Making Venus livable

[m1omg]

We could probably solve the pressure difficulty if it were not for the temperature difficulty. Venus should be "explored" from the top down. The sulfuric acid clouds are believed to be a source of water and the bottom of clouds are at or near temperatures and pressures commensurate with the Earth's surface. Balloon suspended modules operating just below the clouds with microbes like methanopyrus kandleri and its thermophylic friends, genetically modified to the extent necessary, will begin the automatic terraformation of Venus. We'll work on the H2SO4 clouds with some acidophylic psychrophiles hoping that removing the clouds will help Venus cool off some. Depending on how watered down the H2SO4 is, we may have to import some water to be used as a catalyst in the balloon suspended modules.

Assume that we are being tested by the information managers of the universe to see whether we have noticed how convenient the design of the solar system is for us to learn to become space faring.

You will bake the Venus even more!The clouds are blocking the 70 percent of the sunlight, so the surface recieves only of the 20 percent of the Earth's solar insolation!Thought logically, clouds reflect light and heat, that temperature is caused by the CO2 caused greenhouse effect.

Any good designs for a spacesuits?

[Occam's Shaving Cream]

If you were referring to my post (not sure) the last bit was a humorous touch.

Thanks, I was wondering if it was too subtle.

You can also enjoy the wild untamed Venus from your pressure dome window as such domes would exist for many years while hypothetical simultaneous processes effected changes.

Come on, even a communist* would prefer the luxury liner/casino/hotel/resort/restaurant/funland atmo-ship to a dome surrounded by bone-crushing pressures, toxic atmosphere, etc. You can't even see the sun untill you've thinned out the atmosphere significantly.

It's like prefering a location 1 kilometer underwater in a pitch-black ocean to a spot on ground level with sunlight when colonising a planet.

*don't get political now



EDIT: Ok, a lot of posts suddenly! Ok, so Venus is not as terrible as we think? Would someone in a space suit survive standing on the surface?

[m1omg]

Thanks, I was wondering if it was too subtle.



Come on, even a communist* would prefer the luxury liner/casino/hotel/resort/restaurant/funland atmo-ship to a dome surrounded by bone-crushing pressures, toxic atmosphere, etc. You can't even see the sun untill you've thinned out the atmosphere significantly.

It's like prefering a location 1 kilometer underwater in a pitch-black ocean to a spot on ground level with sunlight when colonising a planet.

*don't get political now



EDIT: Ok, a lot of posts suddenly! Ok, so Venus is not as terrible as we think? Would someone in a space suit survive standing on the surface?

I think that with artifactal biosphere and lighting, the enviroment will be not so horrible, if you create a false greenhouse biosphere...
And you can see the Sun when it is between the clouds.
And my base is utilitarian and don't think I will enyoy (by your qualities, for me, every celestial body is unique and interesting) arthrosis on the Mars or the Moon.I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT VACATON, you will not get as much from the Moon or Mars as from Venus.

[m1omg]

Thanks, I was wondering if it was too subtle.



Come on, even a communist* would prefer the luxury liner/casino/hotel/resort/restaurant/funland atmo-ship to a dome surrounded by bone-crushing pressures, toxic atmosphere, etc. You can't even see the sun untill you've thinned out the atmosphere significantly.

It's like prefering a location 1 kilometer underwater in a pitch-black ocean to a spot on ground level with sunlight when colonising a planet.

*don't get political now



EDIT: Ok, a lot of posts suddenly! Ok, so Venus is not as terrible as we think? Would someone in a space suit survive standing on the surface?

Not with normal space suits, but if made of suitable materials...

[m1omg]

And lige is not only about fun....from what you will build that casino, from moon metal poor rock or from martian ice?

[m1omg]

And I actually would enyoy being on Venus temporarily, because;
-it is different
-it is interesting
I will explore.
And base on non-terraformed Venus is billion times cheaper than terraforming and it will be ready in a few years, not terraforming thousand of years.

[m1omg]

Air castles are beatiful but that will completely elimitanate the purpose of my colony - mining.

[m1omg]

A good artistic image of the surface of Venus;



Yes, it is dark and barren, but no fire lakes or sufluric acid rain/seas or demons or tormented people . It is like overcast day on Earth in the (rocky, volcanic) desert.

[m1omg]

And if the deep sea submarine would get from the 1 km deep water where is the same pressure as on Venus but +85 percent density, then rocket will certainly start from the Venus.

