Venusian Space Program

[Michel Van]

If Venus has any plate tectonics similar to that of Earth
the Magellan probe scanned Venus surface with resolution of 200 meter
A Synthetic Aperture Radar with resolution of 20 meter in combination of ground targets (probes) would provide clarification on that.

For cooler Venus, i got a idea: Ring around Venus
it could reflect sunlight and cast shadow over planet cooling it down
The ring would be out silicates, instead of ice like Saturn rings.
only problem to work right, Venus need axial tilt similar to Earth 23.43° but its 2.64°.

 

[robertsconley]

(1) What would the space program look like post-Apollo;

It would look more like the Soviet Space Station program of the 70s. With a emphasis on long term stays, orbital construction, unmanned cargo transport and orbital fuel depots.

When would it be realistically possible (if ever) to send a manned mission to Venus that wasn't a one-way trip?

Yes, however the only thing that would be a apollo style program is a venus flyby which is possible with Apollo technology.

The following on program would be setup like a siege style expedition with depots and supplies stationed in earth orbit and venus orbit along with orbital construction in venus orbit.

Along with this would be the development of in-situ manufacting of fuel and consumable starting with lunar exploitation (because of the shallow gravity well) then what needed to lift off from the surface of Venus.

Objective of this would be a orbital complex in Venus orbit to allow expedition to assess long term human habitability of Venus.

My feeling is that the Soviet would be the first to establish an actual colony using "forced" labor i.e. the colonists have been ordered for the good of the state to live there. However they would bankrupt themselves in doing so probably bringing about the Soviet collapse a decade or half-decade earlier.

The United States and allies would go for Antarctica style expeditions. Like Antarctica there would be a military presence in a support capacity.

The wild card would be on commercial development of space. While the Soviets would have the edge in establishing the first colony. The United States and it allies would have a more sustainable path due to capitalism.

The reason for this is that people will try to profit from regular orbital access. Regular orbital access is always been the fly in the ointment for development of space on a mass scale. With a inhabitable Venus there will be something else other than international prestige that the various electorates of the west be inspired by. The continued rivalry with the Soviets it just icing on the cake.

If commercial space development takes hold then Venus has a chance to be opened up to further development. However the west may choke this by layering bureaucracy fueled by the interests of the old guard rocket companies allied with people sympathetic with the ideals of anything above the atmosphere has to be done for the good of all mankind. But the primary factor will be the race between the old guard to monopolize space and the new guard that want to do... well a lot of things including undercutting the "old guard" prices they charge for building rockets.

As for technology, you either have fast or slow development. Until the computer revolution takes hold in the 80s and 90s, you either go with chemical which gets you their slow, or nuclear which gets you there fast. Since the manned Venus hardware will be built in the 70s, does it get done and proven before the public goes negative on nuclear power or is it still being worked on when opinion does turn negative.

If Nuclear drives are proven before that then you can use the fast path to Venus development. However if you are stuck with chemical then it is the slow path.

Both will have fuel depots, orbital construction, and in-situ explotiation. BUt will look very different in terms how the program is paced. With chemical you can develop as fast as Nuclear except you have to establish a "pipeline" of schelduled launched to keep up the flow of supplies and personnel. It may be too expensive to do that many launches but remember the primary cost for space program is maintaining the fixed infrastructure. The actual launches are far cheaper so the more launches you have the less it cost per pound to get something to the surface of Venus. Another downside is that with more launches you have more chances of accidents which look bad. It may be that space will be considered routine in which case an accident is not as bad public support wise as Challenger and Columbia were.

With Nuclear, you have a lot more flexibility and do specific project with fewer launches due to the increased number of launch windows.

Also if Venus is inhabitable then it has life, which means that when genetic engineering and biotech starts taking off in the 80s and 90s the planet will have the equivalent of gold for this industry.

The thing to consider is whether all the interest and difficulties will allow for a manned Venus program to exist to that point. Because after people realize how valuable a planet full of life from another evolutionary path then there will be enormous pressure to exploit it.

