Venus Rover

[Usquanigo]

Cosmic radiation (and charged particles) don't cause fatal burns on contact (AFAIK), at least not the type you are describing. Add to that the fact that even a thin atmosphere provides shielding.
For UV, you could either attempt to synthesise an ozone layer or wear sunblock or clothing.

They do. Without the protection of the magnetosphere, all life would be corrupted, and unsustainable. Consider it another type of sun poisoning, it might not kill you that day, but it WILL kill you.

The Ozone is also what made life on land possible as well. Before the Ozone layer, there were not even plants and vegetation, nothing could survive without the protection of the deep.

We can't keep ours working well, let alone generate one on another planet. And again, even with that, we still don't have a functional magnetosphere. (Apollo was a calculated risk, but LEO is relatively "safe". Consider how bad the sun wreaks havoc even with satellites inside the magnetosphere, then extrapolate to how bad it would be without one at all)

Compare a living, livable world to a dry, vacuous dustbowl and tell me how that is corrupting.

Because a green planet is not The Red Planet. We don't NEED to utterly and permenantly change a giant rock to make it livable. Even if it were possible (again, the above about ozone and magnetopshere). All of humanity has grown to see the wonders and splendors of those strange, alien worlds, which gained their very names from their traits. Traits which every future generation should be able to experience.

Here's another way to put it, let's assume space travel becomes easy and cheap enough that it's like driving a car today, everyone can zip around and make it out to the outer planets. Everyone would want to fly through Saturn's rings. Then they end up ruining the ring system, robbing all future generations of the magnificence that is the Saturn that we know.

You will not have no worries if inside a giant habitat- cosmic rays, pressure differentials and even the odd meteor impact will be an issue.
Add to that the fact that you will have to wear a spacesuit to leave the habitat (for repairs or otherwise)

Actually, the very IDEA is to leave the planet alone, and thereby wear a space suit whenever you do decide to leave it. Given the low gravity, you shouldn't be spending too long there anyway. The other point of a habitat is to provide protection from all the above. And a meteor impact will ruin your day no matter WHAT you have on the planet or live in or on. That's almost like saying "don't build a house, because it could be struck by lightning, live in caves instead".

 

[T.Neo]

In the presence of atmospheric water vapor, olivine readily absorbs something like half of its own mass in carbon dioxide. Thus, in principle it should be useful for absorbing a large fraction of the excess carbon dioxide in the Venusian atmosphere

Fair enough- you still won't fix the lack of water or slow rotation that way though.

They do. Without the protection of the magnetosphere, all life would be corrupted, and unsustainable. Consider it another type of sun poisoning, it might not kill you that day, but it WILL kill you.

You don't need a magnetosphere to shield from solar (and cosmic) radiation- a thick enough atmosphere can also provide that shielding.

Radiation still is a problem though- not because it will fry people, but because over time it will strip the atmosphere away.

I don't seem to see any account of Apollo astronauts having fatal burns upon travelling nearly unprotected in space for more then a week...

We can't keep ours working well, let alone generate one on another planet.

Hence "more research needed". Just because we don't know how to do something now does not make it impossible.

Because a green planet is not The Red Planet. We don't NEED to utterly and permenantly change a giant rock to make it livable.

You need to terraform Mars to make it livable, but you don't need to terraform it to live there.

All of humanity has grown to see the wonders and splendors of those strange, alien worlds, which gained their very names from their traits. Traits which every future generation should be able to experience.

Just because "terraforming" means making a planet like Earth doesn't mean you'll make that planet another Earth. Mars will always be Mars, whether colonized, flooded or covered in cities.

Here's another way to put it, let's assume space travel becomes easy and cheap enough that it's like driving a car today, everyone can zip around and make it out to the outer planets. Everyone would want to fly through Saturn's rings. Then they end up ruining the ring system, robbing all future generations of the magnificence that is the Saturn that we know.

Nothing is being desecrated, only changed. What were rocky vistas and vast dune fields now become forests, seas and steppes. No beauty or marvel is lost, only changed.

And why is what we know now so important? Look at the multitudes of wierd and wonderful extinct organisms that once lived on Earth, that if hadn't gone extinct, would not have paved the way for the existence of humanity.

Given the low gravity, you shouldn't be spending too long there anyway.

People might be able to live their entire lives, and have children on Mars even with 0.38g, but no-one knows. Again, "more research needed".

The other point of a habitat is to provide protection from all the above.

As is the point of terraforming.

And a meteor impact will ruin your day no matter WHAT you have on the planet or live in or on. That's almost like saying "don't build a house, because it could be struck by lightning, live in caves instead".

