NASA Study Proposes Airships, Cloud Cities For Venus Exploration

An anonymous reader writes: IEEE Spectrum reports on a study out of NASA exploring the idea that manned missions to Venus are possible if astronauts deploy and live in airships once they arrive. Since the atmospheric pressure at the surface is 92 times that of Earth, and the surface temperate is over 450 degrees C, the probes we've sent to Venus haven't lasted long. The Venera 8 probe sent back data for only 50 minutes after landing. Soviet missions in 1985 were able to get much more data — 46 hours worth — by suspending their probes from balloons. The new study refines that concept: "At 50 kilometers above its surface, Venus offers one atmosphere of pressure and only slightly lower gravity than Earth. Mars, in comparison, has a "sea level" atmospheric pressure of less than a hundredth of Earth's, and gravity just over a third Earth normal. The temperature at 50 km on Venus is around 75 C, which is a mere 17 degrees hotter than the highest temperature recorded on Earth.

The defining feature of these missions is the vehicle that will be doing the atmospheric exploring: a helium-filled, solar-powered airship. The robotic version would be 31 meters long (about half the size of the Goodyear blimp), while the crewed version would be nearly 130 meters long, or twice the size of a Boeing 747. The top of the airship would be covered with more than 1,000 square meters of solar panels, with a gondola slung underneath for instruments and, in the crewed version, a small habitat and the ascent vehicle that the astronauts would use to return to Venus's orbit, and home."

Comments

As with all space missions:

[ledow]

As with all space missions:

Fabulous.

Let's do it.

Start planning now.

Go, go go.

When will it happen?

I have a feeling in 50 years time this will be dragged out of the archives and the same idea posited once more.

Re:As with all space missions:

[RingDev]

75 C = 167 F.

"17 degrees" in this case means a 30 degree F jump. And while 138 F is survivable for short durations with a lot of hydration, 167 F would not be anything to attempt to live in.

We're not talking about an air ship where you can take a leisurely stroll on the pool deck admiring the Venetian sunset. We're talking about a space ship that is suspended in a convection stove.

-Rick

Re:As with all space missions:

[TWX]

Okay, a fundamental question then... What's the mission?

I don't see a mission for humans hovering over Venus. This isn't like a possible geology excavation on Mars where it might actually be easier if humans are on-site to direct or operate machines for specific applications.

I believe that humans should go explore space, but I also believe that with only finite resources and commitment to doing it, the effort should be focused on places where humans can actually be boots-on-the-ground to rove, to explore.

Re:As with all space missions:

[DanielRavenNest]

As a space systems engineer, I would agree. There isn't much benefit to putting humans in the Venusian clouds. It adds weight and risk to the mission. They can just as well stay in orbit, controlling a robotic exploration blimp.

Re:As with all space missions:

[__aaclcg7560]

Okay, a fundamental question then... What's the mission?

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/11/29/forget-asteroidssend-a-manned-flyby-mission-to-venus/

A circumnavigation of Venus would test our ability to function in deep space, to enter a planet's gravitational influence, to create robust shielding for the higher radiation at Venus's relatively close proximity to the sun, to devise zero-g strategies for long-duration flights -- all of which would bolster us for an even longer journey to Mars. Besides, for a long-duration mission, we might not want to commit our astronauts to landing on Mars only to find out that they could not walk, their musculature had so degenerated upon arrival. In contrast, the crew of a long Venus round-trip would land not on a faraway planet but back on Earth, where medical attention is readily available if needed.

Re:As with all space missions:

[itzly]

In short: it's pointless, but it provides valuable practice for future, equally pointless, missions.

Re:As with all space missions:

[neoritter]

No, no one at the time believed that the Earth was flat... Columbus was an idiot who thought that the distance between Western Europe and Eastern Asia was a lot smaller than people had thought/calculated.

Re:As with all space missions:

[itzly]

Would be nice to have a better understanding and earlier predictability of solar events that can take the networks down.

We already have satellites looking at the Sun. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Re:As with all space missions:

[MozeeToby]

Hi there. This is wrong. Just... incredibly wrong.

People had known the earth was round for hundreds if not thousands of years before Columbus. They had even done the math and experiments to figure out it's size (and gotten pretty close to being right about it). You can't actually navigate long distances on Earth without that knowledge. So what made Columbus special? He did the math wrong and thought the earth was 1/3 the size it actually is. That's also why he thought he was in the Indies in spite of having traveled a fraction the distance it actually would take.

The reason no one had ever tried to make the trip before wasn't that they thought they would fall off, it was that they thought they would run out of supplies and die. Which is exactly what would have happened to Columbus if there hadn't been a massive continent for him to run into.

