Episode 584: Surviving On Venus. Is It Time To Go Back To That Awful Place?

If you’ve watched this channel enough, you might have the impression that I hate Venus. It’s possible, just possible I’ve even suggested that the planet is so terrible it should be pushed into the Sun.

The reality, of course, is that it’s an absolutely fascinating world - the closest twin to the Earth that we have in the Solar System. It’s nearly the same mass and has the same surface gravity.

While Earth is the beautiful life-filled world we all enjoy, Venus is a tortured hellscape, with temperatures hot enough to melt zinc. With atmospheric pressures more than 93 times what we experience here on the surface of Earth. And I always forget about the sulphuric acid rain.

The Soviets sent a series of landers to a horrible demise for a glimpse of the surface of Venus in the 70s and 80s. But nobody’s been back since.

There have been new techniques and technologies in development that might make a serious exploration of the surface of Venus possible again. Exploration that could help us understand why the planet went so horribly horribly wrong.

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References:

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/vexag_goals_2007.pdf

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-studying-shared-venus-science-objectives-with-russian-space-research-institute

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/12/16/world/soviet-spacecraft-heads-for-comet.html

https://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2015/0305-venus-from-33-years-ago.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268472597_Analysis_of_Solar_Cell_Efficiency_for_Venus_Atmosphere_and_Surface_Missions

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2017EA000355

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2018/pdf/1243.pdf

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/venera_d.html

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/meetings/archive/vexag_14/presentations/27-Kremic-Long-Lived%20Venus%20Station.pdf

https://science.nasa.gov/technology/technology-stories/electronics-demonstrate-operability-in-simulated-venus-conditions

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/a-clockwork-rover-for-venus

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/meetings/archive/vexag_15/presentations/9-Saunder-AREE.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9fki7dligU

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2012_phase_I_fellows_landis.html

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12905-antique-fridge-could-keep-venus-rover-cool/

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