Remember we do exploit space in the 21st century but every area we do so has obvious commercial impact like weather, earth sensing, and telecommunication. Manned space program is behind because there no commercial reason that a manned presence is needed. With a Venus full of lifeform needing to found and evaluated for suddenly there is a very good reason why people need to be on the surface of Venus.

 

[robertsconley]

This is my opinion on how it would play out.

1) Venus is found to be a life-bearing planet.

2) The race for US vs. Soviet to be first on the moon play out. The United States will unfold like our own history, the Soviets will be more serious about the effort than our own history to the point there will probably be some actual manned Soviet flights to the moon, maybe even a landing. But due the how the Soviet space program is structured it will obviously be a second place what the United States is capable of.

1970

3) The United States has a serious Apollo Applications program. The Space Shuttle is approved as well. This includes a Venus flyby using Apollo hardware.
The Soviet are behind but begin to catch up through a well developed space station program.

1975

4) The United States get bogged down in Space Shuttle Development and NERVA drive development. However using Apollo hardware it getting experience with a series of Skylabs and Moonlabs.

It is obvious that Soviets will in 5 years will not only be able to fly by Venus but put a orbital presence.

Then Three mile Island hits and NERVA gets shut down. United States regroups and opts for all-chemical approach to Venus.

The first unmanned US and Soviet Venus sample return mission are completed by this point.

1980
United States all-chemical program is on-track but behind the Soviets.

The Soviets place a space station in Venus orbit and begin extensive research along with preparation for a manned Venus landing.

1985
The Soviet Union economy collapse and the event of the late 80s plays out five years earlier. This is due to the added strains of a space program many times larger than OTL.

The manned Venus program by the United States is not a priority. But in the wake of the Soviet collapse it is transformed into a international effort. However the pace slows down considerably.

1990
A International Venus Station is established in Venus orbit using a combination of Europeans, American, and Russian hardware.

The first regular tourist flights to Earth Orbit has been established.

1995
While a manned Venus landing hasn't occurred yet, there a program of regular sample returns to the IVS. It becomes apparent that Venus is a treasure trove of bio-resources.

Tourist flights has reached Lunar orbit. Plans are in place for a modest series of manned research expeditions to the lunar surface using hardware developed for tourism.

2000
An International effort for a series of manned Venus landings is underway. Basically Venus landers will be constructed in Venus orbit from parts shipped form Earth, Venus ascent vehicles (VAV) will be fueled on the Venusian surface. Other than proving the technology the purpose of each of the five landings will be to undertake a detailed survey of Venus' ecology and assess it value.

Meanwhile tourism continues in the earth-moon system which get steadily cheaper as a robust fuel depot and lunar resource processing gets established. There are even a handful of stations and sites who declared themselves as a colony but are obviously very dependent on regular supply from earth.

There are plans for a Mars flyby and a Mars orbital by private interests.

2005
The manned Venus landing begin.

Private interests are still planning for a Mars flyby. Tourism continues but tapers off as the market becomes saturated. The risks are well understood by this point and it now considered more as a dangerous high adventure than a path for sustainable development.

The first Ion Drives are tested for manned space craft.

2010

The first ion drive driven spacecraft are used in the Earth Venus run allow for a more flexible launch schedule using a variety of continuous thrust profiles between Earth and Venus.

How it goes from here depends what is found on Venus.

 

[robertsconley]

T
That launch window to Venus is a good one. I'm not sure how often launch windows open to Venus - every year, or perhaps two? (A lot of the early Soviet Venera craft were launched a couple of years apart, but I don't know whether that was because of launch windows or because of the need to build new suitable probes). It fits quite nicely with the first manned fly-by of Venus, although probably too early to get a manned landing. If the Mars Excursion Module can be made to work, and if both its stages were strong enough to reach low orbit, then perhaps a manned mission could follow in another decade or so?

check out this

http://clowder.net/hop/railroad/sched.html


Also you may want to ask some of these technical question to people on the Orbiter Space flight forum

http://orbiter-forum.com

 

[robertsconley]

That makes sense. I can see Apollo 11 and possibly Apollo 12 and even 13 (if the latter doesn't experience the same problems), but at a certain point people would be saying why waste money on stomping around on the Moon when there's this whole other world we're trying to explore?

Well it like Gemini in regards to Apollo, you need to develop the experience landing and exploring another world. Gemini is where NASA learned to manage orbital operations, Apollo will be sold, among other things where NASA learned to land on other worlds.

However I do think that the actual landings will be pared back in favor of Apollo Applications.

Apollo 7 - Earth Orbit Test, 68
Apollo 8 - Lunar Orbit and to beat the Soviets, 68
Apollo 9 - Earth Orbit Test of the LEM, 69
Apollo 10 - Lunar Orbit Test of the LEM, 69
Apollo 11- First Landing, 69
Apollo 12 - First H class landing, 60
Apollo 13 - Second H class landing, 70
Apollo 14 - Third H class landing, 70
Apollo 15 - First J class landing, 70
Apollo 16 - Second J class landing, 71
Skylab 1 - Launch Skylab in wet mode as preparation for Venus Flyby, 71
Skylab 2 - First Extended Stay, 71
Skylab 3 - Second Extended Stay, 71
Apollo 17 - Extended Mission to Very High Earth Orbit testing a complete Venus Flyby configuration and along with reentry at Venus return speed, 72
Skylab 4 - Skylab refurbishment, 72
Skylab 5 - Third Year long Extended Stay, 72
Apollo 18 - Venus Flyby, 73

It also makes sense for the first space station to be earlier. How soon could the U.S. produce a Skylab-equivalent? The Soviets had their own space stations starting in 1971, and possibly they can accelerate those by a year or two - all as part of practice for the real goal: Venus.

MOL could be launched by 70. BUt I don't see that happening. It too limited and unable to be used for a manned Venus mission.

Once Venus is a target for a manned mission the use of a wet mode Saturn IV-B will become the obvious path. OTL Skylab is a Saturn IV-B used in dry mode with the interior already built up.

I think the Moon Landing will still be the first priority for both nation. The main effect of an inhabitable Venus is that the Soviet would put more of a serious effort in getting out to the moon in a manned spacecraft.

 

[robertsconley]

I guess the question is how much each Apollo launch costs,

The actual cost of building the hardware and flying it while not cheap is dwarfed by the infrastructure cost.

Once R&D is done, the primary driver in the cost of a national space program is the cost of the fixed infrastructure. Apollo was looking at having to pay for everything used to support it using two launches a year. The Shuttle, among other things, promised to use the same infrastructure to support anywhere between 12 to 24 flights a year. Of course that not what happened but that how the Shuttle program was sold.

The Soviets worked this way after 1970 is that they were sending up lots of flights from Baikonur. This allowed them to shoehorn a space station launch once every couple of year, a couple of cargo flights, and manned launches two or three times a year.

Now with the Moon landing, both the US and the USSR are going to be building giant ass rockets to do what they need. (Saturn V and the N-1) these same rockets can be used for a manned Venus effort. So the initial production run will be used for their lunar efforts. In OTL we made 20 Saturn Vs, of which we used 18. Technically only one Apollo Landing was cancelled and not used (20). The other two were cancelled (18, & 19) because their rockets were allocated to Skylab. Skylab-A flew, and Skylab-B the backup never did. So we were left with two. Also I believe the ASTP command module was the one going to used for Apollo 20. It started as Apollo 20, then allocated for Skylab rescue during Skylab 3, and then converted for use with ASTP. The rocket for ASTP was a leftover Saturn IB.

Now ITL, you will still have an initial run of Saturn V. That run will determine how many lunar landing you will have in Apollo. The rockets allocated for the landing mission will be divided among regular missions (2 day stay with 2 EVAs) and enhanced missed (3 days stays, 3 EVAs, and the Rove).

