Venus Balloon Station: Ideas and development

[Artlav]

Why go to Venus? Right now there hardly is anything there in Orbiter.
So, i decided to make some kind of interesting environment on that misty world.

The first one is based on an idea of manned Venus station up where the conditions are close to terrestrial.

The station is a triangular shape, hanging on 3 balloons, suspended in the "Earth layer" of the atmosphere. The triangular base deck connects 3 habitable spheres, a landing strip for small reconnaissance aircrafts and is a mounting point for various equipment. The spheres are self-sufficient, and can detach from the deck and hang on the balloons in case of emergency.
The landing strip is retractable for better aerodynamics.

The station will be a vessel with fixed position and a special-case collision detection for landing on it.

How it gets there is a question right now - assembly in place is not an option, so it have to be dropped from above. The hab spheres are not strong enough to hold pressure against vacuum, so it can't be a self-sustained space ship, so i think it will be launched empty, assembled in LEO, then boosted on transfer trajectory, with the crew following later.

If some sort of large heatshield is put on the bottom, could such a shape survive an entry?

I've approximated the mass of the station as around 1700 tons, the distance from the center to the edge of the triangular part is 150 meters. Does that approximation looks correct?

Comments and ideas are welcome.

Here are the sketches:

 

[Urwumpe]

The spheres should be able to survive with a light heat shield, but the main structure will have it harder. I doubt a fully assembled base like that could reach Venus. With ballooning it should be possible to bring separately launched spheres together close enough to join them with tethers and air bags and assemble the central platform around this.

A completed assembly could better work, if you make the central part of the structure also ballooned and the surrounding spheres are assembled in place instead. This should be possible, if you allow assembly in LEO already.

 

[Coolhand]

thats a great demo of your meshland addon. might be neat to put similar things in saturn and jupiters atmospheres too.

maybe if it looked like it would unfold from a more compact shape and the hab sections were inflatable? also would it need bigger gas bags? or is the pressure enough to keep it afloat before it entered the hotter parts of venus.

 

[dougkeenan]

Fantastic idea! Can you explain more about "special-case collision detection for landing on it" ?

 

[ar81]

If one balloon has a leak, I bet they would be in trouble. I would use a central balloon. I understand that those baloons in the spheres will compensate the impact or torque of landed craft. But I still would add a central baloon just in case.

I hope atmosphere is dense enough or it should need cables to brake, like aircraft carriers.

I would be concerned about winds. Either craft could be affected, or people could fall off the deck.

How do you evacuate this in case of emergency?
How do you reinforce structure? This base structure seems to have lots of torque involved.
What are the traffic patterns?

 

[Linguofreak]

Sweeeeeeet!


But that runway is *way* to short for the DG, at least in the parts of the atmosphere that would have Earthlike conditions.


Also, breathable air is a lifting gas on Venus (about 2/3's the density of CO2 at STP), so as long as you don't weigh the habs down too heavily, you don't need the balloons.


How I imagine such a base might be constructed is this: Hab modules are launched to Venus inside re-enrty capsules. Once they have slowed down enough that the habs can survive the aerodynamic forces on their own (parachutes needed?), the capsules release the habs and plummet to the surface, while the habs, being bouyant, float around in the "nice" zone of the atmosphere. The habs would have to have some limited propulsive capacity of their own, so that they could rendezvous with each other, whereupon they would form up into two long parallel chains. Runway sections (the whole thing at once would be too long) would then be sent in, probably with baloons or parachutes to support them between re-entry and assembly, and placed on some sort of truss structure between the hab chains.

The other issue is how to get this to be a "permanent" feature at Venus. There is an addon that can be used to add vessels such as space stations as "permanent" features (ones that load in every scenario, whether specified in the *.scn file or not), but I'm not sure how it would handle vessels in atmospheric flight, since that's a bit of a special case between orbiting and landed. (Orbiter treats it as orbiting, but I could imagine all kinds of wierd things happening because of aerodynamic effects...)

 

[Linguofreak]

thats a great demo of your meshland addon. might be neat to put similar things in saturn and jupiters atmospheres too.

maybe if it looked like it would unfold from a more compact shape and the hab sections were inflatable? also would it need bigger gas bags? or is the pressure enough to keep it afloat before it entered the hotter parts of venus.

Problem with doing it on Saturn and Jupiter is finding a lifting gas, since hydrogen is about the lightest you can get...

But as I said in my other post, on Venus, I'm not sure it even needs the gas bags as long as the habs are big enough, since breathable air is a lifting gas there.