Re:As with all space missions:

[alvinrod]

The notion that people believed the world was flat is a myth. The Greeks had worked out the earth was spherical almost two thousand years prior to Columbus's voyage. Globes had been made be various different groups of people for hundreds of years prior to Columbus's voyage as well.

What Columbus argued was that the circumference of the world was much smaller than had been estimated (he was wrong about this) and therefore the distance to India would be much shorter than most speculated. The reason the islands he landed on are referred to as the West Indies is because Columbus initially thought that he had made it to India.

His voyage wasn't pointless, but it was based on some bad assumptions. He certainly discovered something new (one could argue that the Vikings or other groups found it first, but apparently they didn't disseminate that information very widely) but it was more of a happy accident than anything else.

Re:As with all space missions:

[__aaclcg7560]

Either the school you attended was exceptionally bad, or you spent a lot of time not paying attention.

I was misdiagnosed as being mentally retarded. Never mind that I consistently blew out the annual examinations on the genius side (i.e., these were "statistical flukes," as not the threaten the 3X funding I represented for the special ed classes). I graduated from the eight grade with fifth grade math/writing skills and a college-level reading comprehension. After skipping high school and teaching myself at home, I got an associate degree in general ed at the community college. A decade later I went back to school to learn computer programming while taking two classes per semester and working 60 hours per week for five years. I even made the president's list for maintaining a 4.0 GPA in my major.

Re:As with all space missions:

[reve_etrange]

People had known the earth was round for hundreds if not thousands of years before Columbus.

Definitely thousands. (Like 1.8 thousands).

Re:As with all space missions:

[dywolf]

No No No No a million times NO.

Prior to 1492, everyone knew the world was round, and had known so since the time of Ptolemy if not before.

FTFY.

Yes, he did sail west based on his knowledge that hte Earth was round.
But no, Columbus did not sail west to show the flat earthers they were wrong.
And you should stop spreading that myth.

Everyone knew the Earth the round.
But no one believed sailing west was a shorter more direct route (and this was based on math and geometry)

In case you missed it, the sea route from Europe to India has to go around that big hunk of land called Africa.
That route involves sailing south several thousand miles, then back north another few thousand, as well as traversing the eastward distance.
It's a long, dangerous route taking as long as a year there and back
It was desirable though due to the Sil Road (overland) being unsafe in recent years due to the rise of the Ottomans.

And this is still the time when most sailing is done in close proximity to shore, with shore not far over the horizon.
And the open ocean not being well charted yet if at all.

If the earth was round, which every one knew, and of a specific diameter, which was also already calculated and fairly accurate, then it was apparent that the westward distance to India was indeed longer than the Eastward distance to India.

But math of a sphere is simple and easy, whereas the math of actual navigation of sailing ship taking a long roundabout route around africa is more difficult and less accurate at the time.

And that brings us back to Columbus.
His bet was essentially that while the direct distance was obvious longer, that he could make up for it with directness by not having to go around Africa.
This view was based on the ideas of geography of Toscanelli, who did not concieve of a large land mass in the way.

It was a risky venture in the face of a known and profitable route, and few would take him up on it (businessmen being ever adverse to risk).
But he finally got his sponsor and off he went.

And it turned out he was wrong.
Both his math was wrong, as his assumption that there would be nothing in the way.

A good summary of his flawed reasoning and surrounding factors is presented on the wiki ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... ) :

From d'Ailly's Imago Mundi Columbus learned of Alfraganus's estimate that a degree of latitude (or a degree of longitude along the equator) spanned 56 miles, but did not realize that this was expressed in the Arabic mile rather than the shorter Roman mile with which he was familiar (1,480 m).[30] He therefore estimated the circumference of the Earth to be about 30,200 km, whereas the correct value is 40,000 km (25,000 mi).

Furthermore, most scholars accepted Ptolemy's estimate that Eurasia spanned 180 longitude, rather than the actual 130 (to the Chinese mainland) or 150 (to Japan at the latitude of Spain). Columbus, for his part, believed the even higher estimate of Marinus of Tyre, which put the longitudinal span of the Eurasian landmass at 225, leaving only 135 of water. He also believed that Japan (which he called "Cipangu", following Marco Polo) was much larger, farther to the east from China ("Cathay"), and closer to the equator than it is, and that there were inhabited islands even farther to the east than Japan, including the mythical Antillia, which he thought might lie not much farther to the west than the Azores. In this, he was influenced by the ideas of Florentine astronomer Toscanelli, who corresponded with Columbus before his death in 1482 and who also defended the feasibility of a westward route to Asia.[31]

