Venus Mission Idea

[todofwar]

So I've been brainstorming a mission to Venus and I thought this was as good a place as any to see how feasible/useful it might be. You design a small instrument bundle with an altimeter, barometer, and thermometer and maybe some other instrument. The balloon itself has some solar cells for energy. Nothing novel about this, but instead of throwing one into the atmosphere you throw a dozen, maybe a couple dozen. The lighter you make the individual probes, the more you fit into the mission. To get them into the atmosphere, you mount them all to a heat shield that will slow everything down until a speed the probes can survive is reached. Then they are released one at a time, the slower terminal velocity of the lightweight probes should mean they can be broadly distributed. I would try for as polar an orbit as possible for entry, so that you get as many latitudes as possible. You leave a spacecraft in orbit that then monitors the data, mapping out the course the probes take. The purpose is to get atmospheric data from multiple parts of the planet simultaneously, which can help calibrate the measurements made by other spacecraft. Also, by mapping the course of the balloons over time you can see how things drift within the atmosphere, important to know for any possible manned missions (assuming we do manned missions to Venus, I'm holding out hope!) and also might be important for seeing how surface terrain affects the winds in the atmosphere. The balloons would be made of a material with a known hydrogen leak rate, which will let them slowly sink over time. Eventually, the mission ends when all the balloons either become crushed by pressure, overheat, or stop getting sufficient sunlight. 

Any thoughts? Sound too complex? Any other instruments that might make it onto a very lightweight probe?

[James Kerman]

There is some speculation as to if there is life in the clouds of Venus.  An instrument that could detect complex organic matter in the atmosphere would be worthwhile.

[todofwar]

Just now, James Kerman said:

There is some speculation as to if there is life in the clouds of Venus.  An instrument that could detect complex organic matter in the atmosphere would be worthwhile.

I thought about that, but those kinds of instruments would be too heavy for this kind of thing. I would love a large unmanned airship to be deployed into Venus though. 

[kerbiloid]

A pack of specially designed low-yield thermonukes producing large amounts of short-living isotopes. Lesser siblings of a cobalt nuke.
You drop them from orbit in several places into the Venus atmosphere and then just map the spectral lines of these isotopes from a satellite on polar orbit for several weeks. This will give an exact 3d picture of air flows.
Repeat this again a half-Venusian-year later.
As looks unlikely if somebody will live there in this century, nobody gets harmed.

Also, this would be a fantastic movie.

P.S.
Also this would give a clear and exact answer to a question: "Is there a life in Venusian clouds?": "No".

Edited September 12, 2016 by kerbiloid

[lajoswinkler]

Life in Venusian clouds is unimaginable. There is basically no water. It's a mist of sulfuric acid with traces of HF and HCl. That mist is very reactive and the only reason it exists is because it never reaches the ground with which it would react. The ground is a supercritical ocean of CO₂.

Organic compounds would get attacked there in no time.

[todofwar]

4 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

Life in Venusian clouds is unimaginable. There is basically no water. It's a mist of sulfuric acid with traces of HF and HCl. That mist is very reactive and the only reason it exists is because it never reaches the ground with which it would react. The ground is a supercritical ocean of CO₂.

Organic compounds would get attacked there in no time.

Not that I think there is life, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. You have energy, a decent solvent (supercritical CO2 is used in industry for certain applications), and energy gradients that could be exploited. If people seriously think Titan has life, Venus is at least as good a candidate. But that's getting a bit off topic, since this mission would not help with determining the presence of life anyway. This is about getting atmospheric data to help with climate modeling, and to look at how things diffuse around the planet.

@kerbiloid Can you detect isotopes from space? I would imagine you need some kind of spectrometer in the atmosphere for that. And I don't think we can get nukes to Venus for all kinds of treaty reasons. "US launches warheads into orbit, assures other countries they're going to Venus" doesn't sounds like a good headline. 

[kerbiloid]

14 minutes ago, todofwar said:

Can you detect isotopes from space? I would imagine you need some kind of spectrometer in the atmosphere for that.

If the isotopes were uncommon for Venusian atmosphere, probably it's possible.

[lajoswinkler]

25 minutes ago, todofwar said:

Not that I think there is life, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. You have energy, a decent solvent (supercritical CO2 is used in industry for certain applications), and energy gradients that could be exploited. If people seriously think Titan has life, Venus is at least as good a candidate. But that's getting a bit off topic, since this mission would not help with determining the presence of life anyway. This is about getting atmospheric data to help with climate modeling, and to look at how things diffuse around the planet.

