Ask My Guests: Exploring Venus, Space Shipyards, and Exoplanet Atmospheres
Hello patrons! As usual, I've got a bunch of fascinating interviews coming up and I wanted to give you a chance to pose some questions for my guests. Go ahead and put any questions you have for the guests in the comments below.
Dr. Paul Byrne - Exploration of Venus
https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.06830
NASA has the Mars Exploration Program, but nothing similar for Venus beyond a few missions. Paul Byrne is a planetary scientist and part of a group advocating for a proper Venus Exploration Program
Vojtech Holub - Space Shipyards
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/niac/construction-assembly-destination/
ThinkOrbital won a recent NIAC grant to explore building shipyards in space. They've already demonstrated space welding and want to scale this up to construct larger components in space.
Dr. Ben Hord - NASA Pandora Mission
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/pandora/
Ben is part of the Pandora mission from NASA which is due to launch later this year. Pandora will continue on from JWST and help characterize the atmospheres of transiting exoplanets.
Comments (12)
Dr Byrne, if there’s a floating habitat above Venus in the habitable zone of the upper atmosphere, surely the gravity well and atmosphere would make it impossible for people to leave via rockets? Is a floating habitat realistic, even with ‘future tech’?
Dr. Ben Hord - NASA Pandora Mission Will Pandora be working in conjunction with JWST, that is observing the same system at the same time? Would this help improve the characterization of a rocky exo-planet atmosphere much beyond it has or hasn't one?
Dear Dr. Paul Byrne, is there any way, at all, to cool down a rover or stationary spacecraft at Venus so it can operate for months, or even years, on the surface of Venus? And is there a way to get a sample from Venus back to the Earth? best regards //M
Vojtech Holub - Space Shipyards What potential impact does the day-night cycle have on NEO construction and what heat cycle mitigations need to be employed?
Could a surface rover collect a sample, then put it on a balloon that would rise to the upper atmosphere to be later picked up by a rocket that would bring it to earth?
Why did the dynamo die on Venus?
For Dr. Byrne: Much has been made since 2020 about the detection of phosphine gas as a biosignature of life on or above Venus. Every time it comes up, I am reminded that we still don't know the exact mechanisms for the biological production of phosphine on Earth. Wouldn't it behoove NASA to invest in fully understanding how phosphine is produced by life here in order to make sense of any result that is returned by future Venus exploration? Is this work being done?
Dr. Paul Byrne - Exploration of Venus To me there seems to be a feud between inner planetary exploration and outer planets for funding and focus, how can both needs be met in the future and what knowledge and learning can both inner and outer plantary exploration further our cosmological understanding?
Dr. Paul Byrne - Exploration of Venus Does the Automaton Rover for Extreme Environments (AREE) still represent a paradigm shift in Venus exploration, and what is its current status in terms of development and progress toward becoming a reality?
What is required in the development of materials to build a rover that would survive on Venus. Is it even possible?
I imagine having large scale production in orbit, will produce a lot of trash, leftover parts etc. Of course there is an insane amount of "space" to store everything. But will some trash and leftovers be brought back to Earth, be sent to burn up in the atmosphere or handled in some other way?
Dr. Byrne, are lava tubes on Venus potentially useful to help protect instruments from harsh conditions?