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It's disappointing that the NASA model of space exploration (few, expensive, long-lived complicated devices) means that we'll probably not get better pictures o

It's disappointing that the NASA model of space exploration (few, expensive, long-lived complicated devices) means that we'll probably not get better pictures of the surface of Venus for quite a while. They just aren't going to fund a $500mm lander that lives for 4 hours. If SpaceX had the money, I'm sure they would throw a lander a month at Venus, iterating on the longevity and quality. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

crazydoggers 6y ago
I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. It’s not just about the cost, but about what science could be done. Much of the basic science has already been done by Venera, Mariner, Pioneer, and Magellan (Magellan providing a gravitational map of the entire surface of Venus). Here’s a list of the many missions to Venus [1] So future missions not only need to justify costs, but actually overcome some pretty extraordinary engineering problems of doing science in such conditions. If you look at Mars for instance, where conditions are placid by comparison, we still have failures. The Insight lander for instance failed to dig into the Martian surface due to underestimating the friction of the surface material. So think of Mars as a learning tool for future space exploration. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Venus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Venus
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  Given that we're dozens of landers down on Mars — many of them modern — and we still have a ton to learn about the soil and history (ie, we are still landing science rovers there, as recently as this week), it doesn't really make sense to me that a few probes from the 80s have done all the on-the-ground science we want to do on Venus.
  - est31 6y ago
    Even on earth we have still lots to learn about its geology, and 100% of our geologists live on its surface. It never stops. Each answered questions opens two new ones.
  - crazydoggers 6y ago
    It’s not that we’ve done all the on ground science. It’s that we’ve done the simple stuff that you can do given the conditions. Staying longer and doing more complex science are harder engineering problems. And I’m not saying it’s not worth it... it is. It’s just sometimes learning before you leap is valuable. Let’s say we spend $3 billion on a Venus lander, and it survives 12 hours. Compare that to just the engineering knowledge that was gained from the Curiosity rovers for the same price operating for 5 years. On top of which, humans stepping foot on another planet has incredible value in motivating all of humanity to do something greater. That’s certain to happen on Mars first. Of course I’d love if we did it all together... but you all have to keep calling your Senators to make that happen. :)
- himinlomax 6y ago
  > It’s not just about the cost, but about what science could be done I'd argue that's not the issue either. We can keep a probe on Mars or in any orbit for years and gather data over that time. Anything that we land on Venus can only ever operate for a few minutes. Maybe there's stuff we could learn on Venus if we could stay there long term, but we can't. Any other target (Mars, Mercury, gas giant satellites, asteroids, dwarf planets ...) will have a better ROI, by several orders of magnitude.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Heck I'd argue you'll get more science from trying to build something that survives on Venus than from Venus itself. Faint recollection, but I think at some point there were SiC semiconductors mentioned to try and survive longer.
- f6v 6y ago
  Space isn't just about the basic science. We could advance engineering with projects like HAVOC [1] That could be indispensable if we ever need to use it on a more "interesting" planet. 1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operational_Concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operationa...
himinlomax 6y ago
There's not much you can iterate on Venus. It's a pressure cooker down there hot enough to melt lead. There's no way a probe can last more than a few minutes on the ground. With a huge investment, you could maybe double that, but in any case you're going to hit diminishing returns really fast. I'm not sure we would even know how to design a refrigeration system that would work at those temps, let alone how to power it, and I'm also pretty sure we don't know how to make anything electronic that works at those temps.
- aero-glide2 6y ago
  NASA is working on some mechanical computer concepts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton_Rover_for_Extreme_Environments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton_Rover_for_Extreme_En...
- dzdt 6y ago
  We are close to having microelectronics that can function at Venus surface temperature and pressure. Examples tested include smallish circuits like a 555 timer [1] or a 256 pixel sensor array [2]. The Silicon Carbide technology seems very capable. [1] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8782125/ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8782125/ [2] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8959229/ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8959229/
throwawayboise 6y ago
We're about to spend $1.9T on pork under the guise of COVID-19 relief. $500M is pocket change.
giantrobot 6y ago
SpaceX doesn't do self-funded science projects. I'm not really sure where you get that impression. More to the point though, Venus is extremely inhospitable. On the surface the temperature is hundreds of degrees and the atmospheric pressure is equivalent to about 900m below the ocean on Earth. The solar flux at the surface is also too low for a lander to use solar panels. So even if NASA or whomever wanted to spam Venus with landers, there's no real way to make them low cost as their main mission lifespan would be measured in hours at best. Because of the surface pressure a lander would need to carry robust shielding for instruments and electronics. Because of the surface temperature the lander components will eventually overheat. Thicker shielding will delay the overheating but that eats into the lander mass budget for science payload. Photovoltaics are out for power so the only options are chemical batteries or an RTG. An RTG isn't a realistic option since the environmental temperature is too high for it to cool and keep from melting. Some sort of buoyant probe design isn't all that practical either. While upper parts of Venus' atmosphere are more hospitable than the surface, there's clouds of sulphuric acid and incredible winds to deal with. The density of the atmosphere is such that there's only a few kilometers of visibility so probe's floating in the lower density upper atmosphere wouldn't have any better ability to image the surface than orbiters. So you're looking at Venus landers that look more like bathyspheres (no rovers) powered by chemical batteries. You're dropping them into an extremely high pressure furnace where they have a life expectancy of minutes to hours. I don't know how you'd expect to do such missions at a discount. Even if you somehow got the mission cost to a low tens on millions of dollars you're looking at ones of megabytes of scientific data for that price. Space is hard and some parts of space are super hard. Funding is finite so getting the best scientific ROI is important. Littering Venus with steel spheres and parachutes for a few megabytes of data doesn't have nearly the return of a rover on Mars.

