Humankind is always fixating on the Moon and Mars as the most likely spots for the first space colonies, but there is another crazy possibility. Aside from the Sun and the Moon, Venus is the brightest object in the night sky. Earth’s closest planetary neighbor, Venus is a veritable sister planet with extremely similar mass and volume. Because of its size and position in the solar system, a great deal of early science fiction concentrated around Venus. Dreamers and fabulists posited that beneath its ominously uniform cloud cover was a lush tropical rainforest filled with lizard people and pulchritudinous scantily clad women (the fact that the planet’s Greco-Roman name is synonymous with the goddess of love and beauty seems to have influenced many generations of male space enthusiasts).
Alas, the space age quickly dispensed with mankind’s sweaty-palmed fantasies about life on Venus. In 1970 the Soviet space probe, Venera 7, was the first spacecraft to successfully land on another planet (after a long series of earlier space probes were melted or crushed by atmospheric pressure). In the 23 minute window before the probe’s instruments failed, the craft recorded hellish extremes of temperature and pressure. The temperature on Venus’ surface averages around 500 °C (932 °F), (higher than the melting point of lead) and the pressure on the ground is equal to the pressure beneath a kilometer of earth’s ocean. The planet’s surface is a gloomy desertlike shell of slabs interspersed with weird volcanic features not found elsewhere in the solar system (which have strange names like “farra”,” novae”, and “arachnoids”). Additionally the broiling surface is scarred by huge impact craters, and intersected by immense volcanic mountains (the tallest of which looms 2 kilometers above Everest). The tops of these mountains are covered with a metallic snow made of elemental tellurium or lead sulfide (probably).
The atmosphere of Venus is a hellish fug of carbon dioxide which traps the sun’s energy in a self replicating greenhouse gone wrong. Above the dense clouds of CO2, the upper atmosphere is dominated by sulfur dioxide and corrosive sulfuric acid. Once Venus may have had water oceans and more earth-like conditions, but rampant greenhouse heating caused a feedback loop which caused the planet to become superheated billions of years ago. Without an magnetosphere, solar winds stripped Venus of its molecular hydrogen (yikes!).
Thus Venus does not initially present a very appealing picture for colonization! Yet the planet’s mass is similar to Earth (and humans’ long term viability in low gravity is far from certain). The planet is closer than Mars and windows of opportunity for travel are more frequent. Fifty kilometers (30 miles) above the surface of Venus, the temperature is stable between 0 and 50 degrees Celsius (32 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit). Light crafts filled with oxygen and nitrogen would float above the dense carbon dioxide. Today’s visionaries and dreamers therefore have stopped thinking of tropical jungles and envision instead a world of Aerostats and floating cities. Although the rotation of Venus is too slow to craft a space elevator, the flying colonists of Venus probably could build some sort of skyhook with existing or near future technology. Such a hook could be used to lift raw materials from the surface to manufacturing facilities in the skies. As more aerostat habitats were built, the colony would gain manufacturing strength, safety, and a greater ability to alter the barren world below (increasingly overshadowed by flying cities and hovering countries).
Imagine then a world like that of the Jetsons where the surface was unseen and not thought about (except by scientists and industrialists). Floating forests and croplands could be assembled to mimic earth habitats and provide resources for a bourgeoning population of Venusian humans. Skyships would cruise between the flying city states dotted jewel-like in the glowing heavens. Over time these flying habitats could be used to alter the planetary temperature and shield the desolate lands below. Humankind and whatever friends and stowaways came with us would finally have a second home in easy shouting distance of Earth. How long would it be then before we took steps to take Earth life even farther into the universe?
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August 11, 2012 at 10:29 AM
lailun
so nice city.
March 3, 2013 at 10:58 AM
Ippo
Very interesting idea.. But Mars is a more viable candidate for colonization at the moment. Excellent work!
March 3, 2013 at 6:08 PM
Wayne
Thanks! I’m glad to finally talk about this with someone. I kind of like the idea of living on a bouncy castle above Venus more than a freezing dusty tunnel on Mars, but I suppose neither will really be viable until there is a greater incentive to go. [sigh]
May 18, 2013 at 4:50 PM
frances
tottaly agree man! mars is way overrated. life on venus is way more asumable. it used to had a way better climate and life on mars was and is impossible since its too cold and it used to be even colder. venus had life, sometime
May 22, 2013 at 6:18 AM
David E
Its less about incentive, and more about funding. Most people think endeaours like this would be cool – who cares about entepreneurial profits. And a program could be kicked off, but it requires public investment into space science, as opposed to public investment into company tax breaks and wars.
