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Cloud cities possible... on Venus |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
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 It’s one of those things that’s straight out of Star Trek. Cell phones, quantum teleportation, cloud cities. The last hasn’t happened just yet, but according to Geoffrey Landis of NASA’s Glenn Research Center, it could be possible on Venus. The planet, which essentially Earth with a runaway greenhouse effect going, has a thick carbon dioxide atmosphere that rains sulfuric acid and reaches 480° C (900° F). Oh, and the atmospheric pressure on the surface is so powerful that it has crushed every probe we’ve managed to land on the surface. Apart from that, Venus isn’t that different.
Landis says that at about 50 km above the surface, Venus’ atmospheric pressure is about 1 bar (Earth sea level) and the temperature ranges from 0-50° C (32-122° F). That would be a comfortable environment for humans - no pressure suits required. However, even at that level, the atmosphere is still mostly CO2 and filled with sulfuric acid, so breathing equipment would be needed, and t-shirts probably wouldn’t cut it.
But the kicker, says Landis, is that we could build a floating habitable structure in this zone of Venus’ atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is notably denser than the gasses that make up Earth’s atmosphere (78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen), so a bubble filled with a Terran atmosphere would float in Venus’ air, just like a balloon filled with helium floats in ours atmosphere.
Conceivably, one could built a super-light structure, fill it with nitrogen and oxygen, and it would float in Venus’ cloudy skies. Of course, it’d need a coating capable of withstanding the extreme corrosive forces of the sulfuric acid rain, and just like on the International Space Station, you’d want some windows to take in the view. But, it can be done, at least in theory.
[via: Universe Today]
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