Pop culture WI: Venus instead of Mars

In popular imagination of the sci-fi and speculative fiction variety, Mars is seen as the natural destiny of humanity. To explore, to settle, the possibly find aliens there (or at least, the vestiges of their dead civilizations). Venus has been overshadowed ever since the realization that the entire planet is a ball of sulphuric acid and the surface much more difficult to walk upon. But Venus used to be well-known in myth and pop culture, what with being the twin of Earth, the Morning Star, covered in jungles, etc. etc. Apparently Edgar Rice Burroughs has a Carson of Venus series! Some cool stuff here.

I think I first encountered the idea of exploration of Venus in Beer's Revolution, Maple Leafs, Chrysanthemes and the Eagle -A revised 1848 TL. Since then, I've found that there's been proposals to send an expedition and even colonize Venus before Mars. For one thing, Venus is closer to Earth than Mars is, and its gravity is the same, thus preventing the negative effects on the human body of living in a < 1G environment. Charles Stross makes a pretty interesting case here. Here's a summary article.

As far as the AH goes, what would it take to have Venus replace Mars in the popular conception as where humanity should voyage to first, settle on, have colonial tensions with, etc.? What would it take for a billionaire to want to build sky cities there?
 
Having us not realize it is literally hell? Before we figured out that the atmosphere was basically sulfuric acid, it was the go-to destination for human colonization in fiction.
 
The surface really is hellish, but the atmosphere is survivable. And when you get down to comparing challenges, costs, upsides, etc., it really is debatable if Mars is all that much better than Venus. It's just, you can actually walk on Mars, so the idea literally sounds more solid. But with Venus you can imagine what it's like to live on a cloud city. It'd be like the Jetsons in a spacesuit and the houses don't actually connect to the ground.
 
Having us not realize it is literally hell? Before we figured out that the atmosphere was basically sulfuric acid, it was the go-to destination for human colonization in fiction.
It still is the best candidate for human colonization according to many experts, though. Water can be synthesized from its atmosphere, it has a dense atmosphere and magnetic field so it's shielded from cosmic radiation (unlike Mars), and gravity is almost the same as in Earth (so no health risks from a low gravity environment unlike Mars). To top it off, average temperature at the upper Venusian atmosphere is a comfortable 27 ° C, and the dense atmosphere would allow for oxygen-filled floating cities.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus

Humans can survive on the upper atmosphere of Venus with only a respirator/oxygen supply and a coat against acid rain, whereas in Mars you would need a full suit to shield you from cosmic rays.
 
If you want Venus to replace Mars in popular culture, you could butterfly the conception of the 'Canals' in Mars. That was one of the main reasons why Mars was seen as the home of potential intelligent life. Venus, meanwhile, was covered in clouds, so while mysterious, it did not have the hype of professional astronomers of the time 'confirming' signs of intelligent life.

To convince a space agency to colonize Venus is... hard. You can say 'sure Venus is inhabitable in the upper atmosphere' but that doesn't solve the problem on how exactly to build floating cities. Mars seems more straightfoward; just plop some buildings and build shelters underground. You can walk, mine, farm and build in essentially limitless space once you get there (the hard part, of course). Not so with Venus.

Interestingly, it seems that the Soviets were the most interested in the concept of Venusian sky cities.
 
In terms of pop culture, I think most pulp writers and C.S. Lewis imagined that under Venus' thick clouds there would be a water world, or a lush jungle world, and after the Soviet probes revealed that it was acid hell people just lost interest. It was disappointing to them. But then you can just have floating space pyramids among the clouds and weird balloon aliens instead, c'mon sci-fi authors it's not so hard

If you want Venus to replace Mars in popular culture, you could butterfly the conception of the 'Canals' in Mars. That was one of the main reasons why Mars was seen as the home of potential intelligent life. Venus, meanwhile, was covered in clouds, so while mysterious, it did not have the hype of professional astronomers of the time 'confirming' signs of intelligent life.

Yeah what's obscured under the thick atmosphere was the big selling point. But I dunno maybe just make the clouds be the canals and imagine what's that like. Imagine the zeppelin battles over sulphuric acid rains.

To convince a space agency to colonize Venus is... hard. You can say 'sure Venus is inhabitable in the upper atmosphere' but that doesn't solve the problem on how exactly to build floating cities.

You don't need cities, you can start with a couple modular habitats first and figure it out from there. I almost wonder if it would be kind of like boats or other water-based craft, given that it's all about floating on/navigating through a buoyant fluid.

Interestingly, it seems that the Soviets were the most interested in the concept of Venusian sky cities.

Cold War with NATO Mars vs. Soviet Venus c'mon has anyone done this yet? Or maybe Yankee moon, Soviet Venus, Red Chinese Mars.
 
