Why did the Soviets launch so many Venus Probes?

[fredinno]

4 hours ago, K^2 said:

And I'm saying that we're obviously not interested in something like Phobos or Deimos, because we'd industrialize Moon long before these rocks would become of any use. We are looking for places where we can place a long-term human habitat and do some science. Phobos and Deimos aren't it, because as people pointed out, we might as well just put a station in orbit with same success. As far as interesting places go, we're back to Martian surface or Venusian clouds.

And a cloud base on Venus has a lot of advantages. Once built, it can be pretty much self-sustaining. The fact that internal pressure matches external means that a small leak isn't an instant suffocation risk to everyone on board. That means that we could build fairly extensive greenhouses without requiring special materials, and patch them up as necessary. There is also a matter of exploration. Building flying vehicles on Mars is tricky, and you can't exactly go at highway speeds on the surface. Meaning you'd be limited to working in immediate proximity of the base. You'll run out of interesting things in a hurry. Whereas on Venus, your options for flight are pretty much the same as on Earth, meaning you have access to large area for study. You wouldn't be able to land anywhere, but you'd be able to fly to location of interest and simply drop off a probe. If you need to retrieve something from the surface, all you need is a weather balloon.

...And Venus Clouds have little public support too, due to landism. Humans like to have a planetary-sized (or at least Dwarf planet) solid rock to stand on and plant a flag on. And the Moon is technically the easiest of all anyways- due to low transit time. Generally the public feels going all the way to Phobos-Deimos and not landing on Mars is a waste for the effort ("It's so close, why not land???) and NEOs are uninteresting objects whose sole purpose is to be a threat to Earth and for Micheal Bay to make movies about blowing up.

 

And a leak would still be very damaging on Venus, due to its sulphuric acid...

Also, Venus Cloud Bases can't be self-sustaining due to lack of minerals and a ground to mine them from.

 

It has been shown that three Five hundred day Mars surface missions with a pressurized rover and carefully selected landing sites have the capability to study 90 percent of the entire planet. Pressurized rovers are slow, but can sustain humans for long durations, making them useful for travel.

 

And for that surface probe- that would be one expensive probe- not only would it and its ballon have to survive the surface multiple times, it would have limited time and/or power due to Venus blocking sunlight and being too hot for RTGs to be effective. And the winds are also one of the biggest challenges of going to Venus.

6 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Discussions on the feasibility of manned missions are cute, but seem to ignore the fact that we base that feasibility mainly on the data we got from those unmanned missions. It's not like the Russians were insane and decided to scout out a planet with a 90 atm, 400°C atmosphere because they wanted to go there. We learned about that atmosphere because they sent those probes.

I read somewhere that the ways they operated, the Russians tended to to better at Venus where simple pre-programmed autonomous probes lasted longer, and the Americans did better at Mars (because of atmospheric conditions) where remote controlled probes (like Viking) did better, which is why both countries had different success at the different planets, but I'm not in a position to gauge the validity of that statement.

 

The only hole to this hypothesis is that the Soviets f**ked up Venus Probes about as much as Mars.

[fredinno]

5 hours ago, PB666 said:

Average Venusian surface temperature is above the decomposition point of most organics including the latex protein. It would simply turn brown and crumble choking the astronaut in about 20 seconds. The Venusian atmosphere is around 90 times more pressurized than that of earths; for surface density at that pressure and heat the oxygen inside the space suit would instantly begin burning the skin. 160 feet is the practical diving limit which is about 6 atm of pressure, So no, humans would never be walking around on Venus. The best that might be obtained is a heavily fortified rover with an unknown type of air conditioning system, that can leave the surface within a few hours.

Phobos-Deimos is an achievable land and return by standards in which Mars is too difficult for re-ascent.

