[HN Gopher] Target Venus not Mars for first crewed mission to an...
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Target Venus not Mars for first crewed mission to another planet,
experts say
Author : MrsPeaches
Score : 48 points
Date : 2022-09-25 17:33 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| orbital-decay wrote:
| This was the original plan by Korolev and co, before the moon
| speech by JFK, and before the conditions on Venus became known.
| They wanted to figure out orbital assembly, and then
| circumnavigate Venus as the first step in the Solar System
| exploration. Hard to say how realistic it was, but modular
| orbital stations were an offshoot of that original vision, so
| it's been partially implemented.
| xnx wrote:
| A crewed flyby is barely more ridiculous than a crewed landing.
| mannyv wrote:
| Yea, because we need more harder problems to solve. /s
| algerd wrote:
| Why no stationary base on the moon?
| dehrmann wrote:
| Would you rather have a moon base or 10 probes exploring the
| rest of the solar system?
| ncmncm wrote:
| Probes.
| Phrenzy wrote:
| If I get any input, I would shave some part of the nearly
| trillion dollar US military budget and use some of that
| windfall to allow for both of the above options.
| rightbyte wrote:
| A moon base please.
| United857 wrote:
| Clickbait headline -- the proposal is for a flyby, not a landing.
| Phrenzy wrote:
| Which is why <<I>> performed a flyby of the article and came
| directly to the comments.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Has anything that has landed on Venus survived for more than a
| "few" hours due to heat/pressure? Landing humans on Venus seems
| more of a very cruel and unusual death sentence rather than
| some sort of a viable science mission. Now, if I were on death
| row and they offered me the choice of needle, chair, firing
| rage, or land on Venus, well, I know which one I'd take!
| dsr_ wrote:
| Landing on Venus would be ridiculous.
|
| However, Geoffrey Landis has (among others) proposed that we
| put an atmosphere-floating habitat "on" Venus. PDF: https://n
| trs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20030022668/downloads/20...
|
| Abstract:
|
| Although the surface of Venus is an extremely hostile
| environment, at about 50 kilometers above the surface the
| atmosphere of Venus is the most earthlike environment (other
| than Earth itself) in the solar system. It is proposed here
| that in the near term, human exploration of Venus could take
| place from aerostat vehicles in the atmosphere, and that in
| the long term, permanent settlements could be made in the
| form of cities designed to float at about fifty kilometer
| altitude in the atmosphere of Venus.
| ncmncm wrote:
| And, breathing air is buoyant.
|
| N2 is only 13% of the atmosphere, but if my calculations
| are right, that means a very great deal more nitrogen than
| we have, just dissolved into a lot more air.
|
| To terraform, release machines that crack CO2 in the clouds
| and drop diamonds. You release way too much oxygen, but
| that will bind to the surface minerals. Main thing is to
| keep the carbon from oxidizing again before you're ready.
| loufe wrote:
| I've been wondering about the "experts say" part of a headline
| like this. Qualified people lending their opinion is an important
| piece of information to the context of the article, absolutely,
| but it also seems exclusive. It's not the opinion of the
| editorial board of The Guardian, however I also know for a fact
| that other "experts" would vehemently disagree. Would qualifying
| this as "some experts say" erode the confidence of the title and
| thus how sensational it is? Is it maybe implied in the framework
| of news titles that this is not a universally held opinion by
| "experts" so much as at least that of several?
| ravi_m wrote:
| Most likely the real reason is that articles with "experts say"
| in the headline performs much better than "some experts say" or
| "some experts wonder if".
|
| The underlying reason for the higher CTR is that most readers
| want to engage with articles that are more certain than less
| and their inability to fill in the unstated uncertainty gets
| exploited.
| ufmace wrote:
| I don't get what the point is of a crewed flyby. The crew would
| just be cooped up in the craft the whole time with nothing to do
| except take measurements with instruments that could just as
| easily be done by a machine.
|
| This isn't the Apollo era, we're pretty confident we can send
| spacecraft all over the solar system and keep humans alive in
| space for years.
| layer8 wrote:
| > we're pretty confident we can [...] keep humans alive in
| space for years
|
| Are we? In outer space? Radiation, psychology/isolation, months
| away from any support in case of an emergency? My understanding
| is that there are a lot of open questions, and that even a mere
| fly-by mission would constitute a major new step in manned
| space flight.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| Indeed, we should rather attempt sending such a ship in one
| piece to the moon first. Right now we would have problems
| actually assembling such a craft. Note how long and cost
| intensive it was to assemble a bigger space station.
|
| Gateway program is such a baby step, assembling a base in
| moon orbit.
|
| Ultimately, we would need an orbital facility to assemble
| bigger ships well without paying the immense costs of ultra
| heavy launches.
| dehrmann wrote:
| It would essentially be an ISS mission with a few extra rocket
| burn stages and a different view.
| xattt wrote:
| Is a fully-assembled ISS capable of withholding torsional
| stress that would come from insertion burns?
| [deleted]
| cratermoon wrote:
| There was, in fact, a plan in the Apollo Applications Program
| for a crewed Venus flyby, using the SIVB as a wet workshop for
| habitation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_flyby
| hsnewman wrote:
| We should seed Venus with microbs that consume amonia and the
| other chemicals on Venus, starting at least to make it habitable.
| causality0 wrote:
| _"You'd be learning about how people work in deep space, without
| committing yourself to a full Mars mission," he said._
|
| All of these "Not Mars" people always seem to fall into the same
| boat where they know there's zero point to sticking human beings
| and life support systems into an observation probe so they trot
| out this "it's good practice, guys!" horseshit. Scientific
| progress is not the point of putting the first set of boots on
| Mars any more than it was the reason for first climbing Everest.
