[ryandvm]

Totally unrelated, but a fascinating tidbit from that wikipedia link:

> Venus has a CO2 atmosphere. Because CO2 is about 50% denser than Earth air, ordinary Earth air could be a lifting gas on Venus. This has led to proposals for a human habitat that would float in the atmosphere of Venus at an altitude where both the pressure and the temperature are Earth-like.

[zokier]

Not just on Venus; Buckminister Fuller proposed to build floating cities on earth:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Nine_(sphere)

[JumpCrisscross]

How much would a mile-wide geodesic sphere cost to build?

[jiggawatts]

That’s an interesting What If? question!

One cost-reduction approach would be that the beams could be mass-produced for efficiencies of scale. The top panels could be simply plastic sheeting.

[Gravityloss]

You could make it out of UHMWPE, the best current strength to weight material available. It's a plastic with density slightly under 1 kg/L. And it's UV resistant. Joining the parts is the real problem though. You could make it out of continuous thread in single piece with 3d knitting to avoid glue or fasteners. But all kinds of problems would arise. Also repairability would be bad. So probably you would use some sections and glue.

[bawolff]

This seems like the perfect premise for a scifi novel. I wonder why we don't see it more.

[chris1993]

Charles Stross has used it in a couple of novels: 'Saturn's Children' and 'Accelerando.'