[Space] 'Space Opera' Setting

[nick012000]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It's also a peculiar question why anything in an atmosphere that's 95% C02 would create gas bubbles of the same thing.

You wouldn't. C goes into making carbon nanotubes; O2 goes into air bubbles. ;)

You wouldn't grow the space elevators; you'd lower them from orbit while extending the counterweight cable, just like any other space elevator. You'd then hook them up to the station on the surface, and have it do a "geostationary" orbit over the station which shifts over the planet (possibly in the opposite direction of the planetary rotation, if that's the way the winds blow).

As for why to do it? "If you build it, they will come." If nothing else, you can build an hotel and do tourism. How many people can say they've visited a floating city? Just imagine the breathtaking view of the acid clouds you'd get from your hotel room. On a good day, you might be able to see the basaltic plains beneath you, and if your gene-engineers are savvy enough, you might be able to create an entire floating ecology in the acid clouds for tourists to wonder over.