@kerbiloid Can you detect isotopes from space? I would imagine you need some kind of spectrometer in the atmosphere for that. And I don't think we can get nukes to Venus for all kinds of treaty reasons. "US launches warheads into orbit, assures other countries they're going to Venus" doesn't sounds like a good headline. 

At the altitudes where supercritical fluid appears, temperatures are so high that organic compounds decay rapidly. Above that, there are basically no solvents, unless you include sulfuric acid fog as one, with its tiny colloidal droplets. That's not a solvent.

On topic, maybe a laser source sinking into the atmospheric soup could help, if aimed at the detector orbiter.

[todofwar]

3 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

At the altitudes where supercritical fluid appears, temperatures are so high that organic compounds decay rapidly. Above that, there are basically no solvents, unless you include sulfuric acid fog as one, with its tiny colloidal droplets. That's not a solvent.

On topic, maybe a laser source sinking into the atmospheric soup could help, if aimed at the detector orbiter.

Now that could be interesting. Use a laser source in the atmosphere to do spectroscopy. When it comes to spectrometers the light sources are relatively easy, the more complicated machinery can stay in orbit, see how absorbance changes throughout the atmosphere. A good laser light source can get heavy though, and you'd be limited to short bursts. But I like the concept. 

[Jeb1969]

A balloon based space probe for venus has been done, come to think of it two were done by the Soviets in the mid-1980s Vega 1 and 2 

[todofwar]

6 hours ago, Jeb1969 said:

A balloon based space probe for venus has been done, come to think of it two were done by the Soviets in the mid-1980s Vega 1 and 2 

It has, but that was one at a time. Also, they didn't really pay attention to how long it survived. This mission would get a broader picture of the planet, and actually show data on diffusion and how the winds push things around

[kerbiloid]

Don't forget that Vega balloons were floating in a dense cloud layer at 55 km (survived for 2 days in ideal conditions: 40° C, 0.5 atm) and suffered strong turbulences. According to wiki, one of them had suddently lost 1.5 km of altitude above a mountain.
Keeping the cloudbase higher would not make more sense than a low orbit base.
Keeping them on the same (the most interesting) altitude would require a hardcore vestibular system from your crew.
Cloudbase would be a very poor option for venusbase.

Edited September 22, 2016 by kerbiloid

[todofwar]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Don't forget that Vega balloons were floating in a dense cloud layer at 55 km (survived for 2 days in ideal conditions: 40° C, 0.5 atm) and suffered strong turbulences. According to wiki, one of them had suddently lost 1.5 km of altitude above a mountain.
Keeping the cloudbase higher would not make more sense than a low orbit base.
Keeping them on the same (the most interesting) altitude would require a hardcore vestibular system from your crew.
Cloudbase would be a very poor option for venusbase.

That's kind of the point of this mission, to see how long things can survive there. And even if you need to go higher, you still have gravity and a heck of a lot more pressure.

[Matuchkin]

Perhaps the probes can be deployed via a glider with a clip-like eject system? That will allow for more probes over more area.

[Snark]

On 9/11/2016 at 11:50 PM, lajoswinkler said:

The ground is a supercritical ocean of CO₂.

Citation, please?  I'm interpreting this statement as meaning "liquid CO₂", which I've never heard anyone suggest (nor did the Venera landers show any such thing).

The pressure's high by earthly standards, yes, but it's "only" the equivalent of 1000 meters' depth in the ocean, and CO₂ is still a gas in those conditions, even at earthly rather than venusian temperatures.

But, yeah, not gonna find anything alive down there.

On 9/11/2016 at 7:18 PM, todofwar said:

important to know for any possible manned missions (assuming we do manned missions to Venus, I'm holding out hope!)

Not going to happen, for a wide variety of technical and economic reasons, including, 1. no way to survive the temperature, 2. no way to keep the temperature low enough to survive, 3. insanely impossible to build a return ship.

And any technology sufficiently advanced to overcome the above would also make robotic / telepresence exploration so much easier that there wouldn't be any reason to send people, even if it became technically possible.

Manned missions to Mars?  Absolutely.  To the venusian surface?  Nope.

 

That said... your main idea, i.e. of building up a detailed model of Venus' atmosphere by scattering balloons around, makes sense to me.  Just not as a precursor to supposed manned missions that will never happen. 

