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#1 2023-12-26 13:10:41

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,267

The Rockoon or Stratosphere-Launch for Titan, Venus, Neptune

Juno is at Jupiter, NASA the ESA are going to Jupiter with two missions or doing more outer planet missions, China is look at Jupiter or the Outer Planets.

Titan exploration is again being considered.Titan's has a similar troposphere-stratosphere-mesosphere pattern like Earth, but much colder with a more extended atmosphere, because of the weaker gravity, and you will have to deal with lower temperatures. Venus has a more alien atmosphere, very hot with parts that experience Atmospheric super-rotation a phenomenon where a planet 's atmosphere rotates faster than the planet itself, although atmospheric super-rotation has also been observed on Titan. The densest part of the Venus atmosphere, the troposphere, begins at the surface and extends upwards to 65 km. Measurements by the Magellan and Venus Express probes show altitude from 52.5 to 54 km has a temperature between 293 K (20 °C) and 310 K (37 °C), and the altitude at 49.5 km above the surface is where the pressure becomes the same as Earth at sea, for a future Space Balloon Village or Cloud city, anywhere from about 50 to 54 km or so above the surface would be the easiest altitude in which to base an exploration or colony. Data from the Japan Venus Akatsuki orbiter a feature similar to Earth jet stream winds in the low and middle cloud regions, Venus might not have a stratosphere but an extended Troposphere but then a mesosphere from 65 km to 120 km in height, and the thermosphere, its ionosphere almost coincides with the thermosphere, Venus has surface pressure 93 bar or 1,350 psi and Titan more Earth like at 1.5 bars 147 kPa or 21.75 psi

Dragonfly a planned spacecraft and NASA mission to send a robotic rotorcraft to fly around of Titan.

Nuclear-Powered Leap to Titan: NASA’s 2028 Dragonfly Drone Mission
https://scitechdaily.com/nuclear-powere … e-mission/

Atmosphere of Titan, 1.5 bars (147 kPa)
https://www.planetary.org/space-images/ … atmosphere
,
https://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Image … re_profile

some past ideas

HYDROGEN-FILLED TITAN AEROBOTBALLOON SYSTEM (TABS) –DESIGN AND FEASIBILITY
https://web.archive.org/web/20210119150 … _Esper.pdf

India has stated interest in Venus Missions.
https://epaper.thehindu.com/ccidist-ws/ … P4H.1.html
Neptune has a surface gravity of 11.15 m/s² or 1.14 g (1.14 times the surface gravity on earth

The unexpected temperature profile of Venus’s atmosphere
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration … atmosphere

Venus temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 °F), and the pressure is 93 bar (1,350 psi) the troposphere on Venus contains 99% of the atmosphere by mass. 90% of the atmosphere of Venus is within 28 km (17.5 mi) of the surface. According to measurements by the Magellan and Venus Express probes, the altitude from 52.5 to 54 km has a temperature between 293 K (20 °C) and 310 K (37 °C), and the altitude at 49.5 km above the surface is where the pressure becomes the same as Earth at sea level
https://web.archive.org/web/20080205025 … 918vpt.htm

Some people thinking of a Balloon Village or Cloud-City on Venus,  from about 50 to 54 km or so above the surface would be the easiest altitude in which to base an exploration or colony, where the temperature would be in the crucial "liquid water" range of 273 K (0 °C) to 323 K (50 °C) and the air pressure the same as habitable regions of Earth.


This comment from Tahanson on Submarines got me thinking on a concept but perhaps others have already thought of it. 

tahanson43206 wrote:

To ** really ** stretch the concept ... in planets with thick gaseous atmosphere, a probe might be thought of as "swimming" rather than "flying"

I'm thinking of Neptune, Jupiter and Saturn but there may be other candidates.

A submarine probe might be a better fit in those sites, than a traditional balloon, doe to the pressure.

(th)

Let's assume we have enough power maybe a Nuclear Orbiter and let us assume we have great 'intelligent' robots to help us get a mission done. It would be smarter to just analyze Neptune from orbit or taking a sample from Neptune perhaps could be done by dropping a long cable a type of space elevator tether materials but if we were to go down and fly or swing or float in the atmosphere could we get a sample back out?

Some background and what happened already some time ago in commercial flight and a background on other spaceflight feats, after the break up of the USSR the Russians tried to convert some SLBMs into launch vehicles, relations were better people were buying tourist flights from Russians and the Planetary Society even tried have a solar sail satellite named Cosmos 1 into space, but the Volna launch vehicle failed to reach orbit. Today sanctions are on Russian are Putin's imperialism and invasion of Ukraine. People have also considered launching a rocket from a Balloon as crazy as that seems, the concept was considered by James A. Van Allen and other respected engineers in the US Navy, there were lots and lots of variables, unpredictable weather, an uncertain launch location and unpiloted balloons cannot be steered however today we have robotics, satellite navigation and AI advancements and faster computing. The American company Deimos-One claims it will have AI assisted concept to launch rockets on a Balloon and carry satellites to low Earth orbit.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stealth- … 00720.html
'StratoLaunch' topic
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=7480

the original Shuttle was going to be designed to be a small Shuttle that would piggy back on a larger Spaceplane, the Shuttle would first be lifted by the Spaceplane and then itself go to orbit this was part of the Rockwell/General Dynamics original design, time and money made NASA go with the STS system, Lockheed also had a Reusable Orbital Carrier study, there was also a DC-3 booster plane with an orbiter aircraft lifting off the back of the larger Spaceplane by stage separation, here is a website called 'secret projects'.
This info is not a secret its already out in public but only difficult to find
North American Rockwell/General Dynamics Phase B Shuttle specs
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/thread … pecs.6204/
The most famous of air-launched orbital rockets, Spaceplanes or capsules might be Burt's Scaled Composites and Spaceplane designs Virgin Galactic now used by Virgin Galactic. Air launching on Earth has mostly been developed for sub-orbital spaceflight.


Gas giants are thought not to have a surface but a mix of hot and cold air which gets denser and hotter becoming hot soupy mix of something not solid, not liquid and not 'gas' so instead define the "surface" of a gas planet as the area where the 'air' is the same pressure as Earth. Here are escape velocities for worlds of the Solar system The escape velocity of the Moon Titan is 9,507 km/h or 2.6 km/s Venus 10.3 km/s  Uranus atmosphere sample 21.3 km/s Neptune: 23.8 km/s Saturn atmosphere sample 35.6 km/s Sometimes scientists refer to a different thing when describing 'The Surface' they mean a Gas giants optical depth or the 2/3-surface the altitude from which photons of light can easily escape and go out into space freely, when calculating the escape velocity vₑ = √(2GM/R) In theory 'Air Launch' means you have less atmosphere to push through, and propellant can be conserved because the air-breathing or buoyant lifting carrier aircraft lifts the rocket to altitude much more efficiently, none of this has been achieved easily on Earth perhaps Titan or another offworld place explored would offer a more favorable condition.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-12-26 14:19:00)

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