Surviving Venus in the 1970s

This is Venera 4 A Soviet space probe moments away from attempting the first landing on another planet. Venus. At the time, very little was known about this mysterious planet but scientists believed that under its thick layer of cloud was a world not too different from Earth with a similar one bar atmosphere and earthlike temperatures. But little did they know what kind of world this poor little space probe was about to enter.    As it hit the atmosphere at 40,000 km per hour, its parachute deployed and the antenna started sending back data. At first the atmospheric pressure was similar to Earth's and  the temperature was around 30° C but as it descended further into the atmosphere the readings started to go crazy.  One atmosphere quickly became ten   Ten became 20 and the temperature was well over 200° when suddenly the space probe cracked open and all communication was lost. The last bit of data it sent back revealed an atmosphere that was 22 times thicker and 250° hotter than Earth  but now that the Soviets knew just how harsh Venus really was   they were even more determined to get there.    We modeled these incredible space probes to show you how the Soviets finally managed to land take pictures and record audio on the surface of our most dangerous planet.  The early space probes had a  relatively simple design. The lander was a 1 m wide titanium sphere pressurized inside to around 25 atmospheres It had a handful of scientific instruments to analyze the atmosphere and a battery to power it during descent. The lander had no thrusters and instead used its own drag  and a series of parachutes to bring it down to the ground. But with Venus's thick atmosphere  this turned out to be a problem. Instead of quickly falling through the atmosphere in a  matter of minutes, Venera 4 hit the atmosphere like a brick wall and quickly slowed down to just  18 km per hour, much slower than expected. This meant that the spacecraft had to endure 90 minutes inside Venus's atmosphere constantly being exposed to  the heat and pressure until it was crushed. The Soviets realized that once they entered  Venus's atmosphere, time way limited and so they would have to pass through the atmosphere before it had time to crush or melt the lander. And so the Soviets completely rethought their approach to Venus.   They sent a fax to NASA asking for a  special heat resistant material but the fax never got through because NASA was using incogi, today's sponsor, to block it. Just kidding. incogi wasn't around then, but they are around today when we need them more than ever. We all get calls from weird numbers and emails from websites we didn't sign up for. 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In order to reach the surface of Venus before being destroyed the Soviets redesigned the space probe to make it fall through the atmosphere more quickly.  They added a cord to the parachute that would stop it from opening, allowing Venera to fall much faster. It was made of a material that would melt at 200° and so the parachute wouldn't open until the probe was much closer to the surface. Since the pressure on the surface was still unknown, the engineers went overkill with Venera's protection. The walls were two times thicker and the space probe could  now withstand a pressure of 180 atmospheres.   The Soviets were ready to put Venera 7 through hell. As it hit the atmosphere the lander slowed all the way down and deployed its parachute.   The cord did its thing and allowed the space probe to  quickly fall through Venus's thick atmosphere.  The probe was now much closer to the surface than any of the previous missions  until, with just 3 km to go, the parachute tore itself apart and the probe started plummeting to the ground    slamming into the  surface at 60 km an hour. The Soviets had another failure on their hands  or so they thought. A few weeks later when reviewing the data, they noticed that a very weak signal had actually been transmitting   for 23 minutes after the lander hit the surface. As it turned out the lander actually  survived but it had been knocked onto its side   making the antenna's signal to Earth extremely weak. Incredibly, the last bit of data it sent out showed that the temperature at the surface was a mind-boggling 500° C Since temperature was now the main problem limiting their time on the surface the engineers came up with a genius but simple cooling solution for Venera 8. Inside the space probe were blocks of lithium nitrate a salt-like substance which has a very high heat of fusion. This is the amount of energy required to turn it from a solid into a liquid. In order to heat this material up by 1° it takes just under 2 joules of energy per gram  but when it reaches its melting point crossing that boundary from a solid into a liquid takes almost 300 joules of energy. And so this change from a solid to a liquid absorbs a large amount of heat energy  which is effectively stored in the material.    And so blocks were placed inside the lander to absorb heat and take it away from the electrical components. This system worked extremely well and Venera 8 successfully made it to Venus  and survived for an entire hour on the surface. The Soviets had now mastered the art of getting to Venus  but the world still had no idea what this crazy world actually looked like.  And so it was up to Venera 9 to take the first pictures of Venus. The Lander was completely redesigned  once more. Instead of using parachutes for the final descent, Venera 9 had a large air brig to slow it down  and a set of landing legs to absorb the impact.  But the most important feature on Venera 9 was the camera system. It had two movable cameras on either side of the lander that could take a 360° panorama of the surrounding landscape but designing a camera that could survive the intense  pressure and temperature of Venus was yet another challenge. The cameras were placed inside the  lander's pressure vessel and two periscopes stuck out  into the super thick pressure window. At the end of the periscope was a small lens that could rotate and scan the 180° view of the surface. The light would travel down the periscope and through a lens  that would correct the effect of the thick  pressure window.   Each of the two cameras had large lens caps that were designed to pop off once the  probe had landed. On Venera 9 only one of these worked.   This was the very first picture taken on  Venus. On future missions the cameras were improved   eventually taking higher definition color images. On Venera 14 a microphone was placed on board. The following is real audio of the probe landing on  the surface and an instrument drilling into the surface. All in all the Soviets landed  on Venus eight times with each Mission sending   back incredible images and scientific  data about this mysterious planet.  An achievement we are yet to repeat some 50 years later. And now for the Primal Space giveaway. The winner of the previous giveaway  is David. Congrats! In the next video we'll be   giving away this custom Primal Space Venera  poster to one lucky winner. All you need to do is sign up at the link below, like the video and leave a comment saying what you think about the Venera space probes.   Thank you very much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.

Channel: Primal Space

Views: 1,810,218

Keywords: Venus, Surviving Venus, Venus Space Probes, Venera Space Probes, Venera Venus Missions, Venera 4, Venera 7, Venera 8, Soviet Space Program, Surface of Venus, Sound of Venus, What does Venus sound like?, Taking Pictures on Venus, Real Audio from Venus, Audio from Venus, The Venera Venus Missions, Venus Venera Missions, Surviving Venus in the 1970's

Id: rMGUA77z80E

Length: 8min 42sec (522 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 25 2024