Venus

                                                  Building the Surreal Estates of Venus
                                                                               by Dave Dietzler
                                                with special thanks to Peter Kokh for all his brainstorming



                                                                Step One: Conquering the Moon
     On the path to Venus we must begin with the Moon. Materials from the Moon launched by mass driver at 1/22 the energy cost of upporting from Earth is the key to all the worlds of the solar system. To conquer the Moon we will need a heavy lifter. I suggest a Shuttle Derived Vehicle using the low mass lithium/aluminum external tank, two to four boosters using a kerosene/LOX monopropellant like that developed by Wickman fed by pressure, an aerospike main engine module and a cargo module that can carry 80 to 120 tons to LEO. The ET will be used in space for space stations, spaceship hulls, storage tanks, surface habitat, scrap metal and perhaps fuel when ground up, mixed with LOX rocketed up to LEO to form a monopropellant like that pioneered by Wickman and burned in a rocket engine for high thrust rapid acceleration through the VABs of manned spacecraft. Cargos will go to lunar orbit or a Lagrange point by slow ion drive freighters. The boosters will be very simple and thus cheap and reliable with one tank, one motor and no turbopumps thanks to pressure feed. They will parachute back and be recovered from the sea. The LH2/LOX burning aerospike main engine will yield maximum performance at all altitudes and will use thrust modulation for steering. It will have a heat shield and parachutes for return to Earth and reuse. The cargo module will be cannibalized in space for the valuable plastics, composites and fiberglass it is made of because these will be so useful on the Moon where H, C, and N for plastics are so rare.

     The Moon will be mined for helium 3 in mid century for fusion reactor fuel. Metals from the Moon like aluminum, magnesium, titanium and silicon will be used for solar power satellite construction. Lunar materials will also be used to build O'Neill colonies or Space Oases to house workforces in space. Large universities will build observatories on the Moon and orbital research labs from ETs and lunar materials. Fuel from the Moon will be used to boost large satellites from LEO to GEO. These satellites will allow improved defense surveillance and communication in a future where terrorism and nuclear proliferation must be suppressed and there may even be ABM lasers built by growing giant laser crystals in micro-gravity that are pumped with the flash of light from a small atomic warhead, better TV broadcasting to receivers with cheap antennas instead of bulky dishes, global cell phone service, global wireless internet service, improved search and rescue, higher resolution weather data gathering for better supercomputer models of Earth's climate, improved resource monitoring, and even law enforcement. There will be orbital manufacturing labs and missions to Mars will be propelled by lunar fuels. Tourism will be the icing on the cake after decades of development on the Moon.

     Humans will not travel by SDV HLLVs. They will reach LEO aboard 1.5 stage VTOVLs (Vertical Take Off and Vertical Landing rockets) or two stage "piggy back" HOTOLs (Horizontal Take Off and Landing space planes using a combination of jet and rocket engines). Orbital tourism will supply the launch rate needed to make these vehicles profitable. Space hotels will be made of ETs at first and from lunar materials later on.





                                                                 Veneran Sky Cities (Aerostat-Xities)

     Floating aerostat-xities in the sky of Venus will make that hellish planet attractive again. These floating islands in the oceanic atmosphere of Venus will be made of lightweight plastics like PBO which has 700,000 psi tensile strength versus 240,000 psi for the strongest steel and can withstand temperatures of 300-400 C. ( about 500-700 F.). They will also make use of glass-glass composites, silicones, graphite-epoxy composites that are lighter than magnesium and stronger than steel, plastics like aramid and kapton and magnesium alloys. The PBO balloons will be filled with hydrogen and possibly other gases. The xities will float at an altitude of 50 km where pressure is 1 atm. and temperatures are about 150 to 170 F.

     About as much light as reaches the surface of the Earth will penetrate to this altitude from the brighter nearer Sun. Fantastic views of the land below and the hazy clouds above will be had. Domes filled with O2/N2 (normal air at 1 atm) will contain palms, yuccas, bamboo, fruit trees, pineapples, potato gardens, spice gardens, perhaps beehives, fish filled lagoons and more. Each dome will enclose several acres like Biosphere II. There will be decks beneath the domes where suites of cabins with panoramic windows and observation lounges allow views of the fantastic landscape below. There will be Japanese restaurants with real paper walls. Rice and hemp grown in the domes will provide real paper. In the domes there will be bamboo and thatch huts and bamboo privacy fences for couples enjoying the Sun. During the four day drift around the planet with the 350 kph (220 mph) winds at high altitude the domes will be darkened by liquid crystals or venetian blinds to simulate a normal 24 hour day/night cycle. During night side passage they will be illuminated by sulfur plasma lamps and/or red and blue LEDs that bathe the domes in what is perceived by the human eye as a purple glow. This will be most exotic.

