The Venus Landings Pt.1

Ever Since the moon landing, countries around the world are racing to land on planets around our solar system. Venus, Mars and Mercury to name a few. Some have succeeded even, many have not. After the first manned Moon missions, we have manage to land there 5 more times, ever reinforcing our achievement and establishing that luck was not the only factor that was on NASAs side. Soviet Russia had their share of success also, by landing a probe on Venus(The Venera 7, in 1970), to which many people are still to this day not aware of especially in the West, mainly due to political reasons back in the 60's. Regardless, marking a marvellous achievement in space exploration irrespective of the geopolitical implications that arose then. As this did not please the American allies, being one of the sole reasons for the Space Race to initiate between them. Unfortunately confirming that Venus, is not a habitable ecosystem which could support most organic life. Due the intense gasses and atmosphere present there. It has been theorised that cities in the sky could be build due to the dense atmosphere. The cities themselves would be supported with the additional benefit of the dense atmosphere acting as a cushion of these “Platforms” to remain in the sky. But this have been conjecture ever since.

Venus is similar to Earth, in terms of mass, size and the atmosphere present. The surface though is a totally different story. Its environment is very hazardous. The geo-dynamical aesthetics itself gives testament to the severe topography. Several probes were sent to Venus to confirm data from the previous Venera 7. Their missions were specifically to ascertain the conditions that were present from Venus. Examples are Gamma measurements of certain elements in the surface such being K(Potassium), Th(Thorium) and U(Uranium), surface temperature and pressure, to reveal the presence of bedded rock and surface topography and cloud and atmosphere aerosols in the air. There have been some interesting pictures that have been taken on the surface of the planet Venus.

 

 Fig.1 Surface picture of the planet Venus

Credit: Soviet Planetary Exploration Program. NSSDC

 

Fig.2 Edited Photo of Venus with two sites where the 2 probes landed

 Credit: JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science.

Feynman