Author Topic: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless  (Read 176878 times)

Wrangler

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #600 on: 08 August 2016, 09:04:24 »
I apologize for adding additional post, though i being into space flight development was interesting. I did miss this when this was published.

This is regarding the XS-1 projected being spread headed by DARPA.  Essentially they want to have a new reusable unmanned Shuttle vehicle made to handle 3,000 lbs of payload per flight for cheaper. Similar to the way the SpaceShipOne's was setup, by using a carrier to get aloft and deploy it into orbit.

Last month, DARPA put out more details, posted here on NASASpaceflight.com.  So far there 3 companies pitching their takes on this.  DARPA effort keep government launches prices low, may help regular industry, with this proposal of having 10 day turn around time.  This been desired in the past with previous space vehicle efforts, but i think DARPA has enough muscle to get this off the ground.

Were suppose to hear from what Stage 2/3 of the project in coming months.
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kato

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #601 on: 08 August 2016, 11:47:47 »
XS-1 is basically meant as a replacement to Minotaur, which is using old ICBMs to launch US military payloads.

All three entries are joint ventures. Arguably only Boeing / Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman / Virgin Galactic have a real chance at it. The NG/VG entry in my opinion - being TEL-based and offering tradeoffs in hypersonic aircraft development - is probably more "military compatible".

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #602 on: 08 August 2016, 15:06:29 »
Its interesting, that China continues to progress upwards and on wards while the west struggle to organize themselves to decide what their doing. 

It's important to put China's progress in context. 

First, the CNSA is largely recreating US and Soviet achievements from several decades back -- human capsules, small space stations, and lunar robotic landings.  China should be proud and is catching up, but their space program is not exactly leaping ahead, either.

Second, progress is slow, probably by design.  Taikonaut launches only occur every few years.  This is likely to avoid failures that could embarrass CNSA's parent government on the international stage/at home and/or because of resource constraints.

Third, China's space program has borrowed heavily from or outright purchased Soviet/Russian technology.  This is becoming less of a factor as time goes on, but they got a big head start that way.

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Its so frustrating that US space program... has so much trouble deciding what to do...

US civil human space exploration suffers from poor program formulation and execution.  Big cost increases and budget overruns, multi-year schedule slips, and unreliable and underperforming systems have practically forced program terminations with each new Administration over recent election cycles.  Progress would be more even and sustainable if the programs weren't in trouble after each major election.

Those comments apply only to the human side of the NASA house.  Historically, US robotic space exploration is more consistent in planning and execution.

Essentially they want to have a new reusable unmanned Shuttle vehicle made to handle 3,000 lbs of payload per flight for cheaper. Similar to the way the SpaceShipOne's was setup, by using a carrier to get aloft and deploy it into orbit.

Not to be pendantic, but XS-1 isn't really like Shuttle or SpaceShipOne.  XS-1 is an unmanned, highly reusable first stage rocket.  XS-1 is not manned, it doesn't go to space, and it will rely on expendable upper stages to deliver payloads to orbit.  It will top out around Mach 10, not Mach 25 like the Shuttle or Mach 3 like SpaceShipOne.

XS-1 has more in common with the reusable Falcon 9 first stages than Shuttle or SpaceShipOne.

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DARPA effort keep government launches prices low, may help regular industry, with this proposal of having 10 day turn around time.  This been desired in the past with previous space vehicle efforts, but i think DARPA has enough muscle to get this off the ground.

DARPA actually doesn't have much muscle in terms of budget or personnel.  They're just a small, lean contracting agency with ~100 or so very smart program managers rotated in for a few years at a time to start projects like XS-1.  Without the institutional biases of NASA or USAF, DARPA can try projects -- and more importantly terminate projects -- that other federal agencies cannot.

XS-1 is very wisely formulated and managed.  It's aimed at the small satellite market, which is both growing and doesn't require a large, expensive launcher.  It just tackles a first stage, avoiding the heating and expensive thermal protection systems required for higher Mach numbers.  It's agnostic as to technical solutions (like takeoff and landing modes), letting the trades take the proposers where they should.  And it's extending competition for as long as possible before downselect.

XS-1 still has very challenging turnaround goal (10x in 10 days, IIRC), and it remains to be seen if a competitor can bring such a vehicle to completion for $400-500M.  But compared to prior efforts like X-33, XS-1 is very sane.

[Disclosure:  I know the XS-1 program manager.]