     Veneran materials will be used extensively. Hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur will be extracted from the air de Venus. Mining robots and refineries on the surface will provide silicon for silicones and magnesium. Since Venus is volcanic and there is sulfur in the "air" there may be chalcophile elements like copper, zinc and lead belched up by the fiery mountains.






                                                                           How to Do Venus

     Lunar materials (silicon, oxygen, steel, titanium, magnesium) and martian materials (carbon for graphite composites; hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen for plastics) will be used to make the initial construction platforms, mining robots, refineries, space station modules, powerplants, Veneran space planes and accessory equipment as well as supply food and water to the Venus crews. All this will be sailed down to Veneran orbit by mag-sail and solar sail combos rather than incur the expense of rockets and rocket fuel. Humans will travel down to Venus in Mars Clippers, ships made of ETs, with low mass vapor core reactors and magnesium ion drives. The Mars Clippers, in this case Venus clippers, will use Al/LUNOX boosters to leave L1 with a flying start and swing by Earth for a gravity assist. They will then run their ion drives for weeks to increase speed. Reaction mass for return to Earth will come from the Moon and be sailed down to Venus. Since Venus is revolving around the Sun faster than Earth it will take less delta V to return or the ships can fly home faster.

ABOVE) A Mars/Venus clipper with centrifuges for the crew. The 1 RPM rule is incorrect, nonetheless they will only rotate fast enough to generate 1/6 G.

     Humans will reside in LVO (Low Venus Orbit) space stations and teleoperate robots below in real time with the aid of constellations of LVO communication satellite links that were part of earlier research programs involving armadas of balloon borne probes that studied the winds and weather of Venus. There will also be GPS satellites in Veneran orbit. Aerial construction platforms will be deorbited with retro rockets and they will be protected from re-entry heat by carbon fiber low mass inflatable aero chutes that slow them down while passing through the thinnest upper reaches of the atmosphere before encountering intense friction with denser layers. Parachutes will be deployed and the automated and teleoperated construction platforms will float free with their balloons when going slow enough and at the right altitude. Since it won't be necessary to view Venus's surface from these they will float and 60-70 km. where the "air" is cooler. The parachutes and aero chutes will be reeled in for reuse in the future. They are too valuable to waste. The platforms will drop hoses that are 40 km long to siphon up hot Veneran gases which will heat up steam to run turbogenerators. The steam will be condensed in radiators at higher cooler altitude to be cycled through the heat exchangers and pick up more thermal energy. This is like OTEC in reverse. It will take less energy to pump up the hot gas than is contained in the heat of the gas so net power will be produced. The gas will then be condensed and CO2, N2, SO2, H2O, H2SO4, HCl, HFl, and other gases will be separated by fractional liquefaction in expansion refrigeration machines similar to liquid air machines. At high altitude pressure is low enough for these machines to work. The gases will then be decomposed through various processes to get H, C, N, O, S, Cl and Fl. Excess CO2 will be dumped. These elements will be combined to make plastics like PBO and Kevlar and graphite composites. Robots will assemble various parts to make domed xity units the balloons of which will be filled with hydrogen or carbon monoxide and allowed to float free when complete. The units will be tethered to the construction platform and later connected with flexible PBO tunnels. Human crews will then descend to the xities and conduct operations like planting, gardening, completing interiors, etc. A cluster of xity units will emerge that are integrated with the construction platform and its power plant. The first big Xity will be a factory town where work is done to expand industry and habitations on Venus. More construction platforms will be built and more xities in the sky will appear.





