1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:03,120 Speaker 1: Welcome to thrilling Threads, where we take the most dense, 2 00:00:03,240 --> 00:00:07,120 complex stacks of information, the deep history, the surprising science, 3 00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:11,599 the forgotten stories, and we really just pull them apart 4 00:00:11,640 --> 00:00:15,240 to find the essential fascinating nuggets of knowledge you need. 5 00:00:15,439 --> 00:00:18,199 Speaker 2: Today, we are pointing our intellectual radar out a world 6 00:00:18,199 --> 00:00:22,000 that I think represents the ultimate planetary betrayal. 7 00:00:22,160 --> 00:00:24,280 Speaker 1: Betrayal, I like that, What do you mean, well. 8 00:00:24,239 --> 00:00:29,199 Speaker 2: Venus, it was once imagined as Earth's tropical sister, you know, 9 00:00:29,239 --> 00:00:31,879 a twin of warmth and maybe even water, but it 10 00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:35,640 was revealed to be well, the Solar System's most hostile environment, 11 00:00:35,719 --> 00:00:37,039 just an absolute healthscape. 12 00:00:37,079 --> 00:00:39,600 Speaker 1: It's a planet that I find utterly captivating because it 13 00:00:39,640 --> 00:00:43,359 presents this profound paradox. We're talking about our closest neighbor, 14 00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:47,399 a world almost identical to Earth in size, in density, basic. 15 00:00:47,079 --> 00:00:48,920 Speaker 2: Composition, building blocks are there. 16 00:00:48,840 --> 00:00:52,359 Speaker 1: Exactly, and yet it's catastrophically violently different. I mean, the 17 00:00:52,399 --> 00:00:55,119 surface is hot enough to melt lead, the atmosphere is 18 00:00:55,240 --> 00:00:57,079 ninety two times heavier than ours. 19 00:00:56,840 --> 00:00:59,479 Speaker 2: And those beautiful impenetrable. 20 00:00:58,840 --> 00:01:01,840 Speaker 1: White clouds furic acid. Just wow. 21 00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:05,200 Speaker 2: What's truly fascinating, though, is the history in the early 22 00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:08,599 days of space exploration. Mars, which is so popular now, 23 00:01:08,959 --> 00:01:11,959 was actually kind of a known quantity. Telescopes could see 24 00:01:11,959 --> 00:01:15,040 its surface. Its thin atmosphere didn't hide much. 25 00:01:15,040 --> 00:01:17,719 Speaker 1: Right, You could see the polar caps, the darker regions. 26 00:01:17,920 --> 00:01:21,599 Speaker 2: Yeah, but Venus was a total enigma. That dense, bright, 27 00:01:21,879 --> 00:01:25,239 uniform cloud cover didn't just obscure the view. It led 28 00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:27,760 a lot of twentieth century scientists to assume it must 29 00:01:27,799 --> 00:01:29,200 be trapping moisture and. 30 00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:31,359 Speaker 1: Warmth, which sounds logical, it does. 31 00:01:31,599 --> 00:01:34,760 Speaker 2: They thought it could lead to a tropical Earth like surface. Yeah, 32 00:01:34,799 --> 00:01:38,159 and this very mystery made it the premiere target, the 33 00:01:38,200 --> 00:01:42,359 great unknown, the obvious next step in the space. 34 00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:44,599 Speaker 1: Race, and that is our mission for this deep dive. 35 00:01:44,920 --> 00:01:48,560 We're plunging headfirst into the staggering achievements and the repeated, 36 00:01:48,680 --> 00:01:52,480 often immediate failures of the Soviet Union's ambitious Venera program. 37 00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:54,879 Speaker 2: They were the only ones really determined to pierce that 38 00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:55,599 deadly veil. 39 00:01:55,719 --> 00:01:57,959 Speaker 1: So we're going to uncover the brutal secrets they ultimately 40 00:01:57,959 --> 00:02:03,000 found on Venus, and crucially why, after decades of heroic engineering, 41 00:02:03,439 --> 00:02:06,079 humanity has essentially abandoned the Venusian surface. 