If you can imagine that the CO2 that is trapped in limestone formations on earth suddenly became vapor, along with alot of the sulfate in seawater, becoming sulfer dioxide, and imagine anything that is volatile at 1000F is suddenly now in the atmosphere, imagine what sulfate alone would do. 0.2% of sea water, at roughly 2 miles deep, that is 21.12 feet of sulfate at a density about 3 times that of water. That alone would 2 atm of pressure, then factor all the carbon locked up in soil and oxidize it with the oxygen in sea water and blow off the hydrogen in space. Thats a good start, then drive the sulfate and carbon out of the earths crust, the crust becomes extremely basic and the atmosphere vaporous acid, whenever the surface cools sufficiently the gases react violently with the surface heating it up again, the turbulation eventually flattens the terrain.  Dropping hardened criminals through Venuses atmosphere with a latex mask would be an unmatched form of capital punishment.

It would also technically bea Death sentence, which brings more legal questions into the forefront.

1 hour ago, AngelLestat said:

Year 1970: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/QSBItX9n3YIxITmGp_mT7IGLxq-UWy-dIwcvv-fhxbgQhcFrYlYoZCULm8OiFwREL_sTEGyFHg1HsSyFfi8TjZzmEttSdpjI1TXx1ggyVAA-ZXfFLFQZugtcOMDkkjSg7g

 

Unless the orbit insertion is through aerobraking or aerocapture (as the Magellan mission on venus), then not sure what difference it is between a normal orbital insertion maneuver on Mars vs Venus, in any case Venus is bigger so gravity assists will help more.
So orbits and fly-by are not a pattern we need to follow to understand differences between planets.

 

Read...  also..  try to take few minutes before answer.

-------------------------------------------------------

By the way.. many mention the gravity well "problem", but make a reusable rocket in venus is a lot easier than earth.
Lower deltaV needed, there is no need to leave "fuel" in the tanks for a propulsive landing or go back to a pad..  the stages just go back and float waiting for being pick up. Other types of nuclear rockets can be used (no problem with pollute that atmosphere). At that point the cost to send something to orbit is just the cost of fuel... and the fact you can make aerocapture maneuvers with ease, it means that any low gravity rock without atmosphere would require a lot of deltav.

Oh yeah, BTW, I only included dedicated Venus Flyby Probes- not ones going there to get a boost. And by your logic of Mars and Venus Orbital insertions being similar, Mars and Mercury orbit insertions are also similar.

 

And the SSTO statement is just wrong. Venus' upper atmosphere is more difficult- for one, you have to use some form of air-launch.

[K^2]

9 minutes ago, fredinno said:

And a leak would still be very damaging on Venus, due to its sulphuric acid...

Also, Venus Cloud Bases can't be self-sustaining due to lack of minerals and a ground to mine them from.

 

It has been shown that three Five hundred day Mars surface missions with a pressurized rover and carefully selected landing sites have the capability to study 90 percent of the entire planet. Pressurized rovers are slow, but can sustain humans for long durations, making them useful for travel.

 

And for that surface probe- that would be one expensive probe- not only would it and its ballon have to survive the surface multiple times, it would have limited time and/or power due to Venus blocking sunlight and being too hot for RTGs to be effective. And the winds are also one of the biggest challenges of going to Venus.

A leak would be dangerous if there was pressure differential. Without one, it's really more about diffusion. Thrown on a couple of layers of cellophane between you and the outside world, and even if one of them springs a leak, you'll have days before it gets to dangerous levels. So long as you have detectors installed in enough places, you'll know about it early enough to fix or evacuate at your leisure.

Minerals. You're such an earthling. What do you need minerals for in atmosphere that consists of carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrogen, and sulfuric oxide/acids? Sure, you'll need some tiny quantities for plants and humans to be healthy. And you might need to import a bit of metal for vehicles. But if you're building a cloud city out of metals/minerals, you're doing it wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. Carbon-based polymers are going to be your primary construction materials for absolutely everything. And these can be plant-derived. Not to mention that food and oxygen are going to be your byproducts. Seriously, if you can't make a cloud city self-sustaining in that nice of an environment, you don't deserve to call yourself a sentient species.

