3 ms·

On Mars, you need to heat from severe arctic temperatures (and sometimes not at all, in mid summer) and you need some sort of pressure dome. (But you don't need

On Mars, you need to heat from severe arctic temperatures (and sometimes not at all, in mid summer) and you need some sort of pressure dome. (But you don't need 1 atmosphere.) On Venus you need some way to pump away a heat making lead melt. So... yeah, definitely much more harsh. We don't even have the technology for such heat pumps, even though I guess they are theoretically possible. You'd need exotic materials and a nuclear plant I assume. I the atmosphere though of Venus though, it gets very interesting. Apparently it's about 1 (Earth) atmosphere pressure at a temperature of about 20 Celsius (70 F), so we could have floating cities! (But the cities would have to be resistant to sulfuric acid and we would have to bring our own water.)

roywiggins 7y ago
Probably the best bet for Venus surface exploration is some kind of high-temperature integrated circuit. There's already some work on that sort of thing for the innards of jet engines and the like.
- jacobush 7y ago
  Agreed! I was thinking what you would need for a manned mission. But definitely, electronics operating at that temperature is very interesting and maybe not impossible. I have heard random ideas about mechanical contraptions, too. I wonder about power though. An electronic design could maybe run on some sort of non-rechargeable battery which could deal with the temperature. But if you wanted serious power, a molten-salt reactor would be very interesting. It would I guess "only" be extremely expensive, but maybe not impossible. The interesting thing is that you basically don't need any safety because the reactor is inert and not radiating until you start it. All in all though, I think blimps at various depths are more practical.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  Yup. I did some work on that for a Venus lander when I was an intern, which is published here: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20150002090 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20150002090
pharke 7y ago
I'm not sure you'd need to bring your own water, the sulfuric acid is produced in the upper atmosphere when sunlight splits carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen which then react with water vapour and sulphur dioxide. We could harvest that water vapour and CO2 to produce oxygen, water, and rocket fuel. We've got lots of experience with sulfuric acid and resistant materials are rather common place plastics (including teflon) and stainless steel. I have no idea why there hasn't been more of an effort to get a flying robotic probe to Venus. I think it would be mindblowing to have high res pictures and video of the upper atmosphere with a bright sun over head and an endless sea of clouds.

roywiggins 7y ago

Probably the best bet for Venus surface exploration is some kind of high-temperature integrated circuit. There's already some work on that sort of thing for the innards of jet engines and the like.

jacobush 7y ago
Agreed! I was thinking what you would need for a manned mission. But definitely, electronics operating at that temperature is very interesting and maybe not impossible. I have heard random ideas about mechanical contraptions, too. I wonder about power though. An electronic design could maybe run on some sort of non-rechargeable battery which could deal with the temperature. But if you wanted serious power, a molten-salt reactor would be very interesting. It would I guess "only" be extremely expensive, but maybe not impossible. The interesting thing is that you basically don't need any safety because the reactor is inert and not radiating until you start it. All in all though, I think blimps at various depths are more practical.
Robotbeat 7y ago
Yup. I did some work on that for a Venus lander when I was an intern, which is published here: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20150002090 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20150002090

pharke 7y ago

I'm not sure you'd need to bring your own water, the sulfuric acid is produced in the upper atmosphere when sunlight splits carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen which then react with water vapour and sulphur dioxide. We could harvest that water vapour and CO2 to produce oxygen, water, and rocket fuel. We've got lots of experience with sulfuric acid and resistant materials are rather common place plastics (including teflon) and stainless steel. I have no idea why there hasn't been more of an effort to get a flying robotic probe to Venus. I think it would be mindblowing to have high res pictures and video of the upper atmosphere with a bright sun over head and an endless sea of clouds.