Manned Venus Flyby: Apollo’s Hail Mary Pass

[Johnbr]

Found this here.
http://falsesteps.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/manned-venus-flyby/

 

[Quindar Beep]

There's a little more discussion of it here.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,13151.msg130043.html#msg130043

It certainly wins my award for "Most Audacious Manned Mission That Moved Anywhere Beyond Two Drunk NASA Guys Scribbling on a Cocktail Napkin". At least with Mars missions the crew could get out and stretch their legs for a while. This is just one long, dangerous ride with a period of incredible activity for a few hours in the middle.

 

[blackstar]

I think somebody did an animation of that flyby and posted it to YouTube. The more you think about it, the more puzzling it becomes. What value is there to such a mission? There's not really anything that the astronauts could do that a robot could not do. If you're going to go through the cost and risk of sending humans to do something, presumably you want a mission where they can do it better than a robot. Of course, that's why we never did it.

 

[Quindar Beep]

Re: Manned Venus Flyby: Apollo’s Hail Mary Pass

I think somebody did an animation of that flyby and posted it to YouTube. The more you think about it, the more puzzling it becomes. What value is there to such a mission? There's not really anything that the astronauts could do that a robot could not do. If you're going to go through the cost and risk of sending humans to do something, presumably you want a mission where they can do it better than a robot. Of course, that's why we never did it.

That's pretty much it. Mariner 10 actually flew by Venus in 1973 and accomplished some of what the MVF would have done, while Pioneer Venus 1 went into orbit around the planet in 1980 and sent back data for 10 years -- quite the contrast from the few hours the men in this mission would be able to study Venus. About the only thing I could think of that would be a positive would be testing systems for supporting humans long-term in space (and the medical data you'd get from the humans themselves). But you could just as easily do that in LEO and have it a lot easier to rescue them if the systems don't work. A real mystery.

(This is the YouTube video you mention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA_tdIKu-HQ)

 

[Quindar Beep]

Re: Manned Venus Flyby: Apollo’s Hail Mary Pass

But then again there's this ridiculous thing too, a technical memorandum for a Manned Venus Orbital Mission. It's pretty clear from reading it that they were just blue-skying to see what would be necessary to pull it off, though.

 

[Brickmuppet]

What value is there to such a mission? There's not really anything that the astronauts could do that a robot could not do.

Well the astronauts could control the robots with much less time lag. Also the long venusian day means months facing away from Earth so if you can get into orbit you can do a lot more with RPVs on the surface. The flyby makes the window shorter but still significant. Of course they may not have been thinking about roving robot surface probes then but it would be a reason for a manned Venus mission.

 

[taalismn]

I think somebody did an animation of that flyby and posted it to YouTube. The more you think about it, the more puzzling it becomes. What value is there to such a mission? There's not really anything that the astronauts could do that a robot could not do. If you're going to go through the cost and risk of sending humans to do something, presumably you want a mission where they can do it better than a robot. Of course, that's why we never did it.

The only time I've seen such missions contemplated in popular culture have been Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episodes and short horror story collections. And it ALWAYS ends badly for the poor astronauts....

The REAL hazards are bad enough....solar flux especially.

 

[blackstar]

Well the astronauts could control the robots with much less time lag. Also the long venusian day means months facing away from Earth so if you can get into orbit you can do a lot more with RPVs on the surface. The flyby makes the window shorter but still significant. Of course they may not have been thinking about roving robot surface probes then but it would be a reason for a manned Venus mission.

Robotic surface probes on Venus have a lifetime of about an hour. So it makes no sense to worry about time lag when the robot is going to die quickly.

I'm actually hoping to do a study for NASA of telerobotics sometime in the near future. It's something that people have long paid lip service to, but nobody has ever examined in any detail. Is there any value to it at the Moon or Mars?

 

[Orionblamblam]

There's not really anything that the astronauts could do that a robot could not do.

An astronaut can scream in authentic pain. Can a robot do that? Huh? Can it? No, I didn't think so.

 

[Triton]

There's not really anything that the astronauts could do that a robot could not do. If you're going to go through the cost and risk of sending humans to do something, presumably you want a mission where they can do it better than a robot. Of course, that's why we never did it.

What about the Cold War-era propaganda benefits of manned space exploration? In this case, sending United States astronauts out for a flyby around Venus and then returning them safely to the Earth. A robot just isn't as impressive.

 

[blackstar]

What about the Cold War-era propaganda benefits of manned space exploration? In this case, sending United States astronauts out for a flyby around Venus and then returning them safely to the Earth. A robot just isn't as impressive.

Doesn't seem to have mattered to anybody.

 

[Archibald]

At least it made for a nice Youtube / orbiter video four decades later. As for manned Venus short stories - there is one by Stephen Baxter, where despeserate Soviets send Gagarin on a suicide mission to Venus.

