this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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Thank God we perfected "landing somewhere in the upper atmosphere" in the 70s.
Am I misunderstanding or are you skeptical about it being possible to stop before reaching the surface? Because if so, that seems kind of weird. One would just need to deploy the balloons or whatever at the appropriate point. As far as technical challenges go, I'd guess this is actually going to be easier than safely getting something safely down to the surface.
Russia managed to land a probe safely on the surface of Venus that survived for almost an hour and sent back pictures... in 1975. The probe was called Venera 9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_9
By the way, it used an unfoldable parachute to slow its decent, that presumably could not only survive in clouds of sulfuric acid but near the surface where conditions are much more extreme.
Nothing about landing (or floating, in this case) a probe on a different planet is "ezpz" but comparatively speaking, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine it being possible given what humans have already accomplished with less advanced technology. So why be snarky and contrary for no reason?
Nah you misunderstood. I actually think it's extremely easy to travel to Venus, drop from orbit and deply several tons of Air just at the right time for the descend to be slowly reversed until you reach the correct height.
Not sure why you feel the need to be snarky here.
I never said it was "easy" in the general sense. Also, I'm not sure if you're aware of the procedures that were used to land rovers, on Mars for example. They were both quite difficult and complex, requiring precise timing and a bunch of steps to happen exactly as needed or the rover would smash into the surface or burn up on entry.
"Drop from orbit and inflate some balloons at the right time" is comparatively easy compared to the complex procedures that were used for the Mars missions. Obviously, deploying a probe on a different planet is always going to be a difficult and complicated task.
Alright the ocean gate guy can just link up with you then and we're set
I'm talking about the approach in general. Is OceanGate guy the one to pull it off? Probably not.
If you're being reasonable here, you have to compare the difficult with trying to create a colony on other planets like Mars. There are major challenges involved there too, like distance, lack of atmosphere, less accessible resources that could be used to maintain the colony, etc. The only thing I'm arguing here is compared to colonizing Mars, for example, there are points in favor of Venus. If you read the Wikipedia article I linked, you'll also see this isn't an idea OceanGate guy came up with and it's also not really all that new either. Reputable organizations like NASA have seriously looked into this previously.
In the 80s, not the 70s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program