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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Jul 2 2006, 01:39 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
OK, here's a question that reveals an area of ignorance on my part...
We have a pretty decent idea of the energetic cosmic radiation levels outside of Earth's protective Van Allen belts. We also know we can see a certain number of these particles on Earth's surface itself (ever seen one of those nifty cloud scintillation chambers that were all the rage 40 years ago?), so we know that not all of these particles are shielded at the Earth's surface. (At least, when I saw one in grade school, they told me that the trails were energetic cosmic rays.) The question is, what is the relative level of shielding provided by the Earth's magnetic field? I'm just looking for an order-of-magnitude feel for the thing -- is 1/10,000th of the unshielded flux coming through, or more, or less? That kind of thing. -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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Guest_DonPMitchell_* |
Jul 2 2006, 04:30 AM
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Guests |
Here is some information from Caltech's Space Radation Lab (where I was a grad student ages ago).
Interplanetary Dose History Radiation is also highly concentrated within the Earth's radation belt, so the most dangerous place to be is a few hundred miles above where ISS is orbiting. In the outer belt, you would get a lethal dose or radation in a couple days. The Earth's magnetic field looks like it may collapse for a while and possibly reverse, sometime in the next thousand years or so. The field is already about half the strength that it was during the Roman era. The Earth's atmosphere is plenty of shielding against space radiation, but I've already heard people make bizarre and dire claims about what will happen then. |
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