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #603 on: 08 August 2016, 18:30:23 »
Looks like the SLS's Orbital ATK’s QM-2 solid rocket booster got good worked out recently. 

Things are progressing, this was recorded by High Dynamic Range Stereo X (HiDyRS-X) camera.


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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #604 on: 09 August 2016, 02:49:22 »
oh wow! You can see the plasma! What an amazing vid!
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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #605 on: 09 August 2016, 10:48:18 »
Cool video! 

Also good discussions.  I'm much clearer on items like DARPA, XS-1, and the actual state of the Chinese space program.
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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #606 on: 09 August 2016, 13:15:08 »
When it comes to alternative engine and frame types, has anyone here been keeping tabs on Reaction Engines' work with the SABRE engine (and its proposed Scimitar derivative), or have any thoughts regarding the proposed Skylon and LAPCAT A2?

While the Skylon itself seems to be aimed at low orbit work only, it would seem to offer a useful means of building up the kind of orbital infrastructure useful for long-range expeditions, were it to prove viable. (There is a "Project Troy" video on the REL website which proposes such a setup.)

But then, even if the current development on SABRE itself works as advertised, the question would remains as to who will step forward to actually build the Skylon itself, or to pay to operate it.
« Last Edit: 09 August 2016, 13:19:57 by Nerroth »

Sabelkatten

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #607 on: 09 August 2016, 15:37:53 »
I built a gingerbread Skylon last year... ;)

As I understand the plan REL's actually betting on an "If we build it, they will come" scheme - but in this case it's that with a working SABRE engine a lot of shelved SSTO projects become interesting again. So even if they can't get funding for Skylon it's very likely someone will want to make something similar using their engine.

Heck, from what I've read almost all SSTO projects have failed due to engine difficulties!

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #608 on: 09 August 2016, 15:40:59 »
I've loosely followed Skylon project frankly thought it  was disappointing they never tried least build ONE just a proof of concept  UK government certainly not throwing money into it enough to get it built.
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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #609 on: 09 August 2016, 16:57:31 »
The makers of the newfangled Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) have secured the necessary funding to fire up their hardware by 2020.

I'm not a fan myself, though I'll rescind my complaints if it works. IMO, SABRE and Skylon are tackling the wrong parts of a single stage orbital launcher: reducing the lightweight oxygen tanks while retaining the large and heavy hydrogen tanks, and replacing lightweight rocket engines with heavier (per pound of thrust) SABRE engines. Specific impulse isn't everything, which is why it's possible for dense fuel SSTOs to outperform hydrogen-oxygen SSTOs.

Link to .pdf on alternate SSTO fuels:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=34919.0;attach=587468
« Last Edit: 09 August 2016, 17:00:34 by cray »
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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #610 on: 09 August 2016, 19:38:09 »
When it comes to alternative engine and frame types, has anyone here been keeping tabs on Reaction Engines' work with the SABRE engine (and its proposed Scimitar derivative), or have any thoughts regarding the proposed Skylon and LAPCAT A2?

IIRC, the jury is out on SABRE until at least 2019.  SABRE's clever precooler has been proven, but there won't be a full SABRE engine through test firings until 2019 (again, IIRC) at the earliest.   You wouldn't say that a new automobile engine (or the automobile itself) is ready to go based only on fuel injector tests.  That's kind of where SABRE is right now.

Setting aside the technical challenges to SABRE or Skylon, with a $12 billion estimate, Skylon will cost at least 3x-10x more than other launch vehicles to develop.  Ariane 6 has a $3.6 billion development pricetag.  The Atlas V and Delta IV launch vehicle families were developed for $5 billion total (DOD and company cost-shares), or around $2.5 billion each.   And Falcon 9 and Dragon combined were south of $1 billion (actually $850 million) total (NASA and SpaceX cost-shares) to develop. 

Maybe that 3x-10x higher development cost will make sense if Skylon delivers a huge operational advantage.  Skylon promises to reduce launch costs to 650 British pounds per kilogram, or about $850 US per kilogram to LEO.  By comparison, the expendable Falcon 9 FT does $2,720 US per kilogram to LEO today, and the expendable Falcon Heavy is supposed to hit $2,200 US per kilogram to LEO or better.  So payloads on Skylon could enjoy a cost savings of ~3x over today's lowest cost expendable launchers.