Because of inhabitable Venus there will be a 2nd run of Saturan V. Those will be used for a wet Skylab in support of a manned Venus Flyby. If things work out then the rocket held back for backup hardware could be used for a Moonlab or a Skylab B,C or even D. It not part of the main effort but done to use hardware already paid for.

The flyby will be prestige first and science second. There will be parallel effort for a unmanned Venus sample return mission. The science results for both will determine what happened in the third phase.

However I think the Soviet Union collapse will be accelerated by five years by the more intense space race. And like OTL, there will probably be an international effort formed to keep former Soviet Rocket scientists employed. In this case the next setup is to build a International Venus Station in orbit around Venus.

 

[robertsconley]

Here is a list of very rough dates for Hohman transfers to Venus.

Departature                   Angle     Arrival                         Angle
1970.6222	8/15	1970	324	1971.0222	1/9	1971	144
1972.2209	3/21	1972	179	1972.6208	8/14	1972	359
1973.8195	10/26	1973	35	1974.2195	3/21	1974	215
1975.4182	6/1	1975	250	1975.8181	10/25	1975	70
1977.0169	1/7	1977	106	1977.4168	6/1	1977	286
1978.6155	8/12	1978	321	1979.0154	1/6	1979	141
1980.2142	3/19	1980	177	1980.6141	8/12	1980	357
1981.8128	10/23	1981	32	1982.2128	3/18	1982	212
1983.4115	5/30	1983	248	1983.8114	10/23	1983	68
1985.0101	1/4	1985	103	1985.4101	5/29	1985	283
1986.6088	8/10	1986	319	1987.0087	1/4	1987	139
1988.2075	3/16	1988	174	1988.6074	8/9	1988	354
1989.8061	10/21	1989	30	1990.2060	3/16	1990	210
1991.4048	5/27	1991	246	1991.8047	10/20	1991	66
1993.0034	1/2	1993	101	1993.4034	5/27	1993	281
1994.6021	8/7	1994	317	1995.0020	1/1	1995	137
1996.2008	3/14	1996	172	1996.6007	8/7	1996	352
1997.7994	10/18	1997	28	1998.1993	3/13	1998	208
1999.3981	5/25	1999	243	1999.7980	10/18	1999	63
2000.9967	12/30	2000	99	2001.3967	5/24	2001	279
2002.5954	8/5	2002	314	2002.9953	12/29	2002	134
2004.1940	3/11	2004	170	2004.5940	8/4	2004	350
2005.7927	10/16	2005	25	2006.1926	3/11	2006	205
2007.3914	5/22	2007	241	2007.7913	10/16	2007	61
2008.9900	12/27	2008	96	2009.3899	5/22	2009	276
2010.5887	8/3	2010	312	2010.9886	12/27	2010	132
2012.1873	3/9	2012	167	2012.5873	8/2	2012	347
2013.7860	10/14	2013	23	2014.1859	3/8	2014	203
2015.3847	5/20	2015	238	2015.7846	10/13	2015	58
2016.9833	12/25	2016	94	2017.3832	5/19	2017	274
2018.5820	7/31	2018	309	2018.9819	12/24	2018	129
2020.1806	3/6	2020	165	2020.5806	7/31	2020	345

 

[Thande]

I don't have anything to add beyond what has already been posted by others, but I just wanted to say that this sounds like a very interesting concept.

 

[SirKeplan]

Interesting threads, subscribed to both!

These are my thoughts on the Russian side and the N1 rocket. It seems obvious to me that with the prospect of a habitable Venus, there would have been more funding and desire for a Russian heavy lift rocket.

It's worth keeping in mind that the Russian N1 rocket was originally designed for manned flyby missions of Mars (plus lunar orbital missions and space stations ) this was with the earlier design of 75 tonnes payload to LEO. When they decided to attempt to beat the Americans to the moon they modified the design to increase payload to 95 tonnes, this caused a lot of issues with the vehicle. It's conceivable that the Mariner flyby news about Venus could keep manned flybys higher up on the agenda, this would mean there was no need to cripple the N1 design with a higher payload, and could bring the first successful N1 flights into the late 60s.
I can see an N1 launched lunar orbit mission happening, though it would likely be after Apollo 8, they would do this to show the Americans they are still in the game, and as practice for interplanetary missions. They probably wouldn't bother with a lunar landing, and instead would quickly turn to Venus. This would be the real boost for the soviets, they could conceivably launch a Venus flyby craft in the very early 70s, maybe the 1972 launch window.

