Food: Surviving on Venus

Growing food in hydroponic systems as well as how to obtain the needed nutrients.

I’ve previously made the case for Venus colonization. I thought I’d write some more in depth articles on the different aspects of colonizing Venus, starting with how colonists would feed themselves. Next story is on manufacturing and construction.

To be honest my original interest in this was from the perspective of writing fiction. Andy Weir, wrote the amazing book, the Martian, which got turned into an almost equally great movie by Ridley Scott. In it our hero Mark Watney, who has stranded on Mars has to survive by growing potatoes in Martian soil.

This got me thinking: What would a stranded astronaut on Venus do. As in my original article, we assume the astronaut would be located above the Venus cloud tops in an airship, some 50–70 km above the surface, where temperature and pressure is earth-like.

Plants grown hydroponically. The usage of artificial light above each plant allows one to reduce area required as plants can be grown in stacks.

At this location there is no access to any soil as on Mars, so we have to grow without soil. That is actually perfectly possible. It is referred to as hydroponics, which means nutrients are dissolved in water and the roots of the plants are exposed to this water. This can happen in many different ways. Either the water is run past the roots or one uses aeroponics, meaning a mist of nutrient…