31–40 of 42 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Venus needs more attention. Mars is boring. Luna is boring. Venus might have some action. And what about Europa?
Mars is doable. Luna is convenient. Venus is pure acid under ridiculous pressure that melts any probe in minutes. Europa is too far for anything serious. Enceladus is even further away.
Only at the surface.
For sci-fi fans, Stephen Baxter wrote a very cool short story about possible Venetian life. It's part of this collection, and I don't particularly want to spoil anything about it: https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?332397
Here’s an annoying question: how would one play the discovery of Venusian life into personal gain? I’m thinking “startup/invest in space” as a starting point, but surely there’s a more fun/rediculous way. Let’s assume that these signals are indeed based in life, and that that life is mostly boring to laymen — some type of bacteria or lava tube denizen with minimal complexity, say
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Venus needs more attention. Mars is boring. Luna is boring. Venus might have some action. And what about Europa?
Mars is doable. Luna is convenient. Venus is pure acid under ridiculous pressure that melts any probe in minutes. Europa is too far for anything serious. Enceladus is even further away.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does microbial life "live" there, or is it deposited there by other means?
I believe the question of whether there's life that's entirely confined to clouds is open.
We can, in the meantime, investigate strategies for collecting our own cloud-dwellers so we can build a probe that does the same on Venus while it descends a little through the atmosphere before launching back a sample recovery capsule.
Heat shield, parachute, balloon, stay for a couple hours collecting samples of the atmosphere, filtering particulates, making nice movies, and so on, then pop the balloon right before launching the return vehicle?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mars is doable. Luna is convenient. Venus is pure acid under ridiculous pressure that melts any probe in minutes. Europa is too far for anything serious. Enceladus is even further away.
A balloon inflated at 1 bar would float around quite nicely in the venusian atmosphere.
I think there was a proposal for a solar powered winged probe which although less cool, would be probably more likely to succeed.
For sci-fi fans, Stephen Baxter wrote a very cool short story about possible Venetian life. It's part of this collection, and I don't particularly want to spoil anything about it: https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?332397
Venusian. Venetian is entirely different: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian