Developing Tech That Can Last On Venus
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 15. 06. 2024
- How long can a modern spacecraft last on Venus? How to develop electronics, batteries and other things that can survive these harsh conditions? What could the lifespan of such a mission be? We discuss all that with Dr Tibor Kremic from NASA Glenn Research Center.
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00:00 Intro
01:17 How bad Venus really is
03:27 What it takes to last on Venus
06:40 Chips that can survive on Venus
13:59 Batteries for Venus
18:45 Time-based measurements of Venus
23:03 Moving on the surface of Venus
26:32 Clockwork rovers
30:30 High-temperature solar cells
33:00 Advantages of Venus
42:29 Outro
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You are free to use my work for any purpose you like, just mention me as the source and link back to this video. - VÄda a technologie
As someone who works in a silicon metal foundry, I found it highly interesting that an unwanted byproduct of the reduction process (SiC) is being used in a new way.
The whole concept of clockwork Straandbeest rovers and sensors with mechanical outputs is absolutely brilliant.
Break out the top hats and corsets my fellows. We're going Steampunk to Venus!
IT SURE SOUNDS LIKE THAT IS THE WAY TO HANDLE VENUS LOL
As a materials engineer I found this discussion really fascinating. Thanks Fraser! Also, I'm pretty sure my work laptop runs at temperatures hotter than the surface of Venus. I'd be glad to donate it to NASA for use in any missions there...
This has been one of my favorite interviews yet Fraser. Dr Kremic speaks well, explains well, and is very comfortable to listen to. Thank you again for knocking out these interviews, this was one of the best.
Couldnât agree more! It was delightful to listen to.
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best one for dumb,voting,ignorant ,public school zombie cnts
But he couldn't explain the battery chemistry
One of my absolute favorite things that happens in these interviews is when Frasier asks a question and the person responds, "Oh, that's a really good question!"
Your audio is amazingly clear, and just perfect. Not sure if anyone else noticed, so I just wanted to say thanks.
when discussing this and other engineering topics , especially to do with planetary explorations, it's always helpful to emphasise the concept of "first-principles thinking" especially about those things that viewers may take for granted like electronics, power and thermal systems. never talk down to an audience you are trying to teach. emphasis the concepts of "first principles" and "critical thinking" by name. as these are the foundation of good / real, science and engineering. now more than ever we need to propagate the practice of true science and creative engineering.
Very good interview! Iâm an electronic engineer, so this conversation made me very curious about what they are developing, and how. They are probably working on reinventing electronics with completely different materials, able to stand such a harsh environment. Applications for that are not only in Venus. I do industrial automation and keeping electronics clean and cool in many machines require considerable design effort, power, and maintenance. Specially considering how delicate modern electronics has become. So the industry would benefit a lot from such tech. đđ»đđ»đđ»đđ»đđ»
Yeah, I'm sure there are countless applications on Earth that could benefit from electronics and batteries that can handle high temperatures.
@@frasercain tremendously insightful and interesting interview!
Just on foundries and cracking towers, the savings would be insane!
And a secondary payoff would be the next corona riding solar probe.
Just two things that popped up immediately to mind and dozens of more applications following.
CO2 at those temperatures and pressures is flat out evil as a corrosive substance! So, any contributions in operating under those conditions would at least halve the costs of such processes on earth.
Although, silicon and carbon are a bit hard to find on earth, nearly as hard to find as nitrogen. ;)
Yeah, most of the planet and well, most of our atmosphere. Which makes me wonder where Venus' nitrogen went...
Venera 1 (1961): First spacecraft to fly by Venus, but lost contact before reaching the planet.
Venera 2 (1965): Also flew by Venus, but lost contact before reaching the planet.
Venera 3 (1965): First spacecraft to land on another planet, but contact was lost soon after landing.
Venera 4 (1967): First successful atmospheric probe, measured temperature, pressure, and composition of Venus' atmosphere during descent.
Venera 5 (1969): Similar to Venera 4, but also included an instrument to measure the cloud particle distribution.