See also:

our-future-in-space.png
 

Archibald

Banned
Who said that manned exploration of Venus necessarily sucks - because the pesky surface is a hellish shithole ?

As noted before, the cloud cover 30 miles high is out of acid and temperature and pressure. It is actually far more Earth-friendly than Mars surface (temperature and pressure - wise)

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20160006329.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operational_Concept

https://sacd.larc.nasa.gov/branches/space-mission-analysis-branch-smab/smab-projects/havoc/

It even has rocket-carrying zeppelins - isn't that steampunk ?

A manned capsule enter Venus high atmosphere, brake, then deploys a manned Zeppelin. As for crew return, the Venus Zeppelin has a freakkin' rocket+capsule to be fired back into Venus orbit.

And the whole thing is called HAVOC. Complete with an uber-cool NASA video with Gladiator-like music (watch the Zeppelin inflate !)


I really needs to integrate this into my own space TL.
 
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The other issue is that it's easy enough to get to Venus and deploy a big balloon to float in the atmosphere on arrival.

Now how do you leave? It's a planet almost as heavy as Earth. You'd need, therefore, a rocket at least as big as a Titan II to get off, and preferably you'd have to master SSTO rocketry. And you'd need to fuel it in mid-air.

A mission to Mars can be done with essentially self-contained spacecraft--elements no more than 50 tons each. A Venus return would require suspending Cape Canaveral Air Force Station from balloons to support a flying launch complex.

Barring some revolution in rocket propulsion (nuclear lightbulbs, Orion, laser propulsion), Venus is a one-way trip. Not exactly convenient for science fiction that assumes an interplanetary economy.
 
I remember reading of some vague plan that would solve Venus' atmosphere problem by putting some kind of algae (blue/green?) on the planet, which would start to work on the acid in the atmosphere, converting it to something not noxious. IIRC, that's how Stirling had his 'alien tinkerers' do it in "The Sky People". No idea if this is actually feasible or not...
 
The other issue is that it's easy enough to get to Venus and deploy a big balloon to float in the atmosphere on arrival.

Now how do you leave? It's a planet almost as heavy as Earth. You'd need, therefore, a rocket at least as big as a Titan II to get off, and preferably you'd have to master SSTO rocketry. And you'd need to fuel it in mid-air.

A mission to Mars can be done with essentially self-contained spacecraft--elements no more than 50 tons each. A Venus return would require suspending Cape Canaveral Air Force Station from balloons to support a flying launch complex.

Barring some revolution in rocket propulsion (nuclear lightbulbs, Orion, laser propulsion), Venus is a one-way trip. Not exactly convenient for science fiction that assumes an interplanetary economy.
Well, non hard science fiction can always create a magic rocket that allows the colonists to leave Venus. It is a problem for real colonization, but that's not what the OP is about.

I guess Mars fits the Wild West narrative better, though. I'm not sure there is a pre-existing genre of moving cities. And, let's face it, the view from inside the clouds would suck.
 
Strategos' Risk wrote:
In popular imagination of the sci-fi and speculative fiction variety, Mars is seen as the natural destiny of humanity. To explore, to settle, the possibly find aliens there (or at least, the vestiges of their dead civilizations). Venus has been overshadowed ever since the realization that the entire planet is a ball of sulphuric acid and the surface much more difficult to walk upon. But Venus used to be well-known in myth and pop culture, what with being the twin of Earth, the Morning Star, covered in jungles, etc. etc. Apparently Edgar Rice Burroughs has a Carson of Venus series! Some cool stuff here.

I think I first encountered the idea of exploration of Venus in Beer's Revolution, Maple Leafs, Chrysanthemes and the Eagle -A revised 1848 TL. Since then, I've found that there's been proposals to send an expedition and even colonize Venus before Mars. For one thing, Venus is closer to Earth than Mars is, and its gravity is the same, thus preventing the negative effects on the human body of living in a < 1G environment. Charles Stross makes a pretty interesting case here. Here's a summary article.

As far as the AH goes, what would it take to have Venus replace Mars in the popular conception as where humanity should voyage to first, settle on, have colonial tensions with, etc.? What would it take for a billionaire to want to build sky cities there?

Heh, "rehabilitating" Venus as a Human destination? (Stole that from here: http://moonsociety.org/publications/mmm_papers/venus_rehabpaper.htm, and http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/mmm_themes/mmmt_solarsystem.pdf :) ) You have alread run into the main 'issues' with doing so; Most people think Venus is hell and that it's either to hard to get to, impossible to 'live' on, or you can't get back once you've gone. All of which makes getting it as 'popular' destination almost impossible despite valid and logical arguments to the contrary. You'll note the assumptions given here :)

Pop-culture wise, well I have a lot of notes and stuff for an RPG/adventure game campaign called "Sky Pirates of Venus!" which takes everything people loved about 20s-and-30s 'aero-punk' like "Crimsion Skies" and "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" and gives it a light covering of science fiction and credabilty in the works :) But the disappointment that it wasn't a swamp-covered world of dinasoars and naked-cave women seems to have been something humans genereally haven't been able to get over. It doesn't help that when people think of Lighter-Than-Air the Hindenburg and other airship disasters is what generally comes to mind.

