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We should colonize Venus, not Mars

Where would you rather live?

  • A floating city on top of the clouds on Venus

    Votes: 156 45.2%

  • A settlement on the ground of Mars

    Votes: 189 54.8%
  • Total voters
    345
The Artisan

The Artisan

"Angels are singing in monasteries..."
Moderator
Oct 27, 2017
8,705
I can't stop thinking about it. Mars always gets the attention of being the default most hospitable place in our solar system outside of our own home planet and where actual plans of colonization are taking place, but I think that's a mistake. All of the attention and resources should be going to Venus, not Mars.

First of all, Venus is much closer to Earth than Mars is. Second, yes the surface of the sister planet is a literal hell, but the upper atmosphere is and I quote "...the most earthlike environment (other than Earth itself)..." The atmospheric pressure is similar to our surface's, the temperature Venusian-yearround is perfect summertime, the gravity is much closer to what we are used to, and on top of all this, there is protection from solar radiation.

Mars has literally none of these advantages. The surface which is where all of the planned colonization were to take place is below freezing cold all Martian-year long. The pressure isn't crushingly bad like it is on Venus but it is very low, and I'm not knowledgable on atmospheric pressure but I can imagine there are adverse effects to that as well. The gravity is much weaker than Earth's which means there would be bone loss if you don't exercise, or if artificial gravity isn't created. And from my understanding, the atmosphere doesn't protect the planet from the Sun's UV radiation either. And let's not even get into those dust storms.

This video makes it sound too good to be true https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwH686rgyBg
But there is this other video that is more fact based which still goes on to say why a floating city on Venus beats an all indoor lifestyle on Mars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kroU3SfCXE8

And I will admit, I am not totally knowledgable on the subject so I apologize in advance if this OP comes off as rambling and if there is misinformation.

What do you think?
 
skeezx

skeezx

Member
Oct 27, 2017
21,340
sure why not. lets make anime real


MV5BMTI4MjA4Njc0OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTg5MjIyMQ@@._V1_.jpg
 
ArkhamFantasy

ArkhamFantasy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,785
I don't claim to be a scientist but I think it's more difficult to build a city in the sky than it is to build one on the ground.
 
GeoGonzo

GeoGonzo

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
4,526
Madrid, Spain
Venus is hell. Mars is worse. I love space exploration, but we are settling nowhere else in the solar system if we can't even manage to take care of ez-mode Earth.
 
L Thammy

L Thammy

Spacenoid
Member
Oct 25, 2017
51,567
we should get earth working first

not even as a "waaah humanity is going to fuck up space" because if it's just a bunch of rocks that no one lives on who cares, i mean it's going to be a lot less resource extensive to take the planet that's already livable and keep it livable instead of trying to live on on a planet of poison superheated gas
 
Slayven

Slayven

Never read a comic in his life
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
96,792
Ha, I was just looking at Venus space missions today. And they are lacking. Russia is suppose to send a new lander in 2029
 
Orayn

Orayn

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,478
We are going to drive ourselves extinct on Earth before we are remotely capable of terraforming.
 
Chaos Legion

Chaos Legion

The Wise Ones
Member
Oct 30, 2017
17,198
GeoGonzo said:
Venus is hell. Mars is worse. I love space exploration, but we are settling nowhere else in the solar system if we can't even manage to take care of ez-mode Earth.
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I saw a Tweet that essentially pointed out that Australia is largely uninhabited, yet we keep focusing on a much more difficult task of trying to tame Mars/the Moon.
 
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hyouko

hyouko

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,431
Rather than attempting it for the first time on Venus, we should probably prototype here first. If we can't get a floating city working on Earth, getting it working on Venus is not going to be viable.

In general my takeaway from A City on Mars is that most of the space colonization work we might hypothetically do over the next several decades should be focused on experiments into sustainable ecosystems here on earth. Until we can build a self-sustaining mostly closed ecosystem, the "all our eggs in one basket" argument for colonization carries no weight.
 
TheMadTitan

TheMadTitan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
28,241
Chaos Legion said:
I saw a Tweet that essentially pointed out that Australia is largely inhabited, yet we keep focusing on a much more difficult task of trying to tame Mars/the Moon.
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Australia, the Sahara, the Gobi, hell, the Great Basin that I already call home should be where we should be focusing our attention. Let's terraform that shit some before running off into space.
 