Venera 6 (1969): Similar to Venera 5, but with a different landing mechanism.
Venera 7 (1970): First successful landing on Venus, measured temperature, pressure, and composition of the atmosphere, transmitted data for about 23 minutes.
Venera 8 (1972): Similar to Venera 7, but with a longer-lived battery and more sophisticated instruments, transmitted data for about 50 minutes.
Venera 9 (1975): First mission to return images from the surface of Venus, transmitted data for about 53 minutes.
Venera 10 (1975): Similar to Venera 9, transmitted data for about 65 minutes.
Venera 11 (1978): Atmospheric probe, measured temperature, pressure, and composition of the atmosphere, transmitted data for about 95 minutes.
Venera 12 (1978): Similar to Venera 11, transmitted data for about 110 minutes.
Venera 13 (1982): Landed near Venus' equator, returned the first color images from the surface, transmitted data for about 127 minutes.
Venera 14 (1982): Similar to Venera 13, landed a few hundred kilometers away, transmitted data for about 57 minutes.
Vega 1 (1985): Joint Soviet-European mission, included a lander and an atmospheric balloon, transmitted data for about 56 minutes.
Vega 2 (1985): Similar to Vega 1, transmitted data for about 80 minutes.
Thanks for the synopsis, what the Soviets did was really impressive. You can see the progression of engineering as they learned more about the environment.
Cool, never knew there were so many probes send.
Those Pyro batteries sound like something with a suspiciously missile like application. "Government and industry" usually means Raytheon and the Air Force.
I loved when you were asking about purely mechanical solutions and he said that even if you could gather information, you would need to beam it up to a satellite and that would still take electronics. He was somewhat taken aback by your description of doing that mechanically too. The bit rate is pretty small though.
It would be interesting to have weather balloons to explore Venusian clouds and could deploy retractable drones.
In my layperson's opinion we should focus on this! Imagine the majestic scenes of enormous planetary cloud banks the drones could get. Shouldn't it also be easier? Add some small turbines or solar to extract energy along with a small spent nuclear fuel source for long-term power. How challenging would it be to make an adjustable ballast that can ascend or descend depending on acid rain content or atmospheric pressure?
@@marcomoreno6748 THEY ARE GOING TO DO THAT EVENTUALLY. AND ORBITERS TOO IN THE NEAR TERM. THEY NEED TO KNOW THE WEATHER BETTER BEFORE THEY TRY BALLOON DIRGIBLES. THIS GUY IS WORKING ON THE LANDER.
ALSO A DIRGIBLE WOULD STILL NEED TO DEAL WITH SULFURIC ACID CLOUDS. YIKES.
@@meesalikeu it does behave a little better than on earth, as there is no water to react with one's spacecraft with the acid. As a hint, a car battery has around 38% sulfuric acid to 62% water, the electrolyte isn't very effective without the water and just concentrated acid.
For a manned craft, I'd yikes more over a methane atmosphere, as if any leaks inside the ship, you've got basically natural gas with no odor mixing with oxygen and that can swiftly equal an earth shattering kaboom. One would smell sulfur compounds and neutralizing the acid is fairly easy.
Boy what an exciting era of exploration a focus on Venus would be! Hope we can make something that intensely resilient.
My goodness... How have I been a self proclaimed curious individual for so many years and yet, I only found my way to your channel today. Instant sub, what great content and your an excellent interviewer!
Bill Gates introduced the Ambri liquid metal battery. The calcium alloy anode is 500°C and the molten salt electrolyte is 801°C. The cathode is made of solid antimony particles. Given Venus' surface temperature of 460°C this battery would require *additional* heat to function.
Excellent! A different combination of materials would operate at different temperatures. We'd optimize for performance and mass.
It would have been cool if they discussed a balloon concept ( completely feesable at higher elevations) that could drop either a tethered probe or an independent probe , or any combination of.
Nitrogen would be an effective lifting gas for Venus as well.
Ooh you asked good questions, and he explains so well. Very interesting technology, good job guysđ
Awesome guest, awesome interview. Thank you Fraser.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Stay off social media, and stick to exploring Venus. Conditions on Venus are a lot less hostile.