It has been shown that three Five hundred day Mars surface missions with a pressurized rover and carefully selected landing sites have the capability to study 90 percent of the entire planet. Pressurized rovers are slow, but can sustain humans for long durations, making them useful for travel.

Leaving for five months in a tin can. That's what every human being dreams about. Also, it's baloney either way. To consider the surface well-explored, you'll need to pass within at least 1km of every location. For 10 rovers to explore 90% of the surface in 5 months, they'd have to be traveling non-stop at a speed of 1km/s. Do the math before quoting somebody on internet.

And for that surface probe- that would be one expensive probe- not only would it and its ballon have to survive the surface multiple times, it would have limited time and/or power due to Venus blocking sunlight and being too hot for RTGs to be effective. And the winds are also one of the biggest challenges of going to Venus.

Or it can be a cheap, disposable probe you'll use one to collect the samples you need, then you manufacture another one back at the base. Most probes would be the size of the hockey puck, made from cheap plastics, and you'll drop it overboard to collect the data for five minutes, and forget it ever existed as it gets melted on the surface. The hell would you want to build expensive, multi-use probes for? This isn't Mars. You aren't sending the probes there from several light minutes away. You just fly out on your plane from the base, and drop them. They don't need to endure the environment for months. Hell, they don't even need to be reliable. If this one didn't work, drop another one.

Again, you keep thinking of it in terms of exploration we've been doing. The beauty of Venus is that once we have a base there, we don't have to explore in these stupid, expensive, complicated ways. We can leverage environment and technology to our advantage for once.

 

Also, please don't make three posts in a row. Just edit the posts you've already made.

[fredinno]

40 minutes ago, K^2 said:

A leak would be dangerous if there was pressure differential. Without one, it's really more about diffusion. Thrown on a couple of layers of cellophane between you and the outside world, and even if one of them springs a leak, you'll have days before it gets to dangerous levels. So long as you have detectors installed in enough places, you'll know about it early enough to fix or evacuate at your leisure.

Minerals. You're such an earthling. What do you need minerals for in atmosphere that consists of carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrogen, and sulfuric oxide/acids? Sure, you'll need some tiny quantities for plants and humans to be healthy. And you might need to import a bit of metal for vehicles. But if you're building a cloud city out of metals/minerals, you're doing it wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. Carbon-based polymers are going to be your primary construction materials for absolutely everything. And these can be plant-derived. Not to mention that food and oxygen are going to be your byproducts. Seriously, if you can't make a cloud city self-sustaining in that nice of an environment, you don't deserve to call yourself a sentient species.

 

 

Leaving for five months in a tin can. That's what every human being dreams about. Also, it's baloney either way. To consider the surface well-explored, you'll need to pass within at least 1km of every location. For 10 rovers to explore 90% of the surface in 5 months, they'd have to be traveling non-stop at a speed of 1km/s. Do the math before quoting somebody on internet.

 

 

Or it can be a cheap, disposable probe you'll use one to collect the samples you need, then you manufacture another one back at the base. Most probes would be the size of the hockey puck, made from cheap plastics, and you'll drop it overboard to collect the data for five minutes, and forget it ever existed as it gets melted on the surface. The hell would you want to build expensive, multi-use probes for? This isn't Mars. You aren't sending the probes there from several light minutes away. You just fly out on your plane from the base, and drop them. They don't need to endure the environment for months. Hell, they don't even need to be reliable. If this one didn't work, drop another one.

Again, you keep thinking of it in terms of exploration we've been doing. The beauty of Venus is that once we have a base there, we don't have to explore in these stupid, expensive, complicated ways. We can leverage environment and technology to our advantage for once.

 

Also, please don't make three posts in a row. Just edit the posts you've already made.