Jaymageck

Jaymageck

Member
Nov 18, 2017
2,155
Toronto
DrForester said:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-WO-z-QuWI
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It's really cool that this is hypothetically possible, although given that it looks like the world would be permanently dependent on the giant mirrors means, it seems extremely vulnerable to things going wrong and wiping out all life that lives there.

Anyway unfortunately it seems like multi-generation projects are incompatible with the way democracy currently looks on this planet. We can barely get roads or subway tunnels built without a subsequent government cancelling it. Getting intergovernmental cooperation with dedicated funding for hundreds, or thousands of years? Impossible in the current world. And I'm pessimistic enough to say impossible with human beings - unless we find a solution to our short-term-ism.
 
Typhon

Typhon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,323
TheMadTitan said:
Australia, the Sahara, the Gobi, hell, the Great Basin that I already call home should be where we should be focusing our attention. Let's terraform that shit some before running off into space.
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You want to screw the planet up even more?

new.nsf.gov

How Desert Dust Feeds the World's Oceans

In mid-February, at the height of Austral summer, the sun in the Antarctic never sets. Nor did the work ever stop for University of Hawaii oceanography…
new.nsf.gov new.nsf.gov
 
zashga

zashga

Losing is fun
Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,428
The venusian atmosphere is 96.5% CO2, and the clouds are made of sulfuric acid. You won't be lounging on the patio in your swim trunks at any altitude.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus

Building a moon base or even a mars base is likely orders of magnitude easier than trying to construct a venus cloud base. And building a self-sustaining colony on Antarctica, or on the ocean floor, is orders of magnitude easier still.
 

Pikelet

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,478
ArkhamFantasy said:
I don't claim to be a scientist but I think it's more difficult to build a city in the sky than it is to build one on the ground.
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Having done zero actual research on the matter, I'm not immediately convinced that this would be true.

I mean there's obvious downsides to not having a ground beneath your feet or a planet to scour for resources, but I have played enough Kerbal Space Program to know that it is significantly easier to get into the orbit of a planet compared to actually landing on it.
 
mentok15

mentok15

Member
Dec 20, 2017
7,947
Australia
We shouldn't be colonising any planet.

Not because because of fear humans fucking up other environments, but because we should be using them as construction material for space habitats. Dyson swam is our future.
 
9-Volt

9-Volt

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,189
In about 200 or 300 years maybe, it's too early for it right now. There are lots of challenges to overcome, we're barely scratching the surface with 3D printing technology. You need to build Mount Everest sized transparent containers for that. And a way to convert all those CO2 to O2 for people inside to breathe. Not to mention the immense amounts of clean energy needed for this. Energy still remains as the biggest bottleneck for any kind of space travel today.

First focus on problems on Earth. Solve as much as you can, you'll get the tech you need for Venus quest along the way.
 
El Buga

El Buga

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,830
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
You can also have a taste of Venus by coming to my city, it'll be above 35ºC/95ºF for the next 7 days due to a heat wave. Grass is constantly burning on a mountain near here due to the dry air, so we're basically breathing smoke. The marvels that only capitalism can bring to you.
 
DieH@rd

DieH@rd

Member
Oct 26, 2017
11,192
Nothing can survive on the surface of Venus, cloud cities are unrealistic, and terraforming on this scale is out of our reach.

Best we can hope are probes for scientific exploration, and even that will be very hard.
 
Glasgow Mega-Snake

Glasgow Mega-Snake

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
3,057
hyouko said:
Rather than attempting it for the first time on Venus, we should probably prototype here first. If we can't get a floating city working on Earth, getting it working on Venus is not going to be viable.
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yeah, the idea of a floating city on Venus is cool, but what benefit does it actually have over a floating city orbiting Earth?

If we one day manage to build a city in orbit, why would we do it over the planet with the toxic as fuck atmosphere instead of right here?

I could see some sort of mega-ISS around Mars or Venus happening at some point. But for anyone aside from scientists, why? it's not like people are signing up in masses today to live in Antarctica
 
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