Lmao
Either way thereâs lots of free energy not being taken advantage of my friend đâ€ïž
Just watch out for those "Venereal" diseases...
Edit. Also, don't forget the sunscreen and the Ray Bans.
I'll be going to Mars, to get more candy bars.
đŻ
Your podcasts are always so informative and interesting, and the mystery of Venus is fascinating. Thanks for touching on this topic, Fraser. This was a very interesting discussion to listen to!
I really enjoyed this video! It got me excited for the new Venus missions!
Great interview! I love Dr. Kremic's enthusiasm for the many challenges. Lots of food for thought here, and quite a bit of dream fuel too.
GaN (gallium nitride) is used now for power semiconductors, it's one reason power supplies and chargers got a lot smaller and lighter (and more efficient) a few years ago. Researchers have pushed it as high as 900C operating temperature. They're not building EPYC or Xeon in GaN, Si is easier to work with and well understood, but you could probably fab simple 8 or 16 bit CPUs running at hundreds of MHz, which I think need only a few thousand transistors. That would be sufficient too send up images and accept remote control signals from a mothership satellite with the big computers.
Great interview!đ
Thank you!
Thank you for an amazing interview! đđđ
Could you use the temperature gradient across a junction caused by wind over one side with static atmosphere on the other side? Does venus have a wind chill factor? At 500C surface temps the gradient could be large enough to generate enough power to charge a battery.
That was super interesting! Thanks to everyone that made it happen!
Thanks for the incredible interviews, Fraser!
Fraser is super professional, he's an incredible interviewer, you can tell his guests are impressed with his questions......Pretty Pro for a Science Communicator super cool
This was very neat learning about the new High Temp chips. As an Electronics Tech in the oil patch our tools were only rated for 200c, but typically we could get about 250c. This was pre 1989 before the wall fell down, because within about 3 or 4 years it was hard to find military grade chips rated for 200c.
Such a fantastic interview!! Thank you so much for this content =)
Hey Fraser, many thanks for this interview. It's been one of the most exiting ones I've watched to date (and I watch pretty much all of them). I'm not sure if I understood what information we can ultimately expect to get from the surface of Venus based on the kind of technology that's suggested. I think I understand that the chips have to be far more robust, and that will translate into less capability compared to off the shelf chips that are used on other planetary probes. Any chance that you can expand on this in your next Q & A?
Excellent. Fascinating. Realize never thought about some of these issues when reading about results in past
Thank you Fraser, team and various interviewees for these insightful topic-specific interviews!
I'm quite excited about Venus because it's one of Earth's neighbouring bodies as the Moon and Mars are but different from both bodies, with its thick atmosphere, volcanic activity among other unique features, some of which it shares more with Earth. I liked the point you raised about efforts on exoplanets and I hope that also spurs more missions to neighbouring Venus.
Also on a community level I'm curious if there's any Venus society of similar size to The Mars Society?
That was a great interview, thanks so much. Between the two of you, you asked all the right questions, and his answers were clear and precise without the usual teck talk. I am curious about one thing that you did not discuss.Why couldn't a Venus lander use a power system like the perseverance lander on mars?. Both of you were awesome. Again thank you.
Isn't that an RTG? There are some designs to do that. They're a lot less efficient than on Mars, because for a heat engine to work, you need a cold sink.
â@@b43xoitSeversl users have mentioned dropping a tethered probe from a low altitude balloon and using elevation+windchill to provide the heat gradient.
I understand that the electronics aren't going to be super powerful, but I guarantee it can run DOOM... on the surface of Venus.
That'll be one of the first applications they develop for it, no question.
And then the AI will get to its Angry Birds phase of office productivity, then you're on a slippery slope to flaming balls of sulphuric lead raining down upon us from giant Venusian slingshots. đ€š
@@3p1cand3rs0n What's Angry Birds? ;-) (J/K)
DOOM is the perfect game to be run on Venus. Even more so than on Mars
Thats actually a great point. The first person to play DOOM on Mars will be a legend. Playing a game in its original setting
Canât wait for the upcoming missions!