I'm talking about the smaller meteors, the ones that are burnt up in Earth's atmosphere yet hit Mars due to the near-lack of one. A terraformed atmosphere will provide at least some protection against these.

 

[tylor2000]

Well, the carbon dioxide has the oxygen all we need to bring is the hydrogen....but seriously...did this all have to lead into terratransforming? Yes, obviously venus has more problems then just the carbon dioxide.

BUT at least our probes wouldn't melt within 5 milliseconds. Which is why I made the comment.

 

[RisingFury]

Here's another way to put it, let's assume space travel becomes easy and cheap enough that it's like driving a car today, everyone can zip around and make it out to the outer planets. Everyone would want to fly through Saturn's rings. Then they end up ruining the ring system, robbing all future generations of the magnificence that is the Saturn that we know.

Yea... I'm pretty sure that (even if you got that close in), flying through the rings would be like driving off a cliff. It might be fun, but people usually don't do that.

 

[Lunar_Lander]

To get back to the Rover Idea itself: The idea as such is nice. It would be a next logical step after the automatic landing stations, as it was done on the Moon (Luna 17/Lunochod 1; Luna 21/Lunochod 2) and Mars (Pathfinder/Sojourner; MER, MSL).

The cooling device is really the biggest problem. I already wonder how they want to make Venera-D to survive much longer than the previous Veneras. Can there even be a Venus lander that works for more than a day or so?

 

[dbeachy1]

O-F staff note: Off-topic posts removed. Let's please stay on-topic in this thread. Thanks.

 

[tylor2000]

You could make the heat sink semi-thermo-conductive so instead of dissipating heat quickly it could actually build heat up until it reached a temperature higher then the outside air. You could have it connected to a conductive piece that has no way of dissipating heat directly to the air and is connected to the cooler part of the engine intermittently. I can't think of the total construction right here off the top of my head, but the idea is you make a kind of gate similar to how semi-conductor transistors are made by incorporating materials with different conductive properties.

---------- Post added at 12:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:52 AM ----------

I know I'm talking out of my a** but I'm just trying to figure out a way

 

[ryan]

The next fun thing when going to interplanetary probes, are naming the little buggers, maybe another competition that's becoming a new NASA craze.

 

[ijuin]

Ok, then I propose Hephaestus, the Greek God of the Forge (and hence of fire tamed to useful purposes), who was husband to Aphrodite (Venus).

Anyway, you're right in that any long-lived lander will have to use active cooling, with a powered refrigeration mechanism. The Venera probes all used passive measures (insulation and evaporation of coolant), which is why they only lasted an hour past touchdown.

 

[ryan]

Ok, then I propose Hephaestus, the Greek God of the Forge (and hence of fire tamed to useful purposes), who was husband to Aphrodite (Venus).

Aphrodite and Venus are seperate religon, Aprodite Greek and Venus Roman.

 

[Urwumpe]

Aphrodite and Venus are seperate religon, Aprodite Greek and Venus Roman.

The Venus cult has still absorbed the Aphrodite cult. It is based on it. Also, the navigation term pericytherion is defined by Cytherea, the place where Aphrodite was born.

 

[ijuin]

If we can use Ares to refer to a Mars program, then why can't we use Greek terminology to refer to a Venus program?

 

[RisingFury]

You could make the heat sink semi-thermo-conductive so instead of dissipating heat quickly it could actually build heat up until it reached a temperature higher then the outside air. You could have it connected to a conductive piece that has no way of dissipating heat directly to the air and is connected to the cooler part of the engine intermittently. I can't think of the total construction right here off the top of my head, but the idea is you make a kind of gate similar to how semi-conductor transistors are made by incorporating materials with different conductive properties.

Semi-conductors? Dude........... that applies to electricity.

You can't make heat go from a colder object to a hotter object and you can't tell heat to just stay on a hot object. While a fridge gives the impression of moving heat from a colder to a warmer object, that's not true.


Cooling the rover isn't a problem. You just need a heat pump and a gas / liquid with good enough properties for the job. The problem is the power source.

 

[ijuin]

AFAIK not enough solar radiation reaches the surface of Venus to make solar cells a viable means of powering a probe--the sunlight gets absorbed by the atmosphere and what's left is heavily diffracted, so it's as dark as an overcast day on Earth.

As such, the only power source that I can envision is some sort of nuclear reactor/RTG that is capable of running at a temperature where its heat sink is at the ambient temperature of the air on Venus' surface--with a heat sink at over 400 C, its internal temperature would have to be at least 700 C.