Floating city (science fiction)

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In science fiction, floating cities are settlements that strictly use buoyancy to remain in the atmosphere of a planet. However the term generally refers to any city that is flying, hovering, or otherwise suspended in the air via any means technological or even magical.

Buckminster Fuller first proposed the concept for Earth with the Cloud Nine megastructure. He proposed a one mile diameter geodesic sphere that would be heated by sunlight, functioning as a thermal airship. A similar design would permit settlers to live in the upper atmosphere of Venus, where at ground level the temperature is too hot and the atmospheric pressure too great.

Floating cities might also permit settlement of the outer three gas giants, as all the gas giants lack solid surfaces. The main industry of floating cities in gas giants might be to extract Helium-3 or other useful materials from their atmospheres. Jupiter is unacceptable for habitation due to its high gravity, escape velocity and radiation, but the solar system's other gas giants (Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) may be more practical.

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[edit] In Venus

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The easiest planet (other than Earth) to place floating cities at this point would appear to be Venus. Because the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere is significantly denser than air, breathable air (21:79 Oxygen-Nitrogen mixture) is a lifting gas in the dense Venusian atmosphere, with over 60% of the lifting power that helium has on Earth.[1] In effect, a balloon full of human-breathable air would sustain itself and extra weight (such as a colony) in midair. This means that any large structure filled with air would float on the carbon dioxide, with the air's natural buoyancy counteracting the weight of the structure itself.

At an altitude of 50 km above the Venusian surface, the environment is the most Earthlike in the solar system, with a pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0°C-50°C range. Because there is not a significant pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the breathable-air balloon, any rips or tears would cause gases to diffuse at normal atmospheric mixing rates, giving time to repair any such damages. In addition, humans would not require pressurized suits when outside, merely air to breathe and a protection from the acidic rain.

Since such colonies would be viable in current Venusian conditions, this allows a dynamic approach to colonization instead of requiring extensive terraforming measures in advance. The main challenge would be using a substance resistant to sulfuric acid to serve as the structure's outer layer; ceramics or metal sulfates could possibly serve in this role. (The sulfuric acid itself may prove to be the main motivation for creating the structure in the first place, as the acid has proven to be extremely useful for many different purposes.)

[edit] Examples

  • In the Star Trek episode, "The Cloud Minders," Stratos is a fictional floating city on the planet Ardana and ruled by High Advisor Plasus.
  • Airhaven is a floating city in the Mortal Engines Quartet, that, through attaching gas bags, lifted itself into the air to avoid cities trying to eat it according to Municipal Darwinism.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Landis, Geoffrey A. (Feb. 2-6 2003). "Colonization of Venus". Conference on Human Space Exploration, Space Technology & Applications International Forum, Albuquerque NM. 
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