Fuller-9 Aerostat Habitat
Fuller-9 aerostat habitat floating in the Venus atmosphere
My main Spacing Girls characters Hedda, Fleur, and Adriana are all from an aerostat habitat called Fuller-9 floating 56 kilometers above the Venus planetary surface. At this altitude, the temperature is similar to the Mediterranean on Earth and the air pressure is similar to Earth.
While it looks like the habitat is a solid metal structure, it is actually made of a super thin rigid shell made of carbon nano tubes and carbon fiber composite. Most of the interior is empty, containing various ballonets filled with different gases.
The usage of ballonets is how airships can control altitude. Think about how a submarine controls depth in water. It sucks water in to sink and blows water out to raise its altitude (approach the surface). Likewise, an aerostat habitat can lower its altitude by sucking in the surrounding atmosphere. This is done by shrinking ballonets.
Many of the ballonets contain ammonia gas, NH3, which can easily be compressed and stored in liquid form in tanks. Thus, ammonia ballonets can be shrunk by storing ammonia in tanks to lower altitude. Altitude can be increased again by filling ballonets with ammonia.
Regular breathable air is actually a lifting gas on Venus because the atmosphere is made of dense CO2. Thus, a large section of Fuller-9 contains air with same composition as on Earth. This is where people live. The ammonia ballonets exist to allow regulating altitude, as well as being used as energy storage and fuel. Ammonia can burned but Fuller-9 uses Ammonia fuel cells for electricity production.
Venus has four times the solar radiation of the Earth, so solar panels are very effective. That is how power is produced for the aerostat habitat.
Fuller-9 has numerous large electric motors power propellers to move the habitat. However a lot of transportation can be done by picking the right altitude and go with the airflows that blow in different directions at different altitudes. Movement is required because Venus has serious storms which must be avoided.
Krechet-4 is the habitat competing with Fuller-9 to be the more important one on Venus.
Povel Vieregg
