Sending Men To Venus |
Sending Men To Venus |
Jul 20 2005, 04:40 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 212 Joined: 19-July 05 Member No.: 442 |
While it is likely that future Venus missions will be robotic craft, at one point someone in NASA carried out an interesting contingency study on sending a manned craft to orbit Venus.
The file (Click here:Manned Venus Mission 1967) works on the assumption that either the NERVA project had been carried through to completion or that NASA had retained the capacity it was developing for Apollo. While the author does not rule out the possibility of a landing on Venus, he notes that owing to the unknown surface conditions they would be highly unlikely. Launch times are given as being between 1975-1986 and are designed to allow 40 days in orbit at Venus. As someone who was growing up during the period mentioned I would like to say that such missions would have been far more interesting than what actually occurred. |
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Guest_DonPMitchell_* |
Jul 1 2006, 10:10 AM
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Guests |
I worked on the heavy-nuclei detector in HEAO-C. We actually calibrated it in space using iron nuclei, which are pretty abundant in cosmic rays. I've heard that astronauts occasionally see flashes of light, when one of these passes through their eye and generate Cherenkov radiation.
There has been some research on using strong magnetic fields to shield a craft from cosmic rays. I don't know if that is practical or not. Perhaps research on suspended animation will open up better possibilities for dealing with multi-year interplanetary missions -- allowing a crew to be kept safe in small shielded areas, and eliminating the need for massive supplies. Some dogs have been maintained in a clinically dead state for many hours without ill effect. But it's far from perfected or safe at this point. |
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