Following on from that they could have Venus orbital missions in the late 70s utilising multiple N1 launches. The N1 would have been uprated and upgraded by that time with Hydrogen upper stages too.


Read about the TMK and MAVR , the crewed flyby programs designed with the N1 In mind.
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/tmk1.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/mavr.htm

 

[robertsconley]

Interesting threads, subscribed to both!
It's worth keeping in mind that the Russian N1 rocket was originally designed for manned flyby missions of Mars (plus lunar orbital missions and space stations ) this was with the earlier design of 75 tonnes payload to LEO. When they decided to attempt to beat the Americans to the moon they modified the design to increase payload to 95 tonnes, this caused a lot of issues with the vehicle. It's conceivable that the Mariner flyby news about Venus could keep manned flybys higher up on the agenda, this would mean there was no need to cripple the N1 design with a higher payload, and could bring the first successful N1 flights into the late 60s.

The problem is that the rivalry between Glushko, Cheomei, and Korolev isn't butterflied away. So regardless of Mariner's results Korolev goes with a inexperienced engine designer and designs a first stage with 30 separate rocket engines. Given the fact they tried to launch the thing four times and never solved the problems of so many engines working together leads me to conclude that the design itself was flawed. The Soviets need a big ass rocket engine like the Saturn F1 and what was being planned for the UR-700 is their best shot at having something close to that type of engine.

And realize that circa 1962 to 1964 before the results of the Mariner mission to Mars and Venus that most people were already operating with the assumption that Venus and especially Mars could be minimally inhabitable planets. The fact that Mars turned to be more moon-like and Venus a hellhole hothouse were major letdowns.

ITL the only letdown is Mars, and Venus is viewed as "Looking real good". So it hard to make a case that there will major divergence in priorities until the result of Venera 4 came in and electrified the world.

Now I think it would highly likely that Zond, the circum-lunar flyby would be sped up by the results of Venera 4 and succeed. However Zond is a dead-end technology wise. So like the original Kennedy decision to stop trying to match the Soviets in anything that needed heavy life and go for the moon. The Soviet may just bypass the lunar landing and go for a Venus flyby.

Since OTL they launched Salyut 1 by 1971, and Almaz was in development in 1967, it is quite plausible they go all out and figure out how to build a long duration space station/craft for this mission along with a full program of test flights.

If you are interested in doing this you should write up your idea with the N-1 and present it as if something that would be submitted to the Politboro. I plan to do that with my ideas, and then Jared could figure what happens and use our stuff as background color.

 

[SirKeplan]

Just some musings about ascent/descent vehicles for Venus.

Now getting down to the surface should be relatively simple, I’m guessing in the 70s the Soviets and Americans would be testing unmanned capsules on Venus, probably lightly modified Soyuz(or maybe TKS) and Apollo capsules, Apollo would have Airbags or possibly retrorockets to allow it to come down on solid ground, and parachutes would be modified on the capsules for the thicker atmosphere.

Getting off Venus would unfortunately be about as hard as from Earth, orbital velocity and gravity are a bit lower, but there will be losses from the thicker atmosphere, so standard earth launch vehicles should provide a good baseline for working out a design.
Lets work off a basic 2 stage earth LV, the Titan II with the Gemini capsule as an example, fully fuelled weighs 150mt.
Sending this vehicle fully fuelled vehicle to Venus, and then landing it would be stupendously difficult. But if we look at sending a similar 2 stage vehicle to the surface completely empty it becomes a lot more reasonable, massing only around 13mt (that's 2 stages + crew capsule).
The tricky part is then assembling, fuelling and preping this vehicle on the ground, you will need to generate propellant and have some kind of launch pad infrastructure.
This infrastructure would require work to set up. So I think there would have to be landings of brave astronauts/cosmonauts willing to land and prepare the facilities to eventually return to orbit.