42 00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:08,520 Speaker 2: And you have to connect this to the bigger picture, 43 00:02:09,400 --> 00:02:12,759 the Cold War imperative. I mean, the early nineteen sixties 44 00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:16,080 were less about high minded science, oh much less, and 45 00:02:16,159 --> 00:02:22,080 more about demonstrating political and technological superiority. Every first first satellite, 46 00:02:22,159 --> 00:02:26,879 first person, first to the moon, was a monumental propaganda victory, and. 47 00:02:26,840 --> 00:02:30,120 Speaker 1: The Soviets were just dominating that early scoreboard. Yet Spotnick, 48 00:02:30,639 --> 00:02:33,319 then Eureka Garin, first man in orbit. They were the 49 00:02:33,400 --> 00:02:35,360 absolute masters of early rocketry. 50 00:02:35,439 --> 00:02:38,479 Speaker 2: They were so for the Soviet leadership. Venus was simply 51 00:02:38,719 --> 00:02:42,319 the logical geopolitical check mark that had to be secured. 52 00:02:42,479 --> 00:02:44,800 They had to be the first to reach another planet. 53 00:02:44,520 --> 00:02:47,039 Speaker 1: Even if the technology wasn't quite ready for the challenge. 54 00:02:47,080 --> 00:02:49,800 Speaker 2: That's the thing. The scientific data was almost secondary to 55 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:53,599 the historic milestone. It was about planting a flag metaphorically speaking. 56 00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:57,000 Speaker 1: So let's start with that atmosphere speculation in the scientific 57 00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:59,680 community at the time, what was the great debate? Was 58 00:02:59,680 --> 00:03:01,159 it a jungle or a furnace? 59 00:03:01,479 --> 00:03:05,159 Speaker 2: Well, the optimistic view was incredibly compelling, built on the 60 00:03:05,199 --> 00:03:08,520 limited beta they had. Since Venus is closer to the 61 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:11,919 Sun and the cloud's trap heat, many believed that warmth 62 00:03:11,960 --> 00:03:14,560 and the dense atmosphere would mean high humidity. 63 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:17,080 Speaker 1: Okay, a planet wide tropical zone. 64 00:03:16,879 --> 00:03:21,240 Speaker 2: Exactly, steaming jungles, swamps and possibly even you know, slow 65 00:03:21,319 --> 00:03:25,120 moving alien life forms. People were talking about large insects 66 00:03:25,159 --> 00:03:27,919 or reptiles, things that could be protected by the heat 67 00:03:27,960 --> 00:03:28,639 and humidity. 68 00:03:28,759 --> 00:03:31,400 Speaker 1: It's so wild to think about now, but that view 69 00:03:31,560 --> 00:03:35,159 was it was understandable, right right, especially when you contrast 70 00:03:35,199 --> 00:03:37,599 it with the frozen, dry conditions they already knew about 71 00:03:37,599 --> 00:03:38,039 on Mars. 72 00:03:38,199 --> 00:03:41,280 Speaker 2: It was. However, even back then, there was a skeptical 73 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:44,759 minority view, and it was most famously championed by a 74 00:03:44,800 --> 00:03:45,919 young Carl Sagan. 75 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:47,479 Speaker 1: Ah Sagan, of course. 76 00:03:47,479 --> 00:03:50,240 Speaker 2: He argued that the very feature that made Venus seem habitable, 77 00:03:50,319 --> 00:03:54,400 that dense, unbroken blanket of clouds, was actually conclusive evidence 78 00:03:54,400 --> 00:03:57,719 of something else, entirely, something much worse, much worse, an unstoppable, 79 00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:01,280 wildly out of control greenhouse effect. He predicted the surface 80 00:04:01,319 --> 00:04:04,319 would be an arid, superheated healthscape, not a paradise. 81 00:04:04,719 --> 00:04:07,520 Speaker 1: But the scientific community of the day they were slow 82 00:04:07,599 --> 00:04:10,199 to accept just how severe Sagan's theory was. 83 00:04:10,520 --> 00:04:13,439 Speaker 2: Well, they clung to the possibility of liquid water. They 84 00:04:13,479 --> 00:04:16,399 needed proof, and the Soviets were the first to make 85 00:04:16,439 --> 00:04:18,040 a serious attempt at getting. 