You heard right. Colonization of Venus. Weird huh? How could such a hell-like planet be suitible for Human colonization? Though extremly far-feched, its not impossible, actully quite far from it. Note, I do not take credit from everything written here, about 3 / 4ths of it is copy/paste. I did not gather any of this information myself either.

There are several ways that humans could live on Venus or in the Venusian clouds.

The Floating Cities

The Venusian cloud theory is the most plausible, the climate of the Venusian clouds at 50km into the sky is the most Earth like in the Solar System. With pressure similar to that on earth, these area of the clouds would be perfect for floating cities. The Venusian atmosphere has 60% more lifting power than Helium, and with needed support could hold up cities there. This is based on that breathable air (21:79 Oxygen-Nitrogen mixture) can sustain itself and extra weight in midair due to the nature of the Venusian atmosphere.

The temperatures of this area of the clouds are from 0 to 50 degrees C. Because there is not a significant pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the breathable-air balloon, any rips or tears would cause gases to diffuse at normal atmospheric mixing rates, giving time to repair any such damages, and humans would not require pressurized suits when outside, merely air to breathe and a protection from the acidic rain.

Geoffrey A. Landis said "However, viewed in a different way, the problem with Venus is merely that the ground level is too far below the one atmosphere level. At cloud-top level, Venus is the paradise planet."

He proposed Aerostat habitats that would predate the Floating Colonies to give Humaity the knowledge of living in the area.

Cloud-top colonization also offers a way to avoid the issue of slow Venusian rotation. At the top of the clouds the wind speed on Venus reaches up to 95 m/s, circling the planet approximately every four Earth days in a phenomenon known as "super-rotation".

Landis has suggested that as more floating cities were built, they could form a solar shield around the planet, and could simultaneously be used to process the atmosphere into a more desirable form. If made from carbon nanotubes (recently fabricated into sheet form) or graphene (a sheet-like carbon allotrope), the major structural materials can be produced using carbon dioxide gathered in situ from the atmosphere. The recently synthesised amorphous carbonia might prove a useful structural material if it can be quenched to STP conditions, perhaps in a mixture with regular silica glass. According to Birch's analysis such colonies and materials would provide an immediate economic return from colonizing Venus, funding further terraforming efforts.

Terraforming

Terraforming of Venus is the (theoretical) process of engineering the global environment of the planet Venus in such a way as to make it suitable for human habitation. There is considerable debate as to whether or not terraforming Venus is possible. The existing environment of Venus would require three major changes to the planet:

-Reducing Venus's 450°C (850°F) surface temperature.
-Eliminating most of the planet's dense 9 MPa (~90 atm) carbon dioxide atmosphere, via removal or conversion to some other form.
-Addition of breathable oxygen to the atmosphere

These goals are closely interrelated, since Venus's extreme temperature is due to the greenhouse effect caused by its dense carbon-dioxide atmosphere. In addition, it would also be desirable to establish a day/night light cycle shorter than Venus's current 116.75 day solar day.

There are many ways, I'm just noting what they are,

Space Based which would involve shading the planet allwoing the thick clouds to actully percipitate and rain down onto the planet. Which would make future terraforming projects much much easier. The shades would be kept on to cool the rest of the planet for longer.

Ground/Air based. Dropping hydrogen bombs at the poles could get rid of thick carbon dioxide cloud cover and even leave some atmosphere left behind.

There are many others, but I'm short on time. This is just a sample. Look into it further if you interested.

I want to hear your feedback, do you think that this could happen?

This post was edited by SalvationDG on Jan 7 2009 03:30pm

Humans live on the land so I think terraforming be a more suitable approach to making it human habitable.

Venus > Mars in terms of colonization? If of course, Venus didn't have all that CO2.

Edit: I think terraforming can happen.

This post was edited by Proint on Jan 7 2009 03:35pm

The best approach to terraforming I think would be to let it rain alot first (idk some how the article said its possible ?) then clear the atmosphere, and I'm sure alot of CO2 will still stay behind -- then some how drop like earth plant seeds and junk. Assuming we have such technology, the process would probably take a few hundred years to let the oxygen levels rise.

Ofcourse its not going to happen, I just don't think colonization like this is possible with out really advanced technology.

Ofc we wouldn't do this now, we would need sufficent Space travel technology.

I tried to look for the part but I was just skimming through and I missed it I guess about the rain part.

george bush can figure it out

venus is what I imagine Earth after 10,000 years or so of global warming. Also due to conservation of matter, there is never any loss of water at any time (although it may be inside somebody's body) you can recycle it out of somebody's urine, so you could feed this rain into the solar system and let it rain. And you need plant life to help clear the CO2, not just rain of course.

I do not know too much about venus though so most statements above are assumed based on the article.
The water could possibly be chemically changed into a new substance meaning in a loss of the substance.
Also is the gravity on the planet strong enough or too strong for humans (could you walk if your weight was 500 pounds?) Most pictures of the solar system I've seen depict venus to be just slightly smaller than the Earth, so I don't think this would be a problem, you'd weigh a little less.

There are many things that you have to think about before going to a knew planet.

Earth will eventully look like Venus again.

Reason I say again is because long before Earth looked like it is now, Earth looked like Venus, we don't know what stage Venus is in yet, Pre modern-earth, or post modern-earth.

Cool.