A Cloud City on Venus: Why Venus is a Better Choice
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- Опубликовано: 3 янв 2023
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Personally, I’m a big Earth fan. It’s a nice place, can sustain life, fairly cozy, and all my stuff is already here..
Rent is getting a little high. Venus is up and coming.
Pretty decent chance Earth will be uninhabitable for humans by 2100.
Yeah, but there are all these hostile life forms on Earth called “Homo sapiens sapiens” (we won’t get into the irony of that taxonomy) that makes living on Earth grotesquely unpleasant. At least there’s dogs on earth.
@@vic5015 Earth would still be way more hospitable to life in 2100 (or even 2500) than Venus or Mars. No matter what we do to this planet.
@@LloydWaldo just wait until Venus gets gentrified
Gives 'Choose love, not war.' a whole new meaning.
At least it will be a mother land, rather than a father land
No Elon on Venus!
Nice!
Very clever
Venus truly is a fitting place for hippies, where you live high in a place full of toxic fumes.
Yesterday, I selected an episode of Megaprojects about building artificial seas in the Sahara. I fell asleep to the sound of Simon’s voice, and when I woke up, he was talking about the Oregon Trail. I listened to that for a while before falling asleep again, and ultimately waking up to Simon telling me how convergent evolution relates to Mermaids. Three different channels, but Simon the entire time. Simon is developing a monopoly over RUclips. You should do an episode about it.
Go watch Brain Blaze.... He is less serious there
Bro you are not getting your 8 hours every night are you?
are u sure u are awake when posting this,
what nonsense are you talking about? please consider people's feelings.
😂😂😂
In the Venusian Cloud City Colony, I think it would be a common pastime to sit watching the clouds pass by. I think it would be cool to have observation areas that provide a high degree of visibility. More or less the glass bottom boat concept.
We have clouds here too. How much time do people generally spend watching them?
@@vanyadolly it's a much different experience when you're above the cloud layer.
@Teth you never taken your SO out for a picnic and cloudwatched? People definitely enjoy cloudwatching, even if it's not as common in the digital age we're in today.
@@vanyadollytheres whole communities of science geeks, weather nerds, photographers and videographers dedicated to watching storms and clouds soooooo
Unsettling when you realize those clouds have sulfuric acid.
Me : "god I hate flying or being on boats, never feel safe"
Also Me: "god yeah I'd love to ride a bomb through a vacuum to live on a dirigible surrounded by superheated sulphiric acid gas"
When you put it that way, I definitely feel ready to go! :-))
It has the same feeling of dying without being able to breathe in space or dying from falling to a height where you can contemplate your life in the time you reach the ground.
On boats in the sky
I hope this video is played back in a 100 years as What they were thinking?
This is so metal! 🤘
First person on Mars will be one thing. First person around Venus will be another. Imagine the first human to visit them both! Now that's a future I'd like humans to strive for.
maybe we should focus on this planet first, most person got 3 jobs just to pay the bills, when we fix that then we can talk about the stars.
@@zeocamo I get where you're coming from, but it just won't happen. People have been in abject poverty for hundreds/thousands of years and technology continued to progress. At this point it is literally impossible to change our trajectory in time. As a species, we spend a tiny, tiny fraction of our global production capacity for space exploration. If we were to move that spending into 'focusing on this planet' it would provide very little benefit. We are already doing as much research as we can on new energy production, more efficient systems.
Realistically, the best we can do for the planet and people living here now is to stop allowing oil companies to give themselves bonuses while the rest of the population choose between food or heating.
@@zeocamo we have been trying to do that for thousands soft years. Now instead the people that actually have the willpower to do for society instead of themselves would like to leave this planet and set up other lands so that when the normal humans destroy themselves a culture based on collective survival will prevail
Totally. Then we can fuck up multiple planets all at the same time!
We’d have to invent an anti-aging vaccine or putting our brains in robot bodies or something first, I imagine. Otherwise the times scales involved might not be practical.
Having a floating city slowly losing altitude and having seven hours to evacuate before crushing pressure would make for an exciting thrill ride of a sci fi story…I’m sure chatgpt could write it up a classic😂
Can i use that idea? 😅
It would be derivative though. ChatGP can only really shuffle things around, change a few names and alter a few words that mean the same thing. Might be a good synopsis for an actual creative author, though.
GPT4:
Title: "Descent into the Inferno: A Venusian Odyssey"
Synopsis:
In the late 23rd century, humankind has managed to colonize Venus-not on its inhospitable surface, but by creating colossal floating colonies suspended in its less hostile upper atmosphere. These structures, equipped with advanced technology and systems that keep them airborne, have fostered thriving communities of scientists, engineers, and their families, who have adapted to the constant cloud cover and surreal landscape of Venus. But life in the Venusian atmosphere has its perils, and one day, the unexpected happens.
Harmony Station, one of the largest of these floating colonies, experiences a catastrophic failure in its buoyancy systems. The megastructure begins a slow, agonizing descent into the deadly lower atmosphere of Venus. Time is running out for the thousands of people aboard, as the station descends towards temperatures hot enough to melt lead and pressures that could crush a submarine.
The novel follows a diverse cast of characters including station commander Marina Petrova, a seasoned astronaut and reluctant leader; Caleb Young, an ingenious but reckless engineer; and their children, Alexei Petrov and Izzy Young, who are forced to grow up faster than they ever imagined.
As the station's descent accelerates, the inhabitants must race against the clock to either fix the failing systems or evacuate to the sister station, Tranquility, situated tens of kilometers away in the turbulent Venusian winds. However, resources are scarce, the journey is perilous, and Tranquility may not be able to accommodate all the refugees from Harmony.
The community will need to come together in unforeseen ways to survive this crisis. Difficult decisions will be made, sacrifices will be demanded, and in the process, humanity will test its mettle in the harshest of conditions.
"Descent into the Inferno: A Venusian Odyssey" is a gripping tale of survival, resilience, and human spirit set against the otherworldly backdrop of Venus's cloud cities. It serves as a poignant reminder that the final frontier is not space, but our ability to overcome adversities and thrive as a species, wherever we may find ourselves.