86 00:04:17,800 --> 00:04:21,120 Speaker 1: It, which brings us to Venera one in nineteen sixty one, 87 00:04:21,199 --> 00:04:24,000 and just the sheer audacity of these attempts. I think 88 00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:26,839 we have to appreciate the technological gap here we do. 89 00:04:27,120 --> 00:04:30,680 Speaker 2: People often forget that these early interplanetary emissions were launched 90 00:04:30,759 --> 00:04:33,800 using the R seven, the same massive ballistic missile that 91 00:04:33,879 --> 00:04:35,720 was designed to carry nuclear warheads. 92 00:04:35,839 --> 00:04:38,399 Speaker 1: It was reliable as a rocket, but the guidance systems 93 00:04:38,399 --> 00:04:40,839 were archaic by today's standards completely. 94 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:45,319 Speaker 2: When we talk about guiding interplanetary flight with effectively nothing 95 00:04:45,319 --> 00:04:49,000 more sophisticated than a calculator, we're talking about inertial measurement 96 00:04:49,120 --> 00:04:53,160 units I amuse, coupled with basic onboard processors that had 97 00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:55,839 less computing power than a modern digital watch. 98 00:04:56,040 --> 00:04:59,480 Speaker 1: So once that probe left Earth orbit and fired its 99 00:04:59,519 --> 00:05:03,000 final burth to head towards Venus, that was pretty much it. 100 00:05:03,240 --> 00:05:06,439 Speaker 2: That was it. There were very limited opportunities for course 101 00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:10,480 correction over tens of millions of kilometers. If your initial 102 00:05:10,519 --> 00:05:13,120 velocity or your angle was off by just a fraction, 103 00:05:13,639 --> 00:05:15,600 the probe would miss the planet entirely. 104 00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:17,639 Speaker 1: It's like trying to hit a bullseye on the Moon 105 00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:18,959 with a slingshot from Earth. 106 00:05:19,160 --> 00:05:21,680 Speaker 2: A very good analogy, and that's why these missions were 107 00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:24,240 always launched in pairs like Venera one and Venera two. 108 00:05:24,279 --> 00:05:26,680 It wasn't about redundancy in the modern sense. 109 00:05:26,759 --> 00:05:28,120 Speaker 1: It was an emission of failure. 110 00:05:28,199 --> 00:05:30,959 Speaker 2: Almost It was an acknowledgment that the likelihood of one 111 00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:34,920 mission failing was almost one hundred percent. So Venera one launched, 112 00:05:34,959 --> 00:05:37,800 and predictably, it suffered a system failure. 113 00:05:37,639 --> 00:05:39,959 Speaker 1: En route, but it did fly past Venus. 114 00:05:40,040 --> 00:05:42,560 Speaker 2: It did, which was later confirmed, making it the first 115 00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:46,600 probe to do so, but it sent nothing back, no data. 116 00:05:46,639 --> 00:05:48,720 Speaker 1: And then Venera two in nineteen sixty. 117 00:05:48,439 --> 00:05:52,319 Speaker 2: Five, same story. It also suffered a catastrophic system failure 118 00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:56,439 before reaching its destination, zero usable data. So, after two 119 00:05:56,560 --> 00:06:00,920 years to immense rockets, two very expensive failures, the Soviet 120 00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:03,439 Union learned nothing about the planet itself. 121 00:06:03,720 --> 00:06:07,839 Speaker 1: They only learned how incredibly difficult interplanetary navigation really was. 122 00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:11,920 Speaker 2: Right, and while the Soviets were regrouping, the US seized 123 00:06:12,040 --> 00:06:15,839 that window of opportunity. In nineteen sixty two, NASA launched 124 00:06:15,920 --> 00:06:16,519 Mariner two. 125 00:06:16,680 --> 00:06:18,759 Speaker 1: This was a much lighter, simpler probe, a. 126 00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:22,199 Speaker 2: Flyby mission, it was, but it achieved a historic milestone, 127 00:06:22,480 --> 00:06:25,399 the first successful close up observation of another. 