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Speaker 1: My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And Hey Rob, it has been a while since we

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Speaker 1: checked in on the air Frier Planet. So what do

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Speaker 1: you say we talked about Venus today? Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: it is high time that we return to Venus, uh

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Speaker 1: for for a few different reasons. First of all, even

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Speaker 1: though we have covered Venus in the past, there's just

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Speaker 1: so much weird and wonderful stuff to discuss about the

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Speaker 1: planet that we had to return. Also, in the past year,

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Speaker 1: we've had some developments concerning Venus, and also there's a

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Speaker 1: particular plan of a project in the in the works

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Speaker 1: that I'd like to discuss in more detail. Really, just

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Speaker 1: like Venus is just such a wild and wonderful plan

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Speaker 1: it and our attempts to understand how we might might

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Speaker 1: be able to further explore it, and also our history

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Speaker 1: of exploring it is just fascinating. So we just had

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Speaker 1: to return. Well, you know what we always say here

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Speaker 1: with reference to Venus, I am the doorway. We are

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Speaker 1: both the doorway. So let's open ourselves and and walk

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Speaker 1: through into some thoughts about the second planet. Yeah, nice

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Speaker 1: Stephen King reference there. All right. So, I guess one

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Speaker 1: of the things with with Venus, you know, that I've

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Speaker 1: been thinking about recently is like the idea of of

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Speaker 1: terra firma, you know, of the solid ground beneath our feet.

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Speaker 1: And when I think about this, i'ten find it a

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Speaker 1: bit weird because, on one hand, the idea of firm

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Speaker 1: earth beneath us is truly reassuring, and knowing that the

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Speaker 1: Earth is round only makes it more so, at least

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Speaker 1: to my mind, because in some respects it means that

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Speaker 1: it's Earth all the way down underneath this, you know,

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Speaker 1: like the Earth might not be the center of the

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Speaker 1: universe or even the Solar System, but the center of

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Speaker 1: the Earth is still a center, you know what I mean. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it can't. The Earth can't like collapse and fall throw

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Speaker 1: into a space beneath itself, because being a sphere, there

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Speaker 1: is no space beneath it. You just you go down

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Speaker 1: until you hit the center. Yeah. Now the sky, of course,

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Speaker 1: and if you're in the sky, that that's not terra firma.

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Speaker 1: And the same goes for the surface of the ocean.

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Speaker 1: Despite the fact that the ocean reminds us that terra

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Speaker 1: firma isn't all it's cracked up to be. Much of

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Speaker 1: of of Earth is crushed beneath an ocean, hidden in darkness,

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Speaker 1: and other proportions are covered in ice or propelled so

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Speaker 1: far up into the atmosphere by mountain peaks that it

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Speaker 1: pushes beyond what is a reasonable environment for humans. Sure,

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Speaker 1: and then when we think of other worlds, it gets

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Speaker 1: even weirder. Right that gas giants uh boast no terra

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Speaker 1: firma at all. And then there's Venus on Venus Terra

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Speaker 1: firma or Venus firma more accurately would be a high pressure,

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Speaker 1: high temperature hellscape, but higher up in its atmosphere or

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Speaker 1: you know, in or above the clouds of Venus. This

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Speaker 1: is the region, ironically, that we might find metaphorical terra

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Speaker 1: firma on the planet that is Terra's strange sibling. Mm hmm,

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Speaker 1: interesting thought. Okay, so we're gonna be talking about the

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Speaker 1: atmosphere of Venus today. Uh. Now, this is this is

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Speaker 1: a subject that's not entirely new to us. We've visited

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Speaker 1: this in uh some explorations before we did one episode

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Speaker 1: a couple of years ago about the possibility of life

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Speaker 1: on Venus, where we discussed the pros and cons and

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Speaker 1: various scientific speculation about what form that could take if

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Speaker 1: it were to exist. And one of the things that

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Speaker 1: kept coming up there was about the difference between the

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Speaker 1: surface of Venus and the atmosphere of Venus um and so, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe we should just do a brief refresher on on

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Speaker 1: Venus itself. Tell me about the planet, like, I'm going

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Speaker 1: on a blind date with Venus? What what? What have

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Speaker 1: you got to sell me on this? Alright, So, Venus

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Speaker 1: is the second planet from the Sun, and it's just

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Speaker 1: slightly smaller than Earth size and surface area is quite

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Speaker 1: similar to our own world, and in any ways it

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Speaker 1: can be seen as an alternative Earth. The two planets

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Speaker 1: may have had very similar origins, but they parted ways

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Speaker 1: on ago. Venus may have once had oceans, and may

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Speaker 1: have once or even still we'll get into this supported

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Speaker 1: life forms. But today it's this dully lit, high pressure

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Speaker 1: world with volcanic mountains and ashen planes are runaway. Greenhouse

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Speaker 1: effect boiled away the oceans long ago and they were

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Speaker 1: lost to space. There are no plate tectonics that we

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Speaker 1: know of on Venus, and it's volcanoes to spring up

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Speaker 1: wherever instead of emerging along plate borders as they do

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Speaker 1: on Earth. The high pressure, high temperature atmosphere is more

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Speaker 1: than nine carbon dioxide and three point five percent molecular nitrogen,

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Speaker 1: with trace amounts of other gases. If you're standing on

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Speaker 1: the surface of Venus, it would be roughly ninety times

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Speaker 1: the pressure of sea level on Earth. Um. Of course,

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Speaker 1: it's going to vary depending on altitude, but that's sort

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Speaker 1: of the ballpark. The clouds are often described as being

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Speaker 1: concentrated sulfuric acid, or more specifically sulfur dioxide with drops

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Speaker 1: of sulfuric acid within it. Yes, that that is what

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Speaker 1: the mist is, so it's a carbon dioxide atmosphere, but

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Speaker 1: the droplets that are suspended to make the clouds sulfuric

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Speaker 1: acid have fun Batman. So when we we think about Venus,

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Speaker 1: one of the cool things that we've touched on this

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Speaker 1: before is that when we think about life on Venus,

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Speaker 1: either life that could still reside there now, native life,

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Speaker 1: or the possibility, which we'll get into later in the

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Speaker 1: episode of of its sustaining our life in one way

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Speaker 1: or another. We end up not looking to that hell

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Speaker 1: hellish surface to the actual Venus firma. No, Instead we

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Speaker 1: look to the clouds above, or even the space a

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Speaker 1: little above the clouds. Yes, And this brings us to

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Speaker 1: one of the main things that we wanted to talk

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Speaker 1: about today, which was that there was what looks like

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Speaker 1: some really major news on the subject of possible life

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Speaker 1: on Venus just a couple of months ago. So the

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Speaker 1: story turned out to be one of those cases of

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Speaker 1: possible scientific whiplash. But we'll get into the complications as

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Speaker 1: we move on. But but let's just take a look.

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Speaker 1: If you're ready, let's do it. Okay, So, for obvious reasons,

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Speaker 1: the reasons we've just been talking about, the surface of

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Speaker 1: Venus is just clearly sterile. There is no way you

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Speaker 1: would expect to find any kind of organized life form

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Speaker 1: living at I was gonna say sea level, not sea level.

