NASA HAVOC: Manned mission to Venus Possible

HAVOC. Credit: NASA Langley Research Center

NASA's Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate has issued a report outlining a possible way for humans to visit Venus, rather than Mars, by hovering in the atmosphere instead of landing on the surface.

The hovering vehicle, which they call a High Altitude Venus Operational Concept (HAVOC), would resemble a blimp with solar panels on top, and would allow people to do research just 50 kilometers above the surface of the planet.

Most everyone knows that NASA wants to send people to Mars, that planet also gets most of the press. Mars is attractive because it looks more like Earth and is relatively close to us.

The surface of Venus on the other hand, though slightly closer, is not so attractive, with temperatures that can melt lead and atmospheric pressure 92 times that of Earth.

There's also that thick carbon dioxide atmosphere with sulphuric acid clouds, lots of earthquakes, volcanoes going off and terrifying lightning bolts.

Perhaps humans could ride through the upper atmosphere of Venus in a solar-powered airship. Dale Arney and Chris Jones, from Nasa's Space Analysis Branch, propose that it may make sense to go to Venus before we ever send humans to Mars.

So, why would anyone rather go to Venus than Mars? Because of far lower radiation and much better solar energy.

No one wants to go the surface of Venus, at least not anytime soon, instead, researchers at NASA are looking into the possibility of sending people to hover in the sky above the planet, conducting research in a far less dangerous place than even on the surface of Mars.

At 50 kilometers up, an HAVOC would experience just one atmosphere of atmospheric pressure and temperatures averaging just 75 degrees Celsius, with radiation levels equivalent to those in Canada.

Astronauts on Mars, on the other hand would experience 40 times the amount of radiation typically faced back here on Earth, which suggests they'd have to live deep underground to survive, a problem that scientists have not yet solved.

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NASA Curiosity Rover: Radiation on Mars 'Manageable' for Manned Mission

The risk of radiation exposure is not a show-stopper for a long-term manned mission to Mars, new results from NASA's Curiosity rover suggest.

A mission consisting of a 180-day cruise to Mars, a 500-day stay on the Red Planet and a 180-day return flight to Earth would expose astronauts to a cumulative radiation dose of about 1.01 sieverts, measurements by Curiosity's Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) instrument indicate.

To put that in perspective: The European Space Agency generally limits its astronauts to a total career radiation dose of 1 sievert, which is associated with a 5-percent increase in lifetime fatal cancer risk.

Radiation Assessment Detector

About the size of a small toaster, the Radiation Assessment Detector will look skyward and use a stack of silicon detectors and a crystal of cesium iodide to measure galactic cosmic rays and solar particles that pass through the Martian atmosphere. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI

Student Contest Launches to Aid Private Manned Mission to Mars

An artist's illustration of the Inspiration Mars Foundation's spacecraft for a 2018 mission to Mars by a two-person crew. 

The private Mars mission would be a flyby trip around the Red Planet.

Credit: Inspiration Mars Foundation

A private manned Mars mission may get some help from students on its way to the launch pad in 2018.

A newly announced contest asks students to propose design concepts for the Inspiration Mars mission, a private effort that aims to launch two astronauts on a flyby of the Red Planet in January 2018.

"Inspiration Mars is looking for the most creative ideas from engineers all over the world," Dennis Tito, executive director of the nonprofit Inspiration Mars Foundation, said in a statement Friday (Aug. 16).

"Furthermore, we want to engage the explorers of tomorrow with a real and exciting mission, and demonstrate what a powerful force space exploration can be in inspiring young people to develop their talent," added Tito, a multimillionaire who in 2001 became the first space tourist when he paid his own way to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

"This contest will accomplish both of those objectives."



The competition, which is organized by the nonprofit Mars Society, challenges teams of university students from around the world to design a two-person 2018 Mars flyby mission as cheaply and safely as possible.