Trench, and not deal with hundreds of degrees in temperature or spend the resources it would take to get to Venus.

>>8118319
>and not deal with hundreds of degrees in temperature
Scroll up and read through every post I made where I specifically said we wouldn't be dealing with the "hundreds of degrees in temperature."

This is why I get annoyed with people, they have simple, easy to digest information right in front of them.

>>8118325
Whatever it was, I'm sure it was stupid. Did you miss the atmospheric pressure part?

>>8118333
>Whatever it was, I'm sure it was stupid. Did you miss the atmospheric pressure part?
Did you miss the altitude part? Or are you one of those people convinced that buoyancy is a lie invented by the balloon industry? I've even addressed the engineering challenges of actually deploying anything on Venus, right along with discussing the atmosphere and difficulty in dealing with hydrogen sulfide and sulfuric acid.

If you can't be bothered with a little light reading then why are you here? I'm certainly not going to waste time on somebody too lazy to even read.

>>8118347
Ok, Lando Calrissian. That shit's even less practical than a full on, Manhattan sized Mars facility.

>>8118363
At least at the bottom of the sea, you'd have fish to look at, and visiting family is a 1 hour submarine ride straight up.

>>8118302
When I reffered to terraforming a planet, obviously it was in the context of suitable planets not unsuitable ones. What I'm trying to convey is that if we have the means to go out and attempt the transformation of a planets entire surface, why not just make earth a super earth? As in rapid resource rejuvenation.

>>8118386
I guess I don't understand what you think you're saying to "terraform Earth". Do you mean to somehow super-oxygenate the atmosphere? That would actually be pretty counter-productive to human existence. We'd go back to insects the size of basketballs and lizard-birds 30 feet tall, some carnivorous.

>>8118293
how do you imagine we can terraform anything?

My thoughts are any place with enough carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen is ideal with being able to aquire rare materials like different metals is ideal. Mars seems perfect for this as you can access this easily from the surface. Venus sounds great, but the lack of hydrogen and easy access to mining makes me wonder how you could self sustain it.

The other ones i don't know too much about and we probably need more research before commiting to colonizing.

>>8118465
You would just dredge the surface on Venus, or use remote operated machinery, or some sort of scooper, its really not hard.
Hydrogen might be tricky to acquire, depends how availible it is in the atmosphere, or how much can be found on the surface.

You'd have to somehow "burn off" about 70% of the atmosphere of Venus to even start it to be "workable". The amount of atmospheric pressure makes the environment unbelievably alien and subject to all kinds of weird physics, from the kinetic energy of objects once you spent the force for them to move, to unbelievable static charge, to aerodynamic heating, just accelerating any matter is a headache on paper, and definitely lethal for the slightest mistake.

>>8118477
>from the kinetic energy of objects once you spent the force for them to move
wat
All it is is heavy drag, they don't magically gain inertia due to being under 100 atmospheres

>>8118465
>Venus sounds great, but the lack of hydrogen and easy access to mining makes me wonder how you could self sustain it.
Hydrogen is locked up in acids and gases, it's not exactly hard to find but not easy to get out. Water is a bigger concern.

As for the mining? Valid point, even though I'm a strong advocate for Venus the surface mining question is still a big one that doesn't have a very good answer. I'd say robotic mining is obviously the solution but that doesn't really answer much, at the end of the day the surface pressure and temperature are ridiculous. Actually the atmosphere at the surface is so dense that the CO2 has been compressed into a supercritical fluid, definitely a bad place to put down a settlement. Fortunately that denseness makes flying -anything- from the surface hilariously easy, so at least the movement of resources from the surface to the "cloud city" wouldn't be difficult to solve. Deployment of new or repaired mining vehicles wouldn't be particularly difficult either, if the city is tethered in place it's a matter of simply dropping the vehicle with a small balloon upwind of the deployment site.

>>8118470
>You would just dredge the surface on Venus, or use remote operated machinery, or some sort of scooper, its really not hard.
No, really, it is hard. Mars has a significant advantage over Venus in that mineral resources are immediately available. Dredging would mean a mining platform that would need to dive into the haze of CO2 and sulfuric acid vapor that's below the "habitable altitude" and even then you're talking about a tether that's tens of kilometers long.

>>8118477
>subject to all kinds of weird physics
No... not at all. The rules don't change just because it's a different planet, the atmosphere is just thicker, hotter, and corrosive than it is here. Removing the heat problem for a moment, most of the consumer drone toys would perform amazingly well because the plastics they're made of aren't attacked by H2S and H2SO4.

>>8118483
The amount of force necessary to accelerate an object in that pressure lends to its inertia. Think of a submarine pushing through very thick honey.