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Speaker 1: The surface level of Venus. You know, again, temperatures over

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Speaker 1: nine degrees fahrenheits somewhere between like four hundred and five

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Speaker 1: hundred degrees celsius. Extreme pressure like you just had something

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Speaker 1: like ninety or hundred times the atmospheric pressure at sea

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Speaker 1: level on Earth. It's sort of equivalent to going like,

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Speaker 1: you know, hundreds of meters down under the water, very

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Speaker 1: very high pressure um. It is difficult to imagine under

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Speaker 1: these conditions that any sort of organized, self replicating structures

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Speaker 1: would be able to survive, and there are a few

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Speaker 1: reasons for that. One thing is that you know, like, uh,

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Speaker 1: information containing molecules tend to be pretty fragile and they

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Speaker 1: would be probably disrupted by heat of that kind. Also,

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Speaker 1: you can't have water there, and it's hard for us

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Speaker 1: to imagine what a life form that did not incorporate

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Speaker 1: water would look like, because water is a very Water

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Speaker 1: is the necessary solvent that makes the existence of cells possible,

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Speaker 1: allows it allows the transportation of different types of nutrients

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Speaker 1: and molecules across membranes and stuff like that. Like, you

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Speaker 1: can't have life as we know it without water, and

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Speaker 1: you can't have water on the surface of Venus. But

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Speaker 1: as we've discussed on the show before, it is not

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Speaker 1: impossible to imagine that life could exist higher up in

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere of Venus. So this would be micro organisms

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Speaker 1: floating in the clouds where at higher altitudes the climate

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Speaker 1: is relatively temperate, and this would not even be without

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Speaker 1: precedent and known biology. We're not talking about some kind

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Speaker 1: of organism that is unimaginable from from the perspective of

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Speaker 1: Earth life, because here on Earth there are bacteria such

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Speaker 1: as a Pseudomonas syringy that are thought to be present

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Speaker 1: at higher altitudes floating within cloud I've even read about

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Speaker 1: interesting speculation that these bacteria floating in the clouds could

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Speaker 1: affect weather patterns by serving as ice nucleation points that

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Speaker 1: lead to precipitation. To think about that, like, what if

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Speaker 1: the weather is being affected by germs up in the sky,

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Speaker 1: and the idea of microbes floating in the clouds of

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Speaker 1: Venus would even explain if it were true some observed

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Speaker 1: features of Venus that that we don't fully know how

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Speaker 1: to explain otherwise. Uh. David Grinspoon has written about this,

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Speaker 1: and he's a former show guest. We we've talked to

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Speaker 1: him a little bit about the signs of life on

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Speaker 1: Venus that that pre date the paper that was published

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Speaker 1: this year, things like recurring patterns of darkening observed in

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Speaker 1: the clouds. Do you remember any of the other specifics

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Speaker 1: he gets into about that. I mean that that's one

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Speaker 1: of the big one that's one of the ones we

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Speaker 1: ended up focusing on. Yeah, this is this idea that

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Speaker 1: it it almost thinks makes you think about all some

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Speaker 1: sort of u you know, plankton type life form thriving

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Speaker 1: in the in the atmosp here. They're like atmospheric algal

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Speaker 1: blooms or something. Yeah. Um. But the other thing is

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Speaker 1: that there is evidence that Venus was quite possibly once

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Speaker 1: more hospitable than it is now. You mentioned this earlier,

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Speaker 1: the possibility of surface water. Now there is definitely not

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Speaker 1: surface water on Venus right now would instantly boil, But

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Speaker 1: the evidence makes it look highly plausible that Venus once

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Speaker 1: had liquid water at its surface, even oceans, maybe as

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Speaker 1: recently as a billion years ago or so. That's not ah,

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Speaker 1: I believe that's not a known fact, but it seems

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Speaker 1: highly plausible. So if there once was a full biosphere

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Speaker 1: on Venus that was eventually wiped out at the surface

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Speaker 1: level by the runaway greenhouse effect, it's possible that the

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Speaker 1: last remnant of that archaic biological world is microorganisms that

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Speaker 1: can live their whole lives floating in the clouds. Though

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Speaker 1: it's worth noting that these clouds again consist primarily of

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Speaker 1: suspended droplets of sulfuric acid. So these would need to

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Speaker 1: be special kinds of extremophile type organisms. Now, while these

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Speaker 1: possibilities are very cool, this has always been totally speculative

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Speaker 1: right there. There has never been any actual, direct, strong

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Speaker 1: evidence for the presence of life on Venus. There has.

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Speaker 1: It's just been that we've observed things that could be

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Speaker 1: consistent with the presence of life in interesting and surprising ways.

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Speaker 1: That is their space for life as we know it,

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Speaker 1: within what we know of Venus. Yeah, and the answer is, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe more space than you might think. That we didn't

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Speaker 1: have direct evidence that would say it looks like there

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Speaker 1: is life. That picture got a little bit more complicated

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Speaker 1: in September of this year. Uh Now, there's going to

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Speaker 1: be a very big caveat coming with this paper. But

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Speaker 1: first I just want to present the evidence that we

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Speaker 1: that emerged back in September. And so there is a

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Speaker 1: paper published in Nature Astronomy in September by Jane Grieves,

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Speaker 1: Anita Ms Richards, William Baines, Paul by Rimmer, Hideosagawa, David L. Clemens,

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Speaker 1: and Sarah Seeger at All called Phosphine Gas in the

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Speaker 1: Cloud Decks of Venus. Now, this paper deals with UH

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Speaker 1: analysis of spectral data collected through a couple of telescopes.

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Speaker 1: So the lead author, Jane Grieves of Cardiff University and

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Speaker 1: colleagues collected data through two major telescopes, the James Clark

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Speaker 1: Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array

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Speaker 1: in Chile. And what the study reported was that they

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Speaker 1: had used spectral analysis of venus to find something really

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Speaker 1: intriguing about the gas is present in the atmosphere. And

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Speaker 1: what they found was at an altitude of roughly fifty

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Speaker 1: kilometers above the surface. I think it was like fifty

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Speaker 1: five kilometers in a concentration of about twenty parts per

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Speaker 1: billion a gas called phosphene or pH three. That's one

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Speaker 1: phosphorus them with three hydrogen atoms. Now the chemistry nerds

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Speaker 1: out there, or the breaking bad nerds out there will alike, no,

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Speaker 1: that phosphine is just nasty, highly flammable, extremely toxic gas. UH.

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Speaker 1: It's often found in conjunction with traces of die phosphine

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Speaker 1: or P to H four, which makes it pyrophoric, so

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Speaker 1: fond of automatically catching fire upon exposure to air at

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Speaker 1: room temperature. Lovely UM. It is sometimes a product of

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Speaker 1: human industry, for example, in the manufacture of semiconductors, or

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Speaker 1: also in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Now no one is

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Speaker 1: alleging that there are meth labs on Venus, but whatever

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Speaker 1: the cause, this was a much higher level of phosphine

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Speaker 1: gas than you would expect to find. At about twenty

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Speaker 1: parts per billion, this is something like three orders of

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Speaker 1: magnitude more phosphine than you would find in Earth's atmosphere. Now,

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Speaker 1: why is it interesting to find phosphine at that concentration.

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Speaker 1: You know, different planets have gases in their atmosphere at

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Speaker 1: different levels. You know, Venus has much more carbon dioxide

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Speaker 1: and its atmosphere than Earth does. So so what what's

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Speaker 1: the deal with phosphine? Why would that catch our attention? Well,

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Speaker 1: in short, the presence of high levels of phosphine gas

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Speaker 1: represent a dis equilibrium. Phosphine gas is something that's kind

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Speaker 1: of inherently unstable and digestible by physical processes, you know,

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Speaker 1: exposure to ultra violet light and chemical reactions with other things.

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Speaker 1: Phosphine gas should just naturally sort of get eliminated from atmospheres.

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Speaker 1: And this ties in with something we talked about in

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Speaker 1: one of our recent anthology of Horror episodes, when we

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Speaker 1: were talking about looking for signatures of a shadow biosphere

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Speaker 1: on Earth. Some of the researchers there, for example, I

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Speaker 1: think the planetary scientist or I can't remember she's a

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Speaker 1: planetary scientist or an astronomer, but the scientist Caroline Porko.

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Speaker 1: I was talking about how if you were looking for

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Speaker 1: signs of a shadow biosphere, you would want to find

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Speaker 1: and environments that are at a disequilibrium, things that are

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Speaker 1: out of whack with like quantities of chemicals that don't

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Speaker 1: seem like they would just naturally settle at that level.

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Speaker 1: And I was trying to come up with a good

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Speaker 1: analogy to explain why it's weird to find phosphene like

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Speaker 1: this on on Venus. And so here's what I came

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Speaker 1: up with. I hope this is somewhat appropriate. Imagine you

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Speaker 1: live in Florida and you go out for a walk

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Speaker 1: on a hot summer day in July. It's degrees out,

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Speaker 1: a hundred percent humidity, and you're walking your dog along

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Speaker 1: the sidewalk, and you notice that every twenty feet or

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Speaker 1: so down the sidewalk there's just a big old hunk

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Speaker 1: of ice sitting on the pavement. All right, Well, that

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Speaker 1: that would be suspect. I think, Yeah, something weird exactly

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Speaker 1: Florida weird but weird. Right, Yeah, the ice could be

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Speaker 1: the result of a Florida man. That that would explain it.

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Speaker 1: It would not make a lot of sense, even though

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Speaker 1: not ice does form naturally in the environment on Earth,

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Speaker 1: it would not makes sense, given the conditions outside in

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Speaker 1: this Florida neighborhood to assume, oh, this is a chunk

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Speaker 1: of polar ice that happens to be left over from

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Speaker 1: the last glacial maximum period, right, because like the the

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Speaker 1: environmental conditions would have already like digested and recycled that ice.

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Speaker 1: The ice is unstable enough given the surrounding conditions that

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't expect it to just be there from a

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Speaker 1: previous freeze over right. It Also, it wouldn't even make

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Speaker 1: sense to say, well, it hailed one time last winter,

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Speaker 1: so the ice is just sitting here left over from that. No,

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Speaker 1: it would mean somebody he's going around spilling ice all

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Speaker 1: over the place, or or leaving ice on purpose on

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Speaker 1: the sidewalk. Yeah, there's something that there's got to be

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Speaker 1: some kind of anomalous process that's putting the ice there,

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Speaker 1: and so back to Venus. If phosphine gas were truly

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Speaker 1: present at something like twenty parts per billion, you would

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Speaker 1: have to assume that something was continuously putting that phosphine there.

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Speaker 1: And while it's possible the explanation was some geochemical or

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Speaker 1: photochemical process that we don't understand yet, a very interesting

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Speaker 1: candidate explanation was microbial life, because here on Earth, phosphene

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Speaker 1: is when it's not made by humans, it is almost

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Speaker 1: always the byproduct of microbial life, especially anaerobic microbial life.

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Speaker 1: In fact, if you go way back to you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't remember how many years ago, this is now

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Speaker 1: like five or six years ago, we did some Halloween

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Speaker 1: episodes on the Will of the Whisp. Remember that there

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Speaker 1: would be you know, the legend of there's a light

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Speaker 1: in the bog that leads a traveler off the path,

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Speaker 1: and it's often attributed to a spirit or a devil.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of a visual leshy. It's fairy fire, it's

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Speaker 1: the the elf fire, the Hinky Puck or Hinky Punk.

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Speaker 1: Is it Punker Puck. I don't remember. I can't remember

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Speaker 1: if it's Punker Puck. Yeah, I remember the Will of

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Speaker 1: the whisp. Basically, the idea of the will of the

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Speaker 1: wisp has so many strange and curious names. It's that

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Speaker 1: it's been given over the years in different caled That

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Speaker 1: episode was a lot of fun, by the way, and

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Speaker 1: you have to go back and revisit that sometime. But

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Speaker 1: so people have tried to offer plausible physical explanations for

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Speaker 1: sightings of the willow the whisp. Why is it that

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Speaker 1: so many people reports seeing a you know, a blue

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Speaker 1: or green light in the swamp that's dancing around as

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Speaker 1: if it's a lantern carried by a ghost, And a

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Speaker 1: lot of these physical explanations for that phenomena involve phosphine gas.

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Speaker 1: Often the explanation is some variation on well, there's the

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Speaker 1: bog or a bunch of mud, and there's rotting vegetation,

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Speaker 1: and and maybe bones from animals down there that are

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Speaker 1: being consumed and metabolized by anaerobic bacteria, which produced phosphine

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Speaker 1: gas is a byproduct, and then this phosphine gas, in

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Speaker 1: the presence of die phosphine or p to H four

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Speaker 1: is sort of burping up out of the earth and

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Speaker 1: is sometimes spontaneously ignited on contact with the air, or

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Speaker 1: maybe it's just producing a sort of cool blue or

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Speaker 1: green glow without necessarily catching on fire. But it's in

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Speaker 1: the presence of some of some of the pyrophoric gas,

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Speaker 1: and whatever is going on here, this glowing or chemoluminescent

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Speaker 1: luminescent cloud or this flame becomes the will of the wisp.

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Speaker 1: But whether or not that is the the actual explanation

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Speaker 1: for will of the whisp sightings, It is absolutely true

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Speaker 1: that anaerobic bacteria decomposing organic matter down in the bog

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Speaker 1: will produce phosphine gas. That's just something that's known that

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Speaker 1: they're known to do. Another interesting coincidence, the authors proposed

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Speaker 1: that the phosphine gas detected in Venus's atmosphere was that

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Speaker 1: altitudes of around fifty kilometers or like fifty kilometers. This

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Speaker 1: also happens to be an altitude where environmental conditions are

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Speaker 1: much more tolerable on Venus, around thirty degrees celsius or

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Speaker 1: something like eighty something degrees fahrenheit and a pressure similar

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Speaker 1: to Earth's atmosphere. Yeah, this is one of the key

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Speaker 1: layers on Venus that we're often looking at when we're

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Speaker 1: actually sending some sort of a probe there or planning

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Speaker 1: for possible missions to Venus in the future, right, and

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Speaker 1: so if this phosphine gas was a byproduct of the

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Speaker 1: metabolism of some type of microbe, one possibility that was discussed,

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Speaker 1: and this was quoted in an m I. T. Tech

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Speaker 1: Review article I was reading. This is from Jane Grieves,

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Speaker 1: the lead author on the study. She said, quote that

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Speaker 1: suggests it's part of the global circulation pattern of the atmosphere,

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Speaker 1: where gas sinks before it travels as far as the polls.