128 00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:29,480 Speaker 1: Planet, and Mariner two delivered the ultimate reality check. It 129 00:06:29,519 --> 00:06:34,319 basically proved Sagan's grim prognosis correct. How did it do that? 130 00:06:34,399 --> 00:06:36,720 How did you get that temperature data from orbit through 131 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:37,680 those thick clouds. 132 00:06:37,920 --> 00:06:40,920 Speaker 2: It carried a microwave radiometer. This was the key piece 133 00:06:40,920 --> 00:06:44,160 of tech because microwave radiation can actually penetrate the cloud 134 00:06:44,199 --> 00:06:47,160 layers that visible light can't I see. So as Mariner 135 00:06:47,199 --> 00:06:49,839 two flee past the planet, it performed a forty two 136 00:06:49,879 --> 00:06:53,279 minute scan measuring the radiation being emitted from the surface 137 00:06:53,399 --> 00:06:55,199 and the lower atmosphere. 138 00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:57,959 Speaker 1: And the numbers it sent back were damning. They called 139 00:06:58,000 --> 00:06:59,759 it the Mariner shock. 140 00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:03,120 Speaker 2: It was brutal. The radiometer measured temperatures from orbit up 141 00:07:03,120 --> 00:07:05,240 to four hundred and fifty nine degrees fahrenheit. That's two 142 00:07:05,319 --> 00:07:07,680 hundred and thirty seven degrees celsius, so not just warm, 143 00:07:07,920 --> 00:07:10,879 not even close. It was double the boiling point of water. 144 00:07:11,319 --> 00:07:15,360 It told scientists definitively there could be no liquid water 145 00:07:15,439 --> 00:07:20,000 on the surface. Anything organic would be instantly incinerated. The 146 00:07:20,040 --> 00:07:22,240 myth of the tropical paradise was. 147 00:07:22,319 --> 00:07:26,000 Speaker 1: Dead, buried under extreme heat and beyond just the heat, 148 00:07:26,319 --> 00:07:29,319 Mariner two also quantified the atmosphere sheer scale. 149 00:07:29,360 --> 00:07:33,480 Speaker 2: It did. It discovered an incredibly tall cloud layer extending 150 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:35,560 eighty kilometers above the surface. 151 00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:37,519 Speaker 1: And to give you some perspective on that on Earth, 152 00:07:37,920 --> 00:07:41,600 eighty kilometers is approaching the official boundary of space. It's 153 00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:43,800 like having a cloud layer that stretches from the ground 154 00:07:43,839 --> 00:07:44,680 to the edge of space. 155 00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:48,279 Speaker 2: The implications were immediate for NASA, based on the insanely 156 00:07:48,360 --> 00:07:51,519 high temperature, the crushing pressure they now suspected, and the 157 00:07:51,519 --> 00:07:53,480 sheer height of these toxic clouds. 158 00:07:53,480 --> 00:07:54,079 Speaker 1: They pivoted. 159 00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:57,480 Speaker 2: They pivoted heart They decided that building hardware capable of 160 00:07:57,519 --> 00:08:01,879 surviving that environment was prohibitively difficult and expensive, especially. 161 00:08:01,519 --> 00:08:05,000 Speaker 1: When the Moon was right there a more immediate and achievable. 162 00:08:04,519 --> 00:08:08,079 Speaker 2: Political prize exactly so, they largely switched their focus to 163 00:08:08,120 --> 00:08:10,759 the Moon and Mars, and they essentially left the exploration 164 00:08:10,839 --> 00:08:12,800 of the Venusian surface to the Soviets. 165 00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:16,160 Speaker 1: The Americans were out and the Russians were doubling down. 166 00:08:16,639 --> 00:08:19,319 Speaker 2: This really marks the beginning of the Soviet Union's true 167 00:08:19,319 --> 00:08:23,439 commitment to Venus. They were persistent, maybe even stubborn. 168 00:08:23,959 --> 00:08:28,040 Speaker 1: Well, they viewed Venus as theirs. Now a monumental discovery 169 00:08:28,199 --> 00:08:30,800 just waiting to happen, especially now that the US had 170 00:08:30,839 --> 00:08:35,200 basically conceded the planet. They weren't deterred by the Mariner shock. 