June 24, 2013 at 2:39 PM
Wayne
http://io9.com/dreamlike-concept-images-of-cities-that-float-high-abov-543046948
June 24, 2013 at 7:00 PM
Rafael
Venus is more healthy to be colonized, but Mars is by far more feasible for it.
June 25, 2013 at 11:29 PM
Wayne
I’m not so sure: that layer on the top of Venus sounds pretty appealing and it is closer than Mars. Cloud City here we come! (just don’t go down to the planet surface)
July 6, 2013 at 7:26 PM
Dan
The light craft might float by itself but not when you add people and other material on it. I think the issue of a stable floatation object would be a challenge especially in light of the fact that wind speeds reach a couple of hundreds of miles per hr in the clouds.
Dan
September 2, 2013 at 12:18 AM
Marv
I’ve been exploring this idea for over 20 years. I wouldn’t be afraid to say that 50 km above Venus’s surface is the most earthlike conditions in the solar system. Atmospheric temp. and pressure are two of the most challenging and costly expenses of a Mars colony, not to mention the lack of solar energy and radiation shielding from solar flare and cosmic rays.
Venus has the potential to be a major industrial, chemical, and agricultural exporting planet. Did you know that deuterium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen that is used in nuclear fission and fusion reactions processes and is very valuable, is far more easily available is Venus’s atmosphere than here on Earth.
Venus has no shortage of energy for producing electricity, not only do you have solar, you also have wind power. Its possible that the wind mill’s props could help add stability to the floating city in the turbulent winds.
I’m no expert on any of this, but I do know that if we did colonize Venus, the challenges that we overcome and the discoveries that we make will benefit science and mankind, than if we didn’t.
September 2, 2013 at 5:49 PM
Wayne
Thanks for the enthusiastic & insightful reply! There have been some pro-Mars naysayers above (although we could probably craft viable programs to both worlds for the money we throw away here to rent-seeking monopolies in a single month), but it is the very chemical and energy richness of Venus which they lament that appeals to me. Let me know if you find out more about possible industries on our sister world. Also, does anybody out there design bouncy castles that stand up to 200 mile per hour sulfur winds?
Come on people, we can do this!
January 16, 2014 at 11:57 AM
Robert Walker
There are many issues with Mars surface colonization. Most important is, that Mars is a category III / V destination so you are required by international law not to contaminate it e.g. by introducing Earth microbes. It’s not just law, but also that Mars is a rare opportunity to find out about the early solar system, about a planet that had oceans early on, now pretty conclusively established. It must have had organics also from meteorites. So did it evolve life? If not, why not, and how far did it get on the way to evolution? Is there any present day life there (it seems to have potential habitats, recent discovery for instance of the warm seasonal flows in equatorial regions ,sand dampened seasonally apparently by water due to the temperature 0C at which it happens).
We have instruments able to detect a single amino acid or a single DNA fragment in a sample. A human settlement would scatter at least dead DNA and amino acids over the vicinity of the settlement so making that whole area far harder for scientists to study. It might well introduce microbes to Mars able to survive there and reproduce also – at least far greater chance than for an automated rover – that’s because spacesuits leak constantly an air locks also release air – never mind other wastes as unlikely to be a totally closed system (don’t have ability yet to make one).
Worst case is a hard landing leading to breach of the spacecraft on Mars – with humans inside – 10,000 species per human, many not yet studied and new to science as our knowledge of microbes is very poor at present just a small % of species are even described – and mix is different from person to person and can include extremophiles.
For Mars therefore, I see humans as playing a far more valuable role in orbit, exploring the surface via telepresence, which is also much more interesting for the astronauts, using telerobots to explore the entire surface of Mars in real time, drive Curiosity to Mt Sharp in one day, miniature planes flying the Valles Marineres, etc. And safer too, no need to don clumsy pressurized spacesuits, hard to put on, hard to handle things when on, and won’t die if something goes wrong on the surface of Mars, in worst case one of your telerobotic avatars is damaged.