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Speaker 1: So I guess a question would be, well, could something

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Speaker 1: else be putting the phosphine gas there? Like with the

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Speaker 1: Florida example, Uh, is there something else that could account

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Speaker 1: for chunks of ice being found along the sidewalk? And

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Speaker 1: you could come up with explanations. You could say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: maybe I don't know, maybe there was some kind of

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Speaker 1: upper atmosphere phenomena, some kind of weird anomalous hail storm,

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Speaker 1: and these things fell even though it's hot outside. It

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Speaker 1: just happened recently. You could come up with things. Uh,

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Speaker 1: for example, we know that some amount of phosphine gas

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Speaker 1: is generated by a biotic you know, non organic processes

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Speaker 1: deep in the atmosphere of Jupiter, but Jupiter is a

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Speaker 1: gas giant, and the phosphine there is produced under conditions

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Speaker 1: that do not seem to be possible on Venus, at

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Speaker 1: least as far as we know. So. Could it be

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Speaker 1: produced by lightning or space impacts or volcanoes or some

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Speaker 1: other high energy phenomena like that. Well, again, this was

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Speaker 1: analyzed by the authors of the paper, and it looks

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Speaker 1: like no, not as far as we know nothing. No,

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Speaker 1: a biotic process we're aware of seems capable of explaining

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Speaker 1: the amounts of phosphine found. So, basically, if if the

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Speaker 1: findings in this original study from September are correct, there

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Speaker 1: is anomalous gas present in the atmosphere of Venus, and

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Speaker 1: we don't know of any photochemical or geochemical process that

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Speaker 1: could have put it there in the amount that we

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Speaker 1: find it. And on Earth the same gas is often

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Speaker 1: the byproduct of microbial life. If so, this is not

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Speaker 1: by any means proof of alien life, but it is

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Speaker 1: extremely tantalizing from an astrobiological point of view. Again, kind

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Speaker 1: of widens the space possible for life to exist. We

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Speaker 1: would say more than that, I mean it says, here's

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Speaker 1: something we observe and we know it could be explained

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Speaker 1: by life and nothing else that we know of would

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Speaker 1: seem to explain it very well. Yeah, but to be

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Speaker 1: very clear, this is not proof. And I was reading

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Speaker 1: an article in Chemical and Engineering News by Arianna Remmel

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Speaker 1: who quotes an astro chemist who who had some good

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Speaker 1: thoughts here. So I just want to read a quote

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Speaker 1: from this article. Anthony Remission, and astro chemist to the

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Speaker 1: National Radio Astronomy Observatory who is not involved in the study,

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Speaker 1: says the team did a fantastic job presenting their findings,

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Speaker 1: but he remains skeptical. Scientists need more spectral data to

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Speaker 1: verify that the signal comes from pH three. Remission says quote,

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Speaker 1: but it's a first good step in that direction. As

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Speaker 1: for what could produce phosphine on venus, he says, we

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Speaker 1: need a better understanding of the fundamental chemistry forming these

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Speaker 1: types of molecules before calling it a biosignature. So, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, so praise for the study, but you know,

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Speaker 1: caution tempering the optimism. It's not like we know there

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Speaker 1: are aliens there now. And when this study was first

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Speaker 1: published in September, people got really excited. A lot of

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Speaker 1: listeners asked us directly to cover this on the show,

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Speaker 1: especially since we've done episodes on the possibility of life

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Speaker 1: on venus before and it was really cool. But I

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Speaker 1: figured we should wait for the experts to chew on

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Speaker 1: this a little more before we did an episode about it,

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Speaker 1: and I'm glad we did wait, because while this finding

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Speaker 1: remains very interesting and is by no means totally overturned,

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Speaker 1: subsequent research is making the picture look more complicated and

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Speaker 1: less clear. So there are reports of at least three studies,

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Speaker 1: at least one of which involves one of the same

400
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Speaker 1: authors as the original study, and this they tried to

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Speaker 1: confirm the presence of phosphine, and of these three, all

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Speaker 1: three failed to confirm it. Now, I don't know if

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Speaker 1: all of them are published yet. I think at least

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Speaker 1: one of them is. But these are media reports I

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Speaker 1: was reading in for example, the M I. T. Tech

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Speaker 1: Review and in National Geographic that we're based off of

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00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:22,679
Speaker 1: reports from preprint versions of these studies, So, you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe not fully confirmed yet, but there are at least

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Speaker 1: some questions that are arising. And the basic issue is

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Speaker 1: they're looking to confirm the signs of phosphine in the

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Speaker 1: atmosphere and they're not necessarily finding it so one tried

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Speaker 1: to look for signs of phosphine and older archival observations

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Speaker 1: of Venus and didn't find it. A couple of others

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Speaker 1: processed the same raw data from the September study, just

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Speaker 1: using a different mathematical analysis method, different method for crunching

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Speaker 1: the numbers, and they didn't find the same strong indications

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Speaker 1: for the presence of phosphine. Now, these differences could be

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Speaker 1: as the initial study was mistaken, or there could be

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Speaker 1: other reasons. For example, in the one where they look

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Speaker 1: at the archival data and don't find the same thing. Well,

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Speaker 1: it could be that maybe there are cycles in which

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Speaker 1: the presence of phosphine gas spikes at certain times in

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Speaker 1: certain places in history on Venus. So from what I've

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Speaker 1: been reading now, it's not as simple as yes there

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Speaker 1: is phosphine or no there is not. It looks like

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Speaker 1: at this point it remains a complicated, unsettled question, and

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Speaker 1: we need more research. So what would be really great

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Speaker 1: would just be, like, you know, go to Venus and

429
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:38,479
Speaker 1: settle this whole thing. Yeah, absolutely, I mean, and of

430
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 1: course they're there are two ways of considering that. One

431
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:43,959
Speaker 1: of course, is send more missions to Venus uh, and

432
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 1: of course, there are a number of those either planned

433
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:50,160
Speaker 1: or in sort of aplete pre planning pre approval phase.

434
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 1: And then, of course there's the the ultimate dream, right,

435
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 1: the idea of sending human explorers to Venus. Uh, perhaps

436
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 1: even as a first human venture to another world. Uh.

437
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:08,040
Speaker 1: And it's just impossible not to be excited by these

438
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: these ideas. So for the rest of the episode, I

439
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:22,160
Speaker 1: thought we might talk about some of the more exciting

440
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:28,520
Speaker 1: concepts out there involving humans visiting or even staying for

441
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:31,959
Speaker 1: an extended amount of time in the atmosphere of Venus.

442
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:33,879
Speaker 1: And to kick this off, I want to read a

443
00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:38,119
Speaker 1: quote from David Grinspoon in his book Venus Revealed. This

444
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:40,080
Speaker 1: is from chapter six, and you can actually read this

445
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:43,680
Speaker 1: entire chapter, I believe, at his website Funky Science dot

446
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 1: net um because he's dr what was his his his

447
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:52,879
Speaker 1: r H. Come on, David, I love your work, but

448
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: that's oh, I think Funky Funky Spoon works. You're done

449
00:25:57,119 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: with that branding? Okay, yeah, yeah, I hope it works.

450
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 1: So so anyway, Grinspoon writes the following quote, I have

451
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:08,640
Speaker 1: a fantasy of cloud cities on Venus, huge and closed

452
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:12,720
Speaker 1: habitats suspended from giant balloons at a certain altitude where

453
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:15,399
Speaker 1: the temperature and pressure would be comfortable for us. We

454
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: would mostly just have to keep the air fresh, maybe

455
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:20,919
Speaker 1: by collecting solar energy to make oxygen from C O two,

456
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:23,719
Speaker 1: or better yet, growing plants to do the job for us.