171 00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:37,320 Speaker 2: No, they just knew they had to build bigger and stronger, 172 00:08:37,720 --> 00:08:40,399 and that decision led to the second wave of probes, 173 00:08:40,960 --> 00:08:42,480 Venera three and Venera four. 174 00:08:42,720 --> 00:08:45,720 Speaker 1: So the engineers realized the R seven booster could handle 175 00:08:45,799 --> 00:08:46,919 much larger payloads. 176 00:08:47,399 --> 00:08:50,720 Speaker 2: Right, So the probe mass jumped significantly from around six 177 00:08:50,879 --> 00:08:54,480 hundred and fifty kilograms to over nine hundred kilograms, and 178 00:08:54,519 --> 00:08:58,279 that increase in mass allowed for some crucial design improvements. 179 00:08:58,360 --> 00:09:01,879 Speaker 1: These weren't just bigger, heavier shaite, though there were scientific upgrades. 180 00:09:01,919 --> 00:09:03,919 They were instrumented much better. 181 00:09:03,799 --> 00:09:07,720 Speaker 2: Far better. They were carrying radar, altimeters, barometers to measure pressure, 182 00:09:08,039 --> 00:09:11,919 gas analyzers to study the atmosphere's composition, and most importantly, 183 00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:14,919 a sophisticated detachable descent module. 184 00:09:14,600 --> 00:09:17,320 Speaker 1: Which was designed to parachute down and take those crucial 185 00:09:17,360 --> 00:09:19,080 readings all the way to the surface. 186 00:09:19,360 --> 00:09:22,200 Speaker 2: That was the plan, and Venera three, which launched in 187 00:09:22,279 --> 00:09:26,679 nineteen sixty six, achieved what you could call a historic failure. 188 00:09:27,080 --> 00:09:30,159 Like that term, it experienced a system failure during its flight. 189 00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:33,960 It lost communication, but its game was true. It slammed 190 00:09:34,080 --> 00:09:36,399 directly into the surface of Venus. 191 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:39,200 Speaker 1: And that crash landing made Venera three the first man 192 00:09:39,240 --> 00:09:42,919 made object to ever impact another planetary body. It's such 193 00:09:42,919 --> 00:09:45,279 a strange distinction to hold, isn't it. 194 00:09:44,879 --> 00:09:48,200 Speaker 2: It is the Soviet Union ended up scoring this unfortunate 195 00:09:48,360 --> 00:09:51,840 but significant hat trick of crash landings, first on the Moon, 196 00:09:52,159 --> 00:09:54,360 first on Venus, and later first on Mars. 197 00:09:54,759 --> 00:09:57,720 Speaker 1: It really just underscores the difficulty of engineering a true 198 00:09:57,720 --> 00:10:00,480 soft landing. With the technology of the nineteen six sixties, 199 00:10:00,519 --> 00:10:02,200 You're relying so much on timing and luck. 200 00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:04,759 Speaker 2: But the real breakthrough the moment that delivered the first 201 00:10:04,799 --> 00:10:08,000 true scientific data from inside the Venusian atmosphere. That was 202 00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:09,960 Venera four in nineteen sixty seven. 203 00:10:10,080 --> 00:10:13,519 Speaker 1: So this probe successfully deployed its capsule, the parachutes opened, 204 00:10:13,879 --> 00:10:17,879 and it began this slow, deliberate drift downward, taking those 205 00:10:17,960 --> 00:10:20,159 first ever in situ measurements. 206 00:10:19,879 --> 00:10:22,360 Speaker 2: And the data it's sent back created what you called 207 00:10:22,399 --> 00:10:27,039 the atmospheric paradox. High up, the probe experienced temperatures around 208 00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:29,200 ninety two hundred degrees fahrenheit. 209 00:10:29,039 --> 00:10:32,799 Speaker 1: Surprisingly hospitable, like a warm summer day in the tropics. 210 00:10:32,600 --> 00:10:35,200 Speaker 2: Exactly what they'd hoped for, just in the wrong place. 211 00:10:35,480 --> 00:10:38,879 But as it descended, the climate violently ramped up a 212 00:10:38,960 --> 00:10:44,279 dramatic increase, not just in temperature, but crucially in atmospheric pressure. 