3 ms·
Balloon, long tether, hardened probe makes short trips to the surface. It could last for years.
by dvh 2y ago
Balloon, long tether, hardened probe makes short trips to the surface. It could last for years.
- Terr_ 2y agoThe rough numbers I can find are that the acid cloud layer is ~75km thick, which seems awfully long for any kind of tether that'll have to support its own weight. With the low pressure (~0.1 ATM) it'd also need to be a rather big balloon. Further down, the ~100m/s (~220 mph) winds on the tether would likely try to drag everything sideways, scraping any probe across the landscape.
- perihelions 2y agoAcid's a solved problem; PTFE (Teflon) is a comprehensive solution to hot sulfuric acid, well validated in chemical engineering problems on Earth. It's versatile enough you can even coat balloons with it [0]. The hard part is keeping electronics cool. The balloon ideas offer a really elegant solution. You could cycle a balloon between altitudes—between the 500 °C surface, and cold layers of the high atmosphere, cooling off and refilling a thermal storage reservoir for the surface. On Venus, can find cool 20 °C air at a very reasonable, balloon-navigable, 0.5 bar pressure level [1]. [0] https://robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/news/up-up-and-away-to-venus/ https://robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/news/up-up-and-away-to-venus/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus?#/media/File:11214_2023_956_Fig6_HTML.webp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus?#/media/Fi...
- rqtwteye 2y agoI definitely would like to see that. The advantage with Venus is also that the turnaround times would be shorter compared to Jupiter or Saturn.