Venus – I think depends on whether we find life in the clouds, or if Earth life can survive there. If so may need to go slowly, and anyway I think the Moon is our first destination for colonization for many reasons of safety etc. And on the Earth things like seawater greenhouses greening the deserts, by far best way if what you want is somewhere new to live, plenty of places on Earth itself not inhabited and far more habitable than Mars or Venus. Even e.g. Gobi desert is far far more habitable than Mars or Venus.
But a Venus colony seems like it just might work in the not so distant future and far less issues than Mars, depending on what the planetary protection situation is
Anyway more about all this:
Is Life Possible in the Clouds of Venus – And Should we Quarantine them from Earth
http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/blog/life_possible_clouds_venus_and_should_we_quarantine_them_earth-127675
Will we Build Colonies that Float Over Venus like Buckminster Fuller’s “Cloud Nine”?
http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/blog/will_we_build_colonies_float_over_venus_buckminster_fullers_cloud_nine-127573
Ten Reasons NOT To Live On Mars – Great Place To Explore
http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/blog/ten_reasons_not_live_mars_great_place_explore-118531
“Ten Reasons Not To Live On Mars, Great Place To Explore” – On The Space Show
http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/blog/discussion_ten_reasons_not_live_mars_great_place_explore_space_show-121882
September 2, 2013 at 10:24 PM
Thomas Kalbfus
I have designed a way for Venus to get a 24-hour day night cycle here are some diagrams I have drawn which I will explain below:
http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/venustheplanet/photos/albums/1003331586
The diagram labled Venus Terraforming Sun Shield 2 is the main idea of it.
http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/venustheplanet/photos/albums/1003331586/lightbox/1183720790
While some have proposed placing a Sun shield between the Sun abd Venus at the L1 point, I think I got a better idea. For one thing the L1 point is dynamically unstable, if you push it toward Venus, it will fall towards Venus amd if you push it toward the Sun, it will fall toward the Sun. What I have in mind is a little different. My Sun shield orbits around Venus in the same plane as that of Venus arouns the Sun, it is a continuous band that completely shades Venus, and it accomplishes this by orbiting a distance of 39,557.6 km from Venus’ center, at a circular orbit at this radius, a complete orbit around Venus takes 86,757 seconds, which is a little longer than a day on Earth, but since it will be orbiting in the opposite direction of Venus’ rotation, that orbit will take it back over the same spot on Venus in exactly 24 hours, and on one particular spot on this sun shield will be seen a reflection of the Sun. This image is produced by an array of computer controlled mirrors that rotate and adjust their angles to reflect Sunlight towards Venus.
I call your attention to the diagram labled Light Paths 1:
http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/venustheplanet/photos/albums/1003331586/lightbox/1104788293
This is the start of it, we start at 12 noon at the top diagram, basically in this one the mirrors on the right side of this circular sun shield band are positioned so they are parallel to incoming incident light rays from the Sun, basically just letting sunlight in to illuminate the surface of Venus below, there is a transparency that the light passes through which filters the light so that what reaches Venus is Earth normal Sunlight, the the Sun will appear bigger on the surface of Venus than on Earth, the light will not appear as intense.
At the bottom part of the diagram are the light rays at 3:00 PM, the mirrors are angled to reflect light so that the image of the Sun on the right side of Venus will appear in the 3:00 PM position at that location in the sky of Venus, at another location, 45 degrees along the curve of the planet it will appear in the 12:00 noon position.
The next diagram to look at is Light Paths 2:
http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/venustheplanet/photos/albums/1003331586/lightbox/1229364466
The diagram at the top is the same 3:00 PM position of the Sun, the light paths to get there is different from the previous one. Specifically it requires 3 reflections and a different opening in the Sun Shield circle to let in light to follow these paths. Actually the light can follow both paths at once, the mirrors at the 3:00 Pm position of the Sun Shield partically reflect light the way shown in Light Paths 1 and then 10% of them change every 6 seconds to adjust their angle over the next 1 minute from that shown at the bottom of Light Path 1 to the top of Light Path 2, so instead of seeing the image of the Sun wink out for 6 seconds as the array of mirrors readjusts themselves, the Sun will only get 10% dimmer at precisely 3:00 PM to 3:01 PM as the new light path pattern develops.
