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The Steampunk Rover Concept That Could Help Explore Venus
- jacknews 6y agoIt sounds cool (or perhaps, hot), but steampunk photo/video transmisson? I don't see it. Just send an RTG and enclose the main electronics in a peltier chamber or other heat-pump. With plenty of radiator surface.
- jagged-chisel 6y agoThat's going to help only if the radiator surface will get hotter than the atmosphere before the main electronics get too hot to operate.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mhh__ 6y agoMechanical TV does exist, so you could still reduce the amount of electronics along those lines.
- lhopki01 6y agoThey specifically mention the issues with an RTG in the article. The high surface temperatures make radiating the excess heat off very hard. Same holds true for any sort of peltier chamber or heat-pump.
- jacknews 6y agoHard, but not impossible. TEG modules are available with the hot side operating at 800C, so I'm sure TEC modules can also be built with hot sides well above ambient on Venus.
- FatalLogic 6y agoThere are obviously chemical-based processes for recording photos and video. They can be adapted for high temp. Balloons can be used to lift those records and other data high into the atmosphere, where temperatures are lower and they can be recovered and converted to electronic data by more conventional vehicles. It's very, very difficult, but not impossible.
- hsnewman 6y agoHow about "steampunk" click bait?
- mhh__ 6y agoYet more "grr reeeeeee click bait"? It fits fairly well, and at the end of the title only matters if you didn't read the article.
- hahamrfunnyguy 6y agoThe scientist from NASA is the one who gave the project the steampunk moniker in the first place.
- mikewarot 6y agoThere exist magnetic core materials with Curie points above the temperatures on Venus, there exist insulators and conductors effective at those temperatures as well. Thus it should be possible to build some form of magnetic logic CPU that could operate in that environment provided a suitable power supply.
- Sniffnoy 6y agoHere's an earlier article about this: https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/space-robots/jpl-design-for-a-clockwork-rover-to-explore-venus https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/space-robots/jp... And here's an earlier article about the approach of using high temperature electronics instead -- although note that, as described in the OP, the two approachese seem to have now merged: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/armed-tough-computer-chips-scientists-are-ready-return-hell-venus https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/armed-tough-computer... So, for anyone wondering how they're planning to transmit a signal without electronics -- well, given that they are using high-temperature electronics to some extent, they might just go that route. But the article I linked above does mention a proposed mechanical means: You don't actively transmit a signal, rather you just change some visible feature of the rover and have a conventional-electronics orbiter scan for and detect these changes (so, signal isn't emitted from the surface of Venus, just reflected from there).
- robotresearcher 6y agoSemaphore.
- Sniffnoy 6y agoOh, yes, that's a good way of putting it, thanks!
- mikewarot 6y agoThey could also use one of the techniques used by the NSA, selectively ground a Quarter wave antenna in a corner reflector N times a second... then transmit a signal at the resonant frequency at said reflector, listen for a hetrodyne N hz off the transmitted signal. Very little power is required to ground a wire, or not.
- murbard2 6y agoCool idea but it seems a tad more practical to use conventions electronics in a well isolated and temperature controlled bubble. In steampunk spirit, why my a low flying airship? Wind speed is apparently very low near the surface.
- sp332 6y agoHow are the electronic sensors going to work if they're isolated?
- treeman79 6y agoThermally isolated
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoHow will that work when ambient is 465C? Without active cooling your box will equalise to that temp. And building a heat pump that can cool the inside of a box to <100C when ambient is >450C is... an interesting project. You may as well just build a mechanical computer using gears and such. Modern manufacturing would make it practical to build a wind-powered tiny geared mechanical CPU and memory. Thermal expansion would be a challenge, but not an impossible one. Peripherals would still be a problem. Receiving commands would likely be impossible, so it would have to be autonomous. But you might be able to use a chemical/optical system for signalling. Or maybe vary radar reflectivity. Or...?
- treeman79 6y agoYea, this is the part I’m having trouble wrapping my head around. Good isolation can give can give hours or days of useful operation. Which would enable a lot of cool science. Colder then ambient temperature? Feels perpetual motion to me. Maybe a really big tank of liquid nitrogen that slowly evaporates excess heat. Doubt that would give a lot of extra time.
- 6y ago
- JKCalhoun 6y ago"By contacting former Soviet scientists, he obtained raw data from the [Soviet Venera] missions, processing it himself to produce fantastic pictures, which are now available on his website:" http://mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm http://mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm