Venera: The Soviet Exploration of Venus • Hacker News Board

Re: Venera: The Soviet Exploration of Venus

#21

Post by sssilver » Wed, Apr 23, 2014, 6:24 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #17

sssilver wrote: post #10

One day I hope the humanity will credit the Soviet Union for what it really was -- a technocratic meritocracy, where scientific progress and enormous projects of planetary scale mattered more than daily preferences of spoiled individuals. Hopefully one day such a society will emerge again, and this time they will not dismantle themselves over having Coke and Levi's. Having lived in USSR -- no, we seriously didn't bre…

> a technocratic meritocracy Unless you're Jewish.

Arguments much?

Re: Venera: The Soviet Exploration of Venus

#22

Post by arethuza » Wed, Apr 23, 2014, 6:26 PM UTC

pantalaimon wrote: post #8

raverbashing wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the air density of Venus is much better for that than, let's say, Mars However, the Atmosphere composition makes it worse.

relevant what-if http://what-if.xkcd.com/30/

"The upshot is: Your plane would fly pretty well, except it would be on fire the whole time, and then it would stop flying, and then stop being a plane."

Re: Venera: The Soviet Exploration of Venus

#23

Post by pavel_lishin » Wed, Apr 23, 2014, 6:40 PM UTC

sssilver wrote: post #21

pavel_lishin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a technocratic meritocracy Unless you're Jewish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhores_Alferov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Berezin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gersh_Budker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Frank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Frenkel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Fridman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Friedmann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitaly_Ginzburg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeni_Gross http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

Clicked on a random one, Igor Tamm - Wikipedia says that "some sources" describe him as Jewish. They're all print books, and I'm not willing to grab them all to settle a meaningless internet argument, but I'd wager that he was not considered Jewish at the time.

In any case, alright; some Jewish scientists did fine. Others didn't. We can praise the things the USSR did well without white-washing its history altogether.

Re: Venera: The Soviet Exploration of Venus

#24

Post by cgh » Wed, Apr 23, 2014, 7:07 PM UTC

sssilver wrote: post #21

pavel_lishin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a technocratic meritocracy Unless you're Jewish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhores_Alferov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Berezin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gersh_Budker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Frank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Frenkel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Fridman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Friedmann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitaly_Ginzburg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeni_Gross http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

How about this guy?

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--...

Re: Venera: The Soviet Exploration of Venus

#25

Post by rebolek » Wed, Apr 23, 2014, 7:38 PM UTC

sssilver wrote: post #10

One day I hope the humanity will credit the Soviet Union for what it really was -- a technocratic meritocracy, where scientific progress and enormous projects of planetary scale mattered more than daily preferences of spoiled individuals. Hopefully one day such a society will emerge again, and this time they will not dismantle themselves over having Coke and Levi's. Having lived in USSR -- no, we seriously didn't bre…

When scientific progress mattered more, so why was cybernetics considered bourgeois pseudoscience? Also, how can you progress on planetary scale, when there's shortage of toilet paper?

Re: Venera: The Soviet Exploration of Venus

#26

Post by mhurron » Wed, Apr 23, 2014, 7:46 PM UTC

Klapaucius wrote: post #16

raverbashing wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the air density of Venus is much better for that than, let's say, Mars However, the Atmosphere composition makes it worse.

At more than 90 bar, the lower atmosphere of Venus is basically made up of supercritical CO2, making it more or less a question of taste whether to call it an atmosphere or an ocean. Indeed, floating cities have been suggested as a way that man could actually live on the planet. High up in the atmosphere, the pressure and temperature would actually be quite livable.

And it could operate at the fringes of the Empire.

Re: Venera: The Soviet Exploration of Venus

#27

Post by curtis » Wed, Apr 23, 2014, 7:58 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #15

curtis wrote: post #9

Back in the 60s NASA considered a plan for a manned flyby of Venus using Apollo-derived hardware. I've wondered if a modern day manned flyby mission might make sense. A rover could be landed on Venus more easily than on Mars, but it would, by necessity, have a very short lifetime on the surface. Once it's out of coolant, the mission is over. So if you were going to land a rover (or rovers) on the surface of Venus, yo…

That has to be the coolest idea I have heard in a very very long time. Absolutely no convincing long term value, but we just have to do it, just because we can. No asteroids to mine, no Mars bases to build, but "what happens if we go over there and look" Gets my vote.

I wouldn't go so far as to say no long term value -- a fly-by would be good preparation for an asteroid mission or a Mars/Phobos orbital mission. In fact it might be possible to do the follow-on mission with the same ship.

NASA clearly needs an intermediate step between LEO and putting a man on Mars. Venus flyby plus teleoperated rovers is the easiest mission I can think of that might also be useful.

Re: Venera: The Soviet Exploration of Venus

#28

Post by BrandonMarc » Wed, Apr 23, 2014, 8:15 PM UTC

pantalaimon wrote: post #8

raverbashing wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the air density of Venus is much better for that than, let's say, Mars However, the Atmosphere composition makes it worse.

relevant what-if http://what-if.xkcd.com/30/

"A much better bet would be to fly above the clouds. While Venus’s surface is awful, its upper atmosphere is surprisingly Earthlike. 55 kilometers up, a human could survive with an oxygen mask and a protective wetsuit; the air is room temperature and the pressure is similar to that on Earth mountains. You need the wetsuit, though, to protect you from the sulfuric acid. (I’m not selling this well, am I?)"

Re: Venera: The Soviet Exploration of Venus

#29

Post by _random_ » Wed, Apr 23, 2014, 8:36 PM UTC

qwerta wrote: post #11

There is a lot of interesting stuff in soviet space program. For example the Vostok spacecraft (Gagarin) is still used on orbit 50 years latter for biological experiments.

Simple and reliable, just like T-34 and AK-47.

Re: Venera: The Soviet Exploration of Venus

#30

Post by _random_ » Wed, Apr 23, 2014, 8:48 PM UTC

rebolek wrote: post #25

sssilver wrote: post #10

One day I hope the humanity will credit the Soviet Union for what it really was -- a technocratic meritocracy, where scientific progress and enormous projects of planetary scale mattered more than daily preferences of spoiled individuals. Hopefully one day such a society will emerge again, and this time they will not dismantle themselves over having Coke and Levi's. Having lived in USSR -- no, we seriously didn't bre…

When scientific progress mattered more, so why was cybernetics considered bourgeois pseudoscience? Also, how can you progress on planetary scale, when there's shortage of toilet paper?

It seems that USA has many kinds of treatments for cancer these days - a manifestation of recent scientific progress obviously. What is the typical way very poor people to get it (or lets say even a chemistry teacher, who obviously cannot be poor in a reasonable society)? (But toilet paper is obviously important as well).