But it's hard to say with certainty now what Skylon's actual future launch costs will be.  Does Skylon development really come in at $12 billion or does it experience large overruns like nearly every other launch vehicle development in history?  Does the private sector have to amortize all of that $12 billion or will there be a government cost share?  Will Skylon be as simple and cost efficient to operate as its proponents estimate or will it suffer exponential operational complexity and cost growth like the Space Shuttle did?  Will the market will generate enough demand to justify a high launch rate for Skylon to keep its per launch cost down?

Every launch vehicle development has to deal with these tough questions.  But these questions are easier to answer and the uncertainties and risks much smaller for a vehicle that costs $1-3 billion to develop versus one that costs $12 billion to develop.  In that light -- higher development costs leading to higher risks versus competitors -- Skylon doesn't make much sense to me.

And what if SpaceX or Blue Origin or someone else develops a reusable first stage or launch vehicle that is roughly competitive with Skylon for a fraction of what Skylon costs to develop?  What if they do it before Skylon is flying?  That is something that past launch vehicle development decision makers did not have to consider, but it must be a consideration going forward.  Under that competitive threat, which raises risks even higher, Skylon makes even less sense to me.

I'm not an aircraft/airline guy, but LAPCAT seems like a bridge too far given where the market is today.  The business case for supersonic jetliners never closed for Concorde, and I don't know of a credible/substantive entrant trying to make that business case close today.  If a supersonic passenger transport doesn't make sense, then a hypersonic, antipodal passenger transport like LAPCAT makes even less sense.

An important but largely intractable problem that faster airline travel runs up against is door-to-door trip time.  Airports are not destinations.  It matters little if you halve my air time from New York to London if I still spend hours stuck in New York or London traffic getting to my actual home, vacation destination, or meeting.  Forget hypersonic or supersonic transport.  Airlines have difficulty just ridding themselves of the economics behind the awful hub-and-spoke system in favor of more point-to-point subsonic travel for this and related reasons.

This is perhaps an overly broad generalization, but if you look at the history of aircraft or launch vehicle propulsion, new engine or rocket technology is usually proven out first in military applications before migrating to the civil or commercial markets.  Given the paucity of complex, multi-mode, air-breathing rocket engines in military use today, it would require a huge break with history to see SABRE-derived civil launch vehicles or SCIMITAR-derived passenger transports anytime soon.  I'm not saying it will never happen, but I think we're decades, not years, away.

Some folks are stuck on air-breathing propulsion for launch vehicles, and I direct them to water-injection (or mass-injection) pre-compressor cooling technology as a realistic, near-term step.  It's little more than spraying cool water in front of a jet engine to densify the incoming air to allow the aircraft to fly faster and higher than it would otherwise be able to.  F-4s were actually modified with this technology for the Israelis back in the 1970s.  The Navy's drone F-4s today could be similarly modified and equipped with a simple F-15 ASAT-like upper stage for launching smallsats.  It's a much more achievable first step than multi-mode air-breathing rocket engines like SABRE.  Here's a NASA paper on it:

https://www.nas.nasa.gov/assets/pdf/papers/Mehta_U_February2015.pdf

[Disclosure:  I directed a little funding to the work behind the paper in a past life at NASA HQ.]

Quote
While the Skylon itself seems to be aimed at low orbit work only, it would seem to offer a useful means of building up the kind of orbital infrastructure useful for long-range expeditions, were it to prove viable.

A lot of space-based infrastructure only makes sense if we're committed to going over and over again.  If it's a limited Apollo-like effort, it makes little sense to invest billions or tens of billions of dollars on infrastructure that will only be used once or a handful of times.

If infrastructure does make sense, Earth-to-orbit launchers aren't really the bottleneck.  Other technologies, like long-term cryogenic propellant storage and transfer, are more critical.  Unfortunately, we're not investing in them.

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Wrangler

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #611 on: 10 August 2016, 09:36:58 »
Space.com hosted a video of recently Night Time launch of a SpaceX launch with high-speed camera. It was pretty interesting view.

It's not the full video, its more parts of the launch to put together.
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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #612 on: 12 August 2016, 09:33:28 »
Not quiet deep space-ish, but this is interesting.

The Washington Post put out, article reporting a paper that states Venus was very much like Earth Climate wise between 2 billion years ago and 700ish millions years ago.  Something certainly went wrong there!
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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #613 on: 12 August 2016, 09:55:21 »
Not quiet deep space-ish, but this is interesting.

The Washington Post put out, article reporting a paper that states Venus was very much like Earth Climate wise between 2 billion years ago and 700ish millions years ago.  Something certainly went wrong there!

