[MUSIC PLAYING] There's a lot of talk about
sending humans to Mars. But no one talks about Venus. Why not? And could Venus actually
be the better option for a human colony? [MUSIC PLAYING] Going to Mars has
been a fixture in our collective
cultural consciousness for a very long time. It's inspired more sci-fi movies
and stories than I can count, a ride at Disney World, and a
Twitter following for the Mars Rover that's almost
two million strong. Meanwhile, Venus
has inspired-- what? Two Ray Bradbury
stories, a plant that eats flies, and a razor? Basically, Venus has the
worst public relations team in the solar system. And that hurts
our sister planet, not just in culture and
media but in space policy. Presidents Bush and Obama
and the Chinese government have all outlined goals for
manned missions to Mars. The Dutch nonprofit
group Mars One even held in
international competition to find volunteers for a one-way
mission to the Martian surface. But Venus? No manned mission love-- at all. Which is odd since
in most respects, Venus is actually an
easier and less costly colonization target
than Mars is. For starters, Venus
is closer to Earth. That's why we sent probes to
Venus long before we sent them to Mars and why we
sent more of them. Depending on the launch
window, the round trip can be 30% to 50% shorter,
which is a major factor for manned missions. Shorter trips means less
weightlessness and radiation, less food and water
to carry, and thus less fuel and lower cost. This would also be
a huge advantage in moving the people and
equipment necessary to actually colonize another world,
because bear in mind, there's no Craigslist in space. If we ever start a colony,
we'll need to bring along almost everything. And it's not just
the shorter trip. The planet itself has some
significant advantages over Mars. It's closer to the sun,
which means about four times more available solar power
then you have on Mars. It also has a thick atmosphere,
unlike that wispy layer on Mars. That means better protection
from space radiation and meteorites for our
enterprising colonizers and their future cities. It also means more
available carbon dioxide from which, in principle,
you might extract oxygen. But the real kicker is gravity. Venus has about 0.9 Earth
g's-- pretty close-- while Mars has less than 0.4. And one thing we do know is
that prolonged low gravity is bad for humans. How bad? In Earth orbit,
astronauts lose bone mass at about 10 times
the rate of someone with advanced osteoporosis. Now no one knows exactly
how bad Martian gravity would be for humans,
but it's definitely not going to be good. On Venus, that's far
less of a concern. And remember, we're talking
about long-term colonization, not just visits. Even if we have the
technological means to add water to a planet's
surface and oxygen to its air, changing the planet's
surface gravity is currently not even within
the realm of discussion. So terraforming seems silly, and
if people couldn't live there more than a few months without
their bones falling apart. A theoretical
Venutian colony thus seems to have a
lot going for it. So why then this
tunnel vision for Mars? Surfacism. OK, I just made that
word up, but hear me out. Ever since the days of
seafaring exploration, we've had an
obsession with landing on the surface of things. If you don't plant
a flag on something, it's almost like having
gotten there doesn't count. So what's all this have
to do with Venus, which actually has a solid surface? Well it does, but
humans can't land on it. See, there's a teensy
problem with temperature. There's so much CO2 on Venus
that the greenhouse effect makes the surface hotter
than hell-- over 450 degrees Celsius, well above the
melting point of lead. But the bigger problem is
the barometric pressure on the surface. It's over 90
Earth's atmospheres. That means that landing
on the Venutian surface would be like diving one
kilometer underwater on Earth-- far beyond the crush depth
of most military submarines. In fact, most probes
that NASA and the Soviets sent to the surface of
Venus imploded in midair. We learned our lesson and
a few reinforced probes did manage to touch down and
send images of the Venetian surface. But even those only
lasted about two hours before-- [SOUND OF AN IMPLOSION]
--you know. The point is-- I think
surfacism is a real bias. And the fact that we can't
live on the Venutian surface could help explain why
Mars gets all the hype. But maybe that's sensible. I mean, if a surface
will kill us, there's no point in
going there, right? Not so fast. See, around 50
kilometers or 30 miles above the Venutian surface,
some interesting things happen. First, the temperature drops to
only about 70 degrees Celsius. That's still super hot, but
firefighting equipment on Earth can withstand proximity to
forest fires with temperatures that reach over 2,000
degrees Celsius. The pressure at
that altitude also dropped to almost exactly
one Earth atmosphere. That means humans would
need heat-resistant clothing and oxygen masks, but not
spacesuits to walk around in that environment. Granted, there's
the minor nuisance of sulfuric acid floating
around in the Venutian air, but that's potentially
manageable. And at that altitude,
the atmosphere is still dense enough
for lots of stuff to floae-- like balloons
filled with helium or maybe filled even with
just regular Earth air. Throw in the favorable
gravity, and it starts to look like the
upper atmosphere of Venus might be the closest