Columbus therefore estimated the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan to be about 3,000 Italian miles (3,700 km, or 2,300 statute miles). The true figure is now known to be vastly larger: about 12,500 km. No ship in

it can be air filled

[dominux]

earth atmosphere air is a lifting gas on Venus, the airship could be full of normal air, and the people live inside it, not slung under it in a gondola. The pressure inside would only be a little different to the pressure outside, so a small hole in the skin of the airship wouldn't be an explosively big problem, air would just mix with the corrosive and fairly nasty outside atmosphere. It would need fixing, but it is nothing like a hole with a vacuum outside. Venus is a fairly nice place overall, lots of solar, interesting chemicals in the atmosphere. The only problem is that the ground is too far down.

Re:it can be air filled

[Jesrad]

Also mind the day duration: the Venus sidereal day is 243 Earth days. That makes for a worse than polar night, solar panel-wise, and that's not even counting the permanent, thick cloud cover. There just is no point in reaching the venusian ground and its lead-melting heat. It's far better to hang in the high atmosphere, well above the sulfuric acid clouds, and loft around in the 200 mph winds, circling the planet every 4 or 5 Earth days.

Re:it can be air filled

[schlachter]

but what's the point of sending humans to suspend them in air there? what does it lead to? What can they do that probes can not?

Re:it can be air filled

[pavon]

That said, the total payload mass that the ship could support is roughly the same whether it is inside the airship or outside in a gondola, and the more space you want to make available for use, the more mass you would have to dedicate to structure rather than payload. So it would be less cramped than a tiny capsule, but you would still need large expanses of mostly empty space to provide the needed buoyancy.

In practice, it might be better to have a balloon filled with a less dense gas to decrease the total volume needed to support the desired payload, and then have an attached air-filled "gondola" that is nearly as large as the balloon.

Re:it can be air filled

[itzly]

Indeed. It's going to be much easier to rebuild civilization if you stay here on Earth, and hide in an underground bunker until the worst is over.

Re:it can be air filled

[visualight]

What useful things can be harvested from the atmosphere? Are there chemicals that could be used to make plastics? Could a small habitat expand into a floating city?

Re:it can be air filled

[invid]

The NPC is a science fiction story that takes place in the atmosphere of Venus (disclaimer, I wrote it). I tried to present a realistic view of how an actual colony might function there.

Re:it can be air filled

[dominux]

fair point, I don't think putting humans in the Venus atmosphere is a massively good idea until it is a viable place for full time colonisation, which it could be. If we are going to colonise another planet it is better than Mars in terms of energy and resources. I think in the shorter term airship probes would be good, as well as solar powered fixed wing flyers.

An airship city?

[the_skywise]

Golly... where have I heard of that before...

They could call it Columbia...

not a serious proposal

[itzly]

As soon as they said "manned", it was obvious that this isn't serious. There's no purpose to sending people to sit forever in a closed capsule.

Re:Let's chose a name

[war4peace]

Titanburg is more catchy. Catchier? Damn my English.

Woo hoo ... steampunk!!

[gstoddart]

Airships? Floating cities?

Hell yeah!! Space exploration has needed to take a steampunk turn for a while now. We totally need more brass goggles and leather aviator jackets.

I for one welcome our new Cloud City overlords.

Let's do it.

[Ihlosi]

The airship idea is a great idea. Not with astronauts (there wouldn't be much to do for them, unlike on Mars, where they could look at rock formations, dig holes and play golf), but a robotic airship would get a much closer look at Venus than any satellite.

Plus, it would be a "first".

Why is no one else calling BS?

[frovingslosh]

"and the ascent vehicle that the astronauts would use to return to Venus's orbit, and home."

The summary establishes that the gravity is about Earth gravity. The "ascent vehicle" can't be something small and simple like the stories say was used to get the astronauts off the moon. With a 1G gravity well we would be talking about a large launch vehicle here. And, unless NASA has been wasting our tax dollars just for show then that also implies that it would need all of the launch pad accessories that we use here in our own 1G environment, you don't just launch something like that from a balloon suspended in hot acid.

Re:Why is no one else calling BS?

[Moof123]

Yep, BS. Making a manned trip to Venus seems to be the height of contrivance. If the humans will sit in a balloon the whole time, what exactly is gained over just sending telemetry back from an unmanned balloon?

NASA really fits the adage of "Big Hat, No Cattle."

I wish them the best, but they have really lost their way, and have no coherent mission anymore.