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Comment by gboss | Hacker News Reader

There are altitudes within Venus' thick atmosphere that are actually quite reasonable, with it being proposed that humans would only need a simple oxygen mask to survive. The idea of setting up a "floating" colony in Venus' atmosphere has been proposed a few times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus#Aerostat...

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I've always been intrigued by the idea of aerostats on Venus. Certainly the idea seems sound (at least in theory), and the fact that an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere mix would be a lifting gas on Venus greatly reduces the launch cost of bringing a dedicated lifting gas from Earth.

But gosh, imagine going to bed on such a habitat knowing that all that's keeping you from a hot and fiery end are your gas balloons and a couple of steel cables!

I can see the point of an observation and science platform, but not colonization. What resources would be available that would be worth the cost? Maybe you could manufacture rocket fuel, water and other useful materials from the atmosphere? I'd be interested to see a proposal on that front otherwise it's a bit pointless because you'd be so completely dependent on outside support.

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