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Question: why has the US not attempted to land on Venus? Another question: how long could a lander made with the best modern technology survive on Venus? Edit

Question: why has the US not attempted to land on Venus? Another question: how long could a lander made with the best modern technology survive on Venus? Edit: oops! I just learned about Pioneer-Venus. Looks like the US has actually landed on Venus. Guess I should do more research before posting.

PhantomGremlin 7y ago
Question: why has the US not attempted to land on Venus? I'm glad the USA didn't. That left them more $$$ to spend on Mars and other projects. For the most part the "space race" was over when the USA landed on the moon. So wouldn't it make more economic sense if the various space-faring nations did different things? E.g. it was the ESA that sent Rosetta to Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  Money itself isn't the issue; copying from another website, NASA's budget for 2020 is $22 billion which represents 0.48% of all U.S. government spending (compare that to $705 billion for military spending combined).
walrus01 7y ago
My theory is that once the science data from the Venera probes was returned, it was confirmed that any further surface science missions would be VERY short lived. The pressures and temperatures are not something we have the technology to deal with presently. Whereas rovers on Mars can be built with current technology to operate for many years.
mirekrusin 7y ago
Because Soviets put a flag there, it’s theirs.
ibrault 7y ago
Not a lander but NASA has 2 potential Venus missions in their proposed Discovery missions! [0] In regards to why not a lander: I would guess it's because it's not really necessary? Orbiters (like the proposed ones above) can gather all of the science that's really necessary to study a planet like Venus. Landers are useful to study more micro-scale science to, for example, search for life (see the Mars rovers/landers and the proposed Europa lander). And orbiters are significantly cheaper and easier to make. Landing on Mars is really really really hard! I can assume it would only be harder on Venus. [0] https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-four-possible-missions-to-study-the-secrets-of-the-solar-system https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-four-possibl...
- skykooler 7y ago
  Landing on Venus is actually fairly easy; the atmosphere is so thick that even with a minimum of parachutes, a lander will touch down at a comfortably slow velocity. The hard part is keeping it cool enough to function; all the Soviet landers used a phase-change material to cool them, which worked for a little while until it had all changed phase at which point they rapidly overheated. Keeping a lander operating for more than a couple hours is a very difficult engineering challenge for that reason.
  - ryandrake 7y ago
    > Landing on Venus is actually fairly easy; the atmosphere is so thick that even with a minimum of parachutes, a lander will touch down at a comfortably slow velocity. Doesn’t the thick atmosphere also mean a lot more mass to slam into at orbital speed when starting to enter it? Seems like it’s a double edged sword.
    - crubier 7y ago
      The upper layer of the atmosphere are not denser than the upper layer of the earth atmosphere, so it does not make aerocapture more difficult. It’s just that the atmosphere is “deeper”: going down, it starts thin, and then gradually densifies until reaching earth conditions at around 50km, then you keep going down in thicker and thicker atmosphere, which means you don’t need big parachutes.
- crispyambulance 7y ago
  There were a number of Soviet missions that deployed a balloon-based probe to Venus. These were called the "Vega" missions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program). I think that's more practical. At a high enough altitude, one doesn't have to deal with extreme pressure and temperature-- just sulfuric acid as rain?
nwallin 7y ago
The best modern technology wouldn't last any longer than the best Soviet technology of the '70s. There are two problems. 1. Heat. This is the big one. Lots of technology we take for granted don't work at 900F. Semi conductors don't work, which rules out nearly all of the most interesting technological advances since the '60s. 2. Energy. There are a few types of semiconductors that would work, but none of them are practical for packaging in an IC and they all use relatively significant amounts of power. Unfortunately, the clouds are too thick for solar panels to work, and if you try to use an RTG to generate power, now you have two problems. The most likely practical concepts for a long duration lander on Venus call for wind power and mechanical analog computers.

PhantomGremlin 7y ago

Question: why has the US not attempted to land on Venus? I'm glad the USA didn't. That left them more $$$ to spend on Mars and other projects. For the most part the "space race" was over when the USA landed on the moon. So wouldn't it make more economic sense if the various space-faring nations did different things? E.g. it was the ESA that sent Rosetta to Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

Cthulhu_ 7y ago
Money itself isn't the issue; copying from another website, NASA's budget for 2020 is $22 billion which represents 0.48% of all U.S. government spending (compare that to $705 billion for military spending combined).

walrus01 7y ago

My theory is that once the science data from the Venera probes was returned, it was confirmed that any further surface science missions would be VERY short lived. The pressures and temperatures are not something we have the technology to deal with presently. Whereas rovers on Mars can be built with current technology to operate for many years.

mirekrusin 7y ago

Because Soviets put a flag there, it’s theirs.

ibrault 7y ago

Not a lander but NASA has 2 potential Venus missions in their proposed Discovery missions! [0] In regards to why not a lander: I would guess it's because it's not really necessary? Orbiters (like the proposed ones above) can gather all of the science that's really necessary to study a planet like Venus. Landers are useful to study more micro-scale science to, for example, search for life (see the Mars rovers/landers and the proposed Europa lander). And orbiters are significantly cheaper and easier to make. Landing on Mars is really really really hard! I can assume it would only be harder on Venus. [0] https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-four-possible-missions-to-study-the-secrets-of-the-solar-system https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-four-possibl...

skykooler 7y ago
Landing on Venus is actually fairly easy; the atmosphere is so thick that even with a minimum of parachutes, a lander will touch down at a comfortably slow velocity. The hard part is keeping it cool enough to function; all the Soviet landers used a phase-change material to cool them, which worked for a little while until it had all changed phase at which point they rapidly overheated. Keeping a lander operating for more than a couple hours is a very difficult engineering challenge for that reason.
- ryandrake 7y ago
  > Landing on Venus is actually fairly easy; the atmosphere is so thick that even with a minimum of parachutes, a lander will touch down at a comfortably slow velocity. Doesn’t the thick atmosphere also mean a lot more mass to slam into at orbital speed when starting to enter it? Seems like it’s a double edged sword.
  - crubier 7y ago
    The upper layer of the atmosphere are not denser than the upper layer of the earth atmosphere, so it does not make aerocapture more difficult. It’s just that the atmosphere is “deeper”: going down, it starts thin, and then gradually densifies until reaching earth conditions at around 50km, then you keep going down in thicker and thicker atmosphere, which means you don’t need big parachutes.
crispyambulance 7y ago
There were a number of Soviet missions that deployed a balloon-based probe to Venus. These were called the "Vega" missions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program). I think that's more practical. At a high enough altitude, one doesn't have to deal with extreme pressure and temperature-- just sulfuric acid as rain?

nwallin 7y ago

The best modern technology wouldn't last any longer than the best Soviet technology of the '70s. There are two problems. 1. Heat. This is the big one. Lots of technology we take for granted don't work at 900F. Semi conductors don't work, which rules out nearly all of the most interesting technological advances since the '60s. 2. Energy. There are a few types of semiconductors that would work, but none of them are practical for packaging in an IC and they all use relatively significant amounts of power. Unfortunately, the clouds are too thick for solar panels to work, and if you try to use an RTG to generate power, now you have two problems. The most likely practical concepts for a long duration lander on Venus call for wind power and mechanical analog computers.