 

[Artlav]

maybe if it looked like it would unfold from a more compact shape and the hab sections were inflatable? also would it need bigger gas bags? or is the pressure enough to keep it afloat before it entered the hotter parts of venus.

I wanted to give it a permanent look, so no inflatables and thin tetherstructs. The density on that altitude is higher than on Earth, and the hydrogen is safe to use, so lift is hardly a problem.

Can you explain more about "special-case collision detection for landing on it" ?

The deck will have the same collision as meshland v2v, but to prevent shakes and allow long-term landing, the landing vessel is attached once it stops.
The station itself is in free float, but the position becomes fixed when time acceleration goes above 10x.

If one balloon has a leak, I bet they would be in trouble. I would use a central balloon. I understand that those baloons in the spheres will compensate the impact or torque of landed craft. But I still would add a central baloon just in case.

Like the ones below? Central balloon makes sense, so that all the valuable equipment will not just fall to the surface in case of emergency, but just hang a click lower. Also, help in case of a single pop - no need to climb the now-vertical deck to other spheres.

I hope atmosphere is dense enough or it should need cables to brake, like aircraft carriers.

Earth-level pressure, higher density. Should be good enough.

I would be concerned about winds. Either craft could be affected, or people could fall off the deck.

Guardrails, tethers, bolts.

How do you evacuate this in case of emergency?
How do you reinforce structure? This base structure seems to have lots of torque involved.
What are the traffic patterns?

Hardly any kind of evacuation plan. One sphere failure is not a problem, others should have sufficient capacity, bad weather should be avoidable by increasing the altitude, the balloons are far from full thanks to a lot of lift in dense air. Some major disaster still keeps a sphere or two under a balloon, waiting for a rescue from orbital station.

The deck should probably be slightly flexible, to compensate for torque stresses.

The traffic patterns are a meteorological airplane once a day and survey drones up and down now and then.

But that runway is *way* to short for the DG, at least in the parts of the atmosphere that would have Earthlike conditions.

It's not intended for use by DG too often, and the landing procedure will include heavy use of hover engines, considering lower gravity, even a vertical landing is feasible.

Also, breathable air is a lifting gas on Venus (about 2/3's the density of CO2 at STP), so as long as you don't weigh the habs down too heavily, you don't need the balloons.

It is, but there should also be a lot of additional weight, and the station is slightly above the Earth-pressure layer, to prevent leaks.

The other issue is how to get this to be a "permanent" feature at Venus. There is an addon that can be used to add vessels such as space stations as "permanent" features, but I'm not sure how it would handle vessels in atmospheric flight

Should not be a problem, whether you mean [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3009"]Default_Scenario_0.2[/ame] or not.

 

[Woo482]

can ummus walk on the surface ?

 

[Linguofreak]

and the hydrogen is safe to use,

No it isn't! The local atmosphere might not contain oxygen, but hanging from those balloons you've got hab modules with breathing gas in them. I imagine a scenario with a leak in both a hab and its balloon could get a bit messy (not neccessarily fatally so, since the burning would be between lighter than air gasses and would happen above the hab, but...)

It is, but there should also be a lot of additional weight, and the station is slightly above the Earth-pressure layer, to prevent leaks.

So add helium to your breathing gas mix in whatever proportion neccessary. Everybody will sound a bit squeaky, but it should be fine. If your habs double as balloons, then a hole can be fixed by the crew throwing a patch over it from inside, rather than climbing up a balloon tether in an environmental suit. In any case, even if your breathing and lifting gas aren't the same, I'd think it would just add complexity (and probably weight as well) to have your lifting gas in balloons tethered above the platform rather than integrated into it. (Integration simplifies leak repair and transferring gas between balloons for balance, makes it so that the bouyant forces from the balloons are spread out more evenly over the platform's structure, rather than concentrated at the points where the tethers are attached, and probably also makes life easier for landing aircraft, what with not having to worry about hitting a tether).

EDIT: In any case, whatever the design ends up being in the end, I *really* want to get my hands on this. How long does it look like we'll be waiting for Tuesday?

 

[Hartmann]

Another possible design is like a bespin city or a blimp.

you can have compartments filled with air that help the buoiancy.and you don´t need balloons.

also an aerodynamic shape and engines allow travel and explore the surface in detail with optics or radars.

 

[tblaxland]

This looks great Artlav. It is a destination I would would love to visit for sure.

On the assembly, I think a hybrid of Urwumpe's ideas would be the way to go, ie, construction of spheres and central structure separately in LEO. Each is boosted to Venus separately and then floated together and the final structure assembled in situ.

 

[Artlav]

can ummus walk on the surface ?

Not out of the box, but not yet a no either.

