NASA Scientists Propose Airships and Cloud City for Human Exploration of Venus (VIDEO)

Venus is often called Earth's evil sister. It's nearly the same size as the Earth but it's hellish surface is hot enough to melt lead. However the upper atmosphere has Earthlike temperatures and this has lead to a bold mission profile for future human space flight to the 2nd rock from the Sun.


From The Voice of America.

Although closer to Earth than Mars, Venus was never considered as a destination for astronauts due to its proximity to the sun and the consequently hellish conditions on the planet.

However, a group of NASA scientists says it may actually be easier to visit Venus than Mars, as long as astronauts do not land on the surface but hover above it.

The planet's 500 degrees Celsius surface is hot enough to melt lead and its crushing atmospheric pressure is nearly 100 times greater than on earth. But the scientists say conditions are much more Earth-like just 50 kilometers up, where the temperature is around 75 degrees Celsius, the gravity is slightly lower than on Earth, and the pressure is about the same.

According to the concept, astronauts would orbit through the atmosphere in a gondola under a 130-meter long solar-powered airship, or dirigible, filled with helium, conducting science observations and experiments. The team envisions that, one day, there could be a permanent human presence in a floating city.

Sounds great, but looking at NASA's recent trackrecord, I predict nothing will come of this. If NASA ACTUALLY followed through on JUST ONE of their visionary missions then we might actually take this seriously.

For example a manned mission to mars, space agencies have been talking about this for nearly 60 years. Public announcements have been made, public enthusiasm whipped up but, after a few short months it is all forgotten and nothing is followed through, even in the more serious ventures.

So, the only way I believe that any mission will be carried out is if the space vehicle is past the point of no return on its way to wherever it is going and we can independently verify it is where they say it is. Otherwise, it is just more hype.

a reply to: JadeStar

(Sigh.) What? They forgot about the Moon and Phobos again? How could they do that? They pay people good money to sit around and dream up programs. Much like we do for free. But I think they come up with many of these programs to evade certain uncomfortable issues. So I suggest they fire those folks and have contests for the public to think up our own ways for them to spend money. I'll go first. Let's not put any bods into space and simply set up a very instrumented program on the planet here to investigate UFO sightings and really attempt to prove or disprove them. --Oh, wait. They did that already in 1947. Anybody remember what the results were?

a reply to: JadeStar

Another 200 years away but sounds promising. US of A never pulls it alone despite media span mighty potential.

it would be all fine an dandy untill the red light comes up on the dash board and thing starts to slowly fall out of the sky!

originally posted by: deloprator20000
Sounds great, but looking at NASA's recent trackrecord, I predict nothing will come of this. If NASA ACTUALLY followed through on JUST ONE of their visionary missions then we might actually take this seriously.

If you and other taxpayers would actually demand that NASA was funded at a level it could carry out all of these missions I could take your critique seriously....

#Penny4NASA

a reply to: JadeStar

he's right, we (us) should start a space travel program to venus
not that others arent already there doing it already
just like around the other planets in our solar system

originally posted by: PLAYERONE01
it would be all fine an dandy untill the red light comes up on the dash board and thing starts to slowly fall out of the sky!

they couldn't. all floatation cells would have to fail. even a titanium tank will float on top of venus's dense atmosphere. power would only be needed for maneuver and repositioning. even better the floatation cells would probably contain nitrogen and oxygen. in non flamable non explosive ratios to provide breathable air in addition to floatation. the venusian Cloud City is not held up by engines or antigravs but by natural bouyancy.

the cool thing is you do not have to start out big like cloud city. you can pack a few rockets full of modular components and have a modest but livable (even somewhat spacious) habitat up and running for less than the cost of the ISS. at that altitude the temperature and pressure are comparable to earth and you have earth-like gravity. all you got to beat is the acid in the atmosphere and that's why something like titanium tanks are considered for the balloon portion of the habitat.

on top of that the direction of travel vis a vis the sunward location means less propulsion power, thrust etc is needed to get more stuff to Venus.

it's solar system colonization on the cheap.

And if you can find a few sunward asteroids you could then build a Bespin like Cloud City using the broken down material to fabricate or even print a huge hollow floatation body over time.


EDIT: you know Bigelowe Areospace should do this. They just love themselves some balloons.