crazydoggers 6y ago

I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. It’s not just about the cost, but about what science could be done. Much of the basic science has already been done by Venera, Mariner, Pioneer, and Magellan (Magellan providing a gravitational map of the entire surface of Venus). Here’s a list of the many missions to Venus [1] So future missions not only need to justify costs, but actually overcome some pretty extraordinary engineering problems of doing science in such conditions. If you look at Mars for instance, where conditions are placid by comparison, we still have failures. The Insight lander for instance failed to dig into the Martian surface due to underestimating the friction of the surface material. So think of Mars as a learning tool for future space exploration. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Venus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Venus

bpodgursky 6y ago
Given that we're dozens of landers down on Mars — many of them modern — and we still have a ton to learn about the soil and history (ie, we are still landing science rovers there, as recently as this week), it doesn't really make sense to me that a few probes from the 80s have done all the on-the-ground science we want to do on Venus.
- est31 6y ago
  Even on earth we have still lots to learn about its geology, and 100% of our geologists live on its surface. It never stops. Each answered questions opens two new ones.
- crazydoggers 6y ago
  It’s not that we’ve done all the on ground science. It’s that we’ve done the simple stuff that you can do given the conditions. Staying longer and doing more complex science are harder engineering problems. And I’m not saying it’s not worth it... it is. It’s just sometimes learning before you leap is valuable. Let’s say we spend $3 billion on a Venus lander, and it survives 12 hours. Compare that to just the engineering knowledge that was gained from the Curiosity rovers for the same price operating for 5 years. On top of which, humans stepping foot on another planet has incredible value in motivating all of humanity to do something greater. That’s certain to happen on Mars first. Of course I’d love if we did it all together... but you all have to keep calling your Senators to make that happen. :)
himinlomax 6y ago
> It’s not just about the cost, but about what science could be done I'd argue that's not the issue either. We can keep a probe on Mars or in any orbit for years and gather data over that time. Anything that we land on Venus can only ever operate for a few minutes. Maybe there's stuff we could learn on Venus if we could stay there long term, but we can't. Any other target (Mars, Mercury, gas giant satellites, asteroids, dwarf planets ...) will have a better ROI, by several orders of magnitude.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Heck I'd argue you'll get more science from trying to build something that survives on Venus than from Venus itself. Faint recollection, but I think at some point there were SiC semiconductors mentioned to try and survive longer.
f6v 6y ago
Space isn't just about the basic science. We could advance engineering with projects like HAVOC [1] That could be indispensable if we ever need to use it on a more "interesting" planet. 1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operational_Concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operationa...

himinlomax 6y ago

There's not much you can iterate on Venus. It's a pressure cooker down there hot enough to melt lead. There's no way a probe can last more than a few minutes on the ground. With a huge investment, you could maybe double that, but in any case you're going to hit diminishing returns really fast. I'm not sure we would even know how to design a refrigeration system that would work at those temps, let alone how to power it, and I'm also pretty sure we don't know how to make anything electronic that works at those temps.

aero-glide2 6y ago
NASA is working on some mechanical computer concepts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton_Rover_for_Extreme_Environments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton_Rover_for_Extreme_En...
dzdt 6y ago
We are close to having microelectronics that can function at Venus surface temperature and pressure. Examples tested include smallish circuits like a 555 timer [1] or a 256 pixel sensor array [2]. The Silicon Carbide technology seems very capable. [1] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8782125/ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8782125/ [2] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8959229/ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8959229/

throwawayboise 6y ago

We're about to spend $1.9T on pork under the guise of COVID-19 relief. $500M is pocket change.

giantrobot 6y ago

SpaceX doesn't do self-funded science projects. I'm not really sure where you get that impression. More to the point though, Venus is extremely inhospitable. On the surface the temperature is hundreds of degrees and the atmospheric pressure is equivalent to about 900m below the ocean on Earth. The solar flux at the surface is also too low for a lander to use solar panels. So even if NASA or whomever wanted to spam Venus with landers, there's no real way to make them low cost as their main mission lifespan would be measured in hours at best. Because of the surface pressure a lander would need to carry robust shielding for instruments and electronics. Because of the surface temperature the lander components will eventually overheat. Thicker shielding will delay the overheating but that eats into the lander mass budget for science payload. Photovoltaics are out for power so the only options are chemical batteries or an RTG. An RTG isn't a realistic option since the environmental temperature is too high for it to cool and keep from melting. Some sort of buoyant probe design isn't all that practical either. While upper parts of Venus' atmosphere are more hospitable than the surface, there's clouds of sulphuric acid and incredible winds to deal with. The density of the atmosphere is such that there's only a few kilometers of visibility so probe's floating in the lower density upper atmosphere wouldn't have any better ability to image the surface than orbiters. So you're looking at Venus landers that look more like bathyspheres (no rovers) powered by chemical batteries. You're dropping them into an extremely high pressure furnace where they have a life expectancy of minutes to hours. I don't know how you'd expect to do such missions at a discount. Even if you somehow got the mission cost to a low tens on millions of dollars you're looking at ones of megabytes of scientific data for that price. Space is hard and some parts of space are super hard. Funding is finite so getting the best scientific ROI is important. Littering Venus with steel spheres and parachutes for a few megabytes of data doesn't have nearly the return of a rover on Mars.