And I was thinking more in terms of the first missions- no way they'll have probe makers on those. And metal to make the computer parts and pressure vessel, not to mention lithium for batteries, is going to be expensive. If you're going to make those kinds of things, you might as well be teleoperating Mars missions from Phobos.

 

...Implying the Moon and Mars cannot have self sustaining bases. 

 

Not to mention, you're going to be stuck in a tin can going to Venus for 3 months- and I got the 90 percent figure from this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj45Au3KCRg which is based off the TROY Mars mission concept.

[K^2]

32 minutes ago, fredinno said:

And I was thinking more in terms of the first missions- no way they'll have probe makers on those. And metal to make the computer parts and pressure vessel, not to mention lithium for batteries, is going to be expensive. If you're going to make those kinds of things, you might as well be teleoperating Mars missions from Phobos.

 

...Implying the Moon and Mars cannot have self sustaining bases. 

 

Not to mention, you're going to be stuck in a tin can going to Venus for 3 months- and I got the 90 percent figure from this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj45Au3KCRg which is based off the TROY Mars mission concept.

Graphene makes for much better batteries. There are organic substitutes for silicone, and you really don't need metal for anything, except, maybe, a few high temperature applications here and there. These are the only things you'd really need shipped in from Earth and/or the belt. Again, you have a very Earthman attitude towards these things. Do a bit of research.

 

Quote

...Implying the Moon and Mars cannot have self sustaining bases.

 

Moon can't. Mars would be very difficult. Based on tech and materials we have. You need completely different materials to keep bases on these bodies pressurized and thermally regulated. The kind that will make the base always operate at a deficit, requiring constant, substantial influx of materials and parts from Earth. Note that I'm not saying belt here, because it's not just raw materials you are going to need anymore. I can make PLA from plants I grow in a greenhouse and 3D print it with a printer I can get at Best Buy. Steel requires a bit more love.

Quote

Not to mention, you're going to be stuck in a tin can going to Venus for 3 months- and I got the 90 percent figure from this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj45Au3KCRg

 which is based off the TROY Mars mission concept.

And you are going to be stuck in a tin can going to Phobos for 5-7 months. And then you'll be stuck in a tin can for 5 months, before you take another 5-7 month trip back. I'll take two 3 month trips in a tin can vs nearly two years in one continuously. You can ask some ISS guys if they think 3 months vs 2 years is a big difference.

Again, do your own math. Don't just trust something you've read on the internet. It's impossible to explore 90% of a planet in 5 months. Even with satellites buzzing about, it's tricky. Actually visiting, absolutely impossible, even with fast vehicles. Realistically, a Martian rover is going to crawl at pedestrian pace most of the time.

 

Edited January 9, 2016 by K^2

[YNM]

Have to agree here with K^2. Mars is merely an airless body (in terms of ratio to Earth). Venus is a super-air-y body, but there exist a zone where the ratio is 1:1. You can't compare them, much like comparing Earth and Moon. At Mars, you need tin cans everywhere, or some super-strong bag. At Venus, an usual bag should still be comfortable. On Venus, you fly. On Mars, you'll go offroad. On Venus, you don't go to the surface, while there's nothing but surface for Mars (and those two small rock, but guess how many cares for them ?). Venus missions should be faster, while Mars mission have to be slower, exploring wise or not.

WRT OP : Politics then ? That's interesting...

 

 

[Hexlord]

Well, I can see where this is going... Russia and co head to Venus, while USA and co head to mars. And the arms race begins anew. This time planet vs planet.

[Kryten]

The soviets had low reliability, so generally sent two identical spacecraft (sometimes three) per window; and they had a policy of launching every window. For the 60s and 70s there's not much difference in pace between venus, mars and lunar efforts (e.g. 4 mars mission launches in 1973, more than any venus window), but by the eighties they'd settled into mostly venus due to a combination of better historical reliability and their not having many 'firsts' to gain from mars after the success of the viking programme.

