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Soviet Venus Images (2004)

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Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#21

Post by sandworm101 »

cletus wrote: post #15

It's wild we have any images of the surface of Venus at all given how hostile Venus is. Given how hostile it is, it seems unlikely we'll go back anytime soon. These images were really a product of the Cold War where the US focused on Mars. It's worth noting that Venus is still probably a better terraforming target than Mars [1]. This romantic notion of Mars has rooted itself deeply at this point (eg with Elon Musk) b…

Mars is closer than the moon, at least in terms of fuel. It takes less velocity/delta-V (aka space gas) to get to the surface of mars than it does the surface of the moon. We can use parachutes/aerobraking at Mars whereas at the moon we have to burn rockets all the way down. So mars is the easier and more dramatic stage for anyone wanting to demonstrate thier rocket tech. Venus is even closer still, but as a hell planet Venus doesn't lend itself to dramatic imagery and storytelling.

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#23

Post by skhr0680 »

melling wrote: post #16
42droids wrote: post #2

Absolutely fascinating. The technology that already existed in the 60’s and 70’s is mind boggling. Also, there is something really exciting about looking at pictures of an alien planet. :)

Technology developed fast. Sputnik was in 1957. 20 years later we had: The United States landed probes on Mars in 1976. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program The Voyager program: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 The Space Shuttle was developed in the 1970’s Supersonic commercial flight… bullet trains in Japan and France… As a kid in the 1970’s, I imagined 2021 would be much more futuristic.

I’m imagining talking to a person in 1971 and saying one of these things about the future is true and one is a lie:

In 50 years, even people in the worlds poorest countries will have be able to send a letter that arrives instantly to any place in the world, have a color camera and video camera that can take almost unlimited photos and that you can view immediately and send to your friends instantly, a TV that can watch any TV program or movie ever filmed, a record player with all of the music in the world, a library with every book, a clock that is never wrong, a TV phone that can call anyone on the planet for free, a computer more powerful than every computer currently on the planet added together, a map of the entire world that knows where you are and can tell you how to get to anywhere you want to go to, in one candy bar sized piece of glass, that they all carry around in their pocket.

or

In 50 years, the US and Soviets will have colonized the entire solar system, and traveling to space will be as mundane to people then as riding the bus is now.

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#24

Post by technologia »

cletus wrote: post #20
mattowen_uk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a fictional concept of gas mining in the atmosphere of Venus (like Bespin's Cloud City) but I couldn't think of a way to mitigate corrosion of the materials you'd use to build it by the sulphur dioxide... (On Venus at 50 miles up, the atmospheric pressure is approximately the same as Earth, whereas on the surface it's the equivalent pressure of Earth's Mariana trench.)

If we're talking about what humanity's future off Earth might look like, it's actually highly unlikely that it's on planets at all, given how hostile such places are, the huge energy costs of entering and leaving gravity wells and how inefficient planets are at creating living area per unit mass. Orbital habitats using spin gravity seem way more likely with places like the Moon and Mercury being the source for the re…

Suddenly not so much Star Wars as much as it is Gundam :p

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#25

Post by ansgri »

skhr0680 wrote: post #23
melling wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology developed fast. Sputnik was in 1957. 20 years later we had: The United States landed probes on Mars in 1976. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program The Voyager program: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 The Space Shuttle was developed in the 1970’s Supersonic commercial flight… bullet trains in Japan and France… As a kid in the 1970’s, I imagined 2021 would be much more futuristic.

I’m imagining talking to a person in 1971 and saying one of these things about the future is true and one is a lie: In 50 years, even people in the worlds poorest countries will have be able to send a letter that arrives instantly to any place in the world, have a color camera and video camera that can take almost unlimited photos and that you can view immediately and send to your friends instantly, a TV that can wat…

You’d better add more details to the second option to make it fair, there’s a cognitive bias that leads to a more detailed option being more believable.

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#26

Post by astroflask »

noduerme wrote: post #4

This is a pretty awesome use of manual image processing. It's amazing that so much of the exposed surface rock looks like slate. It's strange when you consider there's no continental uplift to expose metamorphic rock.

Tried to follow the inpainting algorithm link in the page but it's dead. Looks like this[0] would be the paper.

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220720382_Image_inp...

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#28

Post by The_rationalist »

melling wrote: post #16
42droids wrote: post #2

Absolutely fascinating. The technology that already existed in the 60’s and 70’s is mind boggling. Also, there is something really exciting about looking at pictures of an alien planet. :)

Technology developed fast. Sputnik was in 1957. 20 years later we had: The United States landed probes on Mars in 1976. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program The Voyager program: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 The Space Shuttle was developed in the 1970’s Supersonic commercial flight… bullet trains in Japan and France… As a kid in the 1970’s, I imagined 2021 would be much more futuristic.

Major advances have been killed because of death aversion e.g The space shuttle. There was a human error and had they double/triple checked it would have been avoided. Anyway the human life cost is hypocrisy, with the budget they have and considering the gigantic number of avoidable deaths on earth through money they could have gotten a net life ratio by divesting e.g 0.1% of their budget, it's all inept media politics. In consequence, many things that were possible are no longer. About supersonic airflight, the Concorde was sabotaged, it was again much more safe than e.g driving a car and it was sabotaged economically by making illegal all air route except the transatlantic one. I'm unconvinced the bang from going beyond the speed of sound is that much of an issue, and they could done it higher in the air if needed? Anyway there are many technologies nowadays that reduce this noise, unfortunately the time to market and legal inept inertia will make us wait for another number of decades until this majorly useful technology come back. About maglevs and void tunnels trains I don't know why it doesn't pan out, must be too expensive, probably.

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#29

Post by pmlnr »

skhr0680 wrote: post #23
melling wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology developed fast. Sputnik was in 1957. 20 years later we had: The United States landed probes on Mars in 1976. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program The Voyager program: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 The Space Shuttle was developed in the 1970’s Supersonic commercial flight… bullet trains in Japan and France… As a kid in the 1970’s, I imagined 2021 would be much more futuristic.

I’m imagining talking to a person in 1971 and saying one of these things about the future is true and one is a lie: In 50 years, even people in the worlds poorest countries will have be able to send a letter that arrives instantly to any place in the world, have a color camera and video camera that can take almost unlimited photos and that you can view immediately and send to your friends instantly, a TV that can wat…

> a TV that can watch any TV program or movie ever filmed

> a library with every book

LOL. Reality wants a word with it's licenses and DMCA-s.

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#30

Post by skhr0680 »

pmlnr wrote: post #29
skhr0680 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m imagining talking to a person in 1971 and saying one of these things about the future is true and one is a lie: In 50 years, even people in the worlds poorest countries will have be able to send a letter that arrives instantly to any place in the world, have a color camera and video camera that can take almost unlimited photos and that you can view immediately and send to your friends instantly, a TV that can wat…

> a TV that can watch any TV program or movie ever filmed > a library with every book LOL. Reality wants a word with it's licenses and DMCA-s.

Hey, who said anything about paying?
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