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Soviet Venus Images (2004)

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Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#61

Post by dredmorbius »

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…

Duncan Makenzie had a new minisec, and he was not quite sure how parts of it worked.

The 'Sec was the standard size of all such units, determined by what can fit comfortably in the human hand. At a quick glance, it did not differ greatly from one of the small electronic calculators that had started coming into general use at the end of the twentieth century. It was, however, infinitely more versatile, and Duncan could not imagine what life would be like without it.

Because of the finite size of clumsy human fingers, it had no more controls than that of its ancestor of three hundred years earlier. There were fifty neat little studs; each, however, had an unlimited number of functions, according to the mode of operation - for the character visible on each stud changed according to the mode.

-- Arthur C. Clarke, Imperial Earth, 1976

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1267

That itself was nearly a decade after the newspad of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968):

http://technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=529

https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=-3949GAIokg

See also "As We May Think" by Vannevar Bush, 1945. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-ma... (Numerous HN discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). You'll find similar notions proposed by H.G. Wells (1930s), Paul Otlet (1930s), and arguably Denis Diderot (18th century).

The notion of universal access to media is hardly novel or original. The technology to make it happen did take some time, but the outlines were clear by the 1960s and before. It is indeed the property and rights aspects which have principally held us back. It's interesting to note that for any printed materials, with SciHub and LibGen, the battle is very nearly completely won.

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#62

Post by _Microft »

canadianfella wrote: post #56
belter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should not have ignored Venus. Its easier to get to than Mars and the top of the atmosphere has reasonable temperatures. Why would a certain type of life would not be possible under 400 C or acid sulfuric environments ? It might be very different from what we have on Earth, but is there anything specific to Venus current environment that makes us believe it is not possible, with the exception it would be very, ver…

Why do you put spaces before punctuation?

This is off-topic but I think I can help.

Some languages, like (European) French, put spaces before question marks[0] and exclamation marks[1] and people might be so used to doing it that they even do it when writing in a different language.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark#Stylistic_varian...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclamation_mark#French

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#63

Post by api »

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…

Isn’t Venus too hydrogen poor to be terraformed? Where are you going to get trillions of tons of hydrogen?

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#64

Post by belter »

_Microft wrote: post #62
canadianfella wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you put spaces before punctuation?

This is off-topic but I think I can help. Some languages, like (European) French, put spaces before question marks[0] and exclamation marks[1] and people might be so used to doing it that they even do it when writing in a different language. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark#Stylistic_varian... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclamation_mark#French

Indeed. Thanks _Microft :-) As you you might have guessed English is not my native language.

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#65

Post by _Microft »

belter wrote: post #64
_Microft wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is off-topic but I think I can help. Some languages, like (European) French, put spaces before question marks[0] and exclamation marks[1] and people might be so used to doing it that they even do it when writing in a different language. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark#Stylistic_varian... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclamation_mark#French

Indeed. Thanks _Microft :-) As you you might have guessed English is not my native language.

If it had not been for these clues, I actually would not have noticed.

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#66

Post by at_compile_time »

generalizations wrote: post #48
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…

> 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) but Mars is basically a more distant and inconvenient Moon. There's a distinction there worth pointing out. We can actually land on Mars, and if something goes wrong there are options (Apollo 13 style). If something goes wrong on Venus, yo…

> Might be worth just dropping some hardy lichen on Venus to get the process started, because no one is going to go there as-is.

Hardy is an understatement. Life would need an entirely different chemistry to function at 730K.

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#67

Post by _Microft »

eloff wrote: post #33
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…

Also while life on the surface of Venus is extremely hostile, it's possible to build floating stations in the atmosphere because it's so much more dense than earth's. High enough in the atmosphere the pressures, temperatures, and solar radiation would be reasonable. It's harder than floating a ship on water, but easier than doing airships on earth. I'm not sure what that gains us over just having a habitat in orbit t…

There is a concept by NASA for such a mission, it is called "High Altitude Venus Operational Concept" or "HAVOC" [0]. They also made a demo video for it [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operationa...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0az7DEwG68A

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#68

Post by TaylorAlexander »

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…

Making a cloud city on Venus is totally doable but it should be noted that the surface of Venus only rotates once per year (the actual orbit around the sun makes it two days per year). However there is a point in the clouds where you have earth level pressures and temperatures, and the clouds encircle Venus on a time scale much closer to Earth days.

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#69

Post by m4rtink »

dredmorbius wrote: post #60
m4rtink wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK mainly probe lifetime - at least early on the Soviets had a lot of issues with that. For Venus you only have to keep the probe working for a month or tu max, for Mars it needs two survive for almost a year at the minimum.

The successful Venus landers had operational lives on the ground ranging from 23 minutes to 2 hours. Months would have been phenomenal successes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera

I should have been more precise - I should have said probe flight times. The few early Soviet Mars probes that survived launch died on the way before they could reach the planet. For Venus transit the whole thing needs to keep working for much shorter time before descent module lands and the mission is over in minutes, as you mention.

Re: Soviet Venus Images (2004)

#70

Post by Sparkyte »

belter wrote: post #31
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…

We should not have ignored Venus. Its easier to get to than Mars and the top of the atmosphere has reasonable temperatures. Why would a certain type of life would not be possible under 400 C or acid sulfuric environments ? It might be very different from what we have on Earth, but is there anything specific to Venus current environment that makes us believe it is not possible, with the exception it would be very, ver…

Actually venus is probably not worth it. It's runaway green house gasses definitely prevent a habitable environment. I think all life needs a stability point. Doubt the clouds could provide that. I think it would relatively easy to terraform than Mars though. You just need to start some sort of global cooling by blocking out the sun.
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