457
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 1: Why should we bother to do such a thing. I

458
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 1: don't know. These could be research stations, or maybe there

459
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: will be some economic incentive, something rare or beautiful found

460
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:36,680
Speaker 1: only on Venus, or maybe in the very long run,

461
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 1: after we have solved all our major problems here on Earth,

462
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:42,200
Speaker 1: we will go just for the hell of it, because

463
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:44,920
Speaker 1: it is there. I'm hoping the reason that we set

464
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: up colonies on Venus does not become a phosphene harvesting

465
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:52,640
Speaker 1: enterprise where we're that's trying to get as much poisoned

466
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 1: gas as we can. Yeah, I mean maybe the secret

467
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 1: math reserves, so the reason we go there, I know. Um,

468
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:02,400
Speaker 1: but I think this is a wonderful quote from from

469
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 1: Grimsman because he's you know, he's he's he's very much

470
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:08,719
Speaker 1: a scientist, but he also has this this this just

471
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:12,679
Speaker 1: raw you know, wonder and sound of science fictional curiosity too,

472
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 1: you know, just like like imagine what it would be

473
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:18,160
Speaker 1: like if we were there, and and we've we've had

474
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: various versions of this in our science fiction over the years.

475
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 1: And you see other spins on this too, right, I

476
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:27,640
Speaker 1: mean even Star Wars you have the best spin, which

477
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 1: I believe is a gas giant in the Star Wars universe.

478
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:32,159
Speaker 1: But you have a cloud city there. You have a

479
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:34,880
Speaker 1: city floating in the sky. I mean, there's a few

480
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 1: things more amazing. It seems hard to imagine that you

481
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: could actually have a city floating over a gas giant,

482
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 1: because I would think a gas giant would tend to

483
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:44,439
Speaker 1: admit levels of radiation that would kill everybody in the

484
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 1: cloud city. Blando has it cleaned up rather nicely though

485
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 1: it looks looks pretty swank. Well. Um, all this made

486
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: me wonder. I was thinking to myself, what is the

487
00:27:54,680 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: earliest example of science fiction pondering, um, habitats within the

488
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 1: clouds of Venus or something like that, And I was

489
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,159
Speaker 1: looking around. I didn't I didn't find anybody doing the

490
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: work for me on this, like conclusively, Um, trying to

491
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: answer this question. Maybe I just missed it. Uh, in

492
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:16,160
Speaker 1: all things, isn't all things? I'm happy to be corrected.

493
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 1: On this if I'm wrong, but it seems like a

494
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:24,920
Speaker 1: possible answer comes from astronomer and sci fi author Garrett P. Service,

495
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 1: who wrote a book in nineteen o nine titled A

496
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:33,159
Speaker 1: Columbus of Space, Uh, which I think you know in

497
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,640
Speaker 1: n nine would have had nicer connotations for the before

498
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: the historical reassessment of Columbus. Yeah. So basically, this is

499
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 1: about a human explorer who travels to Venus in an

500
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: atomic spaceship to explore the planet, and there he encounters

501
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 1: two different psychic species, a sort of morlock species that

502
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 1: lives on the planet's surface and another species that lives

503
00:28:56,480 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 1: in the clouds that are are basically humans or englishmen. Uh.

504
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:03,960
Speaker 1: You can find this This full book is available on

505
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 1: Project Gutenberg if you look it up. But I just

506
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: want to read it. Just a quick exchange here between

507
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: two characters. This is after they have arrived in their

508
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:14,240
Speaker 1: atomic rocket ship on into the atmosphere of Venus, and

509
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: one says to the other, those are airships. Airships, Yes,

510
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 1: surely an exploring expedition. I shouldn't wonder I anticipated something

511
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 1: of that kind. You know already how dense the atmosphere

512
00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 1: of Venus is. It follows that balloons and all sorts

513
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: of machines for aerial navigation can float much more easily

514
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 1: here than over on Earth. I was prepared to find

515
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 1: the inhabitants of Venus skilled in such things, and I'm

516
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 1: not surprised by what do we see. So I also

517
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 1: just love the spirit of that. It's like, yeah, just

518
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 1: as I imagined, they are flying ships on Venus full

519
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 1: of englishmen. Um, this is exactly as I thought I

520
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 1: it would it would This is exactly how I thought

521
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: it would pan out. I like your Venus voice too. Now,

522
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: why is he saying that they can float much more

523
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: easily on Venus than over the Earth. Is that because

524
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:05,480
Speaker 1: it was understood at the time that the atmosphere of

525
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 1: Venus was denser than Earth's atmosphere. Yeah, yeah, I guess

526
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 1: that's the case here. Like I said, it doesn't. It

527
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't hold up too much, um, modern scrutiny. It's

528
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 1: very you know, it's it's very much old timey science fiction.

529
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 1: And I think the thing is, you see a lot

530
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: of that. The the Golden Age of science fiction is

531
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 1: a time where, yes, we were gazing at at Mars

532
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: and and Venus and wondering what was their dreaming of

533
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 1: canals on Mars and so forth. Um. But at the

534
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: same time it was a period in which we were

535
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: enraptured by the technology of flight, of powered human flight,

536
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 1: and so even in is it was even as we

537
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 1: see modern retreatments of of this idea, we see that

538
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 1: Golden Age enthusiasm, uh kind of creep in. For instance,

539
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 1: there's a short story that I ran across. I haven't read,

540
00:30:57,680 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: but it was published in two thousand ten in Asimovs.

541
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: It's fiction by Jeffrey A. Landis, who's not only a

542
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: hard science fiction author but a NASA aerospace engineer, and

543
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:11,520
Speaker 1: he wrote of what is apparently a kind of like

544
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: Golden Age um flavored sci fi tail about there being

545
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: habitats and ships, uh in the atmosphere of Venus, Like

546
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: I think it has princesses and all. So it's you know,

547
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 1: a very kind of Edgar Rice Burrows and its presentation.

548
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: Oh okay, cool swashbuckling. Maybe I would hope for swashbuckling. Buckling.

549
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:34,239
Speaker 1: You know, that's gotta be a sword fights on a

550
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 1: platform over the atmosphere of Venus. That's bad news. Yeah,

551
00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all part of the Golden age zeal

552
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: the atmosphere is piranhas. Now the cool thing about balloons

553
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:48,959
Speaker 1: on Venus is you don't have to go to science

554
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: fiction to to think about them and to read about them.

555
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: All you have to do is look into space exploration history,

556
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: because we have sent balloons to Venus. So back in

557
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union sent its Vega mission uh to uh

558
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 1: to Earth's hot uh neighbor here. So in addition to

559
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:12,760
Speaker 1: a lander, Vega featured two instrumental balloons that traveled roughly

560
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: thirty percent of the way around the planet had an

561
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 1: altitude of around fifty four kilometers. Sensors in a gondola

562
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: attached to these balloons recorded such stats as pressure, temperature,

563
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 1: vertical wind velocity like that was apparently one of the

564
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 1: the interesting findings from that they got within these vertical

565
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 1: uh you know, wind columns, and then you had clown

566
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: particle back scatter, ambient light level, and lightning frequency. These

567
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 1: were essentially aerobots uh. Now, they only made it thirty

568
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 1: percent of the way around because they ran out of batteries,

569
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: but they provided battery power, but they provided some interesting

570
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 1: data before they went offline. Now, there were other atmospheric

571
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 1: probes from the U S and the U S S

572
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 1: are prior to this. But for instance, the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe,

573
00:32:58,200 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: it didn't even use a parachute. It was just like,

574
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,880
Speaker 1: you know, cutting down through the atmosphere and collecting data

575
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: on the way down. And we've talked about on the

576
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: show before. One of my favorite collections of images from

577
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: from space exploration is the surfaces of Venus that were

578
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: sent back by the Soviet Venera Lander. Did the Venera

579
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: Lander use a balloon to descend? I was trying. I

580
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: don't believe. So I believe that the Vega was the

581
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 1: was the first use of balloons on on Venus. Now,

582
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 1: in looking now, of course, parachutes are kind of an

583
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: additional um category, uh to consider. So I was looking

584
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 1: around for what are some of the proposed Venus missions

585
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 1: Venus missions that may be undertaken in the near or

586
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 1: eventual future that will feature balloons or parachutes. So I

587
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 1: thought I might mention a few before getting to the

588
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:50,240
Speaker 1: one that really excites me. So, first of all, there's

589
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 1: not to say that these are these are these are

590
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: not all exciting because they are exciting any kind of uh,

591
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 1: you know, future exploration of Venus. Is it just inherently um,

592
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: they is thing, But you have NASA's DA Vinci. This

593
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: is the Deep Atmosphere of Venus Investigation of Noble Gases,

594
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: Chemistry and Imaging UM. And this one is currently shortlisted,

595
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:13,359
Speaker 1: So it's it seems like it it may well come

596
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 1: to pass. And and if it does, it will entail

597
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 1: a parachute probe that descends through the atmosphere and collects

598
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 1: a data on the way down. Okay, so that that

599
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:24,320
Speaker 1: one should be a big one. There's also the Venus

600
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:28,239
Speaker 1: Inset to Explore or Vice. This is a proposed lander

601
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 1: that would then release a meteor a loot meteorology balloon

602
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: I believe from the surface. So the meteorology balloon would

603
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: be released once the lander has made it down. I

604
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 1: might be wrong on that, but that's the the basic

605
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:44,319
Speaker 1: idea that I'm getting from what I was reading about it. UH.

606
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:47,239
Speaker 1: This has been proposed since two thousand three by the

607
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: Planetary Science UH Decadel Survey. It hasn't made the cut yet,

608
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: but in the future it may. There's also Chuck gray

609
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:59,319
Speaker 1: In one, a proposed Indian Space Research Organization i s

610
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 1: r OH mission to Venus that would likely feature a

611
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:06,279
Speaker 1: Vega esque probe. Shookra, by the way, is the name

612
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 1: for Venus in Sanskrit, so that's where they get it.

613
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: I think the name like literally means uh Venus craft

614
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: or something to that effect. Interesting. Another really cool one

615
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 1: is and I think this one may have come up

616
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 1: on the show before is uh. Northrop Grumman and l

617
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:27,439
Speaker 1: guards proposed mission and it is the Venus Atmospheric Maneuverable

618
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 1: Platform or VAMP. It looks like a futuristic well I

619
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 1: would say, actually kind of best spin cloud city type

620
00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 1: airplane with with big wings going out on the sides. Yeah,

621
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,279
Speaker 1: it's it's basically. The cool thing is it's kind of

622
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:45,359
Speaker 1: a an update of an idea that Northrop Grumman has

623
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,000
Speaker 1: been putting out for decades, and that is the flying Wing.

624
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:52,760
Speaker 1: It is an inflatable The concept is an inflatable flying

625
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 1: wing aerobot that would also boast solar arrays on the

626
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 1: top and it would UH and it would use those

627
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:02,400
Speaker 1: for its power, along with some combination of batteries and

628
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:04,839
Speaker 1: a generator that I think have maybe not quite been

629
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: developed yet. It would be propeller driven and it would

630
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:11,799
Speaker 1: be fully controllable, though not in real time uh. And

631
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 1: this would be during the day. So during the day

632
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:15,800
Speaker 1: when the sunlight is able to power it up to

633
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:19,360
Speaker 1: full power. Uh, it would be soaring up to altitudes

634
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 1: of seventy kilometers above the surface, taking advantage of the

635
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 1: solar intensity above the clouds. And then at night it

636
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:29,240
Speaker 1: would power down and dip down to a cruising floating

637
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:33,239
Speaker 1: altitude of around fifty six kilometers. Oh, that's funny. So

638
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: it's nighttime floating altitude might be right around where the

639
00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:40,719
Speaker 1: phosphene was allegedly found if it wasn't found. Yeah, and

640
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 1: at that point it would just be cruising or just floating.

641
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 1: Now also interesting, the vamp would actually uh. The idea

642
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 1: is that the vamp would probably inflate in space and

643
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:54,719
Speaker 1: enter the atmosphere without an aero shell, so without this

644
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: kind of sarcophagus to hold it to protect it. Uh.

645
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: Quote large surface area is benign heating loads during entry

646
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 1: and this would of course, I'll be supported by an

647
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 1: accompanying satellite and the vamp would last four months to

648
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 1: possibly a year, eventually losing out to the gradual loss

649
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 1: of the buoyant gas inside it. Than but wait, I

650
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:23,319
Speaker 1: think we're about to get to your to your real

651
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 1: baby here, right. Yeah, this is the one that I

652
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 1: read a little bit about and then I got excited

653
00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:29,840
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh man, this we had to

654
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 1: go back to Venus and that is Havoc h A

655
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 1: V O C. This is what's got you sending your

656
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: your harassing letters to NASA, Like do that do Havoc now?

657
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:43,760
Speaker 1: Havoc is this? This is one of those proposed missions

658
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 1: where you read about it and it's is, it's is.

659
00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:49,919
Speaker 1: It's as exciting as any movie or or television show

660
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:53,520
Speaker 1: or sci fi short story you might come across, because

661
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:57,440
Speaker 1: it's it's unique and thrilling, and it's hard to imagine

662
00:37:57,680 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 1: the type of person who would do it, but you

663
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:01,880
Speaker 1: know they exist. I mean, this is the type of

664
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:04,840
Speaker 1: of of of human being that goes on on a

665
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:08,080
Speaker 1: space mission. But yeah, this is the HAVOC high altitude

666
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 1: venous operational concept. And there are essentially two different versions

667
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 1: of it. One is the robotic version that would be

668
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:19,879
Speaker 1: the the necessary precursor to the second variety, which would

669
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:24,919
Speaker 1: be a crude NASA venous mission. So to be clear,

670
00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 1: this is a this is a mission concept. It's not

671
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:30,799
Speaker 1: something that's like on track to to actually launch or

672
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 1: be produced right now, but it's sort of like it's

673
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:35,759
Speaker 1: on the menu of things that could be selected for

674
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:40,759
Speaker 1: future missions. Right we would the Havoc project itself, if

675
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:43,919
Speaker 1: it were to come to pass, there would be like

676
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:46,359
Speaker 1: two or three. There would be multiple missions which I'll

677
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:49,320
Speaker 1: get into leading up to humans actually going. But also

678
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 1: it would not be our next venous mission. Uh. You know,

679
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:56,000
Speaker 1: under any circumstances like this, this is something we might

680
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:58,759
Speaker 1: be able to do in the future. You know, I'm

681
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 1: embarrassed to say. I while I was reading about this,

682
00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:03,880
Speaker 1: I couldn't help but keep thinking about There was this

683
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 1: terrible video game. Do you remember the Command and Conquer

684
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 1: first person shooter? Oh? I don't know that I do.

685
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:12,759
Speaker 1: What what what system era was this? I think it was.

686
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:15,359
Speaker 1: I think I played it on PC many many years ago.

687
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 1: So Commanding Conquered games are like real time strategy games.

688
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:20,840
Speaker 1: You move all these like little troops around and stuff.

689
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:23,399
Speaker 1: But they made one game in the series that's set

690
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:26,400
Speaker 1: in the same universe. But you played this like marine

691
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:28,879
Speaker 1: guy who it's the first person shooter and the guy

692
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 1: you play is named Havoc. Very cool, and everybody's like Havoc.