Actual 'Freezing to death' or generally dying on Mars novels didnt do well on the market.. you might not make a lot of money. Poeple seem to be set on 'nah it will be fine'
Ammonium carbonate is a dense powder, easily stored in a canister. At 58 C it decomposes into ammonia, water, and carbon dioxide. Ammonia and water vapor are strong lifting gasses on Venus. A floating platform will have considerable ballast in order to stabilize and provide comfort. Below most of the deck there will be aerographene and/or various types of foam or aerogel. In a story where a city is annihilated by multiple nuclear warheads in a war the fragments attached to aerographene chunks would rise to higher altitude.
I’ve long held this view. Nice to see others talking about it.
UPDATE: It's 2030, and Simon becomes the world's first multi-trillionaire because he acquired all of the airspace rights to Venus in 2023 for £15.
2030 is abit early 2050 to 2200 is probably more realistic
wasn't there a treaty that forbid owning stuff in space?
@@alicorn3924 I think so
But let's be honest no one country could
@@alicorn3924 could ever afford the 100s trillions of dollars it would cost even to colonise the moon never alone Mars or Venus
private property must be banned.
I once read a book about colonizing Venus that *must* have been written in the '50s since it got the surface conditions of Venus *wildly* wrong.
It was Issac Asimov's and in later edition he added an introduction where he explained that the new (then) discoveries invalidated his story's scientific backdrop. Still a good story.
@@konst80hum which book of his is it ? I have the foundation but ive not read it yet
@@meghank4042 It was in a collection of short stories, I can't remember the title, sorry...
@@konst80hum not the one I read. It was a *much* more obscure book. Then again, I do not remember the name of the author.
@@vic5015 It may have been Prelandra. The book is by C.S. Lewis, but that series is much less well known than the Narnia books.
Fascinating. Had no idea this was so possible from an engineering standpoint, and extra awesome with the heat engine hot-low-atmosphere probe tech giving you tons of energy letting you fly/hang out wherever, including the dark side of the planet w/o solar - love that. And the dense atmosphere lets you both float extra-well and fly extra-well with props working really effectively with all that dense gas. Wonderful! I hope I get to visit such a flying city in my own lifetime. That would be incredible, I’d be so proud of us.
Thank you so much for doing this video!!! 😳
The Ability to walk around with just and oxygen tank on another planet is insane (without pressurised space suit)
You wont walk on Venus with "just and oxygen tank" or you get crispy really quick...
@@Lodrik18 did you even watch the whole clip?
@Sam's School he def did not
Yhup I think I’m good on Earth…
He's really downplaying how much acid there is in the atmosphere. you would not be able to walk around with just an oxygen tank. and you would get crispy, just from acid not heat.
I’d take this over Mars easily. I do think though our future in space probably will be mostly in O'neil cylinders or other kinds of artificial habitats. Venus could be a good way for us to learn how to make those better too.
Is there not a problem with mining recurces? I mean building efficient mines and appropriate infrastructure take time and a planate to mine
@@salvadordittrich4611 By the time we’re able to do this we should be mining the moon, asteroids and hell Venus itself. The biggest problem with space mining right now is we don’t have very much stuff in space outside our Earth orbit mostly because it's so expensive to move stuff out there from Earth’s gravity well. Once there's enough stuff and people out there mining will be a lot easier.
Indeed, ultimately colonising a planet is more of a passion project where building space stations is the most efficient way.
The Moon is our best option for immediate extraterrestrial habitation by humans. If we were committed, we could have communities in the low hundreds on Luna within a decade or so of the first arrivals. The lava tubes make ideal places to shelter from solar wind and other such radiation. We know there is plenty of water and no long transit relative to other celestial bodies in the system. A secondary oxygen source would be better than using lunar ice alone for water and air, but that is still viable
@@McHobotheBobo Yeah I agree the moon is our best first step. It's also a much better place to build things for space than Earth because the gravity well won’t demand nearly so much rocket fuel for escape velocity. Rocket fuel is the main thing holding our space infrastructure back right now.
Finally a mega project worthy of the name! ❤️
I’ve always thought Venus doesn’t hold enough mindshare in the planning of our first colony. I love the thought of floating sky cities!
So much fun to imagine!
I've read a few books set on Venus colonies. But as far as movies and tv shows go, all you have to do to mimic Mars is head to one of the many deserts and throw a red filter on the camera. Much cheaper than trying to mimic Venus. Still, with today's CGI you could easily do stuff set on Venus. I think it's just momentum that keeps Mars king.
Venus isn't really any harder than your average space scene with a blue or greenscreen, on the technical side. A venusian cloudscape is ofc more work than a starfield.
Although think of the cloud simulations
Cloud city on Venus sounds like what they have in that star citizen game , they managed to put a cloud city on a fully explorable Gass giant , pretty neat ig
I wonder if Mars has more interest because it's easier to fake the landing?
But what billionaire, media tycoon, megalomaniac would do that? 🤔
As a CG professional, Venus would be way easier than Mars, especially now with real time volumetrics. No, the reason we get Mars Mars Mars is a holdover from the Cold War. Venus is clearly the better option, but since the soviets got there first, we have been sold an inferior dream of the future
I remember the local library back in 1986 showed the film "All Summer in a Day" (based on the Ray Bradbury short story), and thinking colonizing Venus would be RAD! I cracked open Encyclopedia Britannica to do a report on the USSR Venera missions, but I was crestfallen when I read how insurmountable such an undertaking would be 😔. The fact that people are giving the colonization of Venus another look from a different angle gives my inner child hope for the future!😃
I read one about terraforming Venus when I was a kid in the late 80s. I was saddened to learn later that it wouldn't be so easy as seeding the upper atmosphere with bacteria. Still, it seems like Venus has some things going for it while a colony on Mars wouldn't be much better off than a colony floating in space.
That's what futurisms for. Hope. If people have hope for another planet they shut up about the latest V8 monster of today.
I seem to recall an Outer Limits (?) episode with Maureen Stapleton (?) that was basically the same story but on Neptune? Details are sketchy and would have been probably late eighties. Could have been the Edith Fields version from 1982.
Still trying to find two hokey 80's movies:
Movie 1. Woman has car accident off a cliff, is paralyzed, recovers, and then she can heal people. Healed a girl from a bloody nose who had been teasing her about being in the wheelchair.