| The point is to prove it can be done. _After_ that you can
| quibble about the most efficient method of further human
| spaceflight development. It 's like they're standing in the way
| of us learning to walk because they insist we figure out the best
| brand of shoe first.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Going to Mars will be among humanity's least revered
| achievements. There is nothing there.
|
| The only plausibly valuable exports from Mars might be the
| engines that got your supplies there. With their bells cut off.
| Phrenzy wrote:
| Among the least revered? You mean, below peanut butter and
| jelly in the same jar? If humanity is going to emerge out of
| the cradle, Mars will have to be the 2nd step. Right after
| Luna.
|
| As we are out there exploring & homesteading, maybe we will
| realize what a gem the Earth truly is.
| aatd86 wrote:
| The title fails to mention that the experts in question were
| astrologists.
|
| Not astrophysicists.
|
| /jk
| nynx wrote:
| A crewed flyby? What is the point of that? Colonizing the clouds
| of venus is a good idea eventually, but it's certainly not a
| viable first target.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Fully agree. If we're committing to multi-month crewed missions
| I think we should be planning for boots on the ground and setup
| of barebones support for long term habitation. In that
| situation you can send and land several loads of supplies in
| advance of the crewed mission, significantly improving chances
| of success. Landing the crew is risky but that's always going
| to be true, no many flybys you do.
| kadoban wrote:
| > Colonizing the clouds of venus is a good idea eventually, but
| it's certainly not a viable first target.
|
| Sure seems a _lot_ more interesting than Mars at least.
| hadlock wrote:
| Just like the moon, we did not attempt to land there on the
| first go-around. Neil Armstrong was on Apollo 11. Apollo 4-6
| were unmanned launches, 7-9 were testing the hardware with
| humans, mostly with "free return" orbits where even if the
| engines didn't start again, they would land back on earth in
| about a week. Apollo 10 was a wet rehersal that did everything
| except land on the moon#, including "parking" in lunar orbit,
| then starting up the engines again and going back to earth;
| finally Apollo 11-17 actually were "boots on the ground"
|
| A venus flyby would be similar to Apollo 10 where they would go
| to another body, and then do a free return fly-by, maybe with
| engine assist, and return back in a year. Regardless of if/when
| we go to mars, there will be at least one "free return" mission
| before they attempt future missions that have a "parking orbit"
| around mars.
|
| Going to Venus would allow us to simulate a mars free return
| trip, but in only 1 year (which would mean for a mars-class
| ship, a minimum safety factor of 3 (really, six) for fuel,
| water, air, food, medical supplies etc), instead of a 3 year
| mission with only a safety factor of 2.
|
| #Apollo 10 was functionally identical to Apollo 11, to the
| extent that the only difference was that they did not provide
| enough fuel on the lander/ascent module to return to lunar
| orbit, to deter Apollo 10 astronauts from "going rogue" and
| attempting a landing ahead of schedule
|
| Also, for completeness sake, Apollo 1 crew died during testing
| in a fire; Gus Grissom, Edward H. White II, Roger B. Chaffee
| unnouinceput wrote:
| >finally Apollo 11-17 actually were "boots on the ground"<
|
| Nitpick: Apollo 11, 12 and 14-17 were boots on the ground. 13
| had no boots on the ground.
| ncmncm wrote:
| They had the boots, and meant to put them on the ground.
| But Fred Haise would have suffered more terribly.
| monocasa wrote:
| The whole point of Apollo 10 was to be the dry run for Apollo
| 11.
|
| Doing all of that with no actual plans to land seems silly.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Anyway, with no plans to dip to cloud level.
|
| Actually landing people on Venus could only be a disastrous
| mistake.
| xani_ wrote:
| > Going to Venus would allow us to simulate a mars free
| return trip, but in only 1 year (which would mean for a mars-
| class ship, a minimum safety factor of 3 (really, six) for
| fuel, water, air, food, medical supplies etc), instead of a 3
| year mission with only a safety factor of 2.
|
| Simulate what ? Sitting in place ? We can do that on earth
| orbit. Engines running for long time ? No need for people
| aboard for that.
| Spartan-S63 wrote:
| For one, leaving the safety of Earth's magnetosphere. We
| haven't really ventured far enough for radiation to not be
| tempered by Earth's magnetic field, from what I understand.
| It would shorten the duration of radiation and help study
| the effects on astronauts.
| xani_ wrote:
| So, go to moon. No real need to go to another planet just
| to irradiate some astronauts and in case shit hits the
| fan they have chance of surviving
| AstralStorm wrote:
| Precisely the goal of Gateway, of which Artemis/SLS are
| pieces.
| turndown wrote:
| I think space is one of those places where you can appeal
| to unknown unknowns being a major risk factor and everyone
| agrees. But I personally think that the better option is to
| just do all of this on the moon. Making a human-habitable
| base on the moon, to me, still makes the most sense for
| preparing for habitation on other worlds.
| readams wrote:
| Avoiding the need to wait 26 months between launch
| windows certainly reduces the degree of difficulty. Going
| from "oh we wish we had X that we didn't think of" to
| having it is literally almost 3 years on Mars.
| xani_ wrote:
| It's not to avoid the difficulty, it's to make iteration
| safer and easier. Good luck seeing what failed if the
| craft that failed is flying somewhere between earth and
| mars
| cratermoon wrote:
| Interplanetary space is significantly different
| environment, compared to low earth orbit, for spacecraft
| and crews. The only knowledge we have of humans beyond the
| Van Allen Belts is from Apollo, for relatively short
| durations.
| tuatoru wrote:
| > Engines running for long time ?
|
| Not with chemical rockets. Perhaps you meant "engines
| sitting idle for years in interplanetary space, and then
| restarting reliably".
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