Manned mission to venus's surface?

[Moon Goddess]

Thing to remember is Tempature means movement.

Anything that has a positive temp, is moving. the higher the temp the more it's moving. The colder it is, the less it's moving.

At absolute zero, it's stopped.

So before you look into thousands of degrees below zero, you need to ask yourself. What does it mean to be moving slower than stopped.

[phoenix_ca]

At absolute zero, it's stopped.

Not really. Even at absolute zero atoms are still jostling and jiggling and wiggling (and I couldn't help rhyming). Well, their constituent particles are at least.

Have you watched the newest Cosmos? The authors depicted Venera 13 probe in a totally bad shape, as it was melted and corroded. There is no reason for that. The surface does not have corrosive properties for alloys used on the lander. Sulfuric acid never reaches the ground, and the traces of corrosive chemicals form a passivated layer of products, disabling further corrosion.

http://s29.postimg.org/tee99draf/venera.jpg

Either this is a subtle propaganda, or the people working on this didn't do their job right...

Because intense heat over a long period of time in atmosphere never did anything weird to metals.

Edited June 3, 2014 by phoenix_ca

[brdavis]

Lajos, any idea why they put a diffracted fishbowl effect on that Vanera image?

The actual video didn't seem to have as much "fuzziness" to my memory, but the "fishbowl" bending is an expected optical consequence of refraction in that dense (and varying density) air. The prediction is that the land would seem to curve upwards everywhere around you (like you were in a bowl), but there's some question as to if visibility would be good enough to see far enough for the effect to be prominent. It supposedly *is* present in the Venera images, but not at all obvious.

As to what Venera would look like now… I'm not sure anybody knows. The surface is pretty calm, winds are low, but it's a very dense atmosphere there. Mechanical scouring isn't out of the question, nor is metal interactions with trace atmosphere constituents, or even metal-metal interactions (different metals at similar temperatures can have some interesting effects). I don't think corrosion is out of the question (I'm not even sure if at those temperatures and pressures some of those metals can be oxidized by CO2, leaving oxidized metals and carbon deposits). Chemistry under those conditions… is bound to be odd.

As far as dissing soviet technology… forget it. That they landed anything there, and that it survived as long as it did, was really incredible. They had things like electric motors that wouldn't even fit together to tolerance until they were up above 500° C, and had (but did not deploy) a seismometer where the electronics could function under Venusian surface conditions:

http://mentallandscape.com/V_Venera11.htm

Yah, the idea of walking on the surface of Venus… is pretty much a non-starter. Aerostats floating in the atmosphere might be rather nice (plenty of solar energy a the same elevation where both pressure and temperature reach about Earth-normal. Not breathable, but that's just better living through chemistry. Not like there's not enough oxygen around). But the surface? Aim at Mars first. Then the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. As well as Mercury. Because (a) all of those are far easier, and ( if you want to actually terraform the surface of Venus, you're going to have to do things like strip-mine most of Mercury for elements like calcium, and import Saturnian moons just for the water.

We could put long-term robotic missions there. Geoffery Landis has proposed a system based on what has to be the hottest isotopic power source ever seriously proposed, running a Stirling engine to generate power. I can't find the reference, but there was another multi-stage refrigeration system proposed earlier too… Here's another one to glance at.

So… yeah, it's possible to put electronics there, and even have them function. But… a squishy, liquid-water-based low-efficiency system functionally derived to work in an radically different environment? Forget about it… I'll be hanging out in Valles Marinaris, planning a side-trip to Hellas.

[lajoswinkler]

Lajos, any idea why they put a diffracted fishbowl effect on that Vanera image?

Maybe it's meant to be heat shimmer, but to me it almost looks like a photo taken with a crude microscope.

In Cosmos, deGrasse says it's due to the intense atmospheric pressure.

While it's true that the optical qualities of ground level atmosphere on Venus are different from what we experience on Earth, the effects in the episode were just plain exaggerated. The curving of the image and breaking of light like in a prism... it was too much. Also the shape of the distortion... I don't know if that is correct. Horizon curving upwards or downwards?

Bottom of Venus atmospheric ocean is supercritical CO2, so some distortion would be present. If you were standing on its surface, the horizon would look a lot more close than it really is. I've read that it would seem as you were standing on a very large sphere with foggy mirages around.

Visibility is around few kilometres at most, and the light level is comparable to a very cloudy day on Earth (but with an orange tint). Shadows are very poor which adds to the confusion.

These are approximations of color and overall light levels (it is calculated and then applied to a B/W photo)

Walking away from the lander without navigational equipment would make you get lost very easily.