 

[Brickmuppet]

Well the astronauts could control the robots with much less time lag. Also the long Venusian day means months facing away from Earth so if you can get into orbit you can do a lot more with RPVs on the surface. The flyby makes the window shorter but still significant. Of course they may not have been thinking about roving robot surface probes then but it would be a reason for a manned Venus mission.

Robotic surface probes on Venus have a lifetime of about an hour. So it makes no sense to worry about time lag when the robot is going to die quickly.

I disagree. You could teleoperate them in real time for that hour or two from a spacecraft. Drop several and you might do some impressive science. Time lag on Mars probes is a real problem.
On a rather more far-fetched note: if you were going to do something wacky like a sample return you'd need to be moving fast before everything dissolved or imploded. Of course this would be all sorts of challenging because the minimum Venus launch vehicle would be something like a Scout or a Diamant (I think it would have to be solid to have any chance of success)

 

[blackstar]

I disagree. You could teleoperate them in real time for that hour or two from a spacecraft. Drop several and you might do some impressive science.

If you think out the practicalities, that's just not going to work. What Venus spacecraft requires teleoperation? A rover. Considering that it was very difficult to make something that simply landed on Venus' hellish surface, how are you going to design something that moves in those conditions? Note that everything has to be sealed up, protected from the pressure and the heat. Now you've set it on the surface, and you've got an hour or less before it dies. How far is it going to rove in that time? What additional information are you going to get moving a few dozen feet from the landing point in that time? And when the vehicle is roving, it is not analyzing anything. So it may move a few feet, but what is the likelihood that the operator is going to see something interesting and be able to drive to it and deploy instruments before everything dies? Just doesn't work.

 

[Michel Van]

A Rover on Venus surface ?
let see how long a earth spacecraft work on Venus,
Record holder is Venera 13 lander who survived 127 Minutes.

for a rover not much life utility. Until it's get crush, burned and acid-soluble...

So what for probes are usefulness ?
drop probes like Venera who analyses the Venus Atmosphere and ground.
Ballon probes like the french VEGA only bigger or even Aircraft
also drop Radar marker for Radio-telescope on Workshop or Earth and later Venus Radar Orbiter.
those marker could determine the Rotation of Venus most precise, also could the Venus Radar orbiter use them on geological ground movement study.

on Venus Ground sample return probe.
It very easy to bring a hole rocket down to Venus
but it has to survived 100 minute on hellish ground, until drill a core sample is made and pact in rocket
The biggest problem is to get off Venus and bring the core sample on venus escape velocity were Saturn Workshop past by and capture it.
Venus is almost Earth size, so a conventional rocket would be in size of French Diamant B or Delta rocket.
but those hardware would not survived for 10 minute on Venus.
although the the use of Venus Atmosphere could reduce the launch mass, like pump it through nuclear engine...

 

[blackstar]

There have been several recent proposals to NASA for robotic Venus missions. The last New Frontiers competition included Venus as one of the options. I have seen a presentation for that mission and it included an animation of the surface probe. That probe would have an arm that would fold out with a circular saw that would cut into the surface to take measurements with a laser. That proposal did not win.

There have also been proposals for air sampling balloons, and long-lived balloons that would circle in the atmosphere for months.

I can post some of the mission studies here.

There have also been some pie-in-the-sky proposals. I have seen a proposal for a Venus rover. This was not a serious proposal, the person making it was simply tossing it out there for discussion. (No, it did not look like this.)

 

[Quindar Beep]

((Has flashbacks to being six and watching these episodes of Six Million Dollar Man. Best TV ever--when you're six.))

 

[blackstar]

((Has flashbacks to being six and watching these episodes of Six Million Dollar Man. Best TV ever--when you're six.))

If you want to preserve that memory, don't watch them as an adult.

(Shudder)

 

[Orionblamblam]

((Has flashbacks to being six and watching these episodes of Six Million Dollar Man. Best TV ever--when you're six.))

If you want to preserve that memory, don't watch them as an adult.

(Shudder)

I had that result when I finally re-watched "Buck Rogers" about 3-4 years ago, and "Space:1999" less than 1 year ago. Those shows were *far* better when I had *far* lower standards.

 

[OM]

((Has flashbacks to being six and watching these episodes of Six Million Dollar Man. Best TV ever--when you're six.))

If you want to preserve that memory, don't watch them as an adult.

(Shudder)

I had that result when I finally re-watched "Buck Rogers" about 3-4 years ago, and "Space:1999" less than 1 year ago. Those shows were *far* better when I had *far* lower standards.

...Series One of Space: 1999 holds up surprisingly well. with only a few episodes that stand out as outright stinkers. The irony is that the one everyone bitched about over the bad science - "Black Sun" - is now viewed as one of the show's best episodes when the entire first season is looked at in retrospect as being essentially as 24-episode pseudonovel. Series Two, on the other hand, had the misfortune of Gerry Anderson and Lew Grade making the biggest possible error they could make in hiring Fred Freiberger to produce the second year of the show. Neither had seen just how clusterfracked Freiberger's tenure as producer on Star Trek's disastrous third and last season was, nor did they bother to seek the answer to the question that the cast and crew were asking when Freiberger was hired: "If he's such a great producer, why has he been out of a job for over three years, and why did he have to leave the US to find work?"