Before this infrastructure can be put in place there would be a lot research into effective ISRU(In Situ Resource Utilisation) on Venus, these are the options I can think of.

• Electrolysing water looks at first to be a good way to generate propellants. However handling cryogenics like Hydrogen is tricky enough on Earth, and might not be worth it on Venus, at least not at first. Hydrolox is also poorly suited to the high Thrust requirements for 1st stages.

• Another option with water is the possibility of generation the monopropellant Hydrogen peroxide, but it's abysmal efficiency makes me rule it out.

• A possible option for propellant generation would be the Sabatier reaction, assuming of course you can extract enough CO2 from the atmosphere. you need a certain amount of hydrogen to start off with, but you can get this from local water. using this process you end with with methane and oxygen, this gives an efficient propellant with better density than Hydrogen. However someone more knowledgeable than me needs to say how reasonable this is in a more earth like atmosphere.

Now the dates of the first crewed landings on Venus are tricky to estimate, and would depend partly on how cautious the governments/space agencies are, and how long the astronauts are willing live on the surface before they have a means of returning!!

I think that by the mid/late 80s(very rough date) however, either USA or USSR could have some kind of 2 stage Venus ascent vehicle, that can be delivered in pieces to the surface, stacked together then fuelled for a trip up to orbit.

In the long term I think Venus exploration would put greater focus on developing reusable vehicles and SSTOs for both Earth and Venus, SSTOs would be a long term goal maybe doable in the early 21st century, but partially reusable 2 stage vehicles like the Falcon 9 should make an appearance, and likely earlier than OTL.

 

[GOU Limiting Factor]

Look at stuff like OTRAG. If you want to move large piles of mass around in orbit, a modular-disposable system like that is your best bet, or at least, the cheapest you're likely to get with existing technology.

(Anybody in this thread not yet familiar should surf over to John Drury Clark's Wikipedia page and download the PDF of Ignition!, which is a great place to start learning about chemical rocket propellants, and extremely funny.)

Reusables are great, but keep in mind; the only thing you can't leave behind or throw away on a Venus mission is the people you're sending. Spaceplanes get a bad rap thank to the Shuttle's compromise design, but they're not a bad idea for pure crew transport. Landing cargo on Venus with cheap, disposable landers (ballutes, baby, ballutes!) and returning only crew and a few low-mass samples would be an efficient, viable method. In such a scenario, your semi-SSTO could be supplied with propellant by a barrage of disposable fuel landers that will be left behind on the surface, empty. An approach not without problems (especially if you're using a cryogenic fuel and/or oxidizer - and the high-energy toxics are not much better), but doable, even affordable, by the 'Louis XIV with only one credit card and a moderate coke habit' standard of affordable common to aerospace budget discussion.

 

[robertsconley]

Just some musings about ascent/descent vehicles for Venus.

Now getting down to the surface should be relatively simple, I’m guessing in the 70s the Soviets and Americans would be testing unmanned capsules on Venus, probably lightly modified Soyuz(or maybe TKS) and Apollo capsules, Apollo would have Airbags or possibly retrorockets to allow it to come down on solid ground, and parachutes would be modified on the capsules for the thicker atmosphere.

Getting off Venus would unfortunately be about as hard as from Earth, orbital velocity and gravity are a bit lower, but there will be losses from the thicker atmosphere, so standard earth launch vehicles should provide a good baseline for working out a design.
Lets work off a basic 2 stage earth LV, the Titan II with the Gemini capsule as an example, fully fuelled weighs 150mt.
Sending this vehicle fully fuelled vehicle to Venus, and then landing it would be stupendously difficult. But if we look at sending a similar 2 stage vehicle to the surface completely empty it becomes a lot more reasonable, massing only around 13mt (that's 2 stages + crew capsule).
The tricky part is then assembling, fuelling and preping this vehicle on the ground, you will need to generate propellant and have some kind of launch pad infrastructure.
This infrastructure would require work to set up. So I think there would have to be landings of brave astronauts/cosmonauts willing to land and prepare the facilities to eventually return to orbit.

