NASA's wacky Venus expidition proposal

Zepellins floating above the dense hot part of the atmosphere. Hmmm
But ... how do you get back? Venus gravity is nearly that of Earth.
So you would have to ship a Delta IV there in order to break away.

In article ,
says...

Zepellins floating above the dense hot part of the atmosphere. Hmmm
But ... how do you get back? Venus gravity is nearly that of Earth.
So you would have to ship a Delta IV there in order to break away.

Pretty much. But, there may be a way to create fuel in-situ.

http://selenianboondocks.com/2013/12...opment-phases/

So, you might not have to ship the fuel there, just the stage to get you
out of the atmosphere and into a low Venus orbit.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

On Monday, December 22, 2014 10:49:30 AM UTC-5, Jeff Findley wrote:

Pretty much. But, there may be a way to create fuel in-situ.

http://selenianboondocks.com/2013/12...opment-phases/

So, you might not have to ship the fuel there, just the stage to get you
out of the atmosphere and into a low Venus orbit.

Jeff

This idea sounds really wacky to me. Why bother with rocketing out of the atmosphere all the way back to Earth? Seems to make a lot more sense to me to send a crewed orbiter, then send down exploration vehicles. Then the delta V only has to get you back to orbit not all the way back to earth. Course that is the bulk of the delta V. But what's the point of having people on a blimp vs in orbit in the first place? Just use the blimp for remote sensing and it doesn't have to come back. Cuts costs left and right when you do that.

The rest is just wacky romantic, city in the clouds nonsense, not really needed to do constructive science.


Dave

On Monday, December 22, 2014 11:35:16 AM UTC-5, David Spain wrote:
On Monday, December 22, 2014 10:49:30 AM UTC-5, Jeff Findley wrote:
http://selenianboondocks.com/2013/12...opment-phases/
The rest is just wacky romantic, city in the clouds nonsense, not really needed to do constructive science.

Well ISRU makes more sense if the idea is colonization I suppose.
Fine if the Planetary Society wants to privately fund a mission to colonize Venus, otherwise... "I say not one penny for this nutty fantasy".

;-)

Dave

The first thing I thought was, if the blimp springs a leak, you're in trouble.

Plus, you need to get on board the blimp. Do the Astronauts land on Venus in another ship and head up from there? Do they stop and hover in descent and then walk a Wallenda style tightrope over to the blimp? Maybe they parachute out of the descending capsule with a sky-surfing board, glide over to a giant bungee cord, and hang on real tight. You only get one shot, though. The plus side is that tons of skaters and surfers will want to join up with NASA.