693
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:35,840
Speaker 1: You you don't go off mission. You do as you're told.

694
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 1: It's like shoot thing. General. Oh man, were you Were

695
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 1: you good at the real time strategy games? No? No,

696
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 1: because I was horrible at him. Like I wanted to

697
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 1: love them. They put out these these really well put

698
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 1: together Donald war games based on Fort K stuff, and

699
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 1: I really wanted to love them, but I was just

700
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:56,400
Speaker 1: terrible at them. It was just like chaos and loss

701
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:58,840
Speaker 1: time I tried to play it at any level, just

702
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: weeping and just watching the destruction of your forces and

703
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 1: your empires. Yeah. I've never been an elite gamer of

704
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:08,920
Speaker 1: any kind whatsoever, So no, I'm not good at that

705
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:11,279
Speaker 1: or any other type of game. It just felt like

706
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 1: too much multitasking. Like I, I like games where I

707
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 1: can be specific and strategic, where I can pause and think.

708
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:19,920
Speaker 1: I guess that's why I'm more of a turn based

709
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 1: strategy versus real time strategy. It's just I'll take the

710
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:28,879
Speaker 1: turn based anytime. You're a magic the gathering morlock. Yeah yeah, yeah,

711
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 1: not not any whatever real time magic is. That's just

712
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: too too much pressure, all right, So so back to Havoca. Sorry,

713
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:38,880
Speaker 1: if that was a terrible digression, we can come down. No, no,

714
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 1: it stays in um so basically, in essence, HAVOC entails

715
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 1: the use of human exploration in the upper of the

716
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:54,479
Speaker 1: Nusian atmosphere aboard a helium airship. So this airship would

717
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 1: be about a hundred or four three ft long thirty

718
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:01,919
Speaker 1: four meters or a hundred and eleven feet tall. So

719
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:05,400
Speaker 1: as the as it's as it's presented in one of

720
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 1: the the PDFs that I came across, uh from, from

721
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 1: the people putting it together, it would be about half

722
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:16,359
Speaker 1: the size of the Hindenburg, but twice as long as

723
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 1: sort of your average goodyear blimp. I love that they're

724
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 1: just reminding people of the Hindenburg in the proposal. Yeah,

725
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:33,160
Speaker 1: I didn't say a zeppelin, so so very much like

726
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:35,719
Speaker 1: whatever you're picturing in mind for like a blimp or

727
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:38,839
Speaker 1: a zeppelin or airship like that's basically the initial look

728
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: of what they've proposed, but they're gonna be some key

729
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: differences as well. So I propel propeller driven gondola on

730
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 1: the bottom. You know, this is the habited habitable portion

731
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:53,319
Speaker 1: of it would contain both an atmospheric habitat for two

732
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:57,720
Speaker 1: crew members over twenty eight days, along with an ascent vehicle.

733
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 1: Essentially a rocket within a habitat on the front of

734
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 1: it that would, at the end of its time in

735
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, allow the two crew members to rock it

736
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 1: back to the transit vehicle in low of the Venusian

737
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:14,719
Speaker 1: orbit for the return trip. Oh that's interesting because so

738
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: one of the big questions about crude missions to other

739
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:20,840
Speaker 1: planetary bodies like Mars or something like that is, you know,

740
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 1: how are you going to leave the planet? How do

741
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:25,440
Speaker 1: you get back up off? So you would probably need

742
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: to take some kind of rocket with you that would

743
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 1: need to be able to attain escape velocity. I wonder

744
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 1: is it easier to leave a planet if you're in

745
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:37,080
Speaker 1: the atmosphere as opposed on the surface. Of course it

746
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:41,000
Speaker 1: would be easier, right, You need less force, less thrust

747
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 1: to escape from there than you would from the surface. Yeah,

748
00:42:44,560 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 1: but it's a different just a different scenario than you

749
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 1: encounter thinking about these other planets or like Mars, or

750
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 1: thinking about traveling to Earth's moon for example. Because again

751
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:55,920
Speaker 1: this is one of the crazy things. A trip like

752
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:59,400
Speaker 1: this to Venus would not entail actually setting foot on

753
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 1: the planet. You would never go down to the true

754
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 1: of Venus firma. Uh, you know, you would you would

755
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:09,279
Speaker 1: only be going into the upper atmosphere, hanging out there

756
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:11,600
Speaker 1: for like, you know, against something like twenty eight days,

757
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:15,359
Speaker 1: and then returning to low orbit from there. Yeah. It's

758
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:18,920
Speaker 1: something that's not usually considered. Are we think of visiting

759
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 1: other planets in a binary? You've got orbit and then

760
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 1: you've got surface activity, and this would be in between.

761
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:26,799
Speaker 1: It's like if you were planning a visit to New

762
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: York City but you're but you are, You aren't gonna

763
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:34,320
Speaker 1: actually travel to Times Square. You can only limit yourself

764
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 1: to the very outer boroughs, right and then return home. Yeah,

765
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 1: I just went on vacation to Queens. No, no disparaging

766
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 1: Queens by the way, No, No, If anything, we should

767
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 1: be disparaging Times Square like that. You shouldn't. Land Landing

768
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: in Times Square is light landing on the surface of Venus?

769
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:52,839
Speaker 1: What were you thinking going in that deep? You need

770
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:57,600
Speaker 1: a rocket to escape the bubba gum shrimp. So I

771
00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:00,440
Speaker 1: recommend that, you know, everyone look up pictures of the concept,

772
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:02,759
Speaker 1: the models they've put together for this, because it is great.

773
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:05,400
Speaker 1: It's like this, the gondola with the propellers. The ascent

774
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:09,400
Speaker 1: vehicle again looks very much like a cool rocket um

775
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 1: harnessed behind it. It's very neat we In essence, we'd

776
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 1: be talking about sending three habitats on the Havoc mission.

777
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 1: So there'd be the transit habits habitat that the crew

778
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 1: members would be in on the way to and from

779
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:28,719
Speaker 1: the planet Venus. This would be the space habitat. There

780
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 1: would be the and then there would be the atmospheric

781
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:34,799
Speaker 1: habitat on the gondola. That would be where they'd spend

782
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:37,720
Speaker 1: in their twenty eight days and then or less depending

783
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: on how it goes. And then the ascent habitat is

784
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 1: the one on the front of that rocket, just to

785
00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:45,719
Speaker 1: get them back up into orbit so they can get

786
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 1: back into the transit habitat and return home. Well, I

787
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:51,839
Speaker 1: gotta say that does sound complicated. I think that you

788
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:54,320
Speaker 1: have a lot of moving pieces like that you introduce

789
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:59,200
Speaker 1: increasing difficulty into the mission, right, Yeah, because in all

790
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 1: the mission would see the ship arrived at Venus, then

791
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:07,160
Speaker 1: drop an airship from low Venusian orbit on a parachute, okay,

792
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:11,320
Speaker 1: parachutes in towards the upper atmosphere. It's gonna drop its aeroshell,

793
00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:15,759
Speaker 1: it's protective sarcophagus. It's gonna then unferral and inflate the

794
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:20,160
Speaker 1: helium blimp. It's going to drop the parachute altogether and uh,

795
00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:22,719
Speaker 1: and it's going to carry out atmospheric activities for up

796
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 1: to twenty eight days. Then when the time comes to leave,

797
00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: the two crew members hopping the ascent vehicle return to

798
00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 1: low Venusian orbit, leaving the airship to continue on for

799
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:36,400
Speaker 1: the duration of its life. Uh in the Venusian atmosphere.