You can follow the rest of the light path diagrams 2-6 , we can even bend the light completely around Venus by this device and have the Sun appear on the opposite side of Venus from where it actually is!
September 4, 2013 at 8:25 PM
Marv
I was not able to view the pictures, but from what I read, your idea is one of the best sun shields that I’ve seen yet!
I do have a couple of questions though. How do solar winds and flares affect it? It seems to me that it would be hard to keep in its proper orbit, it seems almost like a big solar sail.
What about meteorites? It seems like meteor the size of a BB traveling thousands of miles per hour could cause some serious damage to the mirrors and other components of a sun shield.
September 4, 2013 at 11:27 PM
Thomas Kalbfus
Like any machine, it will need repair and maintenance. Mechanically the shield will operate much like this solar mirror farm, but on a much larger scale:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/take-a-look-at-the-worlds-largest-solar-thermal-farm-175642351.html
As you can see there are many many mirrors, they track the Sun and all controlled by a computer to concentrate the Sun’s light on a central tower. The mirrors on the Sun shield would operate similarly, except instead of being arranged in a circle in the desert, they will be arranged on the inside of a giant cylinder orbiting Venus at a distance of 39,557,610 meters from the center of Venus, and a width of 12,612,464, which will completely block direct light from the Sun. On the outside of the Sunshield are shutters that open to let in sunlight and close to block it. When closed to block sunlight the shutters have photovoltaic solar panels that convert the sunlight blocked into electricity. This electricity can be put to many different commerical uses, and will help finance the construction of the solar shield.
The circumference of the solar shield is according to the formular 2 * Pi * radius is approximately 248,547,794 meters times the width of 12,612,464 meters equals 3,134,800,145,687,180 square meters about 3.1 quadrillion 1 meter square mirrors all coordinated by the sunshield’s computers to reflect light onto on hemisphere of the planet to produce an image of the Sun in the sky by reflecting light let in by the shutters around the planet to illuminate the appropriate half of the planet for the given time of a 24-hour day. Since the mirrors are in orbit they don’t have to be particularly thin, in fact they need to be thick enough to be rigid so the computer and the electric motors it controls can adjust the angle of each individual mirror. Throughout the 24-hour day each mirror is individually controlled changing its angle so as to make the image of the Sun move across the Venusian Sky. Sunlight doesn’t have a significant effect on these mirrors because they are not made of solar sail material, they are just ordinary metal mirrors probably made out of iron, steel or aluminum whatever it is convenient to make them out of, so long as they are shiny and reflective. Also considering that Venus gets 1.9 times the light that the Earth does per unit area, we probably don’t want them too shiny, a little above 50% reflective in total is good enough, or having light come through polarized filters would cut the illumination down to about half.
This Sun shield is huge, and it will not be constructed over night, one thing it is a solar power satellite, the outside of the shutters collect electricity, the electricity could be used to generate a magnetic field around Venus to deflect the Solar Wind, the rest can be used for a number of industrial uses, including beaming energy to other parts of the solar system, accelerating microwave sails to appreciable fractions of the speed of light to explore distant stars, the production of antimatter for other starships, perhaps the creation of microscopic black holes within particle accelerators. The microscopic black holes could power another sort of starship. The energy could power a vast computer simulation of who know what, there are lots of uses for it, many of which are profitable, including selling the energy to distant buyers in other parts of the solar system via laser or microwave.
Getting to your other questions. Yes meteors will damage individual mirrors and shutters, they could punch holes in it, but even so the Sun shield will continue to function through the control of its remaining undamaged mirrors and shutters. There are 3.1 quadrillion 1 meter square mirrors after all, automated robots will replace, and probably recycle th damaged mirrors, and they will be powered by the solar energy collected by the Sun shield. Solar flares will be deflected by the magnetic field generated by the excess electricity created by the photovoltaic array on the outside of the Sunshield, an electric current will be carried along the circumference of the solar shield generation a magnetic field centered on the planet Venus, funneling some charged particles to the planet’s poles and creating aurora displays similar to that found at the poles on Earth.