Movie 2: Collector buys a porcelain doll for his daughter who claims it talks to her. Dad doesn't believe it until daughter screams and he sees the doll's head move. Decides he wants to burn it. Doll bites his arm and he throws it into the fire. Veins going up his arm and must find shaman to heal the bite before it reaches his heart.
I’m 57, we finally have a worthy “Dick Tracy” watch, personal flying pod being worked on hard. Bit of a lag, but still getting it done.
Yes, colonise Venus?. Suffocating atmosphere, and if you accidently tumble from your floating cloud habitat, you would be crushed and then cremated on the drop to the surface. You can go to Mars and freeze you backside and everyingthing else and suffocate if your shelter is suit looses pressure. At least you do have a hard surface and 24 hour 40 minute day. On Venus in the cloud city, you would be blown around the planet every 4 days by the prevailing winds. Either world are not nice places, neither is the Moon. Such is the mechanical, chemical, electrical, and biological engineering challenges that colonising other solar system bodies presents. It is not for the faint hearted and would be a truly stoic effort. No rapid development and flash heroes here, just a constant drudgery existence.
Thanks for the knowledge science babish
I did a pretty large paper on this topic a while ago. It was terribly difficult to find significant research on Venus.
Yeah this dude is acting like he knows more than he does... Proper accent goes a long ways for these plebs
@@popaopol Granted, Venus is pretty difficult to study.
About water, it seems to have been turned into sulphuric acid (H2SO4) by whatever processes. Crack the acid, perhaps with microbes that have been suitably altered, and you'd get water, (H2O), oxygen (O2) and some sulphur. The latter might be useful; if not, the colonies could use abundant solar energy to launch it into orbit where it could eventually form a moon.
More likely they'd dump it overboard!
Depending on what's available, they could make sulfur based based batteries with it.
This is a really good idea. I wonder if a lot of Venus's missing water vapor content can be chalked up to Sulphuric acid formation.
Unfortunately, completely deionising the sulphur in the acid would be extremely unlikely due to the amount of energy required to do so. I would think that electrolysis of the acid would be able to generate hydrogen and oxygen, just like doing so with water would: the product would be either higher-concentrated acid or peroxysulphuric acid - while not really energy efficient, that would not be much of an issue with the abundance of thermal energy that the planet's atmosphere has to offer.
@@GFortz Okay, then practical chemical de-ionization would net some water, oxygen and floatation gas at the cost of efficiency. What about enzymatic reduction by my "suitably altered microbes?" Might that be more effective?
I think rotating space stations (like Elysium or Babylon 5) would be the best, everywhere. We could set the artificial gravity and the atmosphere to our liking, and it would be easier and cheaper to leave than the gravity well of a celestial body. Surface colonies would only be worth it if there's mining activity there.
Actually better would be the O'Neill Colony at a Lagrange Point. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder
@@nish221100 That's why I mentioned Babylon 5 (it's exactly an O'Neill cylinder). L4 or L5 out of all the Lagrange Points would be the most stable.
Yes, we can’t long term anything without gravity. But 1. How long can a rotating or floating structure last? 2. Space is empty, so whats the point? Cloud Venus also empty, just gas resources. Meh.
Leaves me to conclude, a space station to mine an asteroid or maintain space solar power satellites. Or something else. Like Space Marines or rods from god.
@@manwiththeredface7821 I had forgotten about B5. Thx for that!
A big carousel with an angled floor along the periphery could create gravity on a planetary surface. Live and work on/in there, go outside for some low gravity fun. A bit ridiculous and steampunk'ish, and I don't know how feasible it is...
I’ve always been fascinated by our little rocky trio. Up first (well, second) is Venus: once lush, now a smoldering example of runaway greenhouse gases. Last is Mars: thought to perhaps once have been home to liquid water oceans, lakes, etc., it’s winds now sweep a dusty and barren frigid wasteland just as solar winds have ravaged and stripped its atmosphere. But situated right in the middle is green Earth: teeming with life and opportunity. If only we could hear the cries of our distant neighbors; that we might finally heed their warnings.
What do you mean their warnings? There were people driving cars too much on Mars?
I'll move to Naboo, seems nice there.
earth is blue buddy
How to Read scholarly articles and think critically. Step 1 Ignore media/politically charged hyperbolic pseudoscience….
Venus might actually be a young planet.
That is a really beautiful idea !!!
I believe that Mars comes in below the daily recommended intake of gravity. Might be the hardest thing to solve, either planet is going to be very hard to colonize, so something like that could really sway the choice. Also saving a ton on travel expenses is very tempting for those business minded folks.
In saying that, Mars might be an easier practice run, being that it is at least on the ground.
It's a one way trip. If you're growing up on mars its unlikely you'd survive on earth given how brittle your body would be. Even if you carry a lead backpack around, you can't strengthen everything.
Centrifuges for Mars with habitats can be built if proven to be a requirement. Think a n angled circular railway rotating enough to give the needed gravity field.
Venus habitats are basically the same as habitats floating on the oceans here, but needing a cover over them. So the best "practice run" would be to build such structures here on earth & attach them to the islands that are sinking due to climate change caused by the rich. Give those in poor islands we've destroyed a new home & let them test out all the concepts of a venus city in the process
@@asmosisyup2557you wouldnt just carry a lead backpack around. New study suggests that astronauts and mission planners could employ an effective weapon in the fight against bone-density loss: jumping and other forms of high-impact exercise. Weight training would work on Mars unlike micro gravity. Think picking up and throwing boulders or jumping over a human with ease. Super high intensity stuff that's what you would do to stay strong. The Mars bench press record is going to be sick.
@@asmosisyup2557It’s literally not a one way trip though, holy shit why are people STILL saying that like it’s 20 years ago? Rockets would refuel on mars and return after the 2 year window. It’s nowhere near a one way trip
"Which would you prefer, Mars or Venus?" Me: How about both? I'm not sure which place I'd like to live, but I'd certainly like to visit both! And I'd also like to visit Ceres, Triton, Ganymede, and Pluto eventually as well.
I'd pick earth, always earth. It's far better.
@@ScottBFree for now is kind of the point...
@@ScottBFree the point is that by the time earth is shit were gonna have to move
I hadn't thought of this before. Venus seems pretty cool!
