Category Archives: venus

magellan mission, venus

Remembering Magellan Fondly

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In a Fulldome Show

Venus as mapped by Magellan
Venus as mapped by Magellan

I just got done watching the Nth render of a fulldome show that we’re producing about the Magellan mission to Venus. It’s called Magellan: Report from Venus, and chronicles the well-known mission that took place in the early 1990s. In fact, Magellan was launched on my birthday in 1989 and mapped the planet using radar techniques until October 11, 1994 (when it was commanded into the thick Venus atmosphere as part of one final atmospheric measurement experiment).

We originally produced the show as a slide-tape presentation because in the early 1990s that was  pretty much the standard for planetariums in visual projection technology. Nowadays, we’ve got these new-fangled fulldome projection systems, and wonder of wonders, we actually had some folks who have fulldome systems who want to see this show come back as a fulldome presentation.

So, we cogitated about it for a while, because most of the images from the mission are rectangular format, which pretty much makes them look like slides. There weren’t any “from the surface” images like you see from other missions (Mars, anybody?), so we decided we’d have to create at least one surface scene to put people in an “exploring Venus” kind of mood.  Mind you, Magellan didn’t land on Venus, it just did a heck of a lot of really interesting radar mapping and atmospheric studies. So, we start out the show on Venus and then take our audience to space, where Magellan spent its time whirling in orbit. The rest of the show is a shower of fantastic radar “images” showing us the wonders of Venus hidden under those clouds.

So, the show is shaping up quite nicely. Mark’s been working hard on some “fulldomey” flybys of the planet, and he’s animated the multi-image appearance of the original slides we used in the show (since we’re trying to be true to the original soundtrack). I think people will be pleased with this “look back” to a very cool mission that showed us some amazing things about Venus and how the processes of volcanism, tectonism (earthquakes, etc.), and impact cratering continue to shape its surface and affect its atmosphere.

This show brings back some other fond memories for me. Not only did we publish it originally in the early 90s, but I also used what I learned about Venus for the show to write an article called Magellan at Venus. I sent that off to a science writing contest sponsored at the time by Hughes Aircraft in conjunction with Griffith Observatory. (Nowadays the contest is still sponsored by Griffith, but in cooperation with Boeing Aircraft.) To my utter surprise and shock, my  article won the Grand Prize in 1992, and forever endeared Griffith to me (and me to Griffith, since 13 years later, I was hired to write their exhibits).

So, it’s with great feelings of admiration I look back on the Magellan mission, gone now for 14 years. I hope that whoever gets our newly fulldomed show about the mission will enjoy the exploration of Venus as much as I did back when I wrote about the mission for the first time in the early 90s.

venus

Is it Thinking the Unthinkable…

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…to Talk about Settling Venus?

A few years ago I had the honor of being invited by the World Science Fiction convention planners to give some science talks and be a panelist in a couple of discussion groups about some intriguing topics. It seemed like it would be a lot of fun and I’ve always wanted to attend a WorldCon, so I said “Yes.”

One of the two panels I participated in was about colonizing Venus.  Yes, you read that right: colonizing a world that astronomer George Abell once described as the next best thing to being in Hell.  It’s a cloud-covered, desolate, volcanic world with atmospheric pressure and temperatures so high (up to 462 C (865 F)) that surface-landing craft are destroyed after a short time. Put an unprotected human on that surface, and he or she wouldn’t live more than a few seconds before being crushed to death by the oppressive weight of the mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere that bears layers of sulfur dioxide clouds (not to mention choking on sulfur fumes, enduring sulfuric acid rain, and frying in the heat).

So, what can be discussed about colonizing Venus?  There are a lot of questions, and our panel of distinguished writers tried to tackle some of them.

The first one that comes to mind is “WHY???”  As I’ve just shown, nobody can live on that surface. At least, not without massively protective habitats.  Just getting to the surface would be an exercise in extreme danger.

So, that leaves living in the clouds. There have been some good SF stories about living in those clouds. I’m assuming that perhaps if in the future we have a civilization that has the money to throw at putting a station into the tops of Venus’s cloud decks, it would likely be an orbiting science research facility, a la the ISS.  If so, that answers another question, “What would we do there?”  We’re not likely to be there mining carbon dioxide — we seem to be making plenty of it here on Earth without having to get the expensive imported stuff.  So, my guess is we’d be studying the complexities of the Venus atmosphere, perhaps in an effort to understand what’s happening to Earth’s atmosphere as a result of climate change. Or, because we’re interested in Venus and its evolution.  Both are valid reasons.  Simply going there to live is not likely a good enough reason to spend the money to go there and build stations.

But, let’s say that in the future, we do have a station there and scientists are happily studying Venus and sending back lots of data.  What sort of place would it be?  An ISS-like station?  A huge floating city?  Could such a place grow large enough to support a growing population, or act as a tourist destination?  Who would own it?  What would it cost to go there? What sort of people would live and work there? Or simply want to visit there?

Good questions, all.  No simple answers presented themselves at our panel, and as I write this, I can think of a great many things that would have to happen before humans would take that first step toward a Venus colony. It’s not unthinkable, but I don’t think it’s the first place that humans would want to go once we figure out good ways to travel to other planets. Still, Venus may well yet attact some future adventure travelers, as my friend Paul Hodge wrote in his fabulous book, Higher Than Everest:

And yet, people will go to Venus. It is so close and its surface is so exotic that we cannot possibly resist the temptation to explore it. You might as well be among the first.

If so, then I think the operative question in that case would be: “When?”