The meteors hitting the mirrors or shutters would likely be vaporized if small, it large, they will simply punch holes through the panels and keep on going, the holes would then be repaired by robots replacing the damaged panels with newly manufactured ones, while the rest of the Sun shield continues to finction as always.
The robots that repair the sun shield would likely be of the same type that construct it in the first place. These are von neuman robots, they can build more of themselves out of raw materials from the asteroids for instance with little or no human intervention, so we’ll probably need hundreds of trillions of them to get the sun shield constructed in a reasonable amount of time, say a few decades for instance, this would take a high degree or artificial intelligence and advanced robotics to accomplish, but Moore’s Law may accomplish this in a few decades time according to Ray Kurzweil. Cooing the planet Venus and changing the atmosphere may take a bit longer than this. Hydrogen would need to be imported from Saturn or Jupiter, no rush however, people can live in space around the planet until the planet is ready for unassisted human occupation. As you said, they could also live in the upper atmosphere until the surface is cool enough to inhabit.
I think Venus will be terraromed simply because it is there, and there is no other use for the mass and materials, it would’t be economical to lift material out of its gravitational well to be used in space, so it might as well be converted into a “spare Earth”. My method of terraforming would be a “light touch” that is no bombardiments of asteroids to change the planet’s rotation rate, you just reflect the light around the planet to produce day and night. Hydrogen would be collided with the atmosphere as a gas, so no craters there either, the hydrogen molecules would collide with the carbon dioxide molecules to produce water and graphite which will rain down on the planet’s surface below. The water will dilute the sulfuric acid clouds to the point of being slightly acidic water clouds of the more terrestrial variety. Eventually the surface will be cool enough for water to remain liquid upon it and oceans will form, very hot at first, but eventually cool enough to life to take hold, then we set the blue green algae to work, and add more complex multicellular life later. And then human colonists in the final stage of terraforming.
September 3, 2013 at 10:25 PM
Thomas Kalbfus
Venus is the largest terrestrial planet after Earth, its mass is greater than Mars and Mercury put together. Venus is a resource, a potential second Earth, it is a good gathering place for asteroidal material, the Venusian Atmosphere makes a great break for incoming asteroidal material, and is some should impact on the Venusian surface, so what? I think Venus orbit would be a great place to build a space colony, once dependency of Earth markets is severed, Venus orbital colonies can be mutually self-supporting and the the process, they could slowly terraform the planet, making it the grand daddy of all space colonies. We just have to fix two things:
1: Venus receives too much radiation from the Sun
2: Venus spins too slowly
The two problems have cause all the rest that Venus faces, so if we could
1. Reduce the radiation received to Earth normal levels
2. And create a 24-hour day on Venus, the other problems will be easier to solve.
September 12, 2013 at 10:44 PM
emilytaylor17
some stupid ass shit lmao
September 13, 2013 at 12:45 AM
Wayne
Hey now! Just because you don’t want to live in a fragile bubble buffeted by gale winds above a toxic hellworld, there is no reason to belittle the dream.
September 13, 2013 at 3:02 PM
Tom_Kalbfus
Of all the terrestrial planets that are not Earth, Venus is the biggest one their. How would it be if the United States were to claim the planet Venus as a US territory? Would anyone contest it, or is Venus such a worthless planet that there would be no international outcry? Because if no one wants Venus, then I want it for my own country if you don’t mind. 😉
September 13, 2013 at 8:31 PM
Marv
I believe that several decades ago, an international law was passed that the only way claim possession of a terrestrial body outside of the Earth, is to have physical possession of it. In other words, you have to colonize it with humans. I haven’t really looked into it that much though.
September 14, 2013 at 9:03 AM
Tom Kalbfus
We could pull out of that treaty as it prevents us from exploiting the resources of the Solar System. We could also make deals with other countries dividing up the Solar System among active participants.
January 16, 2014 at 11:42 AM
Robert Walker
Actually not at all likely that we pull out of that treaty, as it is the main thing that keeps peace in space. For instance it’s the treaty that prevents nations from putting weapons of mass destruction into orbit around the Earth. Nearly every country has signed, with N. Korea the only exception amongst those with space exploration ambitions.