213 00:10:44,039 --> 00:10:47,399 Speaker 1: And the engineers had just severely miscalculated the density and 214 00:10:47,399 --> 00:10:50,320 pressure profile of that lower atmosphere. 215 00:10:49,799 --> 00:10:53,519 Speaker 2: A massive underestimation. At sea level on Earth, we experienced 216 00:10:53,600 --> 00:10:56,879 one bar of pressure based on their pre flight estimates. 217 00:10:56,919 --> 00:11:00,840 The Venera four capsule was built to withstand maybe ten 218 00:11:00,879 --> 00:11:01,879 to fifteen. 219 00:11:01,519 --> 00:11:04,159 Speaker 1: Bar, which is a substantial amount it is. 220 00:11:04,080 --> 00:11:06,480 Speaker 2: But it was nowhere near enough. The reality was far 221 00:11:06,519 --> 00:11:10,279 more extreme. As the capsule descended, the atmosphere became so 222 00:11:10,519 --> 00:11:12,960 dense that the pressure was likened to the experience of 223 00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:14,960 diving deep into the ocean. 224 00:11:14,600 --> 00:11:16,399 Speaker 1: Where the air isn't just heavy, it feels like it's 225 00:11:16,399 --> 00:11:17,639 crushing you from all sides. 226 00:11:17,960 --> 00:11:21,879 Speaker 2: Yes, like a liquid rock pressing down. And then, after 227 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:25,000 ninety minutes of descent at an altitude they believed was 228 00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:29,320 around twenty five kilometers above the surface, transmission abruptly and 229 00:11:29,440 --> 00:11:34,200 violently died, just gone gone. The widely accepted analysis, which 230 00:11:34,240 --> 00:11:37,519 was confirmed by later data, was simple. The capsule was 231 00:11:37,519 --> 00:11:39,399 structurally insufficient for the environment. 232 00:11:39,559 --> 00:11:42,240 Speaker 1: It was crushed, crushed like a beer can't. 233 00:11:42,159 --> 00:11:45,519 Speaker 2: By the immense weight of that dense, heavy atmosphere. It 234 00:11:45,600 --> 00:11:46,919 was a hydraulic force. 235 00:11:47,720 --> 00:11:50,919 Speaker 1: That information must have been absolutely devastating to the engineering 236 00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:53,759 team to have come so close to prove you could 237 00:11:53,799 --> 00:11:56,679 survive the initial descent, only to have your hardware fail 238 00:11:56,799 --> 00:11:59,440 because of the fundamental misunderstanding of the destination. 239 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:01,879 Speaker 2: You have to step back for a moment and consider 240 00:12:01,919 --> 00:12:05,879 the timeline. This happened in late nineteen sixty seven. By 241 00:12:05,919 --> 00:12:09,519 early nineteen sixty nine, the Americans were finalizing preparations for 242 00:12:09,559 --> 00:12:10,639 the Apollo Moon landing. 243 00:12:10,840 --> 00:12:12,840 Speaker 1: So the Soviets knew they had lost the Moon race. 244 00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:16,120 Speaker 2: They knew the political imperatives shifted if they couldn't land 245 00:12:16,159 --> 00:12:18,279 a man on the Moon. They needed a game changing 246 00:12:18,320 --> 00:12:21,080 planetary first to maintain their global. 247 00:12:20,679 --> 00:12:24,320 Speaker 1: Prestige, so they launched Veniera five and six in January 248 00:12:24,360 --> 00:12:27,799 nineteen sixty nine, even though they knew, they absolutely knew, 249 00:12:28,000 --> 00:12:31,879 the design was fundamentally flawed. Against the pressures that Veniera 250 00:12:31,919 --> 00:12:32,519 four had. 251 00:12:32,360 --> 00:12:34,799 Speaker 2: Confirmed, they did. I mean, there must have been immense 252 00:12:34,840 --> 00:12:39,639 frustration within the engineering teams, but the political masters dictated 253 00:12:39,639 --> 00:12:40,960 the timetable. 254 00:12:40,480 --> 00:12:43,559 Speaker 1: So These missions were launched just to stay competitive. 255 00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:45,840 Speaker 2: And to capture whatever data they could before they were 256 00:12:46,039 --> 00:12:49,840 entirely eclipsed by the moon landing. They slightly adjusted the 257 00:12:49,879 --> 00:12:53,399 parachute size, hoping for a faster descent to reach the 258 00:12:53,480 --> 00:12:55,080 crushing pressure point later. 