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    Join the Venusian Regatta!
    Join the Venusian Regatta!
    Join the Venusian Regatta!
    Ebook33 pages31 minutes

    Join the Venusian Regatta!

    By Alfred D. Byrd

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Isn't Mars going to get crowded with all of the colonists who are lining up to go there? Why not head to another, even nearer planet -- a friendlier planet for human life -- Venus! Yes, I know about how bad conditions on its surface are. I was as disappointed as you were with the information that the first Russian and American probes sent back from the earth's sister planet back in the '60's. No Edgar Rice Burroughs princesses and swordsmen for us! Still, fifty kilometers above Venus' surface is the most hospitable habitat for humanity outside of our own world, which is heading in the direction of Venus's surface. Let intrepid reporter Frieda Vogel take you on a voyage to the Venusian Regatta, a fleet of tensegrity spheres in which foresighted settlers live above it all. Could the cloud-cities of Venus be for you?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlfred D. Byrd
    Release dateSep 27, 2019
    ISBN9780463958124
    Join the Venusian Regatta!
    Author

    Alfred D. Byrd

    I'm a graduate of Hazel Park High School, Hazel Park MI, and I've earned a B. S. in Medical Technology at Michigan State University and an M. S. in Microbiology at the University of Kentucky.My interests are Christian theology and history, Civil War history, science fiction, and fantasy. I've published a number of works, in prose or in epic verse, on these subjects.A number of my works are available from Amazon and other major on-line book distributors. I've also sold four short stories or novellas to science fiction or fantasy anthologies.

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      Book preview

      Join the Venusian Regatta! - Alfred D. Byrd

      JOIN THE VENUSIAN REGATTA!

      Alfred D. Byrd

      Copyright © 2019 Alfred D. Byrd

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This e book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      This is a work of fiction. Resemblance of characters in it to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

      Each chapter of this work originally appeared as an article in the pages of The Reluctant Famulus, Thomas D. Sadler, editor. You can find back issues of this fanzine at http://efanzines.com/Reluctant/

      The cover illustration is Gulliver entdeckt Laputa (Gulliver discovers Laputa, the flying island), by Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard Grandville

      Table of Contents

      Join the Venusian Regatta!

      Marooned on Venus, Part One: Day

      Marooned on Venus, Part Two: Night

      JOIN THE VENUSIAN REGATTA!

      (OUR INTREPID REPORTER, Frieda Vogel, who first appeared in Children of the Flood (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/959217), has made a four-month’s voyage to Earth’s sister planet, where, from orbit in Space Station Venus One, she interviews Michaelis Mercurius, Commodore of the Venusian Regatta.)

      FRIEDA: Let’s get down to brass tacks, Mike. Isn’t it crazy for humans to try to live on Venus? The atmosphere is toxic enough it’d be a race whether you suffocate or dissolve first, dense enough to crush you, hot enough to melt lead—

      MICHAELIS: All you’ve said is true, Frieda, but only if you try to live on Venus. If you live where we live, fifty kilometers above the planet’s surface, it’s paradise.

      FRI: Yeah, I’ve seen paradise in the Kentucky River Gorge. If you ask me, paradise is overrated. Still, the quest for paradise is part of what makes us human, so let’s hear of your paradise. What makes it the Garden of Eden fifty kilometers above Venus?

      MIC: Up here, we’re above the clouds, so we can rely on solar energy, both received from the sun and reflected from the clouds. The atmospheric pressure of one bar, equal to Earth’s at sea level, shields us from cosmic radiation, the atmospheric temperature lies in the range where water is liquid, and the gravity is ninety per cent of Earth’s,

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