thing in the solar system to an Earth-like environment. So it might make
sense to colonize Venus with cloud cities. I am not making this up. NASA Systems Analysis
and Concepts Directorate has unveiled a conceptual
blueprint for this scheme. They call it the High
Altitude Venus Operational Concept or HAVOC--
interesting branding choice, but still super awesome. We've linked the NASA
videos in the description. You should check them out. Now for the record, this
is all still conceptual. We are very far from
sending this guy to lead our Venutian Cloud City. But NASA is taking
the idea seriously. Right now, most of
the chatter is still about using Venus as
practice for colonies elsewhere-- like Mars. So we haven't overcome
surfacism just yet. But this might change. The gravity issue alone might
make Venus the go-to option for long-term human habitation. Who know? Centuries from now,
if we learn how to sequester enough carbon
out of its atmosphere, we might even be able
to plant a flag or two. So what do you guys think? Is Venus a better
colonization option than Mars? Put your $0.02 in the comments--
or even better, tweet them, #occupyvenus. If we start a
grassroots movement, I'll let you know on the
next episode of "Space Time". Last week, we asked
how you measure the size of the universe? Here are some of your questions. awtizme asked, how can
space be expanding faster than light if the speed of light
is the ultimate speed limit? I'm going to answer
you in two parts. First, the speed of
light speed limit is for things moving through
space, not about expansion of space itself. The second, you're right. I shouldn't be
talking about space expanding at a given speed. I should be talking about the
size of the enlarge setting on a photocopier button. If I hit enlarge
once every second, then there will always
be two points on the page that-- if they're far
enough apart to begin with-- will end up more than one extra
light second apart after I hit that photocopier button. lingwingzing commented that
this was a pretty intuitive way to understand inflation. Thanks for the compliment,
but be careful. We're talking about expansion
of space in general. Inflation refers to a
very specific expansion of space that occurred in
just the first few instances after The Big Bang. The Mattman1313 says
that the Hubble Bubble is a possible
alternative to the idea that space is expanding at all. That's not correct. Space is expanding-- period. What the Hubble Bubble offers
is a potential alternative to the currently observed,
accelerated expansion of space. Look it up. And to Brandon Spears,
sure, we could always use help here at "Space Time". Like the Hubble Space
Telescope, we've got schmutz on our lens too, so
give it a wipe and help us out. [MUSIC PLAYING]
No. The reason for colonizing a planet is to take advantage of the local natural resources. For Mars those are bountiful: water ice, atmospheric CO2, ambient sunlight, soil, ores, sand, etc, etc, etc. On Mars you can bootstrap a substantially self-reliant local industrial and agricultural base within a 10-20 year time frame. In that time frame you can be producing water, Oxygen, propellant, steel, aluminum, plastics, concrete, even food without having to break the bank or invent crazy technologies. All of those things are enormously helpful in aiding a colony expand and they are even more critical in working towards the ultimate goal of a colony: substantial self-sufficiency. On Venus you get almost none of that. You get atmospheric CO2 and that's about it. You get a colony that you have to keep floating 24/7 or everyone dies. You have to figure out how to launch and land rockets on a floating platform across interplanetary distances. And so on.
Additionally, building a colony on Mars is achievable partly because of lower Martian surface gravity. You can build a single stage launch vehicle that can also serve as an interplanetary spacecraft for getting from the surface of Mars back to Earth fairly easily, this is because the delta-V for that trip is low. You can't do the same on Venus, you need nearly the same kind of rocket to get from Venus to Earth as you need to get from Earth to Venus. And that's a big problem because Venus, you will note, does not currently have the same level of industrial infrastructure as Earth. Building up a much more complicated multi-stage launch vehicle infrastructure on Venus just to get to the "square 1" level of colonization represented by: you can get people and stuff from Earth to the destination and back as desired is vastly more challenging for Venus than for Mars.
Overall the merits of building a colony on Venus are not much better than just building a space station either in Earth orbit or in interplanetary space. In fact in many ways a Venusian colony is harder than building a space station (because it's at the bottom of a gravity well), so why bother?
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Just like every time a headline is phrased as a question, the answer is no.
No. Even the protomolecule didn't stick around Venus
In a word, no. No. NO. Are you freaking crazy? Colonizing Mars is crazy; Venus is insane.
I think we’ve been doubly blessed in this solar system to have 2 planets to challenge out terraforming technology, they will both be great to practice on!
Venus sure looks a lot like Bespin in that picture...
The hottest planet in the solar system what could go wrong
Me seeing thumbnail: "Hey, this looks funny!"
Two seconds later: "Wait this isn't satire"