Fifty kilometres above Venus, pressure and temperature become surprisingly Earth-like and ordinary breathable air could keep a habitat afloat, but living there would mean building a sealed world inside sulphuric-acid clouds

Fifty kilometres above Venus, pressure and temperature become surprisingly Earth-like and ordinary breathable air could keep a habitat afloat, but living there would mean building a sealed world inside sulphuric-acid clouds

Venus is usually presented as the planet we could never live on, and for good reason. Its surface sits at about 467 degrees Celsius under pressure roughly 93 times that at sea level on Earth. As I wrote recently when looking at how Earth’s near-twin became so hostile, the ground is a terrible place for both people and machines. But the ground is not the only possible address on Venus. Climb to roughly 50 kilometres above the surface and the pres…