Venus: The Forgotten Planet

Anonymous Coward from Winnipeg writes "These days many of us are consumed by daily batches of spectacular images from our twin Marsbots and international fleet of Mars-orbiting craft. But we should not forget our sister planet, Venus, which has undergone significant exploration in years past. Don P. Mitchell's home page features an intriguing refinement of Soviet surface images using modern reprocessing techniques. Don also includes a terrific overview of the Soviet Venus exploration program. Complete radar mapping of Venus was provided by Magellan ten years ago. Sadly, according to the Venus Exploration Timeline, only two new missions to Venus are envisioned: ESA's Venus Express (using leftover Mars Express and Rosetta equipment) and JAXA's Planet-C orbiter. Apparently, no landings on Venus are planned - is this another case of humanity losing advanced space travel capability due to neglect, like Apollo?" (We've mentioned Mitchell's reworked images before -- amazing stuff.)

Comments

It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

We do cold and dry much better than hot and caustic. And Mars has all the potential for life evidence (or so we think) so it gets a lot of focus. I think Venus still takes a back seat to the moons of Jupiter. That's where the future action is going to be.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[AKAImBatman]

This is partly a question of energy. Rough calculations seem to suggest that the human race will be producing enough power to be able to break down iron oxides on the Martian surface and free oxygen, or to move icy comet cores from the outer system and impact them on Mars, before that many generations have passed.

*cough* Actually we have the power today. When one considers that space travelers' lives depend on energy, one realizes that Nuclear Fission is pretty much a requirement for space travel.

We don't know much about what technology would make such things possible, but if you draw even a straight line curve from the technology of the past, such as wood heated boilers, through today (fission), and extrapolate, the time till we can spruce up Mars is only a hundred years or so.

This is difficult, because the technology already exists for getting to Mars. Unfortunately, our society has been stopping technological progress in favor of the idea that everything must be "safe". So much so, that dangers are percieved where none exist. What people *want* is a Star Trek technology that glosses over how dangerous that much power actually is.

Even if we can sustain a technological growth rate that may be just plain impossible in the long run, Mars will be doable generations before Venus.

No argument here. I was just pointing out that Mars is more interesting *because* it doesn't need to be terraformed. Terraforming is still one of those "on the drawing board" type of things. Simple blimps flying around Venus would be a more viable option. With the extreme pressure of the atmosphere, it's even possible to build floating islands for exploration.

Re:It's not forgotten, just more expensive

[ajagci]

Assuming those were good reasons to colonize other planets, the time frame of those issues is so long-term (as is the time-frame in which we will be technologically ready to actually colonize other planets in any meaningful way) that it really has no bearing on which planets to target by unmanned probes for the foreseeable future.

In this century and the next, we should pick our targets for maximum scientific benefit, not for the possibility of colonization.

The real question is WHY

[KingOfBLASH]

I find this article funny. Mars can be inhabited and explored by humans, and there are a lot of possibilities about what could be done there. The martian gravity is weaker then earths, so it becomes much cheaper in fuel costs to launch missions from mars. Add the proximity to the jovian asteroid belts, and we have all the resources we need to do a lot of neat stuff. Venus isn't habitable by humans. Now this doesn't mean that we shouldn't send any probes there, but first thing is first.

Re:The real question is WHY

[Graff]

first thing is first... fixing problems on earth.

Opening up new horizons is part of fixing the problems on Earth. Not only is the space program generating research that is highly applicable to current Earthly problems*, it is also providing for an eventual safety valve where disaffected members of society can go off to a Moon or Mars colony to start a new life rather than remaining on crowded Earth.

An example of this can be seen in the early pioneering days of the United States. Sure it was a tough, difficult, and often deadly trip west but many people did it anyways in order to start off new. Many of those people had been feeling stifled in the eastern cities and so they went west, relieving the social caldrons which were beginning to boil over.

The fact that there was an open frontier allowed people to be innovative and to take a chance that they might get a piece of land of their own and maybe even have their own business. It provided the poorest person with the opportunity to be successful and to pass their success on to their children. When there are no frontiers this is much harder to do.

* Such as medicine, hydroponics, closed ecosystems, energy sources, micro-mechanization, robotics, etc.