                                                                               Surface Mining

There are no dinosaurs on Venus, but there will be robot monsters and brontosaurus like like steam shovels digging on the surface. They and a refinery will be "dropped in" like the platform and use aero chutes then parachutes to touch down softly. The valuable chutes will be reeled in and stored. These robots will be made of tungsten steel which is hard at red heat, ceramics, cermets and glass-glass composites all coated with silicones that protect the metals from the acidic atmosphere of Venus. Wiring and electrical devices will be well insulated from the heat. Even at night it will be hot on Venus as the thick air conducts heat well from the day side and winds keep the hot gases mixed. Thermal power for the floating construction platforms will be available even at night when the winds carry them around to the unilluminated side of Venus. The teleoperated mining robots will dig into the basaltic lava plains of Venus and deliver material to the refinery that extracts silicon and magnesium and perhaps titanium. Dirigibles will dangle tethers to the surface rather than brave the heat and hoist up loads of silicon and magnesium. These will be transported to the aerial construction platform where silicon will be used to make silicones when combined with H, C, O, and possibly N. This chemical magic will require chlorine which is present in the form of HCl. Lightweight metal parts will be made of magnesium. If alloyed with small amounts of zirconium, rare earths and thorium this metal becomes heat resistant. It may be necessary to import these alloying ingredients from the Moon where REEs and thorium are present in KREEP and zirconium is present in the soil. Silica, SiO2, will also be acquired and used to make glass-glass composites at the construction platform.

     Power for the robots cannot come from nuclear reactors because it is too hot on the surface for reject heat radiators. It is conceivable that the refinery powerplant could be nuclear and use high altitude balloon kite borne radiators to obtain coolant. This could charge up batteries in the mining robots. Perhaps the mining 'bots will be powered by jet turbines to drive mechanical systems and generators, and these turbines will burn magnesium powder fed with CO2 carrier gas into them which can burn with CO2 from the atmosphere. Wickman has developed jet engines for use on Mars where CO2 is a lot less dense that burn magnesium powder. The metallic dinosaurs could derive immense power from these turbines to do heavy digging. The initial magnesium powder fuel will be stored on the 'bots. The refinery will supply more fuel.

                                                                         Mineral Processing

     Since basaltic lava is mostly olivine (Fe,Mg)2SiO4 and pyroxene Ca(Fe,Mg)2Si2O6 and probably some ilmenite FeTiO3 with some chromite FeCr2O4 and plagioclase CaAl2Si2O8 it will be possible to mine plenty of magnesium for fuel. The thick atmosphere is 97% CO2 so there is plenty of that. The refinery could be powered by heating steam with 900 F. Veneran air to drive turbines and turbogenerators that is cooled by gas pumped down from high altitudes. A balloon and 50 km hose would make a terrible tail for a robotic dinosaur but for a stationary refinery it makes no difference. Eventually it will be possible to drill into the crust of Venus in volcanic regions and obtain geothermal energy in greater quantities than is derived from the atmosphere, but this is a long range scheme as drilling through rock is a big job.

      At the refinery, rock will be crushed up in mills, the iron bearing material separated with magnets, and the silicon and magnesium bearing fraction dumped in a magma electrolysis furnace. Magnesium will boil out at 1120 C while the magma is at 1200-1400 C or hotter and be condensed. A divider will separate oxygen by electrolysis from magnesium vapor, otherwise they will mix and ignite. Lots of magnesium for fuel could be produced this way. Silicon mixed with some calcium and aluminum oxide from the plagioclase and pyroxene will pour out through taps. Treatment of this with HFl or carbochlorination using native Veneran HFl, HCl and carbon could be used to generate SiFl4 or SiCl4 gases that could be decomposed easily to get pure silicon for silicones and solar power panels. It will also be possible to leach the non-magnetic olivine and pyroxene with sulfuric acid condensed from the atmosphere. This will yeild silica, calcium sulfate, magnesium sulfate, aluminum sulfate from the plagioclase content and water. The insoluble silica and CaSO4 can just be filtered out. The MgSO4 and Al2(SO4)3 solution could be boiled down, the water condensed with cool gas from the kite above, and saved. These sulfate salts could be calcined to MgO and Al2O3 and combined with the SiO2 and CaSO4 mixture in the desired proportions, melted in an electric furnace that decomposes the CaSO4 to CaO, and the result is aluminosilicate glass that might be used for glass-glass composites. If pure beds of olivine can be found these could be mined, iron separated magnetically, and the Mg2SiO4 could be leached in sulfuric acid to get silica, MgSO4 and water. The silica could simply be filtered out and it could even be deoxidized by the FFC process to get pure silicon. The MgSO4 solution could be boiled to recover water. The MgSO4 could be decomposed with heat to MgO and this could be used for ceramics. It could also be reduced with heat and pure silicon to get more magnesium metal which boils off and is condensed and silica that forms by reaction. If the lavas of Venus contain enough illmenite we can use hydrogen reduction and the FFC process to get titanium metal which is 2/3 as heavy as steel but just as strong for high stress applications like pins that won't shear. We could build more robots perhaps from titanium and steel made by combining iron with carbon from the air. It will be possible to replicate the robots. This work on complex machines might have to be done at aerial sites so dirigibles will haul heavy loads up and manned crews could do the welding and machining, then the monsters could be parachuted to the surface. These are just the basics of material processing. Details will be ironed out in the future.