[todofwar]

5 minutes ago, Snark said:

Citation, please?  I'm interpreting this statement as meaning "liquid CO₂", which I've never heard anyone suggest (nor did the Venera landers show any such thing).

The pressure's high by earthly standards, yes, but it's "only" the equivalent of 1000 meters' depth in the ocean, and CO₂ is still a gas in those conditions, even at earthly rather than venusian temperatures.

But, yeah, not gonna find anything alive down there.

Not going to happen, for a wide variety of technical and economic reasons, including, 1. no way to survive the temperature, 2. no way to keep the temperature low enough to survive, 3. insanely impossible to build a return ship.

And any technology sufficiently advanced to overcome the above would also make robotic / telepresence exploration so much easier that there wouldn't be any reason to send people, even if it became technically possible.

Manned missions to Mars?  Absolutely.  To the venusian surface?  Nope.

 

That said... your main idea, i.e. of building up a detailed model of Venus' atmosphere by scattering balloons around, makes sense to me.  Just not as a precursor to supposed manned missions that will never happen. 

I meant preparing for a HAVOC style mission, where you stay in an airship.

[lajoswinkler]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

Citation, please?  I'm interpreting this statement as meaning "liquid CO₂", which I've never heard anyone suggest (nor did the Venera landers show any such thing).

The pressure's high by earthly standards, yes, but it's "only" the equivalent of 1000 meters' depth in the ocean, and CO₂ is still a gas in those conditions, even at earthly rather than venusian temperatures.

But, yeah, not gonna find anything alive down there.

Supercritical fluid is not a liquid and, at pressure/temperature values encountered by Venera probes, carbon(IV) oxide will form such fluid. It's not a gas anymore. As with Jupiter and other gas giants, there is no phase boundary between them, so there isn't any distinguished ocean surface visible, although it might appear as shimmering in certain conditions.

Edited September 23, 2016 by lajoswinkler

[magnemoe]

45 minutes ago, todofwar said:

I meant preparing for a HAVOC style mission, where you stay in an airship.

Still don't make any sense, not much you could do manned you could remote control. Yes crew could fix mechanical problems but it would not be worth it. Not anything who require quick action either and if it was it would be more practical to control from orbit. 
On mars an maned mission make lots of sense in that astronauts are far more flexible than robots, but only if the astronauts walk around, poke in the dirt and fix stuff. 

[Snark]

1 hour ago, todofwar said:

I meant preparing for a HAVOC style mission, where you stay in an airship.

A couple of problems with that.

First... what's the point?  Seriously, where's the value of having humans there?  It's not just low, it's zero.  They can't get out, they can't walk around, they can't interact with the environment in any meaningful way.  Any information is going to be a set of numbers read off of instruments (temperature, pressure, chemical composition, yadda yadda) ... all of which can report their findings just fine remotely.  "Human sitting in Venus cockpit reading numbers on a screen" doesn't provide any more value than "human sitting in JPL reading numbers on a screen."

Tremendous risk and stupendous expense, for essentially no gain at all.

19 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Still don't make any sense, not much you could do manned you could remote control

^ This.

The other problem with doing an airship crewed mission to Venus (aside from the fact that there's simply no point) ... just how do you propose to get them back into orbit again?  (Because it would be big.  Venus is nearly the size of Earth, and its escape velocity is over 90% of Earth's.)  Sling a huge, heavy, multi-ton orbit-capable vehicle on an airship?  Just how big an airship are you picturing, here?  And how do you get such a behemoth all the way to Venus in the first place?

[todofwar]

17 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Still don't make any sense, not much you could do manned you could remote control. Yes crew could fix mechanical problems but it would not be worth it. Not anything who require quick action either and if it was it would be more practical to control from orbit. 
On mars an maned mission make lots of sense in that astronauts are far more flexible than robots, but only if the astronauts walk around, poke in the dirt and fix stuff. 

Can we have one thread, ONE, where we leave the manned vs unmanned fight out of it? And any Martian astronaut won't exactly have nice thin gloves to work with, they'll be just a more clumsy rover. 

[Snark]

2 minutes ago, todofwar said:

Can we have one thread, ONE, where we leave the manned vs unmanned fight out of it?

Well, sure, nothing wrong with that idea, but you did kinda bring it up in your own post that started this thread. 