[fredinno]

4 hours ago, K^2 said:

Graphene makes for much better batteries. There are organic substitutes for silicone, and you really don't need metal for anything, except, maybe, a few high temperature applications here and there. These are the only things you'd really need shipped in from Earth and/or the belt. Again, you have a very Earthman attitude towards these things. Do a bit of research.

 

 

Moon can't. Mars would be very difficult. Based on tech and materials we have. You need completely different materials to keep bases on these bodies pressurized and thermally regulated. The kind that will make the base always operate at a deficit, requiring constant, substantial influx of materials and parts from Earth. Note that I'm not saying belt here, because it's not just raw materials you are going to need anymore. I can make PLA from plants I grow in a greenhouse and 3D print it with a printer I can get at Best Buy. Steel requires a bit more love.

And you are going to be stuck in a tin can going to Phobos for 5-7 months. And then you'll be stuck in a tin can for 5 months, before you take another 5-7 month trip back. I'll take two 3 month trips in a tin can vs nearly two years in one continuously. You can ask some ISS guys if they think 3 months vs 2 years is a big difference.

Again, do your own math. Don't just trust something you've read on the internet. It's impossible to explore 90% of a planet in 5 months. Even with satellites buzzing about, it's tricky. Actually visiting, absolutely impossible, even with fast vehicles. Realistically, a Martian rover is going to crawl at pedestrian pace most of the time.

 

I said exploring the planet in 3 missions, each one being Five hundred days- not in Five months.

 

A self sustaining Moon base can't work? What? You can mine materials from the ground, produce rocket fuel from water ice or CO2 from the occupants, or from the ground. You can make the base out of regolith (along with the solar panels) and carbon (collected over billions of years from the solar wind http://www.lunarpedia.org/index.php?title=Carbon can also be extracted from the soil).

 

And technically, you're going to be stuck in a tin can most of the time on Venus too. Not being stuck in a tin can is pretty much going on EVA, something people on Phobos are likely to do more walking around than Venus explorers- despite Venus having a better surrounding environment.

 

....And I'm fairly sure a Venus lander is a high temperature, high pressure application.

 

Either way, let's stop talking about manned missions, this is getting Off topic.

[A35K]

Well, a cloud base on Venus would be pretty cool, but the upper atmosphere of the planet has 300km/h winds, and lightning storms are frequent. Also, Venus is highly volcanically active, so couldn't there be a risk of a volcanic eruption damaging the base? However, the idea of flying a plane their would be cool, but how low do you have to be to actually see the surface below the clouds? However, there could be a way of reaching the surface for periods of time. The lower atmosphere is the same pressure as being almost 1km below Earth's ocean, so a submarine type vessel would work well. This would then return to the upper base using balloons. 

[fredinno]

23 minutes ago, A35K said:

Well, a cloud base on Venus would be pretty cool, but the upper atmosphere of the planet has 300km/h winds, and lightning storms are frequent. Also, Venus is highly volcanically active, so couldn't there be a risk of a volcanic eruption damaging the base? However, the idea of flying a plane their would be cool, but how low do you have to be to actually see the surface below the clouds? However, there could be a way of reaching the surface for periods of time. The lower atmosphere is the same pressure as being almost 1km below Earth's ocean, so a submarine type vessel would work well. This would then return to the upper base using balloons. 

We actually aren't sure if Venus is volcanically active. We assume it is because of its size.

[YNM]

WRT windspeed: Actually, it's not the windspeed that matters, as you're flying and not attached to anything. What you should worry is gusts. It's comparable to crosswind landings on Earth. Your direction wrt wind and windspeeds matter, but what matters even more is gusts. If you have a sudden gust attacking at touchdown, you can break your wing due to wingstrike. On Venus, you can rip the habitat apart.

The only benefit from going to Mars is simple though : easy to return back to space, and not so much ablative needed.