I haven't seen Simon in a while, so I was shocked by that magnificent beard 😆
If humanity does end up creating a Cloud City-style Venusian colony, pretty sure George Lucas's Force ghost would be *quite* amused.
The video was posted 2 minutes ago, it's 12 minutes 55 sec longs and there are comments as if it's already been watched.
Isn't there a Patreon thing?
Wouldn't the main problem be cooling a city in an environment that's as hot as 75ºC? You also couldn't generate energy from the difference between the temperature inside the settlement and outside, because you would need energy to create that difference in the first place.
I noticed that mistake too.
Yeah. They provide a realistic alternative later when mentioning a heat source in a tether into the hotter deep atmosphere, thankfully.
I would think a small crew could cool it and set up some infrastructure before a larger population arrived.
Solar panels are more efficient on Venus than on Earth, so that's one source of energy right there. As already mentioned, there's a temperature gradient vertically that can be exploited as well.
It's something you could bootstrap. Use power from the solar panels to generate the temperature differential to begin with, then use the temperature differential to generate more power going forward.
You make Venus sound like a paradise haha this is a great idea!
You wouldn't need to coat everything in PTFE. You'd just need an outer layer/balloon, which is sacrificial and can be replaced as segments deteriorate. Any atmosphere that diffuses past (which with no pressure differential will be very slow) is then actively scrubbed from the blanketing layer, which is just normal materials and doesn't need to be coated in anything. The actual inside is then at whatever pressure is required, and airtight.
Small hole in that theory... but i think balloons might pop.
@@lukesutton4135 no the pressure difference is not sufficient in this case..
I foresee complications in that active scrubbing part. Cos you'd need to be able to scrub _everything_ down to all the little nooks and crannies, joints and seams, not to mention the scrubbing apparatus itself. And then there's the scrubbing material which will need to be stocked in large quantities and regularly resupplied... Even using it implies connection from the inside to the outside, which necessarily entails more potential failure points.
I dunno, sacrificial layers work as a concept in Earth environments where you can eventually remove the whole system from the corrosive environment for maintenance, but there's no dry-dock scenario for a cloud city on another planet. It seems to me this solution might be too temporary in nature for proper feasibility.
Airtight is the word, how you can keep the stuff airtight if people enter and exit. The small infiltrations of acid will damage the structure of Station.
Robots and pressure chambers
Because you could use regular oxygen/nitrogen mix that we can comfortably breathe as a lifting gas on Venus I would hazard a guess. But in every iteration of this I've seen in sci fi they still focus on cloud cities hanging under giant balloons, you could realistically just make them INSIDE giant balloons instead.
This
It is mentioned you could add balloons above the city with helium to add extra lift and control along with the city supporting itself.
The problem with this is that then you have to fill the entire balloon with breathable air, not just the floating city. Sure, there is plenty of oxygen and nitrogen on Venus, but it would take a lot of water to make all that air comfortable to live in. Since water is so scare is has to be imported, I don't see wasting it to fill up empty space.
@@krisgonynor689 There is enough water on venus to fill a couple of the great lakes. Water imports wouldn't be needed until the population reaches many digits.
@@krisgonynor689 you miss the point. You don't even need a balloon on Venus. You only have to build your entire habitat that it's density is slightly below that of the Venusian atmosphere. You're not wasting space by filling it up with air, you're breathing your lifting gas.
And if your habitat becomes too dense, you can simply expand the air space, which is a) nice for comfort and b) a good investment in having-more-air.
sounds very interesting!
You had me at floating city! What good sci-fi doesn't have one of those!
I think the real trick to colonizing any part of the solar system is to build cycler stations that go between those locations and earth, and eventually all over the place. These would be large habitats that make their own food water and power and have spin gravity meaning they're pretty comfortable to live on for long periods
Spin gravity may be really unpleasant for your inner ear.
@@arnaudgerard1971 that is very possible but I think above a certain diameter the rotation speed would be low enough that it would be impossible to tell you're in spin gravity (other than being in a tube)
@@elikirkwood4580 If you don't look outside, I'd be surprised, if you would ever be able to "tell".
But what size are we talking about: planet(oid) size? Do you wanna build such large stations?
Probably something a couple km in radius. I'm thinking big enough to comfortably house and feed a couple thousand people indefinitely, and you'd basically rent a house or apartment on one for the duration of the transfer between origin and destination. Keep in mind transfer times could be on the order of a couple years so you want it to be a nice place to live
@@elikirkwood4580 Well, I'm no med; I don't know the size it would require to never ever (years, decades) feel it.
'Tis important to remember that "best" choice doesn't always mean "good" choice.
I still want my cloud city
@@Homiesapian
I read that to the tune of Money For Nothing by Dire Straits.
"Death... Good choice! Not BEST choice mebbe, but better than... Fail and live..."
@@jolantru3085 man of culture
@@marcosolo6491 I’m aware that earth belongs in the “Goldilocks Zone”. However I feel you are incorrect. Mars is humanities next opportunity to explore, colonize, and move on as we have for centuries. Humans have the urge to covent unknown trinkets no matter the size and the fact that humanity has the capability to “migrate” the solar system brings the endeavor of numerous enterprises to do just the exact opposite of what you said about Antarctica etc.
Gives "the floor is lava" a whole new meaning
The acid rain suggests water, just in a bad mixture. So it's probably there in ample supply.
My vision involved floating trees, literally plants that grow with high buoyancy. The atmosphere seems to have lots of co2 (dirty air) so it's possible to breed plant species that could take advantage of the conditions. Even if the plants themselves can't float, you could make solar balloons that utilize the heat or electricity to maintain the pressure that keeps the plants aloft. Eventually, if enough plants grow, they would litter the sky, cool off the planet, absorb the atmosphere, and make the planet more habitable. BTW, I don't see any reason why a woody plant wouldn't be able to develop a structure with very hollow and therefore lightweight internals, enough to float. The only problem would be the water, but it's possible that the plant could absorb that too.
I really like thinking about stuff like this. Hanging gardens of Venus sounds really cool.