[todofwar]

4 minutes ago, Snark said:

Well, sure, nothing wrong with that idea, but you did kinda bring it up in your own post that started this thread. 

Right, because it can give a sense for how feasible and safe a manned mission would be. And potentially you can have a long term outpost on Venus to study the environment there, plenty of science to do. But every time someone tries to discuss the logistical and engineering challenges around manned missions, they end up having to defend themselves from people who come in an declare "no point to manned exploration, it's stupid and expensive" without any other contributions. Not that it's always the same people, just a pervasive and annoying trend in the forums.

[Snark]

6 minutes ago, todofwar said:

Right, because it can give a sense for how feasible and safe a manned mission would be. And potentially you can have a long term outpost on Venus to study the environment there, plenty of science to do. But every time someone tries to discuss the logistical and engineering challenges around manned missions, they end up having to defend themselves from people who come in an declare "no point to manned exploration, it's stupid and expensive" without any other contributions. Not that it's always the same people, just a pervasive and annoying trend in the forums.

Yes, but this is specifically about Venus.  Arguments about the costs versus benefits of manned exploration make sense if we're talking about the Moon, or Mars.  Those are places where it is reasonably possible to send people, and there's at least some case to be made that they might be useful-- the question being whether it's worthwhile, economical, would money be better spent elsewhere, etc.  There's no question that a human on Mars can (at least for a while, until the technology gets better) do some things that a machine couldn't.  The question is whether the umpty billion dollars that we spent to send that human there could have been more productively spent sending a hundred robotic probes instead.

Thus the raging and never-ending debates that you mention.

But this isn't that.  It's Venus.  There really isn't any reason to send humans there, arguable or otherwise.  There's no "there", there.  The surface is completely out of bounds for human explorers, and will remain so.  The atmosphere is interesting and exploration-worthy, but doesn't even slightly need humans for any of it-- "sampling gases and getting instrument readings" simply doesn't leverage any of the things that humans are good at, there's just no case to be made.  And Venus doesn't have any natural satellites to tinker with; the surface and atmosphere is the only thing there is.

So... mention "manned exploration of Venus" as if there's any likelihood or reason why that would ever be a thing, and expect to get responses; people aren't going to just let that slide.  The easy way to avoid debate on it is simply not to bring it up, as you did in your original post. 

[todofwar]

2 minutes ago, Snark said:

Yes, but this is specifically about Venus.  Arguments about the costs versus benefits of manned exploration make sense if we're talking about the Moon, or Mars.  Those are places where it is reasonably possible to send people, and there's at least some case to be made that they might be useful-- the question being whether it's worthwhile, economical, would money be better spent elsewhere, etc.  Thus the raging and never-ending debates.

But this isn't that.  It's Venus.  There really isn't any reason to send humans there, arguable or otherwise.  There's no "there", there.  The surface is completely out of bounds for human explorers, and will remain so.  The atmosphere is interesting and exploration-worthy, but doesn't even slightly need humans for any of it-- "sampling gases and getting instrument readings" simply doesn't leverage any of the things that humans are good at, there's just no case to be made.  And Venus doesn't have any natural satellites to tinker with; the surface and atmosphere is the only thing there is.

So... mention "manned exploration of Venus" as if there's any likelihood or reason why that would ever be a thing, and expect to get responses; people aren't going to just let that slide.  The easy way to avoid debate on it is simply not to bring it up, as you did in your original post. 

Well, I could go on, but that is getting a bit off topic and I don't want this thread to get locked by a moderator  I think the mission has merit for plenty of reasons. Instead of testing survivability and possible diffusion paths for a manned mission, let's say it's to test survivability for a larger unmanned airship.

[Ten Key]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

Citation, please?  I'm interpreting this statement as meaning "liquid CO₂", which I've never heard anyone suggest (nor did the Venera landers show any such thing).

The pressure's high by earthly standards, yes, but it's "only" the equivalent of 1000 meters' depth in the ocean, and CO₂ is still a gas in those conditions, even at earthly rather than venusian temperatures.

 

Quote

"At eight miles above the surface, according to JPL planetary scientist Suzanne Smrekar, the carbon dioxide in Venus’ atmosphere becomes so dense that it turns “supercritical.” Supercritical carbon dioxide is a gas-liquid mix that can eat through metal, and SAGE is designed to keep this nasty stuff from entering the sealed vessel."

http://www.airspacemag.com/space/forbidden-planet-57795399/?page=1