Before this infrastructure can be put in place there would be a lot research into effective ISRU(In Situ Resource Utilisation) on Venus, these are the options I can think of.

• Electrolysing water looks at first to be a good way to generate propellants. However handling cryogenics like Hydrogen is tricky enough on Earth, and might not be worth it on Venus, at least not at first. Hydrolox is also poorly suited to the high Thrust requirements for 1st stages.

• Another option with water is the possibility of generation the monopropellant Hydrogen peroxide, but it's abysmal efficiency makes me rule it out.

• A possible option for propellant generation would be the Sabatier reaction, assuming of course you can extract enough CO2 from the atmosphere. you need a certain amount of hydrogen to start off with, but you can get this from local water. using this process you end with with methane and oxygen, this gives an efficient propellant with better density than Hydrogen. However someone more knowledgeable than me needs to say how reasonable this is in a more earth like atmosphere.

Now the dates of the first crewed landings on Venus are tricky to estimate, and would depend partly on how cautious the governments/space agencies are, and how long the astronauts are willing live on the surface before they have a means of returning!!

I think that by the mid/late 80s(very rough date) however, either USA or USSR could have some kind of 2 stage Venus ascent vehicle, that can be delivered in pieces to the surface, stacked together then fuelled for a trip up to orbit.

In the long term I think Venus exploration would put greater focus on developing reusable vehicles and SSTOs for both Earth and Venus, SSTOs would be a long term goal maybe doable in the early 21st century, but partially reusable 2 stage vehicles like the Falcon 9 should make an appearance, and likely earlier than OTL.

I think SSTOs or 2 stages to Orbit would be a primary focus of Phase 2 or 3 after the flybys and the orbital stations were established. The best thing ITL is that they can get it proven out on Earth because of the close match the two planets have. Anything that works on Earth should work even better on Venus due it lighter gravity.

I think they would need to go with a Methane-Oxygen setup using hardware that uses a Sabatier reaction to make the fuel. Perhaps a portable Air Separation Plant as well for liquid oxygen.

It likely would wind up a lot like the setup in the Martian with a dedicated Venus Descent Vehicle, and a Venus Ascent Vehicle that is landed unfueled and capable of making it own fuel.

Then use that to bootstrap to some kind of STTO or spaceplane shuttling between the surface and a Venus Station.

 

[e of pi]

I think they would need to go with a Methane-Oxygen setup using hardware that uses a Sabatier reaction to make the fuel. Perhaps a portable Air Separation Plant as well for liquid oxygen.

I wouldn't bother with methane if you can just go whole-hog and make hydrolox. It's a better choice when you have to bring your own Hydrogen, but Venus should have copious water--worst case, just pull it out of the humidity if you can't stage a landing near some convenient lake.

 

[Michel Van]

one moment Venus gravity is 10 % lower as Earth 8.87 m/s vs 9.81 m/s
so SSTO work better there

For Hydrogen and Oxygen propellant production, if venus got Water and allot of sunshine on Surface
So no problem to produce and store that in SSTO tanks.

 

[GOU Limiting Factor]

One solution could be to leave the hydrolox propellants in an orbital depot until they're needed, then land them. I can only imagine all the ways that could go wrong - but I can only imagine all the ways that leaving a big tank of liquid hydrogen or liquid oxygen on the surface of a habitable Venus could go wrong, too.

 

[SirKeplan]

one moment Venus gravity is 10 % lower as Earth 8.87 m/s vs 9.81 m/s
so SSTO work better there

Yes, but that would be somewhat offset by the higher atmospheric pressure, which would reduce ISP and Thrust at Venus Sea Level. How much thrust/isp does a high chamber pressure engine lose at TL's Venus 2 atmospheres pressure?