Venus' thick atmosphere should allow you to float reasonably well on something like pure nitrogen. Maybe you could have a pure nitrogen main bag and then an Earth atmosphere sub-bag below for your living space. The problem with hydrogen and helium is the atoms are so small, it is hard to keep them from leaking out of the bag you are floating on. Nitrogen won't necessarily leak out.
The oxy/nitro mix of earth atmosphere is a lifting gas on Venus. If you're really interested in the subject Isaac Arthur has a couple of excellent videos on colonizing and terraforming Venus.
@@UpperDarbyDetailing Yes he does.
Would be a good kaboom 🤣
@@reYouMad Hydrogen does not go kaboom on Venus because no free oxygen to combine with. Actually, Venus has lost a lot of hydrogen atoms over the years, moreso than Earth.
Thank you for correcting me. Good explanation, much appreciation
Been asking this for years! Thanks for covering it
Simon dissing Mars is the second funniest roast of a planet😂😂
First will always be: Pluto🤣🤣🤣🤣
That's nice... How are you gonna deal with the sulfuric acid rain, or the heating and cooling stressing the balloons until they pop, causing the platform to fall down into the hellishly hot depths?
haven't even watched the video yet but I can already say: "agreed". I have been daydreaming about cloud cities on Venus for years
4:07 wonder when Simon will learn that the word is "conducive", not "conductive"? He does this all the time lol bless his heart
It’s not wrong. Something conductive is a conducive environment for electricity. Alot of people use the word like that.
Probably the same kind that spell alot as one word rather than 2 because we refuse to change with the times despite the red underlining. Or under lining.
@@TheBooban it is definitely wrong in the context.
@@TheBooban You’re right, “alot of people” are uneducated.
Might just be a British English vs. American English thing
@@InquisMalleus It's not. It's wrong in all versions of English.
Yes yes & yes! Obv difficult still but with the insane problems & lackluster potential of mars I'd wondered what would even look promising as an investment
Sounds pretty amazing. What happens if some falls from the Cloud City? What if one of the balloons pops?
Was thinking about writing my masters thesis about this very topic. Thanks for making this video!
I used PTFE a lot when I was a piercer, that is an amazing material! You can autoclave it, screw things onto it and it creates its own threads, and your body will almost never reject it. So cool
Awesome stuff PTFE. Used it on internal piping on a boat. Threaded joints practically fixed themselves.
It's Teflon
@@Jthomsonhate7 Advil is ibuprofen.
@@LegoDork That is correct.
Its also cancerogenic .
I'd have to ask, even if it's possible to do it, is there a good reason to do it?
I've often wondered if the science of the future might be able to find some sort of reverse runaway chemical reaction for the Venusian atmosphere. Something that could get it in hand at least well enough that basic plant-life could be introduced to begin converting remaining CO2.
A good way to start would be to send a robotic probe, it could act as a testbed for materials while exploring Venus from within the upper atmosphere.
Good luck even getting the probe to survive
Even the Russian probe that was heavily armoured only lasted 2 hours before it was cooked and crushed
@@waynehewett4017 you missed the part where he said that probe was on ground level
@@laurentiu.f8804 would it matter which on Venus the probe would be ?
As being in the atmosphere with clouds of battery acid or being on the surface with 900 degrees temperature and a tonne per inch pressure the probe would not last long !
The only successful probe landing by the Russians only lasted under 2 hours
The surface of Venus would make a crematorium look like a cool summer's day
@@waynehewett4017 I was suggesting a probe in the UPPER atmosphere, where pressures & temperatures are comparable to Earth.
@@laurentiu.f8804 No I didn't. The video is about a city ABOVE the clouds, where future robotic probes will no doubt explore.
THANK YOU! Finally, someone that sees things like I do. Venus is the perfect place to call home, with some variations ofcourse.
I agree. It would make disposal of waste easy, feces, urine, deaths, etc. - cremation, incineration, by releasing it to the surface of the planet in to volcanoes or lava.
@@FrederickTheGrt Well, can't argue with that logic. 😂
I have an interesting question... While bringing down habitats and what not might be a challenge.. At some point we might also want to move stuff off of venus even before at ground level things might have become better, how would we get things and or people off of venus sky cities again
It's an intriguing idea, though terrifying (The Problems of a Potential Colony: Falling). I was first introduced to the concept of colonizing Venus rather than Mars by the anime film "Venus Wars," in which they make Venus habitable by lobbing a giant ice comet at it first. But until now I hadn't been aware of serious considerations of attempts to colonize the planet. That Venus is in many ways a better candidate than Mars for colonization certainly demonstrates the extreme difficulty of creating an extraterrestrial colony in the first place. The glibness with which the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos speak of such things betrays their lack of understanding; it's a far easier undertaking to ensure Earth remains habitable for future generations than it is to settle a neighboring planet long-term!
Glad I'm not the only one who remembered Venus Wars!
You speak about Elon Musk flippantly. Willing to bet he knows way more than most anyone on earth about Mars and space travel. It wouldn't even be on our radar if not for one man. So yeah, glib... Ridiculousness
@@popaopol Happy to burst your bubble Sparky, but Elon Musk is not the techno-visionary you think he is. Not even remotely.
@@DrownedInExile you got some juicy source
@@popaopol I suspect any source I'd name, you'd immediately dismiss as "biased" or a "hater". So I invite you to see for yourself. How's Twitter/X doing under Musk's leadership? How about Telsa self-driving. Look up Musk's own predictions on where they would be from years ago, compared to what they are now? Even worse, Telsa has been busted exaggerating battery range numbers, and deliberately cancelling appointments. The orders for all this crap allegedly came right from Mr. Musk himself. I'm a fan of Tesla, but not of Musk.
Is it possible Musk sucks at some things, and is very knowledgeable about others, like space travel? Possible. But it's also possible that he's nothing more than a glorified hype-man. Good at dazzling investors and the public with pie-in-the-sky promises, and not delivering. But hey, don't take my word for it. See for yourself.
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/tesla-exaggerated-ev-range-so-much-that-drivers-thought-cars-were-broken/
Elon Musks 5 Year Countdown! - ruclips.net/video/vYURUiOjZSw/видео.html
Potential habitat should be called “Vespin”
Perfection.
