Atmosphere sample return mission to/from Venus

In the April issue of Sky and Telescope, page 30, it mentions that there
is some unknown chemistry in some of Venus' clouds. Particles of
something coated with sulfuric acid. To say that there could be life on
such would be a really long shot bet, but a sample return mission might
be interesting to do. Though building and flying to Venus a return
vehicle that could get back out of Venus' atmosphere and gravity well
(and some of the Sun's as well) and back to Earth would be rather
difficult. It'd be pretty much the same size rocket you'd need to send
a small probe from Earth to Mars. And you'd need to ship that to Venus
all fueled up... This doesn't look too feasible...

Probably more practical to send a small remote control chem lab on a
blimp...

robert casey wrote:
In the April issue of Sky and Telescope, page 30, it mentions that
there is some unknown chemistry in some of Venus' clouds. Particles
of something coated with sulfuric acid. To say that there could be
life on such would be a really long shot bet, but a sample return
mission might be interesting to do. Though building and flying to
Venus a return vehicle that could get back out of Venus' atmosphere
and gravity well (and some of the Sun's as well) and back to Earth
would be rather difficult. It'd be pretty much the same size rocket
you'd need to send a small probe from Earth to Mars. And you'd need
to ship that to Venus all fueled up... This doesn't look too feasible...

Probably more practical to send a small remote control chem lab on a
blimp...

They've been spotting upwellings of material in the Venusian atmosphere
recently also.
They think they are weather related, but I'd be very surprised if Venus
didn't have active volcanoes.
Given the sulfur-eating bacteria of the mid-Atlantic ridge, one can
certainly picture some sort of microscopic life dwelling in the clouds,
also possibly using the sunlight in some form for energy.

Pat

On Feb 27, 2:39 pm, robert casey wrote:
In the April issue of Sky and Telescope, page 30, it mentions that there
is some unknown chemistry in some of Venus' clouds. Particles of
something coated with sulfuric acid. To say that there could be life on
such would be a really long shot bet, but a sample return mission might
be interesting to do. Though building and flying to Venus a return
vehicle that could get back out of Venus' atmosphere and gravity well
(and some of the Sun's as well) and back to Earth would be rather
difficult. It'd be pretty much the same size rocket you'd need to send
a small probe from Earth to Mars. And you'd need to ship that to Venus
all fueled up... This doesn't look too feasible...

Probably more practical to send a small remote control chem lab on a
blimp...

With ever smaller and robust robotic probes and the supposed expertise
of what has otherwise been accomplished of much worse planets and
moons, plus the fact that at times Venus is only 100X the distance of
our very own physically dark moon, represents that such a sample
return of the Venusian atmosphere is in fact affordably and
technically doable within existing probe or probe within probe specs.
.. - Brad Guth

On Feb 27, 5:34 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
robert casey wrote:
In the April issue of Sky and Telescope, page 30, it mentions that
there is some unknown chemistry in some of Venus' clouds. Particles
of something coated with sulfuric acid. To say that there could be
life on such would be a really long shot bet, but a sample return
mission might be interesting to do. Though building and flying to
Venus a return vehicle that could get back out of Venus' atmosphere
and gravity well (and some of the Sun's as well) and back to Earth
would be rather difficult. It'd be pretty much the same size rocket
you'd need to send a small probe from Earth to Mars. And you'd need
to ship that to Venus all fueled up... This doesn't look too feasible...

Probably more practical to send a small remote control chem lab on a
blimp...

They've been spotting upwellings of material in the Venusian atmosphere
recently also.
They think they are weather related, but I'd be very surprised if Venus
didn't have active volcanoes.
Given the sulfur-eating bacteria of the mid-Atlantic ridge, one can
certainly picture some sort of microscopic life dwelling in the clouds,
also possibly using the sunlight in some form for energy.

Pat

In addition to those likely active lava and mud flows, Venus also has
those extremely large domes spewing S8, CO2 plus whatever else is
getting geothermally forced out. Venus has been losing roughly 20.5 w/
m2 of its core energy.

Would you like to see what an extremely large fluid arch looks like?
.. - Brad Guth