 

[Findthepin1]

Venus is almost perfectly fine at the ~0.5 bar level (~55 km), at 30 degrees Celsius IIRC. 1 bar is a bit less comfortable at ~70 degrees Celsius. The only issue is the clouds, at around this height there's the middle of the acidic cloud altitudes. If you have protection from that, you can go out with an oxygen mask.

Also, there's definitely water in that altitude, we know because it's part of the weather cycle. It combines with sulphur trioxide to make the acid rain.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Findthepin1

[fredinno]

Just now, Findthepin1 said:

Venus is almost perfectly fine at the ~0.5 bar level (~55 km), at 30 degrees Celsius IIRC. 1 bar is a bit less comfortable at ~70 degrees Celsius. The only issue is the clouds, at around this height there's the middle of the acidic cloud altitudes. If you have protection from that, you can go out with SCUBA stuff.

Also, there's definitely water in that altitude, we know because it's part of the weather cycle. It combines with sulphur trioxide to make the acid rain.

*Suphur Dioxide

Also, Water is a trace gas and difficult to extract from the atmosphere of Venus.

[Findthepin1]

9 minutes ago, fredinno said:

*Suphur Dioxide

Also, Water is a trace gas and difficult to extract from the atmosphere of Venus.

SO3 plus H2O is H2SO4. For four oxygen atoms to be in it, and only one comes from the water, three must come from the other component. The sun's radiation splits carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and one oxygen atom. That atom binds to sulphur dioxide to make sulphur trioxide, which combines with water to make sulphuric acid.

Also, yes, water is difficult to extract from the atmosphere. I was pointing more towards the situation in which any water exists in Earthlike conditions at Venus and so it may hold life.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Findthepin1

[AngelLestat]

Fredinno: I will help you with the quotes.. you can quote a whole text, then inside the quote, you select all the text that would not be included in your first quote, press control+x, then you paste it below "control+c", after anwer that, you select all the remaining sentences you want to answer by close them with the quote mark tool.   

14 hours ago, fredinno said:

...And Venus Clouds have little public support too, due to landism.

Venus Cloud had little public support due ignorism XD
Mars surface is just a picture that everybody see, in that picture they don't see the gravity, pressure, temperature and energy.  If they include those senses, they will choose clouds all day long.

Quote

And a leak would still be very damaging on Venus, due to its sulphuric acid...

Sulphuric acid is the most common chemical used in earth in almost all industries at different mix and temperatures. I guess we do that because we know how to handle it. In addition, you have micro droplets measures in ppm. A tiny amount of acid just can dissolve a tiny amount of flesh. This mean that if you go out with a mask but without cloth, you will be fine for some minutes.

Quote

Also, Venus cloud Bases can't be self-sustaining due to lack of minerals and a ground to mine them from.

You should check today technology that can be used or will be used for the next surface probes, high temperature chips, cooling methods, sail, small balloons, etc.
They will be designed to last at least one month. Also is not difficult to build a machine that will last much longer.

14 hours ago, fredinno said:

And by your logic of Mars and Venus Orbital insertions being similar, Mars and Mercury orbit insertions are also similar.

These are not technical difficulties related to the planets, so shouldn't be taken into account to answer "why russian might choose Venus instead Mars"   

Quote

And the SSTO statement is just wrong. Venus' upper atmosphere is more difficult- for one, you have to use some form of air-launch.

What is the problem with air launch?  A lot of rockets was launched in horizontal way from an airplane.. you can also launch in vertical way.

Once it returns, you don't need heavy cranes or any similar device, because is floating "stand" at certain altitude, it can be pick up for the same platform and then rise altitude to launch again. 

9 hours ago, Hexlord said:

Well, I can see where this is going... Russia and co head to Venus, while USA and co head to mars. And the arms race begins anew. This time planet vs planet.

Heh, Venus inhabitants will be stronger and tough. They have 3 times more energy potential to harvest, they don't need microwave.. they can cook just with a long rope as real men do.  

