Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

Cloud City On Venus?

It's not easy to find comfortable places to stay elsewhere in the solar system. However, Geoffrey Landis, a scientist at NASA's Glenn Research Center, suggests that Venus might be a good place to look.

I know what you're thinking. Venus? Surface temperature of 490 degrees centigrade with about 92 times the atmospheric pressure of Earth's surface? Doesn't sound very hospitable.

However, Landis, a science fiction writer in his spare time, suggests that we think a bit outside the box. In a recent interview, he suggested building a city in the clouds about fifty kilometers above the surface.

At that altitude, the atmosphere of Venus is at it's most Earth-like. The atmosphere has an air pressure of about one bar and the temperature ranges in the 0-50 degrees centigrade range. You'd need breathing apparatus, but probably not a space suit.

Landis adds that a city might not be as difficult to build - and to keep afloat - as you might think.

"Because the atmosphere of Venus is CO2, the gases that we live in all the time, nitrogen and oxygen, would be a lifting gas," Landis said. "On Earth, we know to get something to lift, you need something lighter than air. Well, on Venus, guess what? Our air is lighter than air, or at least lighter than the Venus atmosphere."

"If you could just take the room you're sitting in and replace the walls with something thinner, the room would float on Venus," he remarked.

SF fans are no doubt hoping that Lando Calrissian will be available to act as administrator; as long as you're building Cloud City, you might as well do it right.


(Cloud City above Bespin in Star Wars)

Cloud City is an installation on the planet Bespin, first seen in The Empire Strikes Back in 1980. Bespin has a habitable layer from about 150 - 180 kilometers down from space with an oxygen atmosphere and normal pressure.

Update 18-Dec-2016: Take a look at this early reference to the idea of cities floating in the atmosphere of Venus in Fritz Leiber's humorous 1958 short story Bread Overhead!. End update.

From Colonizing Venus with floating cities.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/23/2008)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Living Space ")

Solar House Concept Unfolds Solar Panels Like A Flower
'They are heated and air conditioned by a solar plant that tops anything... that we have today.' - Clifford Simak, 1953.

San Fran's Tiny Homeless
'Each person got a 5 foot by 10 foot room with a bed and a TV — the world’s best pacifier...' - Marshall Brain, 2002.

Rotating House in Bosnia
'... feel free to turn the house on your own.' - Frank Herbert, 1972.

Voyager Luxury Space Hotel Launches In 2023
'A spinning web of steel wires, held rigid by centrifugal force, spread from it across a thousand miles of space.' - Jack Williamson, 1939.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

I Am Alarmed By Efforts To Teach AIs And Robots To Hate
'LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE.'

MXenes - Atomic-Thin Metal Sheets Now Easier To Make
'...a rolled-up sheet of a thin, dark metal strange to them.'

Do We Still Need Orbiting Factories?
'... his contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory complex.'

Space Weather Forecasters Surprised By Strong Solar Storm
'Space-weather men had been placed at their disposal...'

JWST Finds New World Of Turbulent Silicate Clouds
'THIS is Ceti Alpha V!'

3D Printed Cheesecake Not Quite Food Replicator Quality
With each successive print, our model needed to incorporate more structural ingredients to minimize print failures.

Spectroscopic Analysis Of DART Impact Debris Cloud (SF Prediction)
'... Wendis stared thoughtfully at the brilliant lines on the spectroscope screen.'

Modern App Provides Video Technology From Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451'
'A special spot-wavex scrambler also caused his televised image, in the area immediately about his lips, to mouth the vowels and consonants beautifully.'

Win $250K By Reading Ancient Scrolls Carbonized By Vesuvius
'... it was as if the upper part had been removed, like a cut deck of cards.'

Toy-Like Robot Well-Being Coaches Are The Best
Sumomo will get those office workers into good shape!

AI-Trained Snack App Avatar Goes On Dates For You
'... who let their handbag computers carry all the conversation.'

M-Dwarf Stars May Not Have Habitable Planets
'Thus it came about that the search for a planetiferous sun near a white dwarf star was not unduly prolonged...'

Too Soon To Doom Lunar Farside Observatories
'Earth never shone there, but life was good.'

Amitabh Bachchan Wins Personality Protection
'He led me down the Hall of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides.'

LIAM F1 UWT Clever Rooftop Windmill
'...a windmill on his roof...'

Scent-Identifying Robot Uses Machine Learning
'It's picking up diphenyl compounds and tetrahydrocarbons...'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.