I don’t think many countries will wish to join N. Korea in this, just in order to have property rights in space.
Instead is more likely that we will develop property rights within the treaty. It can be done using notion of functional rights. The treaty already gives countries ownership of their own spaceships they send to space, and also, of the habitats they construct in space. This could be extended so that they have functional rights over e.g. a space mine, so long as they continue actively mining it – but lose those rights if it falls into disuse.
In the Venusian clouds, then the cloud habitats themselves would be owned by the builders of the habitats – but the Venusian surface and atmosphere would not belong to anyone. Mining operations on the surface would again be owned and there would be some agreed functional property rights for those.
January 20, 2014 at 3:46 PM
Tom Kalbfus
The point is whether the environment of Venus actually counts as in space, as that environment is denser than our own atmosphere. I think it could be argued that space actually begins above Venus’ atmosphere, where it thins out to the same air pressure as it does at 100 km above Earth’s sea level. The atmosphere of Venus might be argued as not a part of outer space and thus not covered in the Outer Space treaty since it is not a vacuum.
September 13, 2013 at 8:45 PM
Marv
I just looked it up an international law says that “no individual can own any celestrial body in space.” Some companies are trying to change it though, due to interest in space tourism. Sorry I was wrong in my previous post.
January 16, 2014 at 11:37 AM
Robert Walker
You don’t mention that the floating colonies would also rotate around Venus every 4 days because of the super rotation of the atmosphere.
Also it’s easier to get materials from the surface than you might think. First, long cables aren’t really a problem because you just need to add balloons every so often along the cable to counteract its weight and help reduce the tension in the cable.
Then, there are plans for rovers that could survive on the surface long term cooled slightly to about 300C where you can have heat resistant electronics working. Also they just need balloons again to float easily over the surface, easier to move about than, e.g. on Mars if you can solve the cooling issue.
And also, you can get a surprising amount from the atmosphere. The habitats can be of light construction and easy to build new ones of wood and plastics, if you can deal with acid resistance for outer cover. Trees and vegetation are 90% either water or CO2 by weight, so most of the mass comes from the atmosphere itself.
Getting to Venus is easier than for Mars, more often, shorter journey, less delta v, and you can use aerobraking and parachutes so no need for retro rockets to land, plus use hydrogen filled balloons to level out when you get there to desired altitude. Or, sufficiently light air or hydrogen filled spheres would survive re-entry and simply float at the desired altitude.
Main challenges are – to deal with the sulfuric acid and find some way to extract water from it (and useful sulfur biproducts) – probably using solar energy
Also how to get back from Venus to Earth. Has advantages there as well as disadvantages.
Also planetary protection, is here life there; could Earth life survive in the Venus clouds, do the planets need to be quarantined.
All this needs to be sorted out so need to do a lot of exploration and feasibility studies first.. But seems possible and way better than Mars in my view – which also has major planetary protection issues.
See my science20.com article which goes into Venus cloud colonies in some depth. “Will we build colonies that float over Venus like Buckminster Fuller’s cloud nine.
http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/blog/will_we_build_colonies_float_over_venus_buckminster_fullers_cloud_nine-127573
March 5, 2014 at 7:57 PM
Marvin swanson
polyethylene and polypropylene plasics are both unaffected by sulphuric acid and the ingredients are right there in venus’ atmosphere.
March 5, 2014 at 8:32 PM
Wayne
Hi Marvin, thanks for the information. It seems like there is plenty of energy on Venus–now we just have to get a floating plastics factory into the atmosphere there!
January 21, 2014 at 11:51 AM
Tom Kalbfus
I think at some point, we might want to drop an animal into the Venusian atmosphere within a balloon to see how long we can keep it alive, preferably an animal with a short lifespan, such as a chicken for instance.
March 11, 2014 at 1:55 PM
katesisco
2014 retrospect
Venus will gain a cloud deck as the 30 mile high Earth-like atmosphere band sinks onto the near surface. This will give the planet a ‘water veil’ similar to what Earth had in the past. This will effectively shield the surface from cosmic rays. As to how it would gain a magnetoshpere, perhaps this would be a by product.
As for life, the above comments reflect Venus’ status as subordinate to Earth and perhaps that will not happen.
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