Brain dead incompetent muppets is another way to describe it too with today's technology
Perhaps in another 50 to 150 years that's I we have killed ourselves by then
Colonizing planets whether it’s Venus or Mars or moons doesn’t make too much sense to me. It makes lots of sense to have small manned stations and large robotic presences there. But for large human presence in the solar system, space colonies make more sense to me. They’re not stuck in a gravity well but are able to replicate 1g and they can be conveniently located at stable Lagrange points.
But wouldn’t they be exposed to radiation
MINERALS mah boy bunch of MINERALS TO MINE!!!!
@@juliusfishman7222 at that point technology will be so advanced radiation wouldn’t be an issue
@@juliusfishman7222 yup, that's why Venus is an unbeetable option. Insurance colony for humans, nothing needed to sustain it that can't be obtained from the colony & it's mother planet. Quite doable right now, with today's tech, the space stations away from earth's atmosphere are pipe dreams!
that is plausible since we already got about half the necessary technology working on the international space station. I just worry that they will be unsuccessful at creating a working habitat for large groups of people. multiple experiments failed on Earth.
This would make for a good movie 🍿 🎥
Would plants be able to filter the sulfer? They don't need oxygen right? Just C2 and water right?
Yay! This video challenging the accepted wisdom is so dearly needed. Well done!
If only a round, extraterrestrial object would terraform these planets.
Always good to see another guardian in the wild.
"Rise up guardian"
The Witness is coming 👀
@@jamalcolmpayne7938 Space Doritos are in Sol 😭.
@@SpikeRazzor let’s eat them.
Hmmmm, well, the sulfuric acid rain is most definitely a bummer, but, if that can be overcome, it might be a cool place to visit.
Crushing atmospheric pressures...acid rain... constant lightning storms...what's not to love
When I was a very young, in early 80x, I made a calculation, that shows there is a "heaven point" in upper Venus atmosphere were there is a 1 bar pressure and 20 celsius temperature in right heigh.
It's shows - in this ambient there a possibility to grade human shelter much more cheaper and safe then anywhere in solar system.
20c is way too cold imo! I'd much rather 30-40c (which also means much less floatation is needed)
@@mehere8038 In this case there's some additional issues - energy for cooling (It's takes more then heating ) and pressure from outside, it means much heavier construction and much less safe in case of decompression
@@dimzen5406 no, pressure outside is much closer to sea level earth where I want to be than where you want to be! You want it at Mt Everest levels pressure. which means much more variation between inside & outside, so much heavier construction needed, compared to when both are near to the same.
& why are we cooling? That defeats the whole purpose doesn't it! We're recruiting people from Australia, Hawaii etc, who like me, like it at the temperatures that are much easier to manage on venus - and we're growing crops that like the warm weather better too!
& in the case of decompression, it's dropping to an altitiude where it's sauna temperature, so much better to have people already comfortable with the heat than those who want it at 20c to be comfortable! 75c is normal for cars in Australia that have been parked in the sun for 5 minutes or more & until recent years, air con really wasn't even a thing, people just dealt with it as normal
20C is too cold.?? ??????????????
Are there really people who wear warm jackets at this temperature.?
Man, it sucks all of us will be long dead before anything amazing like this ever happens. Being born in this time period blows....
I don't know. Age reversal is supposed to be a thing in the next coming decades. So all you have to do to live forever is eat healthier, exercise and be filthy freakin rich.
@@MrNote-lz7lh hahahaha
Not necessarily... Just look at it this way: the first protein structure was solved in 1957 and it took them 22 years to do so. In 1976, when the first protein structure database was created, we had all of 13 structures. In 2000, there were ~16k. In 2020, we had ~170k.
In 2018, Deepmind started developing Alphafold. In 2021 (July), they released 350k simulated protein structures. Six months later, that number was at ~800k.
As of 2022, there 200 MILLION structures in that database. If you plot that, you can't even see the progress of the last 50 years.
Technological advancements are exponential, but humans can only think in linear fashion. It takes me 1h today what took 22 years a few decades ago.
And our advancements in every field accelerate the advancements in every other field. We developed good AI systems just twenty years ago and they already changed 95% of our lives. I wouldn't bet on what will be possible in our life time or if "our life time" won't be a good part of eternity.
Compared to which time period? You prefer bubonic plague?
Ya know what’s so wild? I JUST saw someone do a speech on this at Nationals and was blown away at the idea.
I feel like it would be hard to get people onboard with not having a "real ground". Just psychologically there is something about touching the dirt or ground of a place after having been at sea or in the air for a long time and not getting that feeling would be a nogo for me.
Something someone from Earth would say. 😂
Frankly I would expect us to import top soil simply for agriculture and trees so we could have some type of earth embassy or memorial.
@@Citadel97501 It is more the sense of stability I was getting at. Even if the city feels solid and like it isn't moving, I think mentally I (and only speaking for myself here) would feel like I am on a boat or plane, no matter how large and nice it was.
Cloud cities on Venus make a lot of sense. Seems like a logical step to take after we've figured out how to avoid the Biosphere II mistakes. Figuring out where to get extra hydrogen from and how to make sulfuric-acid-resistant equipment sound like petty challenges compared to figuring out how to avoid dying (or wanting to) in a dim, radioactive, and poisonous desert with too little gravity, scant sources of energy, and months-long "sand" storms.
I think that the cloud cities could be a good intermediary step while the terraforming work is underway. One of the key steps is literally bulk removal of atmosphere through various means, one of which should be export to Mars for a terraforming package deal. As the atmospheric pressure decreases the nominal elevation of the cloud cities would gradually lower until it got to the groundwork phase and the cities land in prepared cradles at strategic points. Another required step is removing the large quantity of sulphuric acid from the atmosphere. Solving this problem is an opportunity in two ways. Firstly, decomposing each molecule of H2SO4 would yield one molecule of water, one molecule of oxygen, and one atom of solid elemental sulphur. Secondly, what to do then with the literal gigatons of elemental sulphur in circulation on Venus? Compress it to manageable blocks and send it into orbit where is it fused together into an artificial moon. Remember, there's no lack of energy, just processing time which can be shortened through use of multitudes of processing centres on numerous cloud cities. Set the Sulphur Moon (name it after one of Venus' children if is still available) at a distance for a 24 hour orbital period and eventual ground based civilisation will have a time reference which is also important for humans.
