Um. While I have no objection, as such, to the existence of surface cities, the arguments Kestrel and Scirrocco have made for them are based on an apparent misunderstanding of the Castles, as I see them.
Specifically, they're stratospheric balloons, not orbital stations. Wiki sez that, above the clouds and lower atmosphere, the venusian atmosphere eventually reaches a point where its pressure and temperature are at shirtsleeve levels.
That's where the Castles are. They're tethered to specific points on the surface by lightweight nanotube cables, which are, in turn, cored by some sort of thermally conductive material, which may or may not need to be insulated from the load-bearing outer layer. What happens over time is that the cable core assumes the same temperature along its entire length - and, if we expose a lot of its material near the surface, that'd make that temperature something in the range of the six-hundred-odd C that's prevalent down there.
Fray the top end out a bit, then stick it in a boiler, and you have the first stage of an otherwise perfectly conventional electrical generator station - and you can make it as big as you want.
The only problem with building these things that I can see is one of materials. You need something that is:
1. Immune to sulfuric acid
2. Strong enough to take the stresses being exerted on the cable
3. Thermally insulative
4. Completely stable at both room temperature and inside an oven set on 'CLEAN'
5. Light enough that a thirty-mile long cable of the stuff won't be completely insupportable
And... 'Wavetech can provide all of those. In something that's visually transparent, no less - giving you the 'crystal city' effect for free!
'Cause, make no mistake, these things are the size of small cities already.
So, the heat of the surface is quite tappable.
It's also about half of what you need to make diamond, and... several orders of magnitude... less than the neccessary pressure. That'll happen by wavetech if it does at all.
You've got a point about its being salable, though.
Another assumption I'd been making is that a spacecraft that hasn't been designed for it cannot survive the Venusian surface, probably due more to temperature than pressure.
Drakensis: AFAIK, the latest word from the physicists is that they're not sure metallic hydrogen will stay metastable at STP, but that it's likely enough to include in hard sci-fi, let alone our little pastiche. They've also predicted its density with a high degree of confidence - 2.5; so, five times as many H atoms per tanker in vs. LNG.
And I like the idea of the Dry Ice Rings of Venus.
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"
Specifically, they're stratospheric balloons, not orbital stations. Wiki sez that, above the clouds and lower atmosphere, the venusian atmosphere eventually reaches a point where its pressure and temperature are at shirtsleeve levels.
That's where the Castles are. They're tethered to specific points on the surface by lightweight nanotube cables, which are, in turn, cored by some sort of thermally conductive material, which may or may not need to be insulated from the load-bearing outer layer. What happens over time is that the cable core assumes the same temperature along its entire length - and, if we expose a lot of its material near the surface, that'd make that temperature something in the range of the six-hundred-odd C that's prevalent down there.
Fray the top end out a bit, then stick it in a boiler, and you have the first stage of an otherwise perfectly conventional electrical generator station - and you can make it as big as you want.
The only problem with building these things that I can see is one of materials. You need something that is:
1. Immune to sulfuric acid
2. Strong enough to take the stresses being exerted on the cable
3. Thermally insulative
4. Completely stable at both room temperature and inside an oven set on 'CLEAN'
5. Light enough that a thirty-mile long cable of the stuff won't be completely insupportable
And... 'Wavetech can provide all of those. In something that's visually transparent, no less - giving you the 'crystal city' effect for free!
'Cause, make no mistake, these things are the size of small cities already.
So, the heat of the surface is quite tappable.
It's also about half of what you need to make diamond, and... several orders of magnitude... less than the neccessary pressure. That'll happen by wavetech if it does at all.
You've got a point about its being salable, though.
Another assumption I'd been making is that a spacecraft that hasn't been designed for it cannot survive the Venusian surface, probably due more to temperature than pressure.
Drakensis: AFAIK, the latest word from the physicists is that they're not sure metallic hydrogen will stay metastable at STP, but that it's likely enough to include in hard sci-fi, let alone our little pastiche. They've also predicted its density with a high degree of confidence - 2.5; so, five times as many H atoms per tanker in vs. LNG.
And I like the idea of the Dry Ice Rings of Venus.
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"