/sci/ - Science & Math

>>11346088
>>nuclear thermal ramjet
for what? What science is it gonna do? And why do you have to use a nuclear thermal ramjet? It's been shown that for aerial missions that a solar powered airplane can fly in place and that a solar powered hybrid airship would last a pretty long time in the clouds. For most of the science we currently want to do, a couple landers that last about an hour on the surface are sufficient. The challenge is that the geologists want to land one in a tessera. The problem is that Tessera have extremely rugged terrain, so there's a risk of the lander getting destroyed or flipped over upon landing. NASA does not like landing stuff in terrain that's not flat.
>>11346057
>>DUCT-TAPE A GOPRO TO A BEACHBALL FULL OF HELIUM AND THROW IT INTO THE GODDAMNED ATMOSPHERE ALREADY
russians already sent weather balloons to venus and the images a go pro sends back wouldn't have much if any scientific value. It'll probably be in the clouds most of the time so there won't be much to see. In short, it'd be a huge waste of taxpayer money for what amounts essentially to an art project. Weather balloons with packed to brim with droppable sensor pods including cameras have been proposed:
https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2014/13986/00-0365.pdf?sequence=1
And this was as a Discovery Class Mission, meaning cost capped and considered a cheap mission by NASA standards. It was rejected in favor of other missions.
http://mentallandscape.com/V_Vega.htm
>>During the night-time portion of the journey, considerable variations in light levels were detected by the photometer, possibly due to thin spots in the lower cloud layer, REVEALING THE THERMAL GLOW OF THE PLANET'S SURFACE.
Fug, I think we should send one now, just for the hell of it.

>>11332151
>>Hypothesis as to what it was like in the past
we dunno lol. A mission to a tessera is our best bet at determining what it was like in the past. Problem: tessera are the most extreme terrain on Venus. A lander would need to be capable of landing on shear cliff faces. NASA doesn't want to do a mission like that cause it's very risky.