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How the Soviets put a lander on Venus
- lstodd 5y agoWhat Venus needs is not another lander, but an aerostat with syntethic aperture radar. All of this can be done in plain silicon, no one's forcing anyone to descend into the hell. EDIT: or maybe forget the aerostat thing and just put a satellite in orbit already. With a SAR.
- Isamu 5y agoSo Magellan? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellan_(spacecraft) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellan_(spacecraft)
- ghaff 5y agoAnd there are apparently three new missions in the planning stages. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/venus/overview/ https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/venus/overview/
- Melatonic 5y agoScrew just an aerostat - lets get some giant floating cities out there!
- mateo1 5y agoBoth radars and people are much happier up in orbit.
- jbay808 5y agoThey did also deploy aerostats, although not with synthetic aperture radar: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program
- smm11 5y agoThis. We may have left a lander on the moon, but the Soviets put cameras on Venus. Checkmate.
- readthenotes1 5y agoNah. That's merely good work. STS-107-Space Shuttle Columbia, that's checkmate.
- marcodiego 5y agoSoviet Union fans are probably very proud of Soyuz safety record.
- twelve40 5y agoWhat's that got to do with Venus landings?
- pastacacioepepe 5y agoNothing. The statement reeks of capitalist/american fragility. People can't tolerate the idea that capitalism isn't the absolute best choice in completely every aspect of our lives.
- aenis 5y agoI think USSR fans generally dont care about safety. Its assumed there will be casaulties, the end justifies the means. One needs to either spend some time in Russia, or know Russians well to appreciate how much this influences everyday life in their country.
- sedan_baklazhan 5y agoThis is very wrong. Neither USSR nor Russia really did/do think this way as a general rule. Human life is valued a lot.
- echelon 5y ago
- trulyrandom 5y agoI enjoyed reading this article, thanks for sharing it. It would have been nice if the pictures that these probes took were also included in the article.
- intrepidhero 5y agohttp://mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm http://mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm has a neat set of pictures, history, and altimeter data from the Soviet Venera program. I find the pictures from the surface very eerie and awe-inspiring. These seemingly boring, peaceful looking pictures of rocky ground and clear sky come from a robot in a atmosphere of super-critical CO2, at 460 C, having just descended through clouds of sulfuric acid. Before this robot was melted, crushed, blown away or dissolved into oblivion it took a moment to send us a few pictures of the nearby landscape and tell us what color the sky was. Well done, brave and lonely explorer!
- Melatonic 5y agoI had a dream once that life started on Venus, multiplied like crazy and fucked up the planet with overproduction of shitloads of greenhouse gasses ending in the acidic madness that is present today, and then jumping over to Earth. In retrospect this does not seem THAT insane and I really do wonder why we have not focused more on Venus as a whole. It seems to me that in the long term it might be easier to terraform a planet like Venus than it is to terraform a planet like mars. Stripping something away is often easier than building it from scratch - and Venus has a whole lot of atmosphere on it! It could also just be that my brain finds the idea of T-Rex's using their little tiny arms to operate computers and spaceships on the journey from ancient Venus to Earth extra hilarious.
- walrus01 5y ago> started on Venus, multiplied like crazy and fucked up the planet it's all good until some protomolecule flies Eros into Venus and starts building the seed of a ring gate
- sprash 5y ago> In the long term it might be easier to terraform a planet like Venus than it is to terraform a planet like mars. One day on Venus is 224.65 Earth days. You won't be able to change that, even in the long term.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoPlants grew just fine at the poles way back when the climate supported that. Humans and plenty of other animals have lived in the arctic for millennia. I don't think the day length is a big problem.
- holoduke 5y agoWeather maybe. The reason why we have wind is of course because of pressure differences. But those are also caused by the centrifugal powers moving air up and downwards in spirals. That would not happen in the same way on Venus
- ArtWomb 5y agoPrivate sector Venus upper atmospheric bio-exploration is now live. The game is afoot ;) https://www.inverse.com/innovation/rocket-lab-venus-explained https://www.inverse.com/innovation/rocket-lab-venus-explaine...
- spennant 5y agoI want a robot to land on Europa, drill, through her icy top layer, explore the oceans underneath, and send us pretty pictures… in my lifetime.
- yrgulation 5y agoI am not an expert in the field and happy to be corrected, but i think Europa is vastly underrated and i agree with your comment. I suppose the challenge is the thickness of its crust but in my view its worth exploring the options to reach its water ocean and potentially explore a research base. From water one can generate fuel, oxygen and do farming. Really wish someone knowledgeable would chip into why this moon is not getting more attention.
- benzofuran 5y agoTalk to Bill Stone about that - he's been one of the preeminent cave explorers and they've been working towards exactly that: https://stoneaerospace.com/ https://stoneaerospace.com/ - look at Prometheus and Archimedes in particular.
- divbzero 5y agoHow difficult would it be to drill down through the ice? Would melting through the ice be a viable alternative or would that end up being less efficient?
- ridgeguy 5y agoA vehicle tipped with a Pu238 heat source might do the trick with no moving parts. Assumes no pesky rocks in the way.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kingcharles 5y agoWhat about the tentacles? http://allreaders.com/book-review-summary/2061-odyssey-three-39300 http://allreaders.com/book-review-summary/2061-odyssey-three...
- swamp40 5y agoAmericans just used a nuclear powered air conditioner...
- sg47 5y agoDid they collect any astrophage?
- ilamont 5y agoThere was a bizarre story some years back about the Venera landers picking up signs of life: According to the Russian news service Ria Novosti, Leonid Ksanfomaliti, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences who worked on unmanned Soviet missions to Venus during the 1970s and '80s, has written a new article in the journal Solar System Research. In the article, he calls attention to several objects photographed by the Venera-13 landing probe, a spacecraft that landed on Venus in 1982. The objects — including features described as a disc and a scorpion — appear to change locations from one photo to the next. "Let's boldly suggest that the objects' morphological features would allow us to say that they are living," Ksanfomaliti stated, according to Ria Novosti. ... In one image, the Venera-13 landing probe is seen parked on the rocky Venusian foreground, and an object shaped somewhat like a crab stands inches from the probe. In another image, also taken by Venera-13, this crab-like object appears to be in a different location. The claim was debunked; the evidence consists of image artifacts or mechanical pieces from the landers themselves: https://www.livescience.com/18083-life-venus-russian-claim.html https://www.livescience.com/18083-life-venus-russian-claim.h...
- femto 5y agoHere's the Venera 14 audio, referred to in the article. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jZDW53U8qQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jZDW53U8qQ https://youtu.be/P3Ife6iBdsU?t=132 https://youtu.be/P3Ife6iBdsU?t=132
- 29athrowaway 5y agoVenus is much closer than Mars and has a gravity more similar to that of Earth.
- nhoughto 5y agoNot surprising I suppose, likely the inspiration, but the pressures and temperature and general inhospitable-ness sound an awful lot like the alternate life supporting planet for Rocky in Project Hail Mary. Good book!