And a colony in the clouds will have problems with 300 km/h winds and long time erosion by H2SO4...

[m1omg]

There is no ACID on the surface, but there are the resources for what we are looking for.

[m1omg]

And unique scientefic observation...if you terraform it you will destry the nature and we will never reveal it's secrets because it all will be uniform - Earth-like.

[Occam's Shaving Cream]

Did anyone see 'The Fifth Element'? I was thinking of Phloston Paradise with the flying luxury liner (which, of course eventually explodes). There is also the game Freelancer (with around 50 explorable solar systems) that also feature a company that offers 'paradise planets' and (orbiting) luxury liners.

But if it's mining you're after, you need a different approach. Who knows, these two factions might one day peacefully coexist on and above Venus

[m1omg]

Did anyone see 'The Fifth Element'? I was thinking of Phloston Paradise with the flying luxury liner (which, of course eventually explodes). There is also the game Freelancer (with around 50 explorable solar systems) that also feature a company that offers 'paradise planets' and (orbiting) luxury liners.

But if it's mining you're after, you need a different approach. Who knows, these two factions might one day peacefully coexist on and above Venus

I think at the first decades mining will be the priority.Bulding paradise ships and terraformed paradise planets are nice, but bohemian luxury.Mining on the other planets, imho will be a necessity in the next decades...Even Iron will be depleted in 2500 and rare metals like gold and copper even in 2020 and 2050, respectively.

Mercury will be a great source of metals, Venus of the same materials as Earth except oil of course, asteroids, if metal rich, will be also useful.Some iron from Mars and some metal and helium 3 from the Moon will be also useful, but outer solar system icy moons of gas planets will be not much useful, except as a source of water for Mercury and Moon colonies.Probably even hydrogen from the gas giants can be mined.

My list of potentional mining colonies in Sol system, arranged from the best to the poorest:
1.Mercury (EXTREME amouts of metals)
2.Venus (metal, minerals)
3.Mars (water, iron, metals, minerals)
4.Moon (some metals,minerals, helium 3 - to fusion reactors)
5.Titan (methane fuel, some water)
4.Gas giants (hydrogen, helium)
6.Metal and mineral rich asteroids
5.Ceres, other asteroids and comets (water) and icy moons (also water)
6.Pluto (too far away to be feasible even in the far future, a bit of methane and water)

The low gravity bodies (asteroids and comets) will be mined invasively using robots, other colonies will have some sciencific/recreational uses except Pluto, because of extremly low gravity and being too far away.

EDIT:A good idea about planets used both ways , because even the recreational colony will need some materials, fuel and water, but also the personell maintaining the surface mining operations needs some vacation...but in the early years of the space colonisation, there will be a rotating crew and they will go to a vacation on Earth.

[m1omg]

Did anyone see 'The Fifth Element'? I was thinking of Phloston Paradise with the flying luxury liner (which, of course eventually explodes). There is also the game Freelancer (with around 50 explorable solar systems) that also feature a company that offers 'paradise planets' and (orbiting) luxury liners.

But if it's mining you're after, you need a different approach. Who knows, these two factions might one day peacefully coexist on and above Venus

Yes, that film was great !And about terraforming, I am not against terraforming but I suppose it will be achieved a long after space colonies and domed cities and we imo must discover all the facts about that planet because otherwise we could miss some interesting things

[m1omg]

Getting the materials to build floating cities onto Venus would require mass transportation of materials through space; i.e., in a practical sense, asteroid mining on a large scale. If we can do that, which would require a signifigant longterm human presence in space (or self-replicating machines) then we'd already have plenty of habitats to choose from. Deciding to live on Venus would be a vanity project of sorts. (Not saying it would be bad, just no major motivation to do it. Although vanity can be a pretty major motivation )

Why not mine that material from Venus .It is like going for oil to Saudi Arabia - when you are 2 meters away from the Kuwait's richest oil field

[m1omg]

Or the air casyles should provide water and oxygen - send some of these to the ground.SYMBIOSIS of a luxus hotel and a mining colony !

[m1omg]

Microbes help terraformnig will be cheap and great..but not possible cos the carbon will burn with the 60 bar oxygen..must first freeze the planet.

[m1omg]

I know this thread is about terraforming, but would a sheltered dome be a better solution for colonisation? Lets say you bring all the materials from Earth, air-drop them on Venus and have robots (that can withstand the heat and pressure) assemble it on the surface. People can them come down in ships/special shuttles to dock with the base without exposing themselves to the atmosphere.

Would that be possible or am I underestimating the conditions?

Quick question here: I just read that Venus has a pressure of 90 Earth atmospheres. Will ships ever be able to take off after landing on Venus? Does a dense atmosphere means it behaves more like water (providing better lift when gaining altitude, like manouvering in water) or is it going to create so much downward force that your ship is stuck on that planet?

You are right.Sheltered domes combined with a floating cities will be the best ways to colonise the Venus imo.Terraforming is long and expansive.

[m1omg]

Venus would likely not sustain a basic two layer zoned atmosphere wherein the upper altitude provided a blanket of breathable oxygen-nitrogen air. A floating city would have to have its own air supply. This would make a floating city (basically a far-flung variant of a gigantic dirigible, though not in the shape of a giant dirigible,) irrelevant. It would be more technologically feasible from an engineering standpoint to then build a gigantic orbiting spacecraft-town but then why have it orbit Venus? Developing technology for a floating city would also be highly problematic. Turbulence in the upper atmosphere of Venus would again make an orbiting spacecraft-community safer, but why bother?

The (strong) domed surface structure is a more interesting idea. But actually, I think a hypothetically transformed Venus might not be absolutely impossible if approached from the standpoint of many combined and simultaneously running technologies. As a simple sketch, just to illustrate:

1. Nanotech and bio-nano-altered CO2 transforming atmospheric implants. (This is not intended to transform Venus, but instead designed as an initial step toward altering the planet from a "Level 1" (present state) to a "Level 2" – still highly toxic but different from previous state.)

2. At the same time, ground implanted systems that receive organic carbon raining toward the hot surface preventing carbon dioxide from being liberated again. (This is the magic part because I have no idea how that could be done.)

3. Simultaneously build very strong domed outposts housing automated systems and later inhabited by people. The structures are designed for research, monitoring and control of the above systems. And simultaneously:

4. The planet is prepared by a very powerful cooling mechanism. This is necessary so that CO2 enters a liquid state. Liquid CO2 must be maintained or aided by some process to remain at a pressure and temperature that tolerates a liquid state all the way to the ground. The construction in solar orbit so that it provides continuous temperature-lowering shade, a series of gigantic interlocking strips of material to block solar heat.

All the coordinated systems are related so as to accommodate emergent modifications, in other words, the phenomenon of the sum of all applied technologies being greater than the individual parts.

5. Massive, planet-wide applications to transform Venus into a dry, warmer Earth-sized world with an unbreathable atmosphere somewhat resembling Mars in its present state.

6. Introduction of water during the above processes. (Don't know how.)

7. Introduction on the surface (which is already inhabited by generations of domed dwellers) hybrid plants and animals to aid gradual transformation toward more Earth-like conditions.

8. Landscape beach resorts and open Venusian Tiki Bars for tourists.

I think this a right way to terraform Venus, but before that we will achieve enough advancement to do that, stick with domed and floating cities.When it will happen, it will be SIMPLY GREAT

[Occam's Shaving Cream]

Or the air casyles should provide water and oxygen - send some of these to the ground.SYMBIOSIS of a luxus hotel and a mining colony !

That seems quite reasonable if you are required to cross more than a dozen million kilometers to reach your job. Wasn't the whole presmisse of the game Unreal Tournament that corporate deathmatches started as a method to keep aggresive colony-miners in check/entertained? I think it's mentioned int the intro. Anyway, that other game I mentioned, Freelancer, has several terrorist/ex-mining factions that like to target corporate and police space stations.

Better keep those miners happy!

[m1omg]

That seems quite reasonable if you are required to cross more than a dozen million kilometers to reach your job. Wasn't the whole presmisse of the game Unreal Tournament that corporate deathmatches started as a method to keep aggresive colony-miners in check/entertained? I think it's mentioned int the intro. Anyway, that other game I mentioned, Freelancer, has several terrorist/ex-mining factions that like to target corporate and police space stations.

Better keep those miners happy!

But they will be fine, and have entraining centre and a domed garden even on the surface, because they will not mine metals with pickaxes but just operature, control and regulate the colony, research, and operate these mining robots.