Super, super interesting! Thank you! It was a real pleasure again to listen to two people thinking through really great ideas.
Another great interview. You always ask the questions I want to ask. :D
After hearing about how we would need multiple different craft, aerial balloons and surface based platforms and the need for a comprehensive approach to truly get the full picture in terms of Venus science its absolutely bewildering then that NASA recently rejected the recommendations of the 2023 Planetary Decadal to focus on destinations over missions, yet NASA retains a dedicated Mars Exploration Program established in the 90's. Where's the Venus Exploration Program that isn't just competing for decades for a chance to get picked on discovery/new frontiers?
I wonder if aerodynamics would be important on this mission, since the air psi is so high? Is it like being underwater? Great interview, as usual!
Great interview. Great show in general. Big thanks to you Frasier.
I always thought the sulfur rich atmosphere could be used for electric production. I pictured rods coated in reactive chemical being introduced to atmosphere in order to produce small amounts of power for circuitry. I guess it wouldn't be much use for machinery.
Thanks again, you're a great interviewer kept me rapt.
Great interview Felix. Keep up the great work.
I'd love to see a city to city hackathon tour that invites, anyone to work on difficult challenges and inspire innovators to solve these problems. It can also help bring awareness to less known problems such as chemistry obstacles.
yes that would be incredible
The issue with silicon at a high temperature is the band gap gets squeezed to the point that it becomes conductive at all times, negating itâs use as a semiconductor. The SiC band gap at high temps pushes it into the range of Si at terrestrial temps
Does doping the SiC with other elements to control the flow of electrons work the same way as it does with silicon?
@@sheldoniusRex yes, just like all semiconductor materials, doping the crystal lattice with P or N dopants will lower or raise the valence and conductive bands of the semiconductor respectively.
Super guest. Super episode. Thank you from Austria.
Great questions. Covered very well
Something interesting about Venus is that it rains sulfuric acid on Venus. Of course it vaporizes before Hitting the surface.
But still, itâs liquid rain. Which also means itâs only one out of 3 terrestrial bodies in our solar system that actually have rain. (The other two are earth and titan)
If they chose a wind generator for power, would harnessing surface heat convection be faster/stronger than side wind?
On the battery side, an early Norwegian electric car had a Zebra battery, it's some sort of molten salt that is happy at 300 C but that might be the minimum temperature rather than the maximum since keeping it at that temperature was the problem in a car.
On the Venera probes, from what I read it was not so much the heat seeping in that was the problem, rather that they couldn't reject the heat from the electronics on board so that the probes basically cooked themselves from the inside. Now, with low power electronics like a cell phone, a lander could probably survive quite a long time. A cell phone putting out 2W would take 2 Earth days to melt 1 kg of ice.
Amaaaaaazing interview!!!
Really great interview as always đ Venus is fascinating.
One question: How could you land on Venus in this thick atmosphere? I mean.. would it be possible to kind of swim down? The pressure is so high, that the atmosphere behaves like a liquid. Or am I wrong?
23:52 "⊠the hardest problem with rovers on the surface of Venus is power systems âŠ"
Yes. Exactly that.
Dynamic soaring might be a potential energy source no one thinks about.
For high power: Beside very difficultsuperhot nuclear (not RTGs). I only see sending down energy as an option. Radio or physical storages. Problem is drift of sattellites and balloons. Poles might work for balloons.
I'd love to see a NASA engineered ice cube đ§ Thermos battery system. The melt water could cool down electronics before being stored as steam for power, both mechanical and electrical.
A great interview thanks for sharing.
It could have been interesting to ask him to explain the differences between using SiC or something like Diamond electronics
great interview. so relaxed and conversational. one question I don't think was asked: when will the next venus probe be launched ?
Would it be possible to have a ballon flying in a safe zone above ground and have sensor packages hanging in a cable down towards the surface? Just that could perhaps save some electronics. If the cable can be rolled up to safe altitudes to cool down the electronics in the sensors before the next dip down then thst would be even better.