No it isn't! The local atmosphere might not contain oxygen, but hanging from those balloons you've got hab modules with breathing gas in them. I imagine a scenario with a leak in both a hab and its balloon could get a bit messy...

A leak from the hab, aligned with the leak in the balloon, so as to create a column of perfectly mixed H2-O2 mix, igniting at just the right moment and with enough directed force to pop the balloon?
Smells like serious sabotage rather than any kind of probable accident.

So add helium to your breathing gas mix in whatever proportion neccessary. Everybody will sound a bit squeaky, but it should be fine. If your habs double as balloons, then a hole can be fixed by the crew throwing a patch over it from inside, rather than climbing up a balloon tether in an environmental suit...

Another possible design is like a bespin city or a blimp.
you can have compartments filled with air that help the buoiancy.and you don´t need balloons.

Well, it makes sense to do the base in form of dirigible of breathable air with all the things inside. Simple.
I'll stay with hanged balloons design for this one - it's too far gone now to change the design radically.
But no one said there will be only one base on Venus...

also an aerodynamic shape and engines allow travel and explore the surface in detail with optics or radars.

The atmosphere superrotates at a rate of one orbit per 4 days, so the engines for travel is somewhat useless.

How long does it look like we'll be waiting for Tuesday?

The thing is going along nicely, there is a chance it could be the next one.


Now, i thought about putting solar cells or some kind of solar power collector on the base, but what i ended up with looks like a bad joke:

Is it at least feasible to cover a half of the balloon with solar cells, or what would look more fitting on that set?
How flexible are the solar panels? Will a kind of "sail" of them between the tips of the lower balloons and midsection of the big one hold up and work?
Basically, where to stick a solar panel?


Other progress - started on the internals of the spheres. I guess, the upper hemispheres are better left for growing food and oxygen vegetation, upper semi-level for observation place and mounting point for night-time insolation for the garden below. The lower levels are for living and recreational space, laboratories, then on the bottom is the lower observation level with a mess hall.

Then, some paintmarks on the base plate. The textures are still bad...
The base plate is supposed to be strong, but light - some kind of plastic plates over a metal framework, with yellow areas reinforced from inside to hold a DG-massed object.
What would that kind of material look like?

And finally, the airlocks and a scale comparsion with UMMU (stands-well, moves-...).

 

[Woo482]

Not out of the box, but not yet a no either.

I dont under stand what you are saying in that part of that post

 

[Urwumpe]

I would suggest, you place the solar arrays on the outside of the hab spheres, so they can also double as sun shield (top hemisphere). If you need more power, you could place additional panels somewhere at the base. A good place would be somewhere where astronauts can reach them and replace aged panels. For example the outer rim of the center structure.

 

[Coolhand]

Then, some paintmarks on the base plate. The textures are still bad...
The base plate is supposed to be strong, but light - some kind of plastic plates over a metal framework, with yellow areas reinforced from inside to hold a DG-massed object.
What would that kind of material look like?

i think there's some technology being developed so that you can actually print solar panels onto pretty much anything, so flexibile solar panels for something futuristic like this isn't too much of a stretch to imagine.

as for your landing pads, they'd have some kind of heat resistant coating... perhaps a system of (hexagonal?) ceramic plates, to allow for heat resistance and some flexibility, or a heat resistant metal which might allow for some twisting and bending of the surface under loads.

 

[Linguofreak]

I dont under stand what you are saying in that part of that post

As in, working on it, not sure if it will work out, I think.

 

[ar81]

If a vessel is going to land and fails, it would be awful to have a crash on the platform and endanger the main facilities.
I would put a detachable landing deck under the main platform.
If you have a crash, it should not damage the rest of the base.

Detachable landing pad would have an elevator to lift cargo and a crane in the center hole if cargo is too heavy.

 

[MAPitard]

It looks like fun to land on with the drifting and whatever a floating runway would have.

 

[TSPenguin]

If a vessel is going to land and fails, it would be awful to have a crash on the platform and endanger the main facilities.
I would put a detachable landing deck under the main platform.
If you have a crash, it should not damage the rest of the base.

Detachable landing pad would have an elevator to lift cargo and a crane in the center hole if cargo is too heavy.

How about a net to "catch" the landing ship.
I imagine winds will be very strong and therefor make a pinpoint landing in any case very difficult. The net will enable the pilot to land withing a much greater margin regarding speeds. It would also be easier to build and replace such a net.
It could be attached to a seperate baloon which can be filled according to the weight of the landing ship, so the extra weight will not screw with the station systems.
Once the ship has landed the net system can be towed to the station and attached there. The ship can be transfered to the station itself for unloading.