Mars is a Prospect for Money

[Qweezle]

People look at Mars these days, almost as the "next Earth"...dreams and hopes from businesses the world over of exotic minerals, huge deposits of iron and whatnot, and this drives many to support Mars exploration

There are also those who of course, believe that Mars is chiefly where we will dump those extra billions of people we are going to have in the next 100 years.

But Venus should not be forgotten, it is a legitimate testing ground for technology and a potential "gold mine" in itself.

Re:Mars is a Prospect for Money

[ajagci]

There are also those who of course, believe that Mars is chiefly where we will dump those extra billions of people we are going to have in the next 100 years.

You're gonna ship African and Indian street kids to Mars by the billions? Because that's where those "extra billions" come from. It's not going to happen.

There are only two ways we will deal with the population explosion: family planning and social changes on the one hand, or disease and starvation on the other.

There's a good reason we choose Mars, not Venus

[CrystalFalcon]

The most compelling reason to not send bots to Venus, but to Mars, would be Venus' surface temperature. If you think the greenhouse effect is bad on Earth, try an atmosphere comprised almost exclusively of greenhouse gases, and hop in a notch towards the Sun.

Try surface temperatures in the range of 400-500 degrees C, and watch closely as that poor overclocked Pentium powering the robot overheats like an Eskimo who's in Rio de Janiero to watch the carneval.

Thanks, I'd rather try for Mars first, with temperatures in the much more comfortable range for Earth-invented technology. Hell, we don't even have to shield it for temperature most of the time, as it is just marginally cooler on Mars and the electronics gives off some heat by itself to stay warm.

Re:Good reasons to not land on Venus.

[rodgerd]

Venus would just require radically new technology to land on,

Or you could ask the Russians how the Venera landers worked. I know NIH is a big problem for some people, but overcoming a bit of parochialism never hurt anyone.

Possibly offtopic, but

[Threni]

shouldn't we be taking care of Earth? Check this out:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0, 12 374,1153530,00.html

Scary.

Re:Venus harbors life?

[RoLi]

Could the Soviet explorers have found primitive life there and for fear of starting widespread panic decided to keep the whole thing quiet.

The most stupidest conspiracy theories are governments keeping alien life "quiet".

If there would be any evidence for alien life - or even intelligent life out there, the governments would profit the most because it's a good reason to raise taxes for military, etc.

The thought that the government would keep the cover over something that a) clearly isn't their fault, b) is possibly an external threat for which c) only the government has an adequate fix, is pretty dumb, IMO.

I'm all for conspiracies, but there must be some kind of motive behind it.

Probe Eater Plus

[Mulletproof]

"...is this another case of humanity losing advanced space travel capability due to neglect, like Apollo?"

No, I think it's more a case of space agencies not wanting to toss their multi-million dollar probes into a nintey atmosphere, 850 F (450 C) cloud of sulphuric acid 850 F (450 C)where probe lifespans are measured in hours. The cost to knowledge-gain ratio is staggeringly out of proportion on those missions. At least on mars you stand a decent chance of getting a return on your investment.

It's more a case of space agencies saying "Yep, that's nasty stuff. Let's move on for now."

Terraforming ain't so easy.

[Jafafa Hots]

That's what amazes me about people who talk about terraforming Mars, etc. They talk like it would be so simple. Even if we had the tech to move comets, etc., and the various other things we would need to do - we DON'T have the knowledge of WHAT to do.

We can't seem to understand our OWN atmosphere enough to know what things (good or bad) we are doing to it even unintentionally. We can't agree on Global Warming, etc...

So what makes us think we will know just the right recipe for a cozy atmophere on Mars? We don't even know the right recipe for one here on Earth yet.

Re:Venus harbors life?

[JayBlalock]

His entire point was that, if you asked oceanologists or biologists in the 60s about the possibility of life at the bottom of oceanic abyssal trenches, they would have given the exact same arguments about why it was impossible. Just replace "sulfuric acid" with "near-boiling temperatures" or "2,500 PSI of pressure" and you'd be similarly laughed at for suggesting life.

The discovery and study of extremophiles has actually been a huge boon to those advancing theories of life on other worlds. The range of life on Earth is mind-boggling, with many organisms and animals which are at least as "alien" as anything that might be found on Venus or Jupiter or whereever. The basic point being, if they can go into places on Earth where life absolutely, positively, could not possibly be, and find life anyway, it suddenly becomes hard to summarily rule out ANY location.