With the spacesuit required for the movement on wild, untamed Venus, you will not be able to mine with pickaxe .

And; could be diamonds on Venus?There are a lot of volcanos...

[Chip]

...It's like prefering a location 1 kilometer underwater in a pitch-black ocean to a spot on ground level with sunlight when colonising a planet.

Surface of Venus is not "pitch-black".

Venera 13 lander image, 1982

Would someone in a space suit survive standing on the surface?

Not in any space suite design currently available.

[m1omg]

Surface of Venus is not "pitch-black".

Venera 13 lander image, 1982

Not in any space suite design currently available.

Yes, but what about designing some?

[Chip]

I think this a right way to terraform Venus, but before that we will achieve enough advancement to do that, stick with domed and floating cities.When it will happen, it will be SIMPLY GREAT

Thanks for your enthusiasm. Speculation on transforming Venus is highly hypothetical. It is better to try to maintain some connections, however tenuous, to known and applied sciences, engineering and technology of today (though at times speculative).

Trying to speculate on Venus transformation goals using today's technology as a basis is actually much more exciting than simply falling back on simple comic book anecdotes (like floating cities) which actually have less engineering basis than the giant sun shields and surface domes.

[Chip]

For now - the most important thought I can add to this is: the sum of all workable technologies would be greater than the individual parts, and it is the combination of these technologies through stages, to different levels, that in theory might transform Venus from stage to stage.

[HenrikOlsen]

Believer, please note Rule 12 of this forum, which I quote in part below:

Your personal, religious beliefs about the nature of Venus - unless you can support them scientifically - are inappropriate to this forum. Please discontinue making such statements.

OMG.He certainly did not mean that seriouisly.DON'T BULLY PEOPLE!

Accusing a moderator of bullying when he's pointing out inappropriate content in a post is not a good idea.

After reading the posts in this thread it's clear to me that either believer is living up to his/her name and is sincere, in which case the posted content was inappropriate by rule 12, or he/she is deliberately baiting posters here, in which case it's inappropriate by rule 14, disruptive posts.

In neither case is it bullying to point this out.

[Ara Pacis]

LOL, Occam, I was originally going to write "venera incognita" but didn't for some reason. I forgot most of my college latin.

Venus would likely not sustain a basic two layer zoned atmosphere wherein the upper altitude provided a blanket of breathable oxygen-nitrogen air. A floating city would have to have its own air supply. This would make a floating city (basically a far-flung variant of a gigantic dirigible, though not in the shape of a giant dirigible,) irrelevant. It would be more technologically feasible from an engineering standpoint to then build a gigantic orbiting spacecraft-town but then why have it orbit Venus? Developing technology for a floating city would also be highly problematic. Turbulence in the upper atmosphere of Venus would again make an orbiting spacecraft-community safer, but why bother?

The (strong) domed surface structure is a more interesting idea. But actually, I think a hypothetically transformed Venus might not be absolutely impossible if approached from the standpoint of many combined and simultaneously running technologies. As a simple sketch, just to illustrate:

There are similarities between a cloud city and between an orbiting station, but there are also differences. First is gravity. A cloud city would experience natural gravity that is almost the same as earth's, but an orbiting station would be in free fall. An orbiting station might use rotation to mimic gravity, but then it needs to be rather large to create the equivalent usable floor-area of gravity. On top of this, different radii in a rotating station experience different levels of acceleration which would make life and engineering more difficult than in a cloud city that uses standard gravity driven systems. Furthermore, an orbital station would have more difficulty dumping heat, by using radiators or wasteful outgassing, but a cloud city could use simple heat exchangers with the cool atmosphere at their altitude.

Second is insolation. A cloud city can use both direct sunlight and sunlight that is reflected from the clouds, so that it could have PV or thermal power systems on top or bottom or could use terraces for agriculture. However, an orbiting station can only use the sunlight that falls directly on it except when they are in shadow, and the rapid revolution and more rapid rotation of an orbital station makes lighting more dynamic, requiring more frequent adjustment.

Third is atmosphere. A could city is protected from solar and cosmic radiation and most meteors by the atmosphere at altitude, but an orbiting station would need to bring it's own solar shielding and heavy shielding may be worse than none when it comes to cosmic ray cascades. A cloud city would have time to repair a leak because of the similarity is gas densities inside and outside and precautions might require the use of simple respirators. However, a leak in a spaceborne station is a catastrophic emergency that can lead to rapid hypoxia and anoxia and would require an entire pressure suit for survival.