...6M$M's first couple of seasons works quite well and still holds up somewhat provided you give it a bit of a disbelief suspension. Kevin Smith, in one of his rare moments of not being a complete and total hack, wrote a script proposal to update the basic concepts for today's audiences, and it actually addresses a lot of the complaints about Steve Austin's bionics - especially the major bit about the necessity of fulcrum balance between the two arms, and how both arms would need to be replaced in order for the physics to work, etc, etc. There's a comic book adaptation that's actually a good read, and adheres to the final draft of Smith's script; the two versions you can find online are from early draft scripts. Either way, grab copies and enjoy, because these won't hurt your memories. In fact, in the current comic book arc, Bigfoot's even made a comeback :


...Speaking of comics, there's a two-issue mini called "Awe and Aftershock" that deals with the first episode of Space: 1999 that looks at "Breakaway" from an expanded view from Moonbase ALpha - same script, but with the roughly 40 minutes of story and subplots that got trimmed when the pilot was cut from a TV movie to a regular episode once the Big Three networks rejected it and the show went into syndication. The 2nd book, Aftershock, deals with how Earth deals with the loss of the Moon, and explains why a rescue mission was not attempted. It's hard to find, but the first issue's popping up on the torrents here and there. Mostly expanded from Gray Morrow's tracing & lightbox work for Charleton's licensed comic from 1975, but still a well done retelling of a classic Gerry and Sylvia Anderson puppet show, only without the puppets :OM:


...As for Buck Rogers, it suffers from the same problems Space: 1999 did. The first season was skin-tight cat suited women in space ready to fight and frack Buck as the plot required - Pat Flannery *lived* for those cat suits, kids! - while the 2nd season was a twisted rehash of the original Battlestar Ponderosa plot whose only grace was the introduction of Thom Christopher as Hawk, quite possibly the most original alien sidekick since Spock. However, Hawk wasn't enough to keep the ratings at least as stable as the previous season, and when you add in the fact that Mel Blanc's stroke kept him from voicing Twiki - his hand-picked replacement had Twiki sounding like an effeminate little weasel who needed to be dropkicked out the nearest airlock - and the line producer/director's previous experience was something like 7 seasons of Gunsmoke...well, at least the hand-to-hand sequences weren't bad.


...But if you *really* want to hurt your childhood memories, don't watch Stowaway to the Moon. Knowing what we all know today, they'd have scrubbed the mission, and the kid would have been doing time in Leavenworth as the towelboy to the Death Row inmates :'( :

 

[GeorgeA]

You guys are just killing me with this. I suppose it's like comparing Meg Ryan circa When Harry Met Sally to the present day. Fun fact: her dad was my sophomore algebra teacher.

 

[OM]

You guys are just killing me with this. I suppose it's like comparing Meg Ryan circa When Harry Met Sally to the present day. Fun fact: her dad was my sophomore algebra teacher.

...We're killing *you*? You try remembering all these fun facts and then have Geritol mainlined in to keep the tires inflated on your karma after they've been peed all over by your dogma. That being said, here's a fun fact: Bob Costas wasn't the only person Judy Tenuta tried to sexually molest during an interview. Which just goes to show you that just because a sex-crazed whackskank is wearing an accordion does *not* mean you're safe.

 

[GeorgeA]

Judy Tenuta? Talk about a buzzkill.

 

[Antonio]

Dear Gentlemen,

If nobody has relevant information to the project to add, please avoid going too off-topic.

Thanks in advance

 

[OM]

Dear Gentlemen,

If nobody has relevant information to the project to add, please avoid going too off-topic.

Thanks in advance

... Извините. Иногда я забываю, что американский юмор и сатира не транслитерировать также на другие языки. Особенно те, чья культура страдает от того, юмора и сатиры угнетенных чтобы не быть перенаправлены против государства.

 

[Graham1973]

The maker of the original youtube video simulating NASA's proposed Manned Venus Flyby mission (Which some years ago I privately dubbed 'Project Bellerophon'.) Has made an updated video using a more accurate model of the spacecraft involved (The current model of the S-IVb stage lacks the high-gain antenna and the boom-mounted instrument package.)

The current video covers the orbit in more detail including just what happens to the S-IVb after the crew separates from it to return to Earth, apparently even the maker of the video was surprised where it finally ended up.

 

[chimeric oncogene]

The main benefit is probably the operational experience with prolonged deep space operations.
While the technology could probably be developed and tested in HEO (indeed, there would probably have been a practice full-duration flight in HEO), an actual mission with actual stakes would focus the effort and provide it with prestige on the way to greater goals (probably a Mars mission of some sort).

 

[Archibald]

I downloaded that video once, and put Deep Purple "smoke on the water" as background music. It was completely awesome.