To live on Venus, then, just fill a balloon with nitrogen and oxygen, and live inside the balloon. A big enough balloon will have enough lifting power to support you and your supplies – and a really big balloon could do even more. “A one-kilometre diameter spherical [balloon] will lift 700,000 tons – two Empire State Buildings. A two-kilometre diameter [balloon] would lift six million tons,” says Landis. “The result would be an environment as spacious as a typical city.”

But what if the balloon rips? “It's not going to be like popping a balloon,” assures Landis. Because the pressure inside the balloon would be the same as the pressure outside, a rip would slowly leak air, rather than leading to an immediate catastrophic explosion. “It would be like opening a window, and slowly the outside gas leaks in and the inside gas leaks out… The larger the habitat, the slower the process will be.”

Protecting the balloon from the clouds of sulphuric acid turns out to be even easier. The solution has already been tested by the Russians – and you already have it in your kitchen. In 1985, the Soviet Vega mission flew by Venus on its way to intercept Halley's Comet. “[Vega] put two balloons into the atmosphere of Venus that floated in the atmosphere right at the levels we're talking about, for two days,” says Landis. “The outermost layer of the balloons was simply Teflon. Teflon is completely robust against sulfuric acid.”