                                                                     Advanced Activities

     The original equipment-space station, aerial construction platform, mining robots, refinery with powerplant, dirigibles and related gear will multiply on Venus. Large xities will emerge consisting of clusters of domes supported by toroidal balloons connected by tunnels. There will also be flat tops on pontoon balloons where aircraft and atomic Venus shuttles land. A time will come when Venus is visited by large numbers of people and the old clippers can't handle them all. Large interplanetary liners that use sails and mass drivers will haul thousands of people to and from Venus at a time. These vessels will need some reaction mass for their mass drivers. Sails accelerate slowly but top out at high speed. The liners will use high thrust mass drivers to reach escape velocity and get going. They will also need rocket thruster and fuel for maneuvering. To solve this logistical dilemma it might be possible to pump up CO2 from Venus's atmosphere with skyhooks. Conventional wisdom suggests that small asteroids will be diverted into orbit around Venus and she will have moonlets like Mars.

     Diverting asteroids into orbit around Earth for construction material and rocket fuel has been discussed for decades. This is not wise. The risks are too high. A mechanical, electronic or software malfunction could lead to collision with Earth and an impact event that causes mass extinction. It seems this is not a problem with uninhabited Venus. Two asteroids that might be candidates for moonlets of Venus are 2100 Ra-shalom, a body that might be of cometary origin that orbits between 70 million and 180 million kilometers from the Sun. Ra-shalom is about three kilometers in diameter, thus it contains billions of tons of material. The Apollo asteroid 2060 Aten which orbits between 118 and 171 million kilometers from the Sun is another. Aten is 1.3 km. wide. More asteroids that might be diverted into Venusian orbit are certain to exist since there are so many Apollo-Amor asteroids. Gravitational peturbance by the Sun might destabilize the orbits of these moonlets and cause them to drift away from or fall into Venus, but this might take centuries, even millenia, and mass drivers on the moonlets could keep them on station. Locating them at Venus-Sun L1 and L2 is also possible. These 'oids will be mined and crushed rock or pellets will be used for reaction mass. Any old material will do. Space Oases could also be built in orbit around Venus to serve as interplanetary terminals where passengers transfer from liner to shuttles. Those who are too afraid of heights to visit the Aero-Xities will just stay at the Oases.

      An errant asteroid impact would create tidal waves of pressure in Venus's atmosphere that wreak havoc with the Xities far worse than any storm or rare lighting bolts. Wise planners will locate asteroids around Venus before starting work there. Orbiting asteroids could provide fuel for space liners. Let's say that the big liners need a delta V of 3 kps to reach escape from LVO and then the sails take over. If we conjecture that the liners amass 10,000 tons and carry 2500 people, and their mass drivers have an exhaust velocity of 20 kps, by using the rocket equation we find that each one needs 1618 tons of reaction mass. If we continue to speculate wildly and imagine 5000 ships to Venus every year, enough to allow over 900 million visitors to Venus over the course of a 75 year lifetime (that's generous enough to our future space travelers), we find that 8,090,000 tons of reaction mass is needed annually. An odd shaped asteroid about 3km long, 2 km wide and 1 km thick with a density of 2.5 contains 15 billion tons of material! That's enough for 1850 years at this rate of traffic. Talk about abundance. The energy required to move 15 billion tons of mass through a delta V of perhaps 4 kps (just an estimate) is equal to the energy of 29,000 megatons of nuclear bombs! A 1000 megawatt powerplant would need 3800 years to deliver this much power!   There are other ways to nudge asteroids. Large magnetic sails, hundreds even thousands of kilometers in diameter, anchored to an asteroid could produce constant low thrust for years without expending any propellant.