Fourth is resources. A floating city would be able to extract material directly out of the atmosphere and is capable of supporting surface mining operations with relatively straightforward and low energy aerostats and aerodynes (balloons and planes). An orbiting station would not be able to mine anything and transferring material between the surface and orbit would require big rockets. Of course, cloud cities would also need rockets for ascent and perhaps for the initial descent, but once in place they could mine, refine, and manufacture material for their own purposes. Furthermore, cloud cities can create their own rocket fuel in situ, but orbiting stations cannot.

Fifth is safety. As mentioned above the atmosphere provides safety from many space hazards. There might be hazards unique to Venus cloud cities in the form of turblence and volcanic eruptions, but these are analogous to hazards on earth. Mobile cloud cities may be able to avoid volcanoes that are erupting or threatening, and aerostatic or aerodynamic methods may be used to avoid or mitigate turbulences. If required, aircraft could evacuate residents from one cloud city to another one if there was an imminent threat, and this would be simpler in an atmosphere than trying to rendezvous ships and stations in orbit.

All things being equal, or equivalent, a cloud city can do more with less when compared to an orbital station. It requires less volume, less energy, less technological complexity and less mass and can perform tasks that are simply not possible with an orbital station.

As for why even be in the vicinity of Venus, I can imagine many services a floating venus colony could provide. It could be a base for solar observations and maintaining solar satallites which will be critical for warning of solar weather. It could farm food for earth's minions in an environment that is arguably safer than floating farms on earth's oceans or agri-forming currently non-arable land on earth. It could also be a major source of raw life support materials for colonies on the moon, Mars and beyond. It's rapid orbit makes it a better location for staging emergency missions to other space assets that may be on the other side of the sun from the Earth at the time of the emergency.

As for m1omg's ideas, high temperature materials will not make the surface livable. The materials may be useful for robot missions to the surface by humans cannot survive those temperatures. Insulation does not stop heatflow, it mearly slows it down. Even a vacuum shell would warm up via radiation and conductivity through the few hard points you may have. Eventually (probably rapidly), a dome on the surface of venus would be as hot inside as it is outside. Refrigerants won't work because they require moving heat from one location to another, but there is no cooler location to dump the heat when you're on the surface of Venus. This is true of any spacesuit you would try to use. You might be able to get away with modules that cool via offgassing cryogenic liquids, but that would extend your stay for mere hours, or a few days at the most. Therefore you would still need support from other locations, such as floating cities, where you can intermittantly recharge those cryogenic coolant tanks and cool off the pressure vessels used on the surface. Ascent from the surface could probably be performed by using the principle of boyancy (balloons), perhaps filled with the off-gassed coolant.

[Chip]

There are similarities between a cloud city and between an orbiting station, but there are also differences...

Actually, I'm not in favor of a space station or a cloud city, which also requires breathable air that is not present on Venus or at any altitude and must be self-contained. But thanks for your thoughts.

Transforming Venus is not done in a straight line, like pouring algae on the planet and it turns into Earth, but might be achieved rather through a multitude of baby steps with each goal as an end in itself.

1. Cooling and CO2 removal to transform from a hellish nightmare world into a nightmare world.
2. Different tech to transform from a nightmare world into a kind of Earth-sized Mars-like terrestrial world, unlivable without life support.
3. Different tech applied to transforming the terrestrial arid world into a water supporting world.

[Ara Pacis]

Thanks for your enthusiasm. Speculation on transforming Venus is highly hypothetical. It is better to try to maintain some connections, however tenuous, to known and applied sciences, engineering and technology of today (though at times speculative).

Trying to speculate on Venus transformation goals using today's technology as a basis is actually much more exciting than simply falling back on simple comic book anecdotes (like floating cities) which actually have less engineering basis than the giant sun shields and surface domes.

A floating city isn't comic-book fantasizing. It is based on the principles of bouyancy. Humans have been using these princples for thousands of years with regard to liquids and over a hundred years with regard to gases. We've been building large floating structures that are akin to small cities in size and population for over a hundred years. Buckminster Fuller outlined the realistic methodology of building atmospheric floating cities on earth over 50 years ago.

