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t1_j8qi4t7 wrote

Yeah but you can already easily extract a lot of useful things from the dense atmosphere like carbon, nitrogen, sulfur that is useful in agriculture to sustain population.

Also, the surface environment is hellish, but it can be withstand with more robust engineering that are designed to withstand heat and pressure like from deep sea and deep earth environment compare to lightweight probes full of sensitive electronics. For example mechanical tethers and drill could be dropped from baloon high above to anchor and extract resources. It will be a monumental feat of engineering, but nothing that would be impossible to overcome with near future technology.

Perhaps the biggest problem with Venus colonisation is that it might not be viable economically. Compare to the readily available Helium -3 on the moon or the vast amount of ore and other resources on Mars that are easily accessible on the surface, Venus don't have much that is going to excite investors to dump trillions upon trillions on it. Maybe if we were able to discover something really interesting there, like remnant of a civilization or something, then there would be interest. Otherwise it will probably be at most a research base to utilize the venus environment to test technology.

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