Thursday, December 12, 2019

The farming bubbles over Venus

We've done with the train-scheduling (and what fun!). So let us look at what's feeding everyone here. That's right: we're finally discussing those floating habitats, mooted by Chernenko among many, many others.

The colony baseline is upper troposphere. Toward 50km runs slightly over Earth sealevel pressure (Lima: 760mmHg) but at a too-hot 75 C. At 55km, pressure is at 53% but 27 C. Somewhere between, we have 60% (that is Lhasa at 3.65 km up, and 460 mmHg; above Cuzco is 3.4 km at 480).

It gets positively high-Sumatra in in the more-temperate 50s° latitudes. This if north, also, skirts the southern edge of mineral-rich Ishtar. It does come at the cost of distance from the orbital plane: affecting access both to the spaceport and direct sunlight. For outside contact they can hit the polar ring.

For im/emigration they'll rely on the flying equatorial spaceport. I should note that if we have an orbital ring here, the equator can't farm.

One issue up there is that the cloudtop meridional wind pushes poleward - northward, over Ishtar. Less than 10 m/s though, and it does get weaker the further north. To the extent that's even a worry, just throw up a sail.

The basic shape of a farming-bubble is the torus. I think the first such will be inhabited directly.

Imports: Water, salt, phosphorous, calcium, metals. Exports: Earther lodging, wood, food, coffee, honey, oxygen, sulphur, halogens, 15%-heavy water. (And coca.)

SPLIT 1/19/2020 industrial farms from this basis.

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