Maxwellport

For my first trick I'll anchor the Sabatier reactor on one of Venus' Terra continents.

Artificial spires reaching up to the clouds have been mooted. On 12 November last year, I stumbled across Multiplanetary Society: A New Approach to Terraforming Venus (March 2018) - second hand. The Maxwell range is certainly the best anchor-point for such. But before we all go full Cheops, I'm recommending a flying set of chains as more practical. Resisting the wind rather than drifting in it...

If the lower installation is anchored onto some Terra firma, it can run a full set of cables all the 45 km up to the cloud-bank. Each cable is kept aloft in this thick, ever-moving atmosphere not just by balloon, but by aerofoil kites. I don't know what the mass of the cable needs to be, but I do know that aerofoils work great over this planet at providing lift for free, as does superheated hydrogen. In this case the cables need to concern more about horizontal shear (drag) than about vertical gravity - which should be less, and distributed evenly per segment of cable.

Usually people talk up Muh Kevlar (UPDATE 15 Sept: now, T1100G) for very long cables but for the lower altitudes, I'll go with the heavier, but 42,000 kgms/sq.cm, steel wire. Higher up I need acidproof polymer or alloy. The mine’s tethered port doesn’t run tethers any higher than 45 km; it’s already pushing its luck.

This Sabatier setup is first tested from a shed outside and below the Maxwell Montes mine. That mountain is already the highest point above the supercritical "sea level", and at its para-arctic latitude I believe that the condensed clouds will be lower. It also, one hopes, will host a colony in need of water and oxygen, and with the ability to get out and fix the reactor should it corrode and/or overheat. And if the cloud-cities at the 50s° latitudes are dragging their own tethers; theirs won't tangle with this one's, rising up in the mid 60s°.

Some of this water, being hot, can get piped right into the Maxwell colony, to collect up in that cistern. Certainly the rest of the colony will appreciate the oxygen.

The mines, with access to so much free heat, distill their own heavy-water (after Girdler) and export more of it all the way to the flotilla. I don’t know if they import additional 15-20% ²H water for reprocessing; other cities might do their own distillations too.

To shuttle people up-tether, we'll need strong life-support. For comparison our submarines operate 300-450 m underwater, so 30-45 bar... which Venus hits from 15 km up. Between the floating or flying cities (yea, even unto that fountain, upwind), and this tethered outpost: aeroplanes should get the job done.

The tethered balloon-port above it - if so - will be that site whereby Maxwell exports its ores. I hear there's a demand for nickel.