800
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 1: They get back in the transit vehicle and they return

801
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 1: back to Earth. I hope the airship would get to

802
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 1: send pictures back as it sinks down into the atmosphere

803
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 1: gradually over time. I assume that would be part of it,

804
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 1: you know, sort of using every part of the buffalo

805
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:52,880
Speaker 1: on the mission, you know, like planning out exactly what

806
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:55,279
Speaker 1: it's gonna do for the rest of its life. Now

807
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:58,120
Speaker 1: they see this being ultimately they're being five phases to

808
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:01,600
Speaker 1: this branch of of Venus x ration. So Phase one

809
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: would be a robotic version of the same concept, just

810
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 1: obviously do it without people and see how feasible it is.

811
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:09,919
Speaker 1: Phase two would be a thirty day mission to bring

812
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:12,799
Speaker 1: the crew to orbit around Venus, but then not deal

813
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 1: with the atmosphere at all. Phase three would be a

814
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:18,319
Speaker 1: thirty day mission to bring the crew to the atmosphere,

815
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 1: and this would be the model we just discussed. Phase four,

816
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 1: they touch on, would be a version that entails a

817
00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:28,720
Speaker 1: one year voyage in the atmosphere, So like the next

818
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:31,920
Speaker 1: this is like the stretch goal for this particular project.

819
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 1: And then ultimately Phase five would be the Grinspoon Special,

820
00:46:37,120 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 1: a permanent human presence in Gondola habitats Um up there

821
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:46,239
Speaker 1: in the upper atmosphere of Venus, hopefully small enough that

822
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 1: you don't fall under the jurisdiction of the Empire at all.

823
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 1: So so advocates of this mission, and just Venus missions

824
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 1: in general. They point out that the Venus has an

825
00:46:56,280 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 1: induced magnetosphere from the interaction of its thick atmosphere with

826
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 1: solar wind, and it's nearer proximity to the Sun brings

827
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 1: it further within the Sun's magnetic field, so there's arguably

828
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:09,879
Speaker 1: less of a cosmic radiation risk compared to Mars. It's

829
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: also easier to get to, making it, by some estimates,

830
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 1: an ideal first step in reaching Mars Um. Now this

831
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 1: I don't know. You may be getting into a little

832
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 1: like team Venus versus Team Marsh competition here, something that

833
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 1: Grinsman was talking about, you know, the legitimate rivalries there. Yeah,

834
00:47:27,040 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 1: but you know, but the shortest possible distance from Earth

835
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:33,880
Speaker 1: to Venus is something like thirty eight million kilometers versus

836
00:47:34,120 --> 00:47:37,360
Speaker 1: fifty six million kilometers for Mars, and a year on

837
00:47:37,480 --> 00:47:44,720
Speaker 1: Venus is much shorter, so you know, Christmas comes earlier there. Yeah. Again,

838
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:47,319
Speaker 1: we have to do have to stress though havoc as

839
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:50,840
Speaker 1: well as stuff like VAMP very much just mission concepts

840
00:47:50,840 --> 00:47:54,040
Speaker 1: at this point. It's nothing on the books. Da Vinci

841
00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:57,080
Speaker 1: I think is gonna probably be the project that gets

842
00:47:57,120 --> 00:47:59,920
Speaker 1: the NOD next. We'll see how it goes. But either way,

843
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:03,480
Speaker 1: Venus missions are only an option every nineteen months. Because

844
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:06,480
Speaker 1: I mentioned that the closest distance we've touched on this before, Like,

845
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:08,720
Speaker 1: if you're talking about going to head to another planet,

846
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:13,200
Speaker 1: it depends on where Earth is in relation to that planet,

847
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:16,000
Speaker 1: how long of a journey you're talking and you won't,

848
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 1: of course, uh calculated so that you're making the shortest

849
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:24,759
Speaker 1: voyage possible to reach that other planet. Yeah. Yeah, So

850
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 1: as somebody who feels a lot of sympathy for the

851
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:30,880
Speaker 1: Venus partisans and the rivalries between the planetary scientists. I uh,

852
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 1: I hope that the study from September of this year

853
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 1: and and all the subsequent research, whether it turns out

854
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:39,400
Speaker 1: that there's good evidence for the presence of the phosphine

855
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 1: gas or not, I hope this at least spurs more

856
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:46,960
Speaker 1: attention to Venus, Like it gets more unscrewed emissions there

857
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 1: at least um to awaken the hunger for Venus knowledge

858
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:54,160
Speaker 1: among the people generally. Yeah, yeah, just to build public

859
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:57,560
Speaker 1: interest in Venus, like it's a strange and an exciting

860
00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:00,720
Speaker 1: planet and and missions like I feel like avoc alone

861
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:04,200
Speaker 1: should be one of these programs that everyone should look at,

862
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 1: because it makes me more excited about about Venus to

863
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 1: just even think about people. Can you can you imagine?

864
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:12,400
Speaker 1: Can you imagine the footage much less being there, Like

865
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 1: that's that's a step too far from me to be

866
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 1: imagine being aboard this vessel in the within the skies

867
00:49:18,800 --> 00:49:21,440
Speaker 1: or kind of over the clouds of an alien world.

868
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 1: But just see the footage of that that journey, that

869
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:27,560
Speaker 1: would be amazing. Totally agree. I can't wait to see

870
00:49:27,560 --> 00:49:30,279
Speaker 1: where we where we go from here? Yeah? Is that

871
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:32,200
Speaker 1: the end? If we're if we're the doorways. Is it

872
00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 1: time to close ourselves on the way out? I guess

873
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:38,280
Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, obviously we could talk more about Venus

874
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:40,239
Speaker 1: and and I hope we do talk more about Venus. Uh,

875
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:42,600
Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe we can we can get get

876
00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:44,560
Speaker 1: Grinspin back on the program to talk about it. I

877
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:47,879
Speaker 1: know he discussed potentially writing more about Venus. That book

878
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:50,400
Speaker 1: that he wrote about Venus came out many years ago,

879
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: so he's probably overdue for re exploration totally. In the meantime,

880
00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:58,400
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone out there. Um, what

881
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:00,880
Speaker 1: are your thoughts about Venus, Venus exploration or some of

882
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:02,560
Speaker 1: the missions we've talked about here. What are your thoughts

883
00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:05,080
Speaker 1: about the possibility of life in Venus? Do you have

884
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 1: other examples of of early science fictional visions of balloons

885
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere of Venus? Uh? Let us know. We'd

886
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:18,239
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Likewise, just space science in

887
00:50:18,280 --> 00:50:21,360
Speaker 1: general and other planets. Uh. Would you like us to

888
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:23,279
Speaker 1: do more episodes like this in the future. Is there

889
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 1: a particular planet that we have not journeyed to that

890
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:28,920
Speaker 1: you would like us to visit? Reach out to us

891
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 1: and let us know. Uh. In the meantime, just rate, review,

892
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893
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Speaker 1: to bow your mind dot com, that will take you

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Speaker 1: monster or a basilisk or a you know, Pandora uh

902
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Speaker 1: opening up a box full of all the problems and

903
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Speaker 1: the challenging ideas in the world. It's all there for

904
00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:07,760
Speaker 1: you to consider. Still waiting on our Weird House Cinema,

905
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Speaker 1: Mad Love Sausage Man T shirt that I'm hoping that

906
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Speaker 1: will happen soon. All right, okay, huge, thanks as always

907
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:19,680
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you

908
00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:21,640
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

909
00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic

910
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:26,240
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911
00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:37,279
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912
00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:39,840
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913
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