259 00:12:55,399 --> 00:12:57,559 Speaker 1: But it wasn't a structural fix, not at all. 260 00:12:57,840 --> 00:13:01,000 Speaker 2: Both priends recorded less than an hour day each before 261 00:13:01,039 --> 00:13:05,120 meeting the exact same crushing fate as their predecessor. It 262 00:13:05,159 --> 00:13:09,200 was a pure testament to that dominant political imperative overriding 263 00:13:09,279 --> 00:13:10,519 sound engineering judgment. 264 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:13,840 Speaker 1: It's just remarkable that the Soviet Union wasn't discouraged by this. 265 00:13:13,960 --> 00:13:16,639 I mean they were simply motivated to bill stronger. They 266 00:13:16,679 --> 00:13:18,879 realized the only way to beat Venus was to engineer 267 00:13:18,919 --> 00:13:21,159 a machine that could withstand hell. 268 00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:25,360 Speaker 2: Itself absolutely, and this led to a complete design overhaul 269 00:13:25,440 --> 00:13:28,519 for Venera seven and eight. These were what we could 270 00:13:28,559 --> 00:13:31,000 call the extreme environment survival units. 271 00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:34,200 Speaker 1: This is where the engineering truly advanced, right. They were 272 00:13:34,279 --> 00:13:38,279 addressing the dual horror of extreme pressure and extreme heat. 273 00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:40,960 Speaker 2: Yes, they recognized they couldn't just make the old capsules 274 00:13:40,960 --> 00:13:43,639 a little bit thicker. They needed a radical solution based 275 00:13:43,639 --> 00:13:44,799 in material science. 276 00:13:45,840 --> 00:13:49,120 Speaker 1: So what were the key modifications that defined these new 277 00:13:49,480 --> 00:13:50,559 Ironman probes. 278 00:13:50,879 --> 00:13:54,879 Speaker 2: They attacked the problem with layers. First, the overall descent 279 00:13:54,960 --> 00:13:57,919 module was constructed with a much thicker outer shell of 280 00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:02,159 high grade steel to physically resis the known atmospheric. 281 00:14:01,519 --> 00:14:03,039 Speaker 1: Pressure okay, brute force on. 282 00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:07,399 Speaker 2: The outside, but the real ingenuity was inside the sensitive instruments. 283 00:14:07,399 --> 00:14:10,759 The electronics, the batteries, the transmitters were housed within a 284 00:14:10,879 --> 00:14:14,279 perfectly spherical internal pressure vessel made of titanium. 285 00:14:14,320 --> 00:14:16,519 Speaker 1: Why titanium, specifically. 286 00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:20,320 Speaker 2: Titanium is its lightweight, it's incredibly strong, and it maintains 287 00:14:20,320 --> 00:14:23,200 its structural integrity at very high temperatures. It was the 288 00:14:23,279 --> 00:14:24,960 ideal material for this environment. 289 00:14:25,279 --> 00:14:28,399 Speaker 1: So this inner titanium sphere was designed to keep the 290 00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:32,440 internal pressure at one atmosphere, basically creating a little earthlike 291 00:14:32,559 --> 00:14:34,279 bubble for the instruments. 292 00:14:33,799 --> 00:14:37,720 Speaker 2: Exactly protecting them from the external ninety two bar environment. 293 00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:41,320 And that titanium sphere was then wrapped in thermal insulation 294 00:14:41,519 --> 00:14:44,279 multi layer blankets designed to protect the instruments from the 295 00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:47,960 four hundred and seventy five degrees celsius exterior heat for 296 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:49,120 as long as possible. 297 00:14:49,240 --> 00:14:52,440 Speaker 1: And they made another smart pragmatic design choice. They added 298 00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:54,919 extra padding around the sphere to soften the blood right. 