[ncmncm]

All the settlements on Antarctica are utterly dependent on enormous support frequently airlifted from outside. There have been no settlements underwater at all; little more than camping trips have been essayed.

On Venus, plastics, carbon fiber, water, buoyancy gas, and breathing air (I repeat myself) can be made directly from the air and clouds. Plastic and carbon fiber gives you building materials. Robots can gather minerals from the surface and deliver them by balloon to the cloud tops. Insolation provides abundant power, moreso than here; or, a lightweight, unshielded nuke plant may be suspended a mile or more below industrial plant, supported on its own balloon.

Mars will be much more unpleasant than Antarctica. We don't even know whether people can live for long in Mars gravity. We know that long weightlessness is quite harmful.

[ben_w]

If you’re going to use that standard against nuclear submarines and deep-sea oil drilling, it is unreasonable to also say we can make those things from Venusian air. Yes, in a lab, sure — that’s proof of concept, far less than a camping trip, and roughly the same level as extraction of oxygen from rocks.