NASA has unveiled an extremely awesome, but extremely complicated way to colonize Venus. Yes, Venus. Now going all the way down to Venus's surface has many problems - such as the heat, air, and immense gravity, but NASA has a solution. Instead of going to the surface, you live in the upper atmosphere. Up there, the gravity is very similar to Earth's and the Venus's atmosphere and magnetic field would deflect the Sun's harmful rays just like the Earth does. The plan is called HAVOC, High Altitude Venus Operational Concept.
Analysis:
For starters this insanely amazing. This also may be more sustainable than living on Mars. On Mars you'd always have to wear a bulky space suit to keep you warm and such. On Venus all you'd have to wear is a light suit to help you breathe and keep you safe from the slight sulfuric acid content in the air. In the atmosphere the temperature stays a pretty consistent 70º F. In addition lots of medical problems can happen with prolonged experiences in low gravity. Mars's gravity is about 40% of Earth's while Venus's is about 90%. Much closer to Earth's.
This space exploration also raises serious political questions though. If they're born on Venus, are they citizens of America as well? What happens if this colony decides that they want vote in elections and become a state? What if they even want to declare themselves an independent country, would we let them? We've seen similar situations involving American Imperialism before with the Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. Different government policies were taken with each area. Either way, this will probably not happen for a while unless NASA suddenly has to compete with Russia over who has the better space program.
Also, HAVOC is probably a terrible name for this project! Hahaha!
Link to article:
http://sacd.larc.nasa.gov/branches/space-mission-analysis-branch-smab/smab-projects/havoc/
NASA's video simulation:
Yes, I must point out an obvious sign of what this seems like it could create: HAVOC. The entire concept naturally seems insane to me, however in this day and age there are so many more possibilities and something of this nature seems outrageous because of the unfamiliarity of the idea. Hopefully this is a long way off.. All I can see as a result of an experiment such as this is something along the lines of what you pointed out - the evolution of a colony on Venus deciding that life there should be independent from Earth life and some sort of revolution occurring. Nevertheless, it's an interesting idea!
ReplyDelete- Sophia Davison