9 thoughts on “Venerian Gas-Phase Processes”

  1. One day perhaps we’ll see this handy Venus tip: To properly cook your turkey, put it outside at an altitude of 35 km where the temperature is 455 Kelvin (360 F), the pressure is 6 atmospheres, and the density is 6.8 kg/m^3, and leave it there for three to four hours.

    1. I think you left off the bit about putting it in a suitable atmosphere-proof plastic bag.

      You might want to try parking it at 50 km for a day or two to cook it through, then a quick dip to 35 km to crisp the skin. Cytherian Sous Vide.

    2. Why put it in a plastic bag? The small amounts of sulfuric, hydrofluoric, and hydrochloric acid should act like lemon juice to help tenderize and cook the meat, and the inert CO2, N2, and argon atmosphere should do no harm at all, kind of like roasting it over a nice warm fire. 🙂

      One one of the Apollo missions one of the astronauts dropped a feather and a rock as a science experiment for kids. If I ever make it to the surface of Venus, I’m pulling out a g*dd*mn chicken.

        1. You guys have obviously never had a properly prepared inert-gas high-pressure acid-cooked turkey, probably because you let your mother-in-law be in charge of cooking the bird. It took men 200 years to convince wives that dunking the turkey in propane-fueled boiling oil was not only fine, it was wonderful, because all women folks know is their Betty-Crocker Easy-Bake ovens.

          Well let me tell you, acid is good for meat, and breaks down connective tissue, fats, and tenderizes it. Run the pH the other way and it turns into soap and you might as well bite into a urinal cake.

          Venus is not for the timid, or people too afraid to shove a fat bird out the airlock and let the harsh laws of thermodynamics do the work. Venus is for men. Men who like to eat meat – cooked in fire and acid and seasoned with the Devil’s own mix of volatiles boiled up from the pits of hell.

          If the thought of Thanksgiving Dinner on Venus gives you the heebie jeebies, you don’t even need to think about plunging into the roiling atmosphere with nothing but a cheap plastic heat shield and a thin balloon to save you from the crematorium that yawns down below. So man up, dangle the bird into the depths of the Stygian hell, feast as someone who walks between worlds and lives on an airship that rides the hell born winds 30 miles above a surface so hot it glows visibly red.

          Ride that Venus airship, live on it. Drink the harshest ale till you he see double, then hold your breath and walk outside in the acid rain to pee over the side, knowing that lesser men bow their heads in shame, sitting in Portland stirring the mashed potatoes as their wife frets over the anonymous Butterball in the Oster Roaster, waving her arms and telling you to check the yams. One man is living, however brief and harsh that life may be, and one has never truly lived, never tasted a naturally acid-cooked Venusian bird, never ridden the microbursts and whirlwinds of an alien planet, never done anything to merit remembrance, like putting down roots on a new world and cooking a bird so tasty that people are still trying to recreate the meal centuries later.

          You have to put away your fears of one bad meal, a miscooked bird, and embrace the future, mankind’s future, and realize that there’s more than one way to pluck a chicken.

  2. It has been an enjoyable series or posts. It’s cute to see the Alpha Nerds flex their math and understanding of the periodic table.

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