I don't think there is any shimmering on Venus as we see it here when the air is hot, except around potential lava flows. Such shimmering requires large temperature gradients near the ground, so you have air with different optical qualities. That happens because the Sun can shine on the ground through a very transparent atmosphere. On Venus, no direct light shines. Temperature differential is almost nonexistent. It's a hot soup.

There might be moving distortions due to wind. Winds are slow there, but pack a lot of power because of the bulkness of the supercritical fluid they're moving.

Because intense heat over a long period of time in atmosphere never did anything weird to metals.

The landers were made out of titanium, not chocolate. Titanium doesn't experience creep at such low temperatures, AFAIK.

The probe today should look pretty much as back then. Slightly tarnished, that's all.

Edited June 4, 2014 by lajoswinkler

[phoenix_ca]

The landers were made out of titanium, not chocolate.

Funny...I don't recall saying anything about chocolate. *looks at original post* Nope, nothing about chocolate.

Titanium doesn't experience creep at such low temperatures, AFAIK.

The probe today should look pretty much as back then. Slightly tarnished, that's all.

Perhaps we should send another lander to look at it.

Not a manned mission though. Still think that's absurd.

[lajoswinkler]

Funny...I don't recall saying anything about chocolate. *looks at original post* Nope, nothing about chocolate.

Perhaps we should send another lander to look at it.

Not a manned mission though. Still think that's absurd.

It was joke. *borat*

I'd really like a new mission to Venus. It's not very expensive, and the data could help us with the global warming. Russia is planning Venera-D, but somehow I think that won't happen. :/

Yes, manned mission is absurd. We aren't going there any time soon, maybe ever.

Here, read this, it's interesting.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/docs/6_2PAUKEN_paper.pdf

[phoenix_ca]

Russia wants to try this again? Their Venera landers were plagued with problems: lens caps staying on, things frying, refrigeration failing, yadda yadda. The surface of Venus just plain sucks. >.<

[lajoswinkler]

Of course the probes will fry after a while. Perfect insulators don't exist. Heat will creep inside and elevate the temperature. You can only slow down the process by refrigeration.

They don't want to try again, as if they've failed. They've succeeded and it was awesome. Now they want more. Longer survival time, more experiments, more data.

I'd like to see a quality HD footage from Venus. I hope I will before my death. It shouldn't be a problem and as I've said, the whole global warming issue should be one of the reasons to go there again.

[Aghanim]

First we need to develop some sort of heat resistant electronics. Is this even possible?

PCM cooling will probably help

However, the biggest problem that I could think of is power source. Battery chemistry could be messed up by high temperature, RTG won't work efficiently because of high sink temperature, betavoltaics could probably works

But first, we need a test chamber or so to simulate the conditions down there. Sinking a test probe to lava pool might help

[Nuke]

use tubes. most of them need to be heated to work anyway.

[christok]

Here you go:

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/search/index.cfm?Criteria=high-temperature%20electronics

Long story short, gallium nitride and silicon carbide transistors run just fine at those temperatures. SiC is in development for precisely this sort of application.

[jwenting]

First we need to develop some sort of heat resistant electronics. Is this even possible?

Of course it's possible. What's not possible is making them impervious to the effects of heat.

I've done some work as a student on electronics that had to work in seriously hot environments (7-800C), but that was on earth and exposure was for a limited time only, AND there was easy cooling by airflow involved.

On Venus, that cooling system would only work for a very limited time, after which temperatures would quickly rise to where the stuff would char and melt, turning into a useless heap of slag.

[KerbMav]

Russia wants to try this again? Their Venera landers were plagued with problems: lens caps staying on, things frying, refrigeration failing, yadda yadda. The surface of Venus just plain sucks. >.<

The sooner all major powers turn their eyes towards space exploraton the better - if you get my forum rules conform drift?

[lajoswinkler]

First we need to develop some sort of heat resistant electronics. Is this even possible?

PCM cooling will probably help

However, the biggest problem that I could think of is power source. Battery chemistry could be messed up by high temperature, RTG won't work efficiently because of high sink temperature, betavoltaics could probably works

But first, we need a test chamber or so to simulate the conditions down there. Sinking a test probe to lava pool might help

I'm not sure if that was a sarcasm, but lava is over 1000°C, that's too hot.

[Aghanim]

Well it is a shame that you already spend millions of dollars to get it to Venus and a small design defect leaks hot sulfur dioxide into the internals, destroying it in seconds... You could build a pressurized test chamber filled with the gas and heated up, or for a safer alternative, sink it to lava, but it is too hot and not enough pressure

[Moon Goddess]

Not really. Even at absolute zero atoms are still jostling and jiggling and wiggling (and I couldn't help rhyming). Well, their constituent particles are at least.

Ok, to be more precise, Temperature refers to molecular movement, it's a just not talked about that way at the sub atomic level. So yes, even at absolute zero the electrons still orbit, and the quarks still spin. But at the molecular scale, the molecule is in perfect crystal state. It is not moving. I don't know how to envision something that's moving less than that. especially thousands of degrees less than that.

