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05-27-2024, 05:06 PM
Venus and the exploration thereof is something I've always been interested in. The conditions on the surface of Venus are certainly extreme, in the extremist of senses. I didn't fully understand just how extreme until just a decade ago or so when I was working on a project to harden some electronics gear to some fairly extreme thermal conditions. After much frustration, I remembered the conditions on Venus and started to look more carefully into what the Russians had done for some of their missions. It was here I realized just how extreme the environment on Venus really is/was. I knew the temperatures were extreme, but what I hadn't fully understood was why there's not much you can do about them. Here on Earth we can use all sorts of different methods of heat-exchange to facilitate cooling, but on Venus none of these work. The surface temperature of 827 degrees F is 4x the boiling point of water at Sea Level on Earth, but this is only half the problem (or less). Worse, the relative humidity level is so high that you can't reject the heat anywhere (even a little bit) through any sort of a convective or condensation based system. When you couple this with an atmospheric pressure which is 92x that of Earth's (at Sea Level) this is equivalent to being 3,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. Under this extreme pressure heat can't even be rejected anywhere, and absorption is like 100%.
The radiator in your car keeps your car from boiling over because it's under pressure, but the pressure is just fractions of the pressure on Venus. If we use the radiator in your car as an example, the exact reverse thing happens, liquids don't boil (to reject heat), they just continue to heat up. And, in the case of Venus, things heat up past the liquification point of lead, tin and even zinc. Okay, so silicon chips melt at 1400F, and silver and gold circuit tracing melt at 1400 and 1700F, what's the problem, right? Well, current goes up as temperatures rise. However, so too does resistance increase as temps rise, so you've got two factors working against you...exponentially. Current increases conductor size, and so too does resistance to overcome the increased current. Result? Heavier everything. And, heavier equals more mass to absorb more heat, which just creates an endless cycle of overheating until the whole assembly just melts, leaving the highest melting point materials remaining. It's like the most hostile environment imaginable. AND, I haven't even talked yet about the gases present which are both caustic and acidic. Ironically, the higher levels of Venus' atmosphere are much more hospitable, but much like any satellite orbiting a planet, orbits must be maintained, else they will decay and descend into this fatally hostile zone below.
One of the best things I love about Venus is...it is termed a "Runaway Greenhouse" planet, except for one BIG problem...humans NEVER lived there, never even set foot there!!! So, put that in your pipe and smoke it, algore, and greta thugslug!! Even one of my favorite physicists, Carl Sagan, used Venus as an example of what will happen to Earth if we don't stop our "evil ways" (this was the last thing I ever listened to from him). WRONG! Venus lived and died all on its own, without one single input from mankind. Is "Climate Change" real? Maybe, but humans didn't cause it...and humans will NOT fix it. Period. F you, greta; YOU are the one who should be "ashamed" of your own stupidity! Don't allow yourselves to be brow beaten from some little Asperger's adult (who pretends to be a teen) with a learning disorder, and a dysfunctional family. And yes, this last part is very much an editorial statement. Prove me wrong!
The radiator in your car keeps your car from boiling over because it's under pressure, but the pressure is just fractions of the pressure on Venus. If we use the radiator in your car as an example, the exact reverse thing happens, liquids don't boil (to reject heat), they just continue to heat up. And, in the case of Venus, things heat up past the liquification point of lead, tin and even zinc. Okay, so silicon chips melt at 1400F, and silver and gold circuit tracing melt at 1400 and 1700F, what's the problem, right? Well, current goes up as temperatures rise. However, so too does resistance increase as temps rise, so you've got two factors working against you...exponentially. Current increases conductor size, and so too does resistance to overcome the increased current. Result? Heavier everything. And, heavier equals more mass to absorb more heat, which just creates an endless cycle of overheating until the whole assembly just melts, leaving the highest melting point materials remaining. It's like the most hostile environment imaginable. AND, I haven't even talked yet about the gases present which are both caustic and acidic. Ironically, the higher levels of Venus' atmosphere are much more hospitable, but much like any satellite orbiting a planet, orbits must be maintained, else they will decay and descend into this fatally hostile zone below.
One of the best things I love about Venus is...it is termed a "Runaway Greenhouse" planet, except for one BIG problem...humans NEVER lived there, never even set foot there!!! So, put that in your pipe and smoke it, algore, and greta thugslug!! Even one of my favorite physicists, Carl Sagan, used Venus as an example of what will happen to Earth if we don't stop our "evil ways" (this was the last thing I ever listened to from him). WRONG! Venus lived and died all on its own, without one single input from mankind. Is "Climate Change" real? Maybe, but humans didn't cause it...and humans will NOT fix it. Period. F you, greta; YOU are the one who should be "ashamed" of your own stupidity! Don't allow yourselves to be brow beaten from some little Asperger's adult (who pretends to be a teen) with a learning disorder, and a dysfunctional family. And yes, this last part is very much an editorial statement. Prove me wrong!