Possible but not very practicall , room temperature for venus atmosphere is at 50/55 km above ground, imagine how hard would be to send down a probe 50 km from a balloon floating in the upper atmosphere of venus, that would be not ten times harder than probing the ocean floor for 5 km above, but 100 times more at least, and the advantages would be slims, because would be more cheaper to drop a probe that would measure the parameters than dipping a probe and lifting back before its backed .
Great interview, very interesting
This is interesting to see development work on this. I remember talking about this stuff years ago with various ideas I had. Some things to add:
1. I have to wonder how well NaS (Sodium Sulfur) batteries would natively work on the surface of Venus? All of that pressure should increase the boiling point greatly. NaS batteries are very high density batteries that are very hot, molten batteries with durability ratings high enough to be used for grid storage by countries like Japan. On Earth these are run at marginally lower temperatures than what is found on the surface of Venus, but Venus has much higher pressures, which should change what would work well.
2. One thing not mentioned directly is putting a seismograph on Venus. While it would be hard to build one like we stuck on Mars not that long ago, I think we should be able to pepper the planet with a number of less sophisticated ones and then have them say wind powered with battery backup.
3. When it comes to electronics, I think it is important to point out that we have been sending probes to Venus since 1962. Electronics were a lot less advanced back then. The better you can make electronics that natively on Venus, the better, but I think it is important to point out that you can do a lot with very little. I thought I read somewhere they made a radio that can natively work on the surface of Venus. So this whole "how do I send the data back up" problem has been solved. It is not going to be a fancy 5G cellular signal going back or anything of the sort, but more like a basic digital radio you can set to a frequency band and start transmitting and receiving data. You can do a lot with that and it is certainly better than a spark gap radio. Spacecraft with modern advanced electronics in orbit around Venus could be the middleman talking with probes on the Venusian surface and sending the data back to Earth.
4. I have to wonder if you can with a lifting gas to help while considering the density of things with the surface pressure of Venus build an ocean glider type deal where you have an aerodynamic wedge that changes its buoyancy to glide up and down near the surface of Venus? The idea being have some control over where you go and maintain the ability to stay near Venus' surface?
5. A short lived idea I had a while back was to do a rocket turbo-prop aircraft that is built more like a torpedo to go through the thick atmosphere near the surface. The idea going back to if you want a bunch of advanced gear that has a short life near the surface, use a rocket turbo-prop to fly around near the surface and do that short duration mission while trying to maximize what you do with that equipment before it perishes. As we have spent so very little time below the clouds on Venus, this seemed like a next step idea to gather a lot more data quickly and would help inform to better calibrate future missions to the surface. Another take I have had on this is maybe use a lithium-air battery and boil liquid oxygen to feed the lithium-air battery. So the liquid oxygen is your coolant, which is important on Venus and also what you are using to run the lithium-air battery that powers the motor that runs the prop. Lithium-air batteries have a very high energy density and seeing this is a one way early scout trip I am talking about, the battery is only going to be used once.
One thing that I didn't get about just how strange the surface of Venus is was finding out that at the pressure and temperature at the surface, CO2 (the predominant atmospheric gas) is a *SUPERCRITICAL FLUID*. The "air" just gradually gets thicker until it's a form of liquid. No transition line like Earth's "air to water boundary" at the ocean surface. Just thicker and thicker air until you're basically swimming.
I'd love to see a week long home show, like venue with multiple vendors, paying booth space to show ase Venus related themes, ideas, and give lectures on stage. Each research group, school groups, entrepreneurs, and other groups entertaining visitors. The show would tour multiple cities across the nation to educate, network, and inspire.
Also, hackathons would serve as a good primer to monetize a Venus bound venture and spur more interest.
Great interview đđđ
What a great subject for a video.
Very interesting interview.
I am MOST excited about a trip to Venusđ
It didn't occur to me that you could use batteries/electronics tailor-made to function at very high temperatures. Conventional electronics/power supplies could not be protected by insulation beyond a few hours at most.
Ben Bova's Venus always had some cool ideas for both exotic and low tech solutions for exploring Venus.
