[extropy-chat] Gods of Mars was

[bradbury]

On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 2:39am Alfio Puglisi <puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
 
> Venus indeed eats space probes for lunch. If I remember correctly, the
> number of probes the Russian sent before having some success must be
> measured in dozens.

I would doubt it is that high, particularly if one counts probes
that were intended to probe the atmosphere.
 
[snip]

> Except on Venus, where it will be melt and crushed by the atmosphere.

Oh no Alfio -- you don't get off that easily.  I'll ask Spike
whom we will consider to be the resident astronautical engineer
to comment.  But I'd state that one if the U.S. is looking
at developing probes that go down to something like 3 miles
below sea level (catching up to the Japanese and Russians)
and one can carry a sufficient quantity of NaOH to spray
on the hull to deal with any acid that landing on Venus
can indeed be managed.  Landing on Mercury may be somewhat
more difficult but that too can probably be done.  And of
course there is an active discussion group of how to land
on and penetrate into Europa.  Now if you want to raise
difficult engineering problems they might be getting to the
core of Saturn or Jupiter.  Such an effort might eat probes
for lunch.  But since we want to dismantle them anyway there
are alternate strategies for getting to the core.

Robert
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