If it's outside of Earth's gravity well (or perched on the edge of it, like the Moon), it's deep space.  If we don't know a whole lot about it, it's exploration.  O0  Hard to miss with this thread.

I'd venture a guess at massive, catastrophic volcanic activity being the culprit if this study's data and findings are correct.  That would most likely account for the toxicity of the atmosphere, as well as the atmospheric density.

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #614 on: 12 August 2016, 10:28:44 »
Not quiet deep space-ish, but this is interesting.

The Washington Post put out, article reporting a paper that states Venus was very much like Earth Climate wise between 2 billion years ago and 700ish millions years ago.  Something certainly went wrong there!
Humans, I'm guessing.
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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #615 on: 12 August 2016, 10:48:57 »
Guess we just did the wrong planet right around the exact same point in time.

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #616 on: 12 August 2016, 10:52:23 »
If it's outside of Earth's gravity well (or perched on the edge of it, like the Moon), it's deep space.
The moon isn't perched on the edge of Earth's gravity well btw. That edge is around 3.9 times farther out. Where we're parking a small flotilla of satellites for just that reason.

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #617 on: 12 August 2016, 11:15:26 »
The moon isn't perched on the edge of Earth's gravity well btw. That edge is around 3.9 times farther out. Where we're parking a small flotilla of satellites for just that reason.

This is why I love Deep Space.  ;D
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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #618 on: 12 August 2016, 20:33:10 »
I'd venture a guess at massive, catastrophic volcanic activity being the culprit if this study's data and findings are correct.  That would most likely account for the toxicity of the atmosphere, as well as the atmospheric density.
I read an article recently that argued that the opposite is the problem. The point being that Venus today has almost no magnetic field and apparently very little tectonic activity - despite apparently having had a lot of it back in the day (just like here). And having a composition much like Earth, so there's no apparent reason for it to be like that.

The central problem would be that Venus' mantle is so thick that the core is insulated and of mostly homogeneous temperature which means that it no longer spins around to create a magnetic field. And the reason it's so much thicker than Earth's is that it never got hit by suicidal planetoid that knocked off a lot of the surface material to create a little satellite. :)

No magnetic field is a good reason for the current atmosphere - all the lighter stuff gets knocked away, carbon dioxide is just heavy enough to stick around while also being a prime greenhouse gas, driving up temperature to release all the other fun stuff from the bedrock. :P

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #619 on: 15 August 2016, 14:26:49 »
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Venus_Express/Hot_lava_flows_discovered_on_Venus

I was going by this info, which seems to suggest that the Venusian surface was inundated by lava at very roughly 500 million years ago.  That would match up well with newer studies such as the the link Wrangler posted.

Though I don't deny the damage caused by the lack of a magnetic field, and the role this played in the Venus of today.

edit:

Looking at it again today, I guess this is exactly what has been said of Venus before.  It's a situation out of control, a runaway greenhouse effect. But there's more to it than CO2 appearing suddenly.  We have a plethora of very possible reasons here backed by various data.  The greatest perhaps is what if it's not at all mutually exclusive?

I mean, regarding the lack of a magnetic field, what if that is a relatively recent occurrence, too?  Perhaps the last upheaval of major vulcanism that inundated the planet with lava half a billion years back was somehow linked with a truly huge disruption in the core of Venus, one that resulted in both the eruptions and the collapse of the magnetic field. 

It's just amazing.  Sublime, really.  This is probably among the very worst things that could happen to an ecosystem.
« Last Edit: 16 August 2016, 13:36:43 by rebs »
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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #620 on: 16 August 2016, 16:36:14 »
Anyone heard the rumor about Proxima Centauri, and got any opinions on it?
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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #621 on: 16 August 2016, 16:43:13 »
Odds are the Venusian resurfacing is a recurring, periodic thing. The surface is red-hot anyway, and approaching melting point of rocks. Some volcanic activity tips the greenhouse into a more agressive mode, things heat up, and the crust literally softens, allowing the massive planetary lava flooding seen. This pumps the heat up even more, to the point that the thick cloud deck actually becomes hot enough to drive down droplet size and become transparent. This then lets massive heat dump out via IR radiation, cooling the surface & atmosphere to the point that the crust solidifies and atmposphere clouds up again - but cooler than before.

Rinse (in lava), repeat.

Of course, this is theoretical/imaginary. But fun.
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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #622 on: 16 August 2016, 17:39:05 »
Anyone heard the rumor about Proxima Centauri, and got any opinions on it?