These interviews are too fantastic. Must come back for another watch soon. These are not regular conversations.
You know it's hot when heat sinks are right out the window!!!
I'm also curious about circuit boards and the various conductors required to get all this to work!
I like the mechanical clockwork rover idea a lot as well as windmill power generation!
Great talk!
Fascinating! I was wondering if something like an aluminium/air battery would work, to actually take advantage of the chemical potential of the corrosive atmosphere? It would dramatically reduce weight if feasible, because Venus would be providing half of the chemistry.
Good interview.
What would the Venera spacecraft look like now? Obviously theyâre not functional, but do they look the same? If we sent another lander that landed right next to one of them, would we even recognize it? Would the atmosphere have eaten through the metal? Did it melt?
Maybe a way could be to build a platform that floats in the upper atmosphere then tethers itself to the surface to lower down a probe that can withstand the pressure and is cooled thanks to the platform up there so it can continue down there for a long period of time.
You both have the coolest jobs in the world and I love that for you :D
A-lot of people on this thread are confusing the uniform high temperature of the surface with free energy. You need something cold to extract useful energy from heat. Generators need a temperature gradient to work which is what the surface of Venus doesnât have. So it is hard there are no easy answers here.
26:15 That's exactly what I was thinking. The data you collect in the first mission will help make sure the next mission is perfectly designed for the environment.
So this interview got me thinking about how to effectively probe in the soil or rock. Has it been considered to use a high velocity impactor(maybe with a delayed explosive device) to expose deeper layers or study the ejecta scattered on the surface immediately following the impact? Basically creating your own meteor crater.
Great interview, there is just this painful part, where the guest does not understand your question about possible benefits of the venus enviroirment from an engniering perspactive and instead starts to rectify the mission in itself..
Thanks. Strandbeests on Venus! As we try to explore the neighborhood, we learn what our shortcomings really are. This will help us. We'll also learn when high-tech works, and when to go old school. Anyone who doesn't think this benefits all humans doesn't understand how science & technology work. tavi.
Good stuff Doc, but I couldn't help but notice the similarities with the character played (very well) by William Bruce Davis lol early days obviously
great Episode
This is good stuff.
Listening to the part on power usage and keeping a measure on TIME over time i was thinking thermoelctric generation.
For some reason and sadly, the Soviets had continuing issues with lens caps.
good stuff!
Amazing!
Excellent topic!
Thanks for watching.
I wonder if the Venus power groups have thought of generating thermoelectric power from the temperature differences between the surface and a tethered balloon high above it.
Thanks for the interview. A few questions pop up for me. 1) Can this high temp high pressure technology be used anywhere else? 2) Can any form of air conditioning be used? I am sure this would be nearly impossible with a compressor/evaporator set up. 3) Is the atmosphere hard on radio communications? Like, is it ionized? I suppose the Soviets were able to get around it. 4) Will stainless steel be the right metal to use? Or is there something better to deal with the sulfuric acid. Thanks.
I have seen a design that uses a refrigerator. But it's for much shorter duration than was being discussed here, I think.
Understanding some very different celestial bodies in our solar system will help to interprete what we will see on extrasolar planets. We will have much more understanding how different models of planetary development may work. This will further help to search for life out there when we have learned on what diffenrent circumstances this may come to existence.
amazing inventions.
mechanical thermometer...
wind sail...
openable door... yea, cool very innovative
He said keeping track of time uses alot of battery energy ..try a wound spring clock ..with a 60 day duration slow release spring
The multi level platform floating base and probe combo IS right approach
Very cool stuff! No pun intended
i subscribed because youre a good sport
Great talk. Absolutely fantastic job. It is like the first divers with oxygen, a new world, visiting almost the first time. The russians were the only ones who successfully visit the place, and it is so sad that they are not using their talent only on those things.
I've wondered if 'flow batteries' could be used for the power source?
Could we seed Venus with a longer term weather network of probes spread out like a Spacex Starlink grid but fixed to the planet.? To get more system samples. Would many small probes be better than a single probe?