this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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NASA Successfully Tests Revolutionary Rocket That Could Get Us to Mars Faster (www.sciencealert.com)
submitted 2 years ago by Hypx@kbin.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
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After setting foot on the Moon, the next destination for humankind is Mars, which presents a whole new set of challenges in speedy, long-distance space travel.

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[–] SCB@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Venus is significantly more hostile than Mars, so while we definitely want to do more with Venus, Luna and Mars are clear next-ups for manned landings.

While all of Mars is hostile to human life, Venus is also incredibly hostile to equipment, and thus requires a different approach to even unmanned launches.

Current maximum lifetime for any unmanned craft in the Venusian atmosphere (to say nothing of the ground) is only about 2 hours.

[–] danielbln@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Isn't that on the surface? I believe Venus's upper atmosphere is a lot more welcoming.

[–] SCB@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's true about their upper atmosphere, but we're nowhere close to being able to capitalize on it (as in, no missions even planned). Closest we've got on paper is an orbiter by the early 30s.

Hopefully in my lifetime we see an upper atmosphere balloon or something. That alone would be unbelievably cool.

[–] TIMMAY@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

give me a hot air balloon and a hang glider and send me out Ill be the pioneer

[–] SCB@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Dude what's neat about this is Oxygen on Venus is like Helium on Earth (less dense than most of the atmosphere, so rises naturally) so your balloon doesn't even need to be hot, just really sturdy.