     We might go fishing for smaller asteroids, boulders or astro chunks, and propell them to Veneran orbit. Another way might be to mine on Mercury, use mass drivers to orbit the material, and use sail powered freighters to haul only the needed amounts of material to Venus. We could even deliver enough material to build large space stations. We don't really need giant Space Oases in Veneran orbit. Some "Big Wheel" stations like those of Von Braun or from the movie "2001" would suffice as interplanetary space terminals and hotels for those who would rather view Venus from great heights through sunglasses rather than visit the Aero-Xities or do anything as crazy as go sky diving there! Not everybody is cut out for extreme recreation. The mines and refineries on Mercury would produce and ship only the necessary metals for building the space stations. We might send loads of plain old Mecurian regolith for shielding or the space stations might have magnetic shields that require far less mass than a passive shield of solid material. The mass drivers on the big liners might require pellets of magnetic material. Rotary mass drivers could sling pellets of any old material, but some kind of linear mass driver that uses the expansion of magnetic fields might demand pellets with a high iron content.

     Then there's the possibility that mass drivers leave much to be desired. Can we really get 20 kps exhaust velocities from them? Do we want 5000 ships a year ejecting swarms of pellets near Venus? Could this present navigational hazards over the long run? Might we do better with gas core nuclear thermal rocket engines and hydrogen? Hydrogen could come from mines on carbonaceous asteroids and this would involve less transport cost than trying to push whole asteroids through space. We might even consider Mars as a source of hydrogen since there is plenty of ice there and mass drivers on Pavonis Mons could shoot tanks of LH2 into space to be loaded on sailing freighters. The first freighters from Mars might take awhile to get to Venus, but once a string of them are on their way a "pipeline" would be established and the supply would be constant. Tourist cash from space lines selling trips to exotic Venus could flow to Mars and back to Earth for items that aren't easily made there. Mars will regularly be in a good position for the freighters unlike asteroids that travel on wild elliptical orbits around the Sun and don't have the advantages of decent gravity and an atmosphere for mining crews. Asteroid miners would be dangerously isolated. Mars miners would have options. Asteroid mining is a job best suited for AI robots. We must also wonder about Deimos and Phobos. These seem to be carbonaceous and might contain enormous stocks of water already in space just waiting to be mined. The ice moons of Jupiter might be even better sources of hydrogen. Atomic rockoons made of plastics and graphite for high mass ratio might ship CO2, SO2 and N to LVO and these could be combined with imported hydrogen to make plastic and graphite space stations while the oxygen is used by LANTRs.

       Critical technological breakthroughs might change the picture entirely. Carbon nanotube materials might be used instead of plastics and magnesium. I envision advanced sail technologies. We may also see high thrust ion drives that use abundant magnesium which is easily vaporized at 1120 C. for reaction mass. The vapor core reactor being researched at the University of Florida has an amazing specific power density of better than one kilowatt per kilogram. Such a powerplant could make high thrust ion drives a reality. Ion drives themselves are not too massive, but their powerplants are because they require so much energy to develop high exhaust velocities given that the energy of the exhaust increases with the square of its velocity. A gas core nuclear thermal rocket might get a space liner up to speed in hours or just minutes. A high thrust ion drive, compared to today's ion drives, might take a couple of days or weeks to get a liner on its way and continue to add thrust while the sails are catching pressure from the Sun. This should be sufficient for time pressed travelers of tomorrow and companies that want to improve their bottom line buy getting as many flights as they can out of a ship they have gone deeply into debt to finance. If vapor core reactors and magnesium vapor ion drives prove to be one of the propulsion systems of the future we could mine all the magnesium we need on Mercury. Another possibility is the use of beam riders. Large microwave beaming stations in Veneran orbit or at Venus-Sun Lagrange points could use solar power and fire opposing beams that don't push them off station. These beams could provide thrust to the sails of large interplanetary liners. Since the beaming stations don't have to go anywhere, they could be of immense size and power. Mass beams could be used to apply thrust to the magnetic sails anchored to asteroids.