I would be happy with just more missions to Venus. Such a fascinating planet with so little interest compared to Mars.
Good luck even surviving when you get there
Venus.. Thank you 😊
In terms of orbital energy, would you need more or less (ie bigger rockets)? it would obviously take More energy to somehow get back to Earth, right? it might really be a one way trip,
also would Venus's orbits sync up with Earth's more or less often than Mars?
I’ve always felt Venus was the best candidate for a colony. Arguably a lot easier to terraform too.
Can't be terraformed because of its rotational speed.
Venus only rotates at 6.52 kilometers per hour. A Venusian sidereal day thus lasts longer than a Venusian year. A Venusian day that lasts 243 days means the planet heats very unevenly, making a terrestrial-like atmosphere impossible. If Venus had a faster rotation, it might likely have developed life or at least be more earthlike.
I beg to differ
Venus is 900 degrees
With a atmosphere which is 95 % CO2 with acid clouds that will burn through anything stupid enough to touch it
The weight of the atmosphere is like a tonne per square inch on your body at ground level
There is no water of usable quantity on Venus
There is no ozone and no magnetic field
As how exactly are theses cloud cities ment to work or even float
You can't even get to the surface of Venus without instant death
Mars even tho it has its own problems it's a better choice
@@Falconlibrary Although Venus is not an 'eyeball planet' it's rotational speed makes it similar. From everything I've seen, eyeball planets, or planets that are tidally locked, are still decent candidates for life. The prevailing theory is that the ring of perpetual dusk may remain at a comfortable temperature year round. The fact that Venus spins a little makes things more complicated but I don't think it makes things insurmountable. Venus has similar regions to eyeball planets dusk zone, in it's artic and Antarctic circles. Unlike Earth, Venus is only about 3 degrees off of perfectly vertical (all be it spinning backwards). The areas around the north and south poles will always have dim sunlight year round, either just above the horizon or just below it. I see a faster path to making Venus a lot less deadly than Mars. It already has a dense atmosphere, tons of energy, earth sized, a ready supply of oxygen atoms, and is close-ish. Based on it's size, I would be willing to bet there is a decent amount of oxygen locked up in it's minerals too.
I also don't see speeding up Venus's spin as an impossible task but it'll take thousands of years to do it, not a timescale humans are used to thinking in at the moment.
@@waynehewett4017 Rolling up to Venus in board shorts and a beater is probably gonna yield less than ideal results.
I would argue Mars sucks more and in ways that are harder to fix.
Mars is really cold and get's a fraction of the sunlight of Earth and an even smaller fraction than Venus.
Venus has tons of CO2, which we can do something with. Mars barely has an atmosphere at all.
Venus has sulfuric acid in it's atmosphere. All of Mars's soil is full of perchlorates, a toxic chemical to earth life.
Mars also does not have a magnetosphere or ozone layer. Venus, as it is currently, doesn't really need one.
Only Earth and Venus have regions near STP. On Earth, it's at sea level. On Venus, it's high in the atmosphere. It's at 1atm of pressure and just a bit below room temperature. You could hang out outside in just a chem suit. A balloon at 1atm would
float here. This would be where you would put your cloud cities.
I don't think anyone would be hanging out on the surface anytime soon but the clouds would be worlds more comfortable than Mars on it's best day.
@@Falconlibrary Terraformation is never easy task, however I would argue that terraforming Venus is easier than Mars, mainly because Venus already has atmosphere and it has enough gravity, its easier to make planet spin than to make it bigger. Also you dont need to make it spin, you can use space mirrors to redirect sunlight to simulate fast day and night cycle (plus you will need to cool down the planet so something like space shade or space mirror will be needed anyway).
I gotta admit, at the beginning I was beyond skeptical. By the end, I was sold. That's as long as those whole acid rain and no water things get figured out.
The acid rain is actually where you could get your water and much of your breathable atmosphere. The chemical formula for sulfuric acid is H₂SO₄ ... meaning, it has Hydrogen, it has Oxygen.
It's ironic that the sulfuric acid clouds are weirdly a benefit to the whole idea.
Seems like a cool idea.
I'm kind of curious about Enceladus. Liquid water under the surface, survivable-ish temperatures. the colony would have to be basically gigantic submarines, but we kind of know what we're doing with those. if we started by exploring with a small probe that doubled as a sub, perhaps by entering through the vents or drilling through the ice in the thinnest spot.
for power, perhaps using the large amount of radiation found on the surface of most planetary bodies without atmospheres to boil water to drive turbines.
I mean, you could fly around the other side of the planet to make it nighttime, or you could just straddle the day/night boundary and use mirrors to direct light in from the top of the dome, or just use bing blackout blinds
Every time I see something on this concept my brain goes "but, but... where do you get all your STUFF?"
It's not like you can just go down to the surface to do mining...
Same thing I was thinking. Earth's resources could end up being depleted completely, unless they first find those resources in space.
While hydrogen is scarce it is not inaccessible. And hydrogen + carbon = a whole lot of hydrocarbon and polymer options. So I think Venus would basically need to build just about everything out of various plastics and other synthetic carbon-based materials.
It may even be possible to transition to electronics based entirely on various carbon-based micro-materials.
The only real thing I see that may need other minerals and metals would be the nutrients for agriculture, reaction vessels to manufacture the various materials and for the materials composing of any surface vessel for acquiring surface minerals.
This is nice and all but how do u farm? I mean how do u sustain life we do need food to survive
Interesting thoughts, but one comment on the electricity production at 5:12
"employ passive thermionic electric generators which would produce usable electricity by taking advantage of the heat difference between the inside surface of a colony baloon or structure and the atmosphere outside".
To have a cooler inside of the baloon you need a lot of cooling which costs energy. If this would make sense we could do the same for houses on earth which have a different temperature then outside.
I really just want some Simonverse 24/7 channel that I can just put on plex or kodi like a live tv channel. He's got to have enough videos and topics for one by now. Way better than having history or discovery on in the background.
re: The gravity situation on Mars and spaceflights. That made me think of something. What about about a suit and helmet that's weighted in such a way to give an even distribution around the body that mimicked Earth's gravity - maybe a double layered suit filled with plasma or water or something, internally honeycombed between the layers so the liquid doesn't slosh about. Maybe I should've patented this idea to make millions of dollars, assuming it hasn't already been thought of by people much smarter than me. Different weighted suits for different gravities, one for space flight, and one for the planet of destination. Obviously, planets with heavier gravities might require very lightweight suits with helium or something.