6 hours ago, fredinno said:

We actually aren't sure if Venus is volcanically active. We assume it is because of its size.

no, we are not.  just 98% sure.

Quote

Either way, let's stop talking about manned missions, this is getting Off topic.

Heh, but you was the first who started to question the importance of venus carrying the discussion to a venus vs mars.
But is not cool keep the last word and abandon ship before it sinks XD
We are just correcting wrong data that you might have..   Your main question is already answered..  Venus was easier and in that time look as a bigger price to chase, post discoveries over its atmosphere it may help to keep the interest.

7 hours ago, A35K said:

Well, a cloud base on Venus would be pretty cool, but the upper atmosphere of the planet has 300km/h winds, and lightning storms are frequent. Also, Venus is highly volcanically active, so couldn't there be a risk of a volcanic eruption damaging the base? However, the idea of flying a plane their would be cool, but how low do you have to be to actually see the surface below the clouds? However, there could be a way of reaching the surface for periods of time. The lower atmosphere is the same pressure as being almost 1km below Earth's ocean, so a submarine type vessel would work well. This would then return to the upper base using balloons. 

You base would be floating at 52km height, what eruption can cause damage at that altitude?
You don't have winds because you are traveling with them.. that gives you 4 days cycle day/night.
About a submarine vessel yeah it would work. It would be a lot easier if is not manned, to pick stuff from ground to rise it to base. It needs 2 vehicles, one that realize roundtrips from 52km to 30km, the other from 30 km to surface.

--------------------------------------------

About how to harvester Acid sulphuric to get water..  is not easy but it can be done using the base envelope a bit colder, maybe static charge, to attract  and condense droplets and harvest them with gravity in the bottom. 
Once you get the water, you don't waste it in any cycle.. Only to launch rockets. 

Edited January 9, 2016 by AngelLestat

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

You should check today technology that can be used or will be used for the next surface probes, high temperature chips, cooling methods, sail, small balloons, etc.
They will be designed to last at least one month. Also is not difficult to build a machine that will last much longer.

Oh, I'm sure. Just make sure you launch a few of those  as unmanned probes before you send feet to Venus.

2 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

What is the problem with air launch?  A lot of rockets was launched in horizontal way from an airplane.. you can also launch in vertical way.

Once it returns, you don't need heavy cranes or any similar device, because is floating "stand" at certain altitude, it can be pick up for the same platform and then rise altitude to launch again. 

We need to stop getting off topic here. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if that contraption was MORE difficult than Air-Launch.

 

2 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

12 hours ago, Hexlord said:

 

Heh, Venus inhabitants will be stronger and tough. They have 3 times more energy potential to harvest, they don't need microwave.. they can cook just with a long rope as real men do.  

Too bad the clouds cover a good amount of that energy up.

 

2 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

Quote

 

Heh, but you was the first who started to question the importance of venus carrying the discussion to a venus vs mars.
But is not cool keep the last word and abandon ship before it sinks XD
We are just correcting wrong data that you might have..   Your main question is already answered..  Venus was easier and in that time look as a bigger price to chase, post discoveries over its atmosphere it may help to keep the interest.

Really? It IS off topic, this is supposed to be about why the Soviets loved Venus so much, not about manned missions. I'm holding the extinguisher because I've got into a flame war with you more than once. I don't want that to happen again.

 

2 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

You base would be floating at 52km height, what eruption can cause damage at that altitude?
You don't have winds because you are traveling with them.. that gives you 4 days cycle day/night.
About a submarine vessel yeah it would work. It would be a lot easier if is not manned, to pick stuff from ground to rise it to base. It needs 2 vehicles, one that realize roundtrips from 52km to 30km, the other from 30 km to surface.

Again, nothing to do with the Soviets.

Edited January 9, 2016 by fredinno

[Kryten]

Can somebody just make an 'air habitats at Venus thread' so AngelLestat can stop derailing every thread with a vague link to the inner solar system?