   A solar shield about 10,000 miles wide could be built at the Venus-Sun L1 point to reduce solar intensity by about half, roughly equal to the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth. This might cool Venus down to about 250 F., about the same as lunar dayside temperatures and make her surface far less hostile. High altitude would still be nice and cool. Perhaps a giant solar shield should be built before constructing floating cities on Venus. This would certainly be safer than hovering above a 900 F. inferno and robots on the surface would survive longer.





                                                                             Venus Shuttles

We will need space shuttles to fly to and from Veneran orbit.   Two stage "piggyback" jet atomic and atomic rocket hybrid spaceplanes that use Veneran air for jet thrust and liquid CO2 for rocket thrust will do the job. They will take off with a little rocket power to reach ram jet operating speed and then use "air" breathing jet atomic engines to reach the upper reaches of the atmosphere. The flyback booster will run its atomic rocket engine for awhile and then the orbiter carrying the passengers will separate and fire its rocket engines and climb to LVO, a task almost as difficult as reaching LEO from Earth since Venus has 91% as much gravity as Earth. Liquid CO2 will be used for rocket propellant but this is a low performance working fluid that yields about 3 kps. Thus the need for a two stage rocket. Fortunately, LCO2 is very dense at 1.54 g/cc versus LH2, the best working fluid in a nuclear thermal rocket, at 0.07 g/cc. This will allow a smaller fuel tank and a high mass ratio. The Venus shuttles will be made of the most sophisticated composites and lightweight metals. The orbiters will be capable of powered landings. The planes will have unlimited jet range as long as their uranium generates heat, so they will be able to leave a xity and fly thousands of miles to the equator and then climb to LVO and meet up with space stations in equatorial orbits. They could also fly up to space stations in inclined orbits. The orbiters will not use heavy glued on ceramics for heat shielding. They will use nickel-chromium shingles with dynaflex and glass rock insulation bolted to the frame. It will be possible to haul the orbiters to LVO from the Earth orbital factories where they are made of lunar materials and let them re-enter. The boosters won't have as much thermal protection so they will be equipped with carbon fiber aero chutes and dropped in at first. Once they are in operation on Venus the boosters will just make sub-orbital flights and not endure full speed re-entry heat.

     The first few Venus Shuttles will come from Earth orbital factories and be made of lunar materials. This won't be a heavy drain on sparse lunar hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and rare metal sources. Any silicon and oxygen for silicones will be plentiful and uranium will be available on the Moon. Once industry is established on Venus the shuttles will be made there from local resources of H, C, N, etc. although some rare metals might have to be imported. We don't know how rich Venus is in nickel, chromium, lithium, beryllium, aluminum, copper and other metals, but it is a big planet almost as large as Earth. There seem to be continental regions and dry ocean basins indicating tectonic activity and it may have had oceans once. Venus is still shrouded in mystery. As future space travelers gaze upon the rugged surface of Venus from Xity windows and from low flying dirigibles or watch her clouds through sunglasses from orbital stations above and marvel at her in various phases, she will become more and more familiar to humans who once thought that Earth's sister planet was hopelessly uninhabitable.

excellent page: Rehabilitating Venus as a Human Destination

Lost Dreams of Venus Within the domes there will be life! Photos by Tim Hamilton www.geocities.com/bestrated1

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long ,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1798

Several designs for balloon borne platforms. These could be used for aircraft landing decks. Drawing by Peter Kokh.

A domed Aero-Xity with toroidal balloons by Peter Kokh. Note the aircraft landing decks suspended beneath and the central tube that taps hot gas from lower altitudes for thermal power.

Domed Xities could be linked by tunnels of flexible, elastic high tensile strength material like PBO which is stronger than steel. The clusters will have enough flexibility to remain strong in Veneran storms and high winds without breaking up like stiff structures. Aircraft can dock at Xities. Dirigibles with solar powered electric motored propellers will be popular for tours at lower altitude closer to the surface and for "xity hopping." Aero-Xity clusters will have everything from hotels, restaurants, shopping malls where designer glasses and shoes are sold, tropical gardens, swimming pools, farms, pleasure gardens, museums, suites with panoramic windows and fantastic views, fishing lagoons, semi-arid domes, casinos, bars, dance halls, tennis courts, etc. Variety, the spice of Veneran life!
Drawing by Dave Dietzler