>>8118490
>The rules don't change just because it's a different planet

I'm arguing the same "rules". You're not doing the math.

>>8118490

People have proposed using remote controlled probes on the surface with electronics that could work in that environment. You could apply that to mining. What gets me is the wind speeds. For a cloud city, it seems you have to drift with the winds going over 100 mph. So once you drop your mining robot, how do you get back to your floating colony? Fortunately, the atmosphere is thick enough to use buoyancy to perhaps inflate balloons to lift materials, i just don't know how you get it still. Are venus winds predictable at 50 km?

>>8118494
>Think of a submarine pushing through very thick honey.
It's nowhere near that thick, sorry.
>>8118499
>I'm arguing the same "rules". You're not doing the math.
Oh? Off the top of my head the first spacecraft that we ever landed on another planet fell freely through the Venusian atmosphere and crashed relatively safely, enough to still complete it's mission. If you're arguing that controlled flight through the Venusian atmosphere is truly impossible then please do show us the math to back up your claim.

>>8118510
>So once you drop your mining robot, how do you get back to your floating colony?
Several theories get kicked around, but one of them is using a drone to scoop up the robot or the material and fly it back up. Yeah, we're talking hurricane force winds here that are blowing a caustic mess of hydrogen sulfide, hydrofluoric acid, bromine, hydrochloric acid, and of course sulfuric acid, but the goal would be to fl as fast as possible up to the 40km mark to avoid the lion's share of that mess. Actually in the middle layers the wind speed can get up to 700kmph, so any movement from surface to the top of the clouds would be more like a backwards orbit. Even though the craft would have forward thrust it would still be moving backward, much like an ultralight in high winds. Scary? Yes. A challenge? Absolutely. Impossible? I really don't think so.

>Are venus winds predictable at 50 km?
From what we can tell? Yes. There's simply not enough data to confirm everything we think we know, so any colonization effort would have to be preceded by several things to even check viability. Diving into something this wildly dangerous head-first is not smart, but I think we can improve our chances with some more probes; we need to find out more about Venus anyway.

>>8118510
I should also point out that Venusian winds at the top of the clouds are speeding up, I didn't mention that here: >>8118531

Don't know what's going on below that, another atmosphere-diving probe would be needed to find out.

>>8118511
Controlled flight in minimum 150mph sustained wind in a pressurized environment equal to over 1km below sea level in Earth's ocean, temperature high enough to melt lead.

Sounds legit. You go first.

>>8118558
why do you say "high enough to melt lead" like its something special?
Every consumer oven can handle temperatures like that

The sustained wind is what gives you your lift, drop anchor on the ground and float there while you do your thing.

>>8118558
>>Sounds legit. You go first.
>proof was asked for
>doesnt deliver proof
>thinks melting lead is scary

logic quiz

>>8118558
I really didn't think you would be able to answer me when I said for you to show me the math, but I was really hopeful.

While balloons and fixed-wing aircraft aren't the same as controlled descent with a parachute, all three of these things show that your concerns here: >>8118477 aren't significant. So no, there isn't some "weird physics" going on here and it is possible to move through the Venusian atmosphere to -to the surface- and not explode from aerodynamic heating. (or "unbelievable static charge")

>>8118587
Correction: when I said "aren't significant" I wasn't trying to downplay the difficulty in overcoming those factors. Instead I was arguing that no, they do not make flight in the Venusian atmosphere impossible which was the claim. ("somehow 'burn off' about 70% of the atmosphere of Venus to even start it to be 'workable'")

One thing I like about our exploration efforts so far is that oxygen seems pretty abundant everywhere we look. It is so useful in many chemical reactions, it makes colonization that much easier.

>>8118637
Well, yeah. Oxygen is common and reactive as shit, so oxygen compounds are basically ubiquitous.

>>8118637
>It is so useful in many chemical reactions, it makes colonization that much easier.
>>8118653
>Oxygen is common and reactive as shit, so oxygen compounds are basically ubiquitous.
Not only that but oxygen-carbon life isn't really as far-fetched as we once thought, if our own solar system is to be believed. That also doesn't preclude the possible other forms of life, water isn't the only solvent in the universe.

The ISS!

LOOK OUT, I'M BUMPING IT! Also mining helium 3 is a really shitty idea. It's present in PARTS PER BILLION CONCENTRATIONS! That means you gotta sift through MILLIONS OF TONS of regolith to get a ton of helium-3.

like we're ever gonna do that when we could just do breed tritium and get deuterium from seawater.

>>8111450
>most plausible, or easiest satellites to colonize?

the one with gravity like earths. no reason to even try if it doesn't have that

>>8111450
Neither. We hijack Deimos out of its decaying orbit and turn it into a colony ship.