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rkagerer 5 hours ago

I'll shamelessly resurface a comment I made a few years back.

There's a school of thought which views Venus as a better colonization candidate than Mars, and as early as the 70's scientists envisioned floating cities. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus:

In effect, a balloon full of human-breathable air would sustain itself and extra weight (such as a colony) in midair. At an altitude of 50 kilometres (31 mi) above the Venusian surface, the environment is the most Earth-like in the Solar System beyond Earth itself – a pressure of approximately 1 atm or 1000 hPa and temperatures in the 0 to 50 °C (273 to 323 K; 32 to 122 °F) range. Protection against cosmic radiation would be provided by the atmosphere above, with shielding mass equivalent to Earth's.

Being able to wear a simple breathing mask while working outside instead of a full pressure suit is a boon. Of course high windspeeds and the constant bombardment of acid rain would be a problem.

I could imagine Venus one day being an exotic, cloud-top paradise for the rich (reminiscent of BioShock Infinity) that's expensive to maintain, and Mars a brute workhorse that eventually displaces it as a more resilient habitat over the very long term (eg. after terraforming).

Balgair an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Likely the Moon or Mars will be where we do a lot of bulk commodities, since the Delta-V to get the goods off of them will be lower. Then you'll have raw resource extraction in the asteroids and other very light moons. Earth will remain as the furnished goods and services location due to labor availability.

A classic triangle trade ala the sugar, rum, and slave markets in the North Atlantic in the 17-1800s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade

sidewndr46 an hour ago | parent [-]

The way you capitalized the 'V' in Delta-V had me thinking that somehow the Delta rocket family was back for a fifth iteration

usrnm 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Zeppelins on Venus are the perfect mix of scifi and steampunk, I would really wish to see that one day