Humans could land at the poles of Mercury - Mercury doesn't have a dark side - but it has regions at the poles of eternal darkness inside craters in the polar regions. Also could dig tunnels below the surface of Mercury - indeed live almost anywhere there if you build a shelter. You want a thick covering shelter anyway to shield from cosmic radiation and solar storms.
Humans could also live in the upper atmosphere of Venus though not land on the surface - it's the most hospitable region in the solar system in some ways. It's got Earth like atmospheric pressure and temperatures, and above the clouds of Venus is sunny also - and protection from cosmic radiation - and an airship filled with Earth like atmosphere will float in the atmosphere, because our atmosphere is a lifting gas in the dense CO2 atmosphere.
Not sure if that counts as landing, to live in a habitat floating in the atmosphere.
Venus is also the only planet with a close to Earth level of gravity - can't land on it but in the upper atmosphere - then you'd feel the full level of gravity.
There are ideas for cities in the clouds of Saturn gravity reasonable - but would need to involve heated hydrogen - as the atmosphere is largely hydrogen so nothing much else could float there - but also is very cold so could be possible just by heating hydrogen to stay afloat in its atmosphere.
Jupiter's gravity at 2.5 gs is too great for comfort for humans. But if you just talk about dipping into its atmosphere and taking off again - well humans could handle those levels of g for a short while. Fighter pilots survive much more than that and I think even during lift off astronauts go to about that level. But it would be bad for your health long term.
You could live in the clouds of the smaller gas giant such as Saturn, but there is no land to land on. There have been suggestions that we could colonize the Saturn atmosphere using hot hydrogen as a lifting gas (needs to be hot because it's atmosphere is mainly hydrogen anyway). See also What would it be like to live on Saturn?
Many large moons in the solar system - though our own Moon of course, most accessible.
We could also land on asteroids, largest is Ceres. And Pluto (whether you call it a planet or not) and other dwarf planets in the Keyper belt like Haumea, and comets.
Artist's impression of the dwarf planet Haumea in the Kuiper belt beyond Pluto which spins so fast it is shaped like a triaxial ellipsoid, i.e. rugby ball shaped, has two moons.
We can also though explore many places via telepresence that humans could never visit in person, if humans live in a spaceship or space station orbiting the planet with telerobotic avatars on the surface.
Humans could also live in the upper atmosphere of Venus though not land on the surface - it's the most hospitable region in the solar system in some ways. It's got Earth like atmospheric pressure and temperatures, and above the clouds of Venus is sunny also - and protection from cosmic radiation - and an airship filled with Earth like atmosphere will float in the atmosphere, because our atmosphere is a lifting gas in the dense CO2 atmosphere.
Not sure if that counts as landing, to live in a habitat floating in the atmosphere.
Venus is also the only planet with a close to Earth level of gravity - can't land on it but in the upper atmosphere - then you'd feel the full level of gravity.
There are ideas for cities in the clouds of Saturn gravity reasonable - but would need to involve heated hydrogen - as the atmosphere is largely hydrogen so nothing much else could float there - but also is very cold so could be possible just by heating hydrogen to stay afloat in its atmosphere.
Jupiter's gravity at 2.5 gs is too great for comfort for humans. But if you just talk about dipping into its atmosphere and taking off again - well humans could handle those levels of g for a short while. Fighter pilots survive much more than that and I think even during lift off astronauts go to about that level. But it would be bad for your health long term.
You could live in the clouds of the smaller gas giant such as Saturn, but there is no land to land on. There have been suggestions that we could colonize the Saturn atmosphere using hot hydrogen as a lifting gas (needs to be hot because it's atmosphere is mainly hydrogen anyway). See also What would it be like to live on Saturn?
Many large moons in the solar system - though our own Moon of course, most accessible.
We could also land on asteroids, largest is Ceres. And Pluto (whether you call it a planet or not) and other dwarf planets in the Keyper belt like Haumea, and comets.
We can also though explore many places via telepresence that humans could never visit in person, if humans live in a spaceship or space station orbiting the planet with telerobotic avatars on the surface.
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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