Quote:
Originally Posted by Chip
Thanks for your enthusiasm. Speculation on transforming Venus is highly hypothetical. It is better to try to maintain some connections, however tenuous, to known and applied sciences, engineering and technology of today (though at times speculative).
Trying to speculate on Venus transformation goals using today's technology as a basis is actually much more exciting than simply falling back on simple comic book anecdotes (like floating cities) which actually have less engineering basis than the giant sun shields and surface domes.  |
Floating Venusian cities are no more speculative than the terraforming concepts that we have discussed and are much more modest in physical scale. We're not discussing massive Star Wars style structures held up by anti-gravity machines. Breathable air is a lifting gas in the CO2 atmosphere of Venus. These structures would be somewhat similar to dirigibles, but much larger.
Mind you, I expect we would have many floating cities in Earth's oceans before we would be doing this on Venus, but this is well within the boundaries of physics, and we do have at least as much engineering knowledge related to this concept as we do for planet sized sunshades.