Venus 73 - A lost opportunity? Options

[gndonald]

I've been browsing through the NTRS and I've stumbled upon a series of reports dealing with an alternative mission plan for the 72/73 Venus launch window (The one used for Mariner 10).

The plan was this:

A modified version of the Mariner 9 probe carrying a 400lb balloon supported atmospheric probe would be launched atop an Atlas-Centaur or Titan IIIc. Upon arrival at Venus the atmosphere probe would be released and the remainder of the craft would either go into orbit or flyby Venus. The RTG powered balloon probe would operate for several months in the upper levels of the Venusian atmosphere.

While I know that Mariner 10 was a great success (albeit with a lot of luck) and the first pictures of Mercury were well worth the effort, I cannot shake the feeling that this plan was a lost opportunity. While the Venusian atmosphere has been studied from orbit and by short term drop probes, only the Soviet Vega probes attempted to carry out 'long term' studies from within the upper atmosphere, though this was limited by the flyby nature of the mission and the fact that the balloon probes were battery powered.

In fact I feel that a good case could be made for such a mission to be attempted in the future, the science payoff would be well worth it.

See:

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntr..._1969006258.pdf

for the 23mb summary report.

This post has been edited by gndonald: Aug 15 2007, 12:53 AM

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[qraal]

Hi

That mission does sound cool. Almost as tragic an opportunity lost as the Grand Tour missions proposed around the same time which would've included drop-probes as well as orbiters for all the Gas Giants.

I often wistfully wonder if Voyager I would've lasted out to Pluto - that was one option at the time.

Adam

gndonald wrote...

I've been browsing through the NTRS and I've stumbled upon a series of reports dealing with an alternative mission plan for the 72/73 Venus launch window (The one used for Mariner 10).

The plan was this:

A modified version of the Mariner 9 probe carrying a 400lb balloon supported atmospheric probe would be launched atop an Atlas-Centaur or Titan IIIc. Upon arrival at Venus the atmosphere probe would be released and the remainder of the craft would either go into orbit or flyby Venus. The RTG powered balloon probe would operate for several months in the upper levels of the Venusian atmosphere.

[elakdawalla]

I often wistfully wonder if Voyager I would've lasted out to Pluto - that was one option at the time.

This conversation seemed familiar -- with good reason, as it turned out:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1297

--Emily