Intriguing. The video mentions vast integrated habitats with forests and public transport systems. For me the most interesting question is what would the limiting factors be in terms of how large a single habitat could be and what would the construction techniques be? Would it really be possible to create a balloon many kilometres in diameter? And then there would need to be a rigid base to form the "ground" for the habitat. How could structural rigidity be maintained across perhaps many square kilometres of flat material? Could some sort of higher pressure inflatable tubes underneath the surface level material be used to provide rigidity? Or is the practical size limit actually quite small so a larger habitat capable of housing tens of thousands of people or more would need to be made of many much smaller habitat cells perhaps only a few hundred metres across connected together in some sort of honeycomb arrangement (hexagonal cells?)?
My imagination is running wild here but, despite the outside environment of Mars being so hostile, at least on Mars I could get into my space suit and go for a walk or get on board some RV-like Mars rover and go on a weekend trip to do some site seeing whereas on Venus I would be stuck in my habitat, or at best be able to visit other habitats probably very similar to my own, so the scale of those Venusian habitats would have to be quite significant, ideally at least the size of small city in terms of population (but not necessarily with the huge urban sprawl of many US cities, more like a compact European city), or else I think I'd go a bit stir crazy.
Of the two, colonies would be easier to establish on Venus. However if humanity were to eventually harvest the the vast amount of water of the various moons of the gas giants that could be another story. Europa for example, which orbits Jupiter, potentially has more than twice the amount of water we have here on Earth. And maybe by slowly siphoning off Venus' atmosphere and transporting it over to Mars, we could make both planets more habitable.
No not without a strong gravitational field. Mars needs more going on or else whatever you out there would just float away. If you truly want it to hold you’d have to figure out artificial magnetic fields and forces for both planets first and that comes from perfect fission energy.
Excellent presentation and analysis. At 4:12, you meant "conducive to life", not "conductive." If that air envelope breaks, everyone is in desperate shape, because it would be like dropping into a volcano. The environment would have problems for those wanting to take advantage of en situ resources. On Mars, there is water, even on the surface. Lots of it. And more under the surface, and more at the poles. There is no shortage of water on Mars... AND Mars air has CO2, Nitrogen and Argon. We'll have to import additional sources of nitrogen for the agriculture, but we can make fuel and breathable atmosphere and oxidizer from what is already there. There is a stable surface, ideal for making landing pads. Land would be cheaper to build on than gas bags, especially if you can 3D print your habs with locally sourced regolith inside of lava tubes or dug into cliffs. I would trade solid ground and water for gas bags and sulfuric acid rain any day of the week.
Fascinating. Reminds me of an old anime "Venus Wars", where an ice-rich asteroid impacted Venus. The resulting nuclear winter cooled the planet enough for terraforming and eventual colonization.
Cloud city sounds great
The Sulfuric acid (H2SO4) can be broken down to create hydrogen and oxygen, which can be made into water.
Yes! But it’s incredibly energy intensive.
@@LloydWaldo And fortunately, energy is in abundant supply on Venus.
I think I'm going to stay on a planet where I can have my feet on the ground. I'd be constantly terrified a cloud city would fall
Definitely can't wait to see what happens with Mars. I think we're going there more to study the surface and if we can extract water from the planet. I think Venus would be the better option for colonization and maybe we should add more water to its surface iI wonder what might happen
What would Venus offer in regards to raw useable materials?
I'm a big fan of both ideas, but at my stage in life, I'd be happy to stay put and let younger people do the exploring. So I pick option C--stay home. 😜
The big question; will there be windows on the bottom of the city that you can look down through?
I literally have been saying this for years you could just use giant airships or blimps to get around. I also designed an entire airship dedicated to producing food and water. Also its way easier to terraform Venus than it is to terraform Mars.
9:22 - actually, the sulphuric acid itself can be a nice source of water. When heated enough it can release a water particle, leaving a gaseous anhydride - sulfur (VI) oxide.
The reaction goes:
H2SO4 --T-> SO3 + H2O
Looks like rigid airships and airborne aircraft carriers finally have an opportunity to make a real comeback! =^x^=
I've also heard about the idea of terraforming Venus - all we'd need is a giant sunblocker and a few thousand years, I think.
And tens of thousands of idiots as cannon fodder or it this case Venus fodder
Well at least you won't have to cremate all the bodies
As Venus will do that for you
I don't think terraforming Venus is a good idea. I feel bad for the billions of people we'd have to evacuate when the planet goes through a basalt flood.
@@pandemicphilly60 not to mention the clouds full of battery acid
the 900 degree heat and
of course the tonne per square inch atmospheric pressure
But apart from that any body to live long enough would be very happy
So many idiotic replies, but I digress. Birch’s paper outlines the timeline, it probably won’t take 1000’s of years.
@@waywardgeologist2520 I'd like to know where the 100s of trillions of dollars will be coming from to finance all theses hair brain ideas ?
Howabout catch protons and electrons from solar wind to provide hydrogen for the Venus?
The magnitude of this project, resources needed, and the lack of capability via current technology make this an unviable plan.
As with Mars, the question is why are we not building this on earth? There are places on earth that are almost this inhospitable, but have the advantage of being not as far away and an atmosphere that isn't constantly trying to kill you.
multiple planets is a good insurance plan, but there's probably little benefit of building on Mars compared to the bottom of the ocean or under the ice in Antarctica in terms of insurance colonies. For venus, the obvious first step is to test it out with floating cities on the oceans here, since floating on oceans here is much the same as floating in the clouds there, so why are we not building these cities for the islands we've caused to sink with global warming? That's the obvious prep we should be doing before venus!
I fully agree can you imagine how cool earth could seriously be if we put all this effort here instead of just giving up? More room for population more free land for food. Everything could be better
Islands we've caused to sink with global warming. And I thought the topic of this video was crazy
Checking my ‘work from home’ contract… Damn, Venus isn’t allowed yet :-)