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
on top of that the direction of travel vis a vis the sunward location means less propulsion power, thrust etc is needed to get more stuff to Venus.

it's solar system colonization on the cheap.

And if you can find a few sunward asteroids you could then build a Bespin like Cloud City using the broken down material to fabricate or even print a huge hollow floatation body over time.

EDIT: you know Bigelowe Areospace should do this. They just love themselves some balloons.

Well they were just awarded a NASA contract for a module that will be added to the ISS next year.

yeah i have been following them in media and NSF forums.

a reply to: JadeStar

Still pretty warm, 75C = 167F. Not insurmountable, but would require constant cooling and, I would assume, a pretty hefty maintenance schedule. Also, we haven't figured out how to keep airships aloft in our low pressure atmosphere for any extended period of time, do they have some new tech for that?

How would NASA actually get all this stuff to Venus? It seems like it would take a massive space lift effort way outside of what NASA is capable of right now to get all these supplies and stuff up there.

originally posted by: justwanttofly
How would NASA actually get all this stuff to Venus? It seems like it would take a massive space lift effort way outside of what NASA is capable of right now to get all these supplies and stuff up there.

bigelow specializes in tough inflatables. also its easy to fall towards the sun. it's the other way that's harder. yeah you would need multiple SLSs or that new ariane they are about to build. but it would not be anything that out of proportion to soon to exist capabilities and if it was there is the possibility on on orbit construction.; either supplied from earth or ISRU. And remember there is huge 2nd or third stage fuel tanks involved . those could be used as floatation cells or habitat.

a reply to: stormbringer1701

Interesting. I never knew that there were different power requirements for going different directions in space. The more you know.

While a cool concept , this really doesnt get us anywhere.......

NASA has stopped being an entity that actually DOES things and now just dreams up scifi.....

We dont have the tech to do this, its all good and well to "say " things but, wheres the working to actually do it?

Thats like me saying "I propose we all start communicating through ESP"

Well thats great, but "wheres the beef?"

They cant even get humans to mars yet and sustain a habitat there for any length of time......

How bout we take it one step at a time NASA

At one time in history we said "were going to put a man on the moon" and we did it.......

its like everything stopped there.......

yeah we have a rover on Mars, but how bout we push the envelope and really start pushing our tech to explore manned missions further out into space before we start telling everyone we want to do cloud cities......

originally posted by: ManBehindTheMask
While a cool concept , this really doesnt get us anywhere.......

NASA has stopped being an entity that actually DOES things and now just dreams up scifi.....

We dont have the tech to do this, its all good and well to "say " things but, wheres the working to actually do it?

Thats like me saying "I propose we all start communicating through ESP"

Well thats great, but "wheres the beef?"

They cant even get humans to mars yet and sustain a habitat there for any length of time......

How bout we take it one step at a time NASA

At one time in history we said "were going to put a man on the moon" and we did it.......

its like everything stopped there.......

yeah we have a rover on Mars, but how bout we push the envelope and really start pushing our tech to explore manned missions further out into space before we start telling everyone we want to do cloud cities......

Um... so you missed the engineering test flight of Orion earlier this month.....

pay attention:

a reply to: ManBehindTheMask

This is just a random(possibly uneducated) thought, but what if NASA is moving to a more contractor based system/space program instead of doing everything in house? What if they "dream up" and decide what they want, then farm it out to contractors to actually build and test the stuff? Then NASA brings everything together and executes the mission. The military is becoming more and more involved with contractors in fields where they previously did everything themselves, so why wouldn't NASA?

now imagine swarms of floating balloon robots with a ballasting and dive plane system and a payload of catalysts or nano meta materials designed to clean the sulfuric acid out of the atmosphere. solar or thermo-electric converter powered or maybe even electro-chemical so they can perpetually be floating on top of the atmosphere or taking dives into it continually working on the atmosphere problem. they could also crop dust with catalytic materials; spreading them throughout the atmosphere. crop dust with catalysts or sulpha loving bacteria or fungi or something like that.

Even if that were feasible, one wonders what could possibly be gained from such a venture - other than to prove we could do it.

We need to be directing our energies towards the terraforming and colonisation of Mars.

We only have around a billion years before Earth becomes uninhabitable...not really that long of an outlook for an ambitious species.

And the clock's ticking.