Venus Revisited

Richard Stewart wrote:
I'm wondering if there's any plans for new probes to the surface
of Venus...

Henry Spencer wrote:
Nothing much at the moment. It's still very difficult to operate
for any length of time on the surface -- keeping the electronics
cold is the biggest problem ...

Would it be possible to design electronics which work at Venus surface
temperatures? Using diamond semiconductors, perhaps? Or maybe vacuum
tubes?

At least there's not much day-night temperature fluctuation, unlike
on Mars.
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In article ,
Keith F. Lynch wrote:
Would it be possible to design electronics which work at Venus surface
temperatures? Using diamond semiconductors, perhaps? Or maybe vacuum
tubes?

Certainly possible in principle, but quite a challenge in practice. The
plausible technologies are poorly developed.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

In message , Henry Spencer
writes
In article ,
Keith F. Lynch wrote:
Would it be possible to design electronics which work at Venus surface
temperatures? Using diamond semiconductors, perhaps? Or maybe vacuum
tubes?

Certainly possible in principle, but quite a challenge in practice. The
plausible technologies are poorly developed.

Would I be right in thinking that the important question is "are there
any applications on Earth that make such development worth while?"
And if the answer was "yes" wouldn't we have the devices now?
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Henry Spencer wrote:

The trick is the "worth while" part. There are places where such things
would be useful... but not very many, and they're not big lucrative markets.


Geothermal power, investigation of the edges of submerged tectonic
plates, and data return from deep drilling come to mind.
But as you say the only one that sounds like a money-maker is possibly
the deep drilling.

Pat

Richard Stewart wrote in message . ..
On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:39:44 +1100, Guy Parry
wrote:

VERY nice surface images indeed!!


On 13 Jan 2004 17:13:00 GMT, Andrew Gray
wrote:

Astonishingly, this actually has space history in it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3387895.stm

"Computer researcher Don Mitchell used original digital data from two
Soviet Venera probes that landed in 1975. His reprocessed and
recalibrated images provide a much clearer view of the Venusian
surface..."

His page is at http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm ; the images
themselves seem to be ferreted away somewhere on a page that's 404ing,
but there's a good solid history of the Soviet (and the contemporary
American) program of Venus probes there. I've read parts of it, and
commend it to your attention...

I'm wondering if there's any plans for new probes to the surface of
Venus... with todays advancements in heat resistant alloys etc, a new
probe would be able to gather a magnitude more data, and hopefully for
a longer period of time (even a day/night cycle would be good)

Cheers,
Richard

Don't forget nor underestimate the sheer efficiency of pure
communications, as in interplanetary via laser. I mean, why bother
going there if they can return all the digital smut your hard drive
can possibly hold, and then some.

The latest round of insults to this Mars/Moon injury:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-what-if.htm

Some other recent file updates:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-gwb-moon.htm
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-interplanetary.htm
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-illumination.htm
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-moon-02.htm
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/moon-04.htm