
Cloud Cities of Venus - Why So Set on Colonizing Mars? There’s Better Options - Osiris30
https://medium.com/futuresin/cloud-cities-of-venus-367710d1e26c
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hesdeadjim
The importance of Mars cannot be overstated for one simple reason: it is the
only place in the solar system where we have the chance of a completely self-
sufficient existence with no support from Earth.

Mars has natural resources we can mine and plenty of water. For what it lacks
the asteroid belt “nearby” could provide in endless quantity.

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ncmncm
In other words, Mars has no importance, because self-sufficient existence
there is much harder than in Antarctica, or in the middle of Cheyenne
Mountain, and no one sees any value in establishing a self-sufficient colony
there.

The cloud tops of Venus are far from devoid of resources. Unlimited amounts of
carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur would be at their fingertips, and ores of
other elements are a short dip to the surface. An unshielded nuclear reactor
could be operated suspended by a tether, with no worries about leakage.

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hesdeadjim
"Short dip to the surface" on a planet with a horrendously corrosive and thick
atmosphere and the gravity of Earth. Mars is a veritable paradise by
comparison.

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yters
Why not colonize currently uninhabitable areas of earth first? I don't get the
emphasis on colonizing space when there are much more tractable places to
colonize.

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sambull
I always thought these were projects to get people to spend money for the
ability to just live on earth in the future. We cant say "hey we're breaking
shit need to figure out how to survive with a broken climate". I know this is
Elons take, everything he does for space is almost always applicable to living
on hostile environment locally from energy production/storage to tunnels.

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ksaj
At what point do we decide that living on Mars is more hospitable and simpler
than living on Earth? In what state would the Earth need to be for this to
happen?

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AstralStorm
Very hot and cloudy, and/or blocking lots of sun.

That would do a number on edible plants, farm animals and power supply.

Alternatively, if we run out of arable land and don't develop hydroponics
enough.

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yters
It seems colonizing mars would still be much, much more difficult than
addressing the change in climate on earth.

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ksaj
Precisely the direction of my questioning. It seems absurd to me that people
today think its more important to get humans on Mars and drastically modify
its environment than it is to clean and maintain our own.

If we are to believe that Mars once had water and might have been more
hospitable to life, then we also must see the irony in trying to groom it so
we can leave a future Earth as it starts to look more and more like Mars,
instead of getting our act together here and now, and not letting Earth become
another Mars.

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cnees
This is a really interesting read. If we’re willing to live afloat, we can
begin with Ocean Cities of Earth and expand to Cloud Cities of Venus as
necessary.

Mars might still be easier to terraform than Venus, if we develop the
technology, so maybe that’s part of why it became the focus. But if we could
terraform Mars, perhaps we could just reterraform Earth.

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citboin
We can’t “just reterraform Earth” because there are too many people,
governments, processes and institutions working against that goal. If the goal
is to terraform Mars then we need to do it quickly before there is organized
resistance from scientists who think of Mars as a Petri dish, not a potential
home

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AstralStorm
We simply do not have resources for any quick terraforming plan, even on
Earth. Soil recovery is very hard, for example, on manageable timeframes.

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sawaruna
>There is this idea that Mars won out over Venus for one simple reason: a
surface.

The bias for a planet with a surface makes sense because of the majority of
the technologies we would use with regards to creating a habitat are far
easier on a surface than hypothetical floating cities that we haven't even
developed here yet.

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dvh
Reminded me of a story of a startup that claimed they could make self
replicating robots on Mars. When asked whether they can make self replicating
robots in Arizona desert they quietly disappeared.

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new_realist
Colonizing another planet deprives humans of resources which could be spent
improving Earth, and the most likely outcome is catastrophic failure of the
colony. All this to live in a sh*thole for which humans have no adaptation.
Raising children in such an environment is borderline abuse.

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eximius
A big reason is simple: proximity.

I know that space travel isn't always linear for efficiency reasons, but with
optimistic travel to our closest destination taking 3 months, anything further
begins to decay the dream that they could see themselves going there.

