We have had many advocates for simply going to Mars directly. (Mars direct, Mars or bust, etc.) Most notable proponent of Mars direct is Zubrin. However, nowadays, we see more of a tendency towards establishing a colony on the Moon (Luna) and then taking advantage of Lunar resources and a smaller gravity well to outsource stuff elsewhere (like Mars). Mars is certainly the main target after colonization of Luna (if not even before). And from there Mars provides a stepstone to the Asteroid Belt and all the quadrillions of dollars in elements and resources available there.

But what follows this sequence? Cloud cities on Venus? Bases on Jupiter's moons? A colony on Titan?

this is the perfect place on the internet to discuss this topic

berdan, what do you think

Venus cloud cities is a big no for multiple reasons.

@Irise

Thanks you for calling the right person. I think the future is grim








...and bright at the same time. It's a bitter-sweet topic with big hopes and constant advancement. But then the reality sets in which says we may never colonise it.

Maybe you should ask Aura Guardians, he seems like a planetary guy.

You poor fools. Humanity is swelling and will implode before that time. We're doomed in this cruel game called life.

@goodgame:
What's wrong with cloud cities on Venus? Venus's atmosphere has a higher molar mass than Earth so terrestrial air would actually float on Venus. (Floating cloud cities.) You would need an acid suit if you headed outside. But the atmospheric pressure in the upper Venusian atmosphere should be equal approximately to 1 atm.

Think about the building conditions. Astronauts would have to move literal tons of metal and other resources through tons of empty space to get to Venus, then they'd have to assemble it all without touching any solid ground (because you know, Venus) while making sure nothing gets out of its packaging out of hand and falls down. Then there's food, there'd have to be a stable food source orbiting Venus making regular deliveries. Then after all that the workers would have to drain the air inside the city and replace it with breathable air. And what makes you so certain that the difference in air pressure would be able to stop an entire city from falling towards the surface? At least on Mars you can do your work on the ground, and have the soil and some metals already there to use.

There is absolutely no problem with moving tons (even megatons) of objects through empty space. That hardly takes any energy. The real problem is pulling resources out of a gravity well like that of the Earth or Venus (which have pretty big gravity wells relatively speaking). However, most metallic resources needed can be extracted from the Moon or the asteroid belt (which have considerably lower gravity wells and thus it takes less energy to escape them).

But you hardly even need that to begin with. The whole point of building a colony is to build it to be self-sustaining. You have no problem assuming we could grow and harvest food on Mars I am presuming. Then why is there one with Venus? The food would be grown and harvested in greenhouses in the cloud cities rather than exported from... Earth - which is a pretty bad place to export stuff from.

In terms of other non-metallic resources, they can be mined in Venus's atmosphere. No need to go down to the ground to obtain them. There is lots of carbon dioxide and nitrogen in Venus's atmosphere. Splitting CO2 gives us carbon and oxygen. The nitrogen and oxygen would constitute the breathable air in the cloud city (at proper proportions) while the carbon could then be used as a construction material.

thx for the nice science-fiction novel