[Red Iron Crown]

I thought absolute zero was asymptotic, in that it can be approached but never reached. Is that wrong?

[lajoswinkler]

Well it is a shame that you already spend millions of dollars to get it to Venus and a small design defect leaks hot sulfur dioxide into the internals, destroying it in seconds... You could build a pressurized test chamber filled with the gas and heated up, or for a safer alternative, sink it to lava, but it is too hot and not enough pressure

Actually it's carbon dioxide. There isn't much SO2 at the ground level.

Testing it by dunking it into lava would serve no purpose. Instead, you make a high pressure oven. It's called an autoclave.

Ok, to be more precise, Temperature refers to molecular movement, it's a just not talked about that way at the sub atomic level. So yes, even at absolute zero the electrons still orbit, and the quarks still spin. But at the molecular scale, the molecule is in perfect crystal state. It is not moving. I don't know how to envision something that's moving less than that. especially thousands of degrees less than that.

The crystal state is nearly perfect, but there is still some movement, which is caused by zero point energy.

I thought absolute zero was asymptotic, in that it can be approached but never reached. Is that wrong?

That is correct. If you try to cool something down to 0 K, you can never reach it, and even if you could, to measure it would mean heating it up.

[frizzank]

Even titanium would have trouble at these pressures.

There is no room on the inside, because there is a mushy human on the inside.

Non-existent new technology does not exist.

Even if you could devise a spacesuit, you couldn't move with all the weight and pressure. You would need a superthick pressure vessel and an exoskeleton.

However, at this point, there really is no point in going outside to walk on the surface for 12 mins if you're going to be stuck inside a 2cm think pressurized shell and interacting through video cameras. You would be better off staying inside your lander and using a telepresence robot for EVAs. Your capabilities would be exactly the same.

However, at this point, why land your mushy human body on the surface? You might as well just land your telepresence robot and stay in orbit above the clouds.

However, at this point, why bother going to Venus orbit at all when you can control your telepresence robot (with a short delay) from the comfort of a mission control center, and go home to your wife and kids every night.

Manned Venus mission is useless.

Why go? Send a probe instead, are you kidding? Are you saying there is no benefit to sending humans?

If we just wanted to know what was there then yes send a probe, but that is NOT what exploration is about. It is just as much about advancing us as humans as it is about finding out what is out there. So much more can be learned about ourselves as well as where we are going just by physically going there.

Human exploration is just as much an internal journey as an external one. Also the technology we would need to develop would advance us in ways that would be beneficial to all mankind, just as the space program did. The pressure suits alone would have real world applications here on earth, like in the depths of the oceans, or other hostile environments.

[r4pt0r]

Why go? Send a probe instead, are you kidding? Are you saying there is no benefit to sending humans?

If we just wanted to know what was there then yes send a probe, but that is NOT what exploration is about. It is just as much about advancing us as humans as it is about finding out what is out there. So much more can be learned about ourselves as well as where we are going just by physically going there.

Human exploration is just as much an internal journey as an external one. Also the technology we would need to develop would advance us in ways that would be beneficial to all mankind, just as the space program did. The pressure suits alone would have real world applications here on earth, like in the depths of the oceans, or other hostile environments.

there is no benefit of a manned mission to a toxic,caustic,entirely fatal planet we would never colonize. mars is a far superior candidate.

[lajoswinkler]

Diving in a pressure sphere to the bottom of the Mariana trench is way less hazardous than going to the Venus surface, and the pressure is like a hundred times greater.

How the hell would one leave Venus?

[TerLoki]

How the hell would one leave Venus?

Indeed, taking off from Eve is one hell of a challenge, I'd imagine that Venus would be even more difficult due to extreme temperature, pressure, and winds.

Don't get me wrong, a manned Venus mission is doable certainly, just not with our current tech. Give it a century or so of research and then we can talk.

[phoenix_ca]

The sooner all major powers turn their eyes towards space exploraton the better - if you get my forum rules conform drift?

Given Russia's...I mean Putin's recent behaviour, I doubt they are interested in space exploration. More "what can this tech and research do for our military program".

Unfortunately, people can go out, explore the solar system, and simultaneously remain just as myopic and stuck in the stone age as before.

[Javster]

I believe more US astronauts have died in spaceflight than Soviet/Russian cosmonauts.

I have great respect for the Russian space program, it has a flavor of practicality that I find appealing. Not to mention that they hit most of the milestones in the space race before the US, before the US decided a manned Moon landing was the real goal and declared victory.

I think that the USSR didn't have their eye on the Moon as early, because they didn't think it would be that useful to go there.