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High Altitude Venus Operational Concept (HAVOC)
The upper atmosphere of Venus, with similar pressure, density, gravity, and radiation protection to that of the surface of the earth, is relatively benign at 50 km. A lighter-than-air vehicle could carry either a host of instruments and probes, or a habitat and ascent vehicle for a crew of two astronauts to explore Venus for up to a month. Such a mission would require less time to complete than a crewed Mars mission.
A recent internal NASA study of a High Altitude Venus Operational Concept (HAVOC) led to the development of an evolutionary program for the exploration of Venus, with focus on the mission architecture and vehicle concept for a 30 day crewed mission into Venus's atmosphere.
Key technical challenges for the mission include performing the aerocapture maneuvers at Venus and Earth, inserting and inflating the airship at Venus, and protecting the solar panels and structure from the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere. With advances in technology and further refinement of the concept, missions to the Venusian atmosphere can expand humanity's future in space.
What is needed?
The first proof of concept identified candidate materials and evaluated them, finding FEP-Teflon (Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene-Teflon) to maintain 90 percent transmittance to relevant spectra even after 30 days of immersion in concentrated sulfuric acid. The second proof of concept developed and verified a packaging algorithm for the airship envelope to inform the entry, descent, and inflation analysis.
Also at The Conversation.
Previously: Cloud Cities on Venus?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @06:53AM (1 child)
Purpose to what? If you think a few landers and orbiters have exhausted all possible scientific inquiry regarding Venus's atmosphere or surface, I'm quite sure you're wrong.
If you mean the crewed aspect, then yeah, "to say we did it" pretty much sums it up. Unlike geological studies (e.g. on Mars), where a man with a hammer can accomplish more work faster than a rover controlled from Earth could hope to, there's probably little scientific benefit from having a shortened reaction loop (e.g; man in orbit), and even less from man-in-atmosphere.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @06:00PM
Yes, I mean the crewed part.
As far as the person with a hammer goes, if you send up 50 or 60 rovers for the same price as one person, I'm sure the scientific throughput would be much higher than 4 people, even with a 40 minute delay time.
You could have a dozen people back on Earth studying live high res video feeds as a rover moved along recording in 360degrees. Put the live video feed on the internet and you could get thousands of people viewing a steam simultaneously. Odd are maybe one would pick up on something that even a trained geologist might miss. And this could go on 24 hours/day.
Even on Earth, robots can outperform humans in the amount of data they can collect due to their ability to operate nonstop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieXCZdCuVgM [youtube.com]