[AngelLestat]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Too bad the clouds cover a good amount of that energy up.

As I said.. 3x in many ways, If you want a real answer I have it.. but I am not sure if you really want that.. 

Quote

Really? It IS off topic, this is supposed to be about why the Soviets loved Venus so much, not about manned missions. I'm holding the extinguisher because I've got into a flame war with you more than once. I don't want that to happen again.

Quote

Again, nothing to do with the Soviets.

53 minutes ago, Kryten said:

Can somebody just make an 'air habitats at Venus thread' so AngelLestat can stop derailing every thread with a vague link to the inner solar system?

The gang is already gather?
My answers was always in relation to the OP or your personal misdirections.
The OP ask in few words "why russian did so many missions to Venus when other agencies find no interest." 
I answer with many points, one of those was: "they knew before others, than Venus had a real potential at their cloud level", I prove it with a picture from a magazine that contains a whole article on floating cities published in 1970 (Venera6 year, after that they launched 14 extra missions).
You (and then others) put some objections to that point, you started to carry the topic in that direction with:

"A Mars colony also has more access to resources (able to mine the soil) and the advantage of humanity's 'landism'- people like to be able to step on a surface, and put a flag on it.
A Venus colony might be cheaper- but it's less economically and scientifically viable. Technically Phobos/Demios is a better destination for the difficulty of Venus."

Then I did not answer, many others answer you simply following your comments in that topic direction. in fact, I just answer 3 times after that trying to go back to the the other points that I (and others) made with no relation to the cloud layer.
But you and others continue making wrong assertions about why you thought it was not possible, which in fact in some way is related to the topic question, because in resume you could not see why venus might be important for somebody else.

So my question is... In this science section, the logic and true is what matters or not?  Or we are here just to keep our ideas even if they are wrong?
If I made an assertion saying this is no possible by X reasons and someone prove me wrong.  I should be angry or accuse others to derail the topic?

I had no problem to admit that I mistake in my first statistics (second post) which sink one of my points. I had no problem to said that I am wrong when I am wrong, In fact I love to be corrected, this mean I would not keep a wrong idea in future talks, this is the kind of behavior that allow us to improve. But it seems just a tabu here.

[Vanamonde]

Guys, let's not do the Venus colonization argument for a 4th or 5th time, or whatever this would make it. The subject of this thread was the Russian probe missions. 

[Vanamonde]

More posts removed. Keep it on-topic or the thread will be closed. 

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, 073198681 said:

What d'ya have against poor old Tim? He did nuthin' to harm ya!

*time

[mjl1966]

They flipped for it.  NASA called tails on Mars while Soviets called heads on Venus.  It wasn't until years later that they realized the actual outcome of the coin yielded the same result either way.  Realizing how embarrassing it would be for a bunch of scientists to get tripped up by coin math, they elected to never mention it again. 

 

 

[K^2]

3 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

Guys, let's not do the Venus colonization argument for a 4th or 5th time, or whatever this would make it. The subject of this thread was the Russian probe missions. 

That IS the topic. Whether or not Venus is worth the exploration. Whether or not it's worth sending all the probes to. If we aren't talking about future use for colonization, or mining, or some other practical use, we are not talking about space exploration. And asking a question about why the probes were sent there without discussion of what we can do with the planet is absolutely ridiculous. This is what the discussion is about, and you selectively deleting stuff is not helping to have a constructive discussion.

[fredinno]

33 minutes ago, K^2 said:

That IS the topic. Whether or not Venus is worth the exploration. Whether or not it's worth sending all the probes to. If we aren't talking about future use for colonization, or mining, or some other practical use, we are not talking about space exploration. And asking a question about why the probes were sent there without discussion of what we can do with the planet is absolutely ridiculous. This is what the discussion is about, and you selectively deleting stuff is not helping to have a constructive discussion.

It's the same way with Space Politics guys. Mods hate this kind of stuff.