[m1omg]

LOL, Occam, I was originally going to write "venera incognita" but didn't for some reason. I forgot most of my college latin.



There are similarities between a cloud city and between an orbiting station, but there are also differences. First is gravity. A cloud city would experience natural gravity that is almost the same as earth's, but an orbiting station would be in free fall. An orbiting station might use rotation to mimic gravity, but then it needs to be rather large to create the equivalent usable floor-area of gravity. On top of this, different radii in a rotating station experience different levels of acceleration which would make life and engineering more difficult than in a cloud city that uses standard gravity driven systems. Furthermore, an orbital station would have more difficulty dumping heat, by using radiators or wasteful outgassing, but a cloud city could use simple heat exchangers with the cool atmosphere at their altitude.

Second is insolation. A cloud city can use both direct sunlight and sunlight that is reflected from the clouds, so that it could have PV or thermal power systems on top or bottom or could use terraces for agriculture. However, an orbiting station can only use the sunlight that falls directly on it except when they are in shadow, and the rapid revolution and more rapid rotation of an orbital station makes lighting more dynamic, requiring more frequent adjustment.

Third is atmosphere. A could city is protected from solar and cosmic radiation and most meteors by the atmosphere at altitude, but an orbiting station would need to bring it's own solar shielding and heavy shielding may be worse than none when it comes to cosmic ray cascades. A cloud city would have time to repair a leak because of the similarity is gas densities inside and outside and precautions might require the use of simple respirators. However, a leak in a spaceborne station is a catastrophic emergency that can lead to rapid hypoxia and anoxia and would require an entire pressure suit for survival.

Fourth is resources. A floating city would be able to extract material directly out of the atmosphere and is capable of supporting surface mining operations with relatively straightforward and low energy aerostats and aerodynes (balloons and planes). An orbiting station would not be able to mine anything and transferring material between the surface and orbit would require big rockets. Of course, cloud cities would also need rockets for ascent and perhaps for the initial descent, but once in place they could mine, refine, and manufacture material for their own purposes. Furthermore, cloud cities can create their own rocket fuel in situ, but orbiting stations cannot.

Fifth is safety. As mentioned above the atmosphere provides safety from many space hazards. There might be hazards unique to Venus cloud cities in the form of turblence and volcanic eruptions, but these are analogous to hazards on earth. Mobile cloud cities may be able to avoid volcanoes that are erupting or threatening, and aerostatic or aerodynamic methods may be used to avoid or mitigate turbulences. If required, aircraft could evacuate residents from one cloud city to another one if there was an imminent threat, and this would be simpler in an atmosphere than trying to rendezvous ships and stations in orbit.

All things being equal, or equivalent, a cloud city can do more with less when compared to an orbital station. It requires less volume, less energy, less technological complexity and less mass and can perform tasks that are simply not possible with an orbital station.

As for why even be in the vicinity of Venus, I can imagine many services a floating venus colony could provide. It could be a base for solar observations and maintaining solar satallites which will be critical for warning of solar weather. It could farm food for earth's minions in an environment that is arguably safer than floating farms on earth's oceans or agri-forming currently non-arable land on earth. It could also be a major source of raw life support materials for colonies on the moon, Mars and beyond. It's rapid orbit makes it a better location for staging emergency missions to other space assets that may be on the other side of the sun from the Earth at the time of the emergency.

As for m1omg's ideas, high temperature materials will not make the surface livable. The materials may be useful for robot missions to the surface by humans cannot survive those temperatures. Insulation does not stop heatflow, it mearly slows it down. Even a vacuum shell would warm up via radiation and conductivity through the few hard points you may have. Eventually (probably rapidly), a dome on the surface of venus would be as hot inside as it is outside. Refrigerants won't work because they require moving heat from one location to another, but there is no cooler location to dump the heat when you're on the surface of Venus. This is true of any spacesuit you would try to use. You might be able to get away with modules that cool via offgassing cryogenic liquids, but that would extend your stay for mere hours, or a few days at the most. Therefore you would still need support from other locations, such as floating cities, where you can intermittantly recharge those cryogenic coolant tanks and cool off the pressure vessels used on the surface. Ascent from the surface could probably be performed by using the principle of boyancy (balloons), perhaps filled with the off-gassed coolant.

Vacuum flask painted pure white, with an inner dome painted white, covered by the aerogel should cool it, at least it will reduce the need for a cyogen.