badspacecomics

No body, no problem!

Published: May 16th 2022, 9:02:03 am

Hi team!
Here’s some used and unused art from my Venus comic - and also the first draft of my script, which is pretty creaky, but for those of you interested in my process, hopefully interesting! 

It also provides a bit of back-story as why anyone would do this to themselves - something I ditched in the final script. 

Other names for this comic included (sigh):

Head in the clouds
and
A Head for Heights

I'm not proud. 

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NOTES:
It was quite difficult finding plausible plans for landing and returning from Venus. Unlike Mars, there isn't much in the way of plans out there, or even speculation. I watched this BBC series a few years ago, which had a go at it, and was lots of fun, but clearly got some stuff wrong. The major being that their return rocket would surely need to be as large as an equivalent Earth rocket - given both planets have similar gravity. 

But actually it turned out you'd need an even bigger rocket on Venus, with more fuel and complexity, because it would be like launching from the bottom of the ocean (assuming the bottom of the ocean was twice as hot as an oven). Traditional rocket engines apparently wouldn't work in that atmosphere anyway. 

One last rabbit hole I went down, and perhaps the basis for a future comic - was how Venus is both one of the least hospitable planets in the solar system - and also the most! 

50kms up from the hellish surface, the temperature is shirtsleeve, and you could survive without a spacesuit. You’d need an air mask, and coverings to protect you from the acid rain, but that’s all. So a science base in the clouds of Venus (in blimps), might actually be easier than a base on Mars. 

Incredibly, there are plans for terraforming Venus as well. But as hard as that would be on Mars, on Venus it sounds frankly unbelievable! This Kurzgesagt vid is a fun watch, if you’re interested.