Getting past the "land-based-bias" for colonization is almost impossible even here on Earth, (see issues/debate over SeaSteading) let alone in space.

Part of the 'problem' seems to be one of perception in any case as neither Mercur or Venus get much attention for what seems to be not much more than the fact they are 'inward' from the sun and not 'outward' from it like Mars. As most of the 'arguments' for going to and colonizing Mars are applicable to Venus the actual 'justification' is of course there but the main argument which boils down to we've 'landed' and survived longer on Mars than we have on Venus, (see land-bias' above) will not be resolved until we actually have 'done' a Venus long-term atmosphere probe.
(I'd originally come up with an idea I called "Green Dragon" before someone else started using it as the basis for an orbital greenhouse project and lately someone else has come up with the same idea but better PR :) Anyway a Dragon capsule with suspended from a balloon deployed from the docking port and filled with science and measurment instruments is quite a do-able concept if anyone were interested)

Getting a 'billionare' as interested in Venus as Muck is in Mars is really only going to take, well, getting one interested in Venus

Why don't you build a skyhook?

Same reason we haven't built one for Earth, high upfront cost and required infrastructure to get it into space and then add getting it to and in place over Venus. Getting off Venus isn't easy but it isn't as tough as many think since you can use most of the same techniques as you'd use on Mars and since Venus has a thicker atmosphere you can use things like aerodynamic lift and CO2 based combustion where as you can't on Mars.

Randy
 
Dave Howery wrote:
I remember reading of some vague plan that would solve Venus' atmosphere problem by putting some kind of algae (blue/green?) on the planet, which would start to work on the acid in the atmosphere, converting it to something not noxious. IIRC, that's how Stirling had his 'alien tinkerers' do it in "The Sky People". No idea if this is actually feasible or not...

Close, actually the blue/green algae was to convert the CO2 to oxygen not take care of the acid which at the time proposed, (50s/60s) wasn't a well-known component of the atmosphere.

The "problem" with Venus' atmosphere isn't the CO2 or the acid but that Venus has far too MUCH atmosphere in the first place! Stirling's aliens "take-care" of that problem by moving a lot of it to Mars by the gates early on to thicken that planet's atmosphere while reducing Venus' to a tolerable level.

Which isn't actually a 'bad' idea though we lack the gates :) One idea is to use large solar pumped lasers in a molecular conveyer scheme to skim off the upper layers of Venus' atmosphere and transport it to Mars. Really horrible efficiency mind you even with 'free' power but it gets some of what you need from where you have to much to where you have to little :)

Randy
 
Carl Sagan's Venus terraforming plan was proposed by him at a time when he thought there was more water vapour in Venus' atmosphere than was the case, and when the question of how to deal with such a superdense atmosphere was not really understood. His proposal was marked by the limited understanding of Venus in the early 1960s.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Having us not realize it is literally hell? Before we figured out that the atmosphere was basically sulfuric acid, it was the go-to destination for human colonization in fiction.

Really - I thought Mars was always favored even before the Soviet probes melted. Didn't John Carter of Mars come before Carson of Venus ?
 
Really - I thought Mars was always favored even before the Soviet probes melted. Didn't John Carter of Mars come before Carson of Venus ?
yes, the first Mars novel was ERB's first novel period. From what I read in his biography, early on, he had planned to write a Venus series too, but another author (OA Kline, IIRC) started one first, so he held off for a long time, not writing one until he was looking to expand his market...
 

Archibald

Banned
Really - I thought Mars was always favored even before the Soviet probes melted. Didn't John Carter of Mars come before Carson of Venus ?

Venus was well-liked because
a) it has Earth-like mass (unlike much smaller Mars).
b) Reasonning was that the bigger the planet, the more likely it would keep its atmosphere against the Sun continual onslaught. In this context, Mars being smaller, it was actually less likely than Venus to harbor a valuable atmosphere, hence life. Venus 1, Mars 0.
c) that thick atmosphere hellish nature wasn't known at the time
d) but also what laid beneath that atmosphere.
No optical telescope could get trough that atmosphere, obviously; as for Earth-based radar observations, they come in the 70's and were always limited in scope.

From a pre-1962-68 point of view, Venus was a planete with Earth-mass, a thick atmosphere, and nothing was known of the surface. All three arguments were good for Sci-fi writer imagination and inspiration...

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