NASA scientist raised the idea of making hollow bricks suspended at an altitude of 48 km on Venus, forming the foundation to build a city.
Venus is about the size of Earth but the environment is very harsh. Photo: NASA
With harsh elements in the atmosphere, Venus will be a place that is difficult for humans to live. The planet’s atmosphere is filled with toxic CO2 and nitrogen, winds blowing at 320 km/h. Meanwhile, the surface of Venus also has an average temperature of up to 462 degrees Celsius.
However, Alex Howe, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, proposed the idea of building a “city in the clouds” and renovating Venus to make the planet habitable, Futurism reported on March 30. New research published in the journal Journal of the British Interplanetary Society.
To build cities in the clouds, space probes could initially carry solar-powered machines to Venus. Automated machines will suck in CO2, release oxygen and carbon. Oxygen is stored for later use, while carbon is used to make hollow blocks 90 meters wide. The hollow inside is very large, making them light enough to float.
As the carbon is sucked from Venus’s already non-breathable atmosphere, the air’s chemical composition also begins to change. The air will eventually become a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen suitable for humans to breathe.
By combining the carbon bricks, humans can wrap the entire planet at an altitude of 48 km or more – high enough to weather the heat and strong winds. Howe estimates that 72 trillion blocks of bricks are needed to complete the floating foundation. In addition, humans need to continue to make new bricks to replace those broken by the wind and patch the holes caused by the occasional asteroid crash.
After the foundation is completed, people can live and work on it, with the atmosphere above it improved. There, scientists and engineers can study Venus closely, figuring out why the once-Earth-like planet turned into such an inhospitable place.
Howe’s plan would be extremely costly. Even with approval and funding, it could take up to 200 years to complete. Technically, however, this plan may still be possible, according to astronomer Janusz Petkowski, a Venus expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Venus is roughly the size of Earth and is the second-closest planet to the Sun, after Mercury. This planet has some advantages such as surface gravity that is close to that of Earth. Compared to Mars, Venus has a thick enough atmosphere to deal with cosmic radiation, ultraviolet radiation, the travel time from Earth to Venus is also shorter than Mars.
Thu Thao (According to Futurism)
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