I wouldn't bother with methane if you can just go whole-hog and make hydrolox.

It would be great to go full Hydrolox on Venus, but i was assuming it might not be desirable for the same reasons very few LVs on Earth are full Hydrolox.

 

[SirKeplan]

The problem is that the rivalry between Glushko, Cheomei, and Korolev isn't butterflied away. So regardless of Mariner's results Korolev goes with a inexperienced engine designer and designs a first stage with 30 separate rocket engines. Given the fact they tried to launch the thing four times and never solved the problems of so many engines working together leads me to conclude that the design itself was flawed. The Soviets need a big ass rocket engine like the Saturn F1 and what was being planned for the UR-700 is their best shot at having something close to that type of engine.

Maybe, but realistically I think some kind of N1 variant has more chance of being approved than the UR-700. and personally the thought of that colossal mass of hypergolics is rather terrifying, especially if it had been as unreliable as the early Proton. But butterfly wings flap, so who knows.

One point, up until 1966, the N1 was going to have 24 engines on the first stage. when Korolev died, Mishin took over and concluded the N1 wouldn't have nearly enough payload to manage a lunar landing in a single launch. He added several upgrades to the design, including a central ring of six engines on the first stage. this was likely one of the largest factors in making the N1 so unreliable, as the complex mass of plumbing caused issues. i think it's inaccurate to suggest the N1 was fundamentally flawed, but Mishin's modifications quite possibly doomed the N1 in OTL.

Now I think it would highly likely that Zond, the circum-lunar flyby would be sped up by the results of Venera 4 and succeed. However Zond is a dead-end technology wise. So like the original Kennedy decision to stop trying to match the Soviets in anything that needed heavy life and go for the moon. The Soviet may just bypass the lunar landing and go for a Venus flyby.

I mostly agree here, the most likely thing for the soviets to do is skip a moon landing(the LK lander was a couple years behind the LEM and quite limited), Zond could be sped up, but OTL it was dependant on the very temperamental vehicle that is the Proton rocket, so you might still have the issue of Proton exploding every other launch to contend with. if so the sensible option might be to skip Zond and send a Soyuz 7K-LOK into lunar orbit on an N1 a little later instead.

If you are interested in doing this you should write up your idea with the N-1 and present it as if something that would be submitted to the Politboro. I plan to do that with my ideas, and then Jared could figure what happens and use our stuff as background color.

That Sounds like a good idea, after i flesh out my ideas a little more i might do just that

It likely would wind up a lot like the setup in the Martian with a dedicated Venus Descent Vehicle, and a Venus Ascent Vehicle that is landed unfueled and capable of making it own fuel.

Yeah, i suppose something like that could possibly work, I must admin in my head I was imagining cranes on Venus stacking big rocket stages on top of each other .
Compared to Mars though, you have to land a much larger(but maybe only a bit heavier) ascent vehicle, plus you have to land a really aerodynamic design, where as on Mars you could probably just about get by with any old shape for getting through the atmosphere.

 

[Workable Goblin]

Yes, but that would be somewhat offset by the higher atmospheric pressure, which would reduce ISP and Thrust at Venus Sea Level. How much thrust/isp does a high chamber pressure engine lose at TL's Venus 2 atmospheres pressure?

This is why you build aerospikes. They may not be perfect, but they still perform a hell of a lot better than conventional bell nozzles over a wide range of atmospheric conditions...especially when the pressure relative to the atmosphere is low.

Gary Hudson would certainly be laughing all the way to the bank ITTL...the Phoenix (and generally speaking all of his hydrolox VTVL SSTO designs) would be absolutely perfect for a Venus lander here.

 

[SirKeplan]

Regarding solar storms/solar particle events as was mentioned on the other thread. this might be rather tricky thing to integrate historical storms into the story. You could just assume interplanetary crafts have an adequate storm shelter inside, as SPEs(solar particle events) are unlikely to be a major issue given adequate warning. However this book seems to show a list of particularly dangerous SPEs on page 181.