alt Hacker News"Even the gravity on Venus (0.91g) is homelike, which means that airship habitats, sensors, smoke detectors, toilets, and all the rest can be developed on Earth instead of forcing us to build a space station that can simulate Martian gravity."
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Imagine living on an airship high above the Earth, with the hard rule that you can never land. You must be entirely self-sufficient save for a tiny amount of material delivered infrequently. Now imagine trying to land on that airship from orbit or get back into orbit (and beyond) from that airship. None of this is easy here on Earth.
A mission that merely orbited Venus and returned without attempting to muck about with airships might be an intermediate step on the way to Mars. Trying to get closer to the surface than orbit would make things a lot harder.
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> Now imagine trying to land on that airship from orbit or get back into orbit (and beyond) from that airship. None of this is easy here on Earth.
Also, if anything goes wrong on Earth and you're in the atmosphere, there's still a chance you might soar to lower altitudes, eject, parachute, and get rescued. On Venus it's a death sentence.
> A mission that merely orbited Venus and returned without attempting to muck about with airships might be an intermediate step on the way to Mars.
I think that's exactly what the article is arguing for. The part about manned airships is just a whimsical aside to the much safer, entirely feasible, and nearly as scientifically valuable prospect of using unmanned balloons.