Seen the reports. Absence of hard information makes it hard to speculate too much. I'm not sure what method was used to observe it - direct, via occultation, via wobbling - which would provide more information just knowing the method.

If there's an exoplanet in the "goldilocks zone" for Prox C, don't get too excited. It'll be in a close orbit around a known flare star. Still, "life finds a way".

I wouldn't be expecting these though:



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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #623 on: 16 August 2016, 17:55:23 »
I remember that book!  Can't remember the author or title, but the art is unmistakable...

worktroll

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #624 on: 16 August 2016, 18:27:12 »
Chris Foss, and Terran Trade Authority (TTA).

A friend of mine has the originals ... I had two, but foolishly sold them decades ago.
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

Daryk

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #625 on: 16 August 2016, 18:58:13 »
Ah, yes... I remember his name but the book title is still unfamiliar.  I'm pretty sure he did a number of books like that...

ANS Kamas P81

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #626 on: 16 August 2016, 19:01:56 »
That's certainly silver-age scifi covers, though I don't know the book title.

At the very least, if there IS a planet...well, I suppose we're still a ways off from Project Daedalus.  At least it'd have a somewhat closer target!

Meanwhile, something a little more close to home:
http://phys.org/news/2016-08-physicist-quantum-effects-hawking-lab.html
Loosely, it's a simulation in a B-E condensate using apparently quantum-entangled particles that shows a similar result to the pair-production theory of Hawking radiation - one particle gets trapped in the supersonic flow while the other entangled particle escapes.  Granted, it's not photons on the edge of three-dimensional space as we know it, but it at least suggests it's possible in similar situations.

Nnnnnnnnnneat.
« Last Edit: 16 August 2016, 19:13:14 by ANS Kamas P81 »
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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #627 on: 18 August 2016, 12:00:31 »
Odds are the Venusian resurfacing is a recurring, periodic thing. The surface is red-hot anyway, and approaching melting point of rocks. Some volcanic activity tips the greenhouse into a more agressive mode, things heat up, and the crust literally softens, allowing the massive planetary lava flooding seen. This pumps the heat up even more, to the point that the thick cloud deck actually becomes hot enough to drive down droplet size and become transparent. This then lets massive heat dump out via IR radiation, cooling the surface & atmosphere to the point that the crust solidifies and atmosphere clouds up again - but cooler than before.

Rinse (in lava), repeat.

Of course, this is theoretical/imaginary. But fun.

I am fond of dramatic, catastrophic events.  I'm a trainwreck watcher/fan, though, and I can admit that.

One more item that deserves note (and that I forgot to add to the thoughts above) is the Venusian rotation period.  Famously, its day is longer than the Venusian year, and most puzzling of all, it rotates retrograde.  The old theory/hypothesis of a catastrophic impact causing this unique situation in the Solar System still holds my thoughts in thrall.

What if an impacter that was similar in size to the object that struck earth to create our moon hit Venus, only it didn't hit it at an oblique angle.  So the force that sent mantel material into orbit for us was directed into the body of Venus, disrupting the rotation, and possibly causing the magnetic field to collapse whilst ushering in great periods of lava flow in the "ripple" of this catastrophic ultra-late bombardment hypothesis?

Not to argue, of course.  Just my own conjecture and, yeah, it's just fun to think about.  :) 

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #628 on: 18 August 2016, 15:36:24 »

The cyclic cataclysm was speculated about before Venus Express launched. Its early results disproved it after a few years observation. Part of the mission was finding possible reasons for a theorised single resurfacing event; instead results started new theories that there was no such event at all and that the resurfacing may have been a gradual evolvement of fractures that slowly resurfaced the planet with only similar or lower amounts of magma surfacing as tectonics well up from the upper mantle on Earth (the oceanic crust of Earth resurfaces entirely every 180 million years!).

As for the retrograde rotation, apart from an impactor the two main theories are that either Venus' axis simply flipped, possibly based on the Sun's gravitational pull on the atmosphere and core-mantle friction; or that Venus became tidally locked at some point and then was respun the opposite direction due to the same as above.

The latter has actually led to interesting theoretical models for exoplanets in close orbits where they should be tidally locked but that may rotate based on gravitational pull on their atmospheres - even if they're not as dense as Venus'.

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Re: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - The Universe is Timeless
« Reply #629 on: 19 August 2016, 13:00:03 »
Cost and Challenges of the SLS.  Looks like challenging road ahead. :/
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