299 00:14:54,919 --> 00:14:58,240 Speaker 2: They were recognizing that maybe a perfect, gentle soft landing 300 00:14:58,519 --> 00:15:02,200 wasn't feasible given the pairs shut limitations. A high velocity 301 00:15:02,200 --> 00:15:03,879 impact was probably likely, and. 302 00:15:03,840 --> 00:15:06,799 Speaker 1: That pragmatic choice paid off, but only due to well 303 00:15:07,240 --> 00:15:08,279 pure accident. 304 00:15:07,919 --> 00:15:11,159 Speaker 2: A very happy accident. Venerus seven launched in nineteen seventy. 305 00:15:11,480 --> 00:15:14,639 When the probe entered the atmosphere, the parachute deployed, but 306 00:15:14,679 --> 00:15:15,399 it didn't last. 307 00:15:15,519 --> 00:15:16,000 Speaker 1: It failed. 308 00:15:16,159 --> 00:15:19,000 Speaker 2: It failed. The material either ripped under the g forces 309 00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:22,600 of deployment, or, more likely, it just suffered rapid chemical 310 00:15:22,639 --> 00:15:25,159 degradation from the sulfuric acid and the heat. 311 00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:27,159 Speaker 1: So the lander just dropped like a rock. 312 00:15:27,279 --> 00:15:30,320 Speaker 2: It did, accelerating to a terminal velocity of sixty one 313 00:15:30,360 --> 00:15:31,360 kilometers per hour. 314 00:15:31,679 --> 00:15:34,720 Speaker 1: That's fast enough to destroy a typical lander. So back 315 00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:38,240 on Earth, ground control must have just assumed Venera seven 316 00:15:38,279 --> 00:15:39,039 was another failure. 317 00:15:39,159 --> 00:15:42,240 Speaker 2: They did. The signal was lost for twenty three minutes, 318 00:15:42,679 --> 00:15:45,639 but then for thirty five minutes they received a faint, 319 00:15:45,919 --> 00:15:49,799 intermittent trickle of data. Wow, and that trickle was monumental 320 00:15:50,039 --> 00:15:53,159 because the lander had dropped so fast that titanium sphere 321 00:15:53,240 --> 00:15:56,799 survived the rapid impact. It essentially bounced off the Venusian. 322 00:15:56,440 --> 00:15:59,559 Speaker 1: Surface, so the sphere was probably dented. The antenna was busted, 323 00:15:59,559 --> 00:16:00,600 but survived. 324 00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:04,120 Speaker 2: It survived, and the data it sent back confirmed all 325 00:16:04,159 --> 00:16:07,000 the worse spheres and cemented the true nature of Venus. 326 00:16:07,279 --> 00:16:10,240 Speaker 1: And that scientific confirmation was terrifying. 327 00:16:09,799 --> 00:16:13,039 Speaker 2: Oh it was. The data indicated a surface temperature of 328 00:16:13,039 --> 00:16:16,440 four hundred and seventy five degrees celsius. That's roughly nine 329 00:16:16,480 --> 00:16:17,559 hundred degrees fahrenheit. 330 00:16:17,879 --> 00:16:21,120 Speaker 1: That's the temperature inside a wood fired pizza oven, or 331 00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:24,559 to use a more industrial analogy, hot enough to instantly 332 00:16:24,600 --> 00:16:25,480 melt aluminum. 333 00:16:25,519 --> 00:16:28,200 Speaker 2: It proved that machine operation on the surface was only 334 00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:30,080 going to be possible for a fleeting moment. 335 00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:32,799 Speaker 1: And by this time the US had claimed the Moon. 336 00:16:33,960 --> 00:16:38,440 The Soviets, they shifted their focus entirely toward interplanetary exploration, 337 00:16:38,600 --> 00:16:43,519 right to robotically demonstrating mastery over the Solar System's inner frontier. 338 00:16:43,679 --> 00:16:47,039 Speaker 2: They did. They even managed a brief but important soft 339 00:16:47,039 --> 00:16:50,120 touchdown on Mars in nineteen seventy one, though that probe 340 00:16:50,159 --> 00:16:53,200 only lasted for about twenty seconds. They were masters of 341 00:16:53,200 --> 00:16:55,840 getting there, but survival remained the challenge. 342 00:16:55,399 --> 00:16:58,240 Speaker 1: Which brings us to Venera eight in nineteen seventy two. 343 00:16:59,080 --> 00:17:02,279 This mission was a resounding success for the new design. 344 00:17:02,159 --> 00:17:06,240 Speaker 2: A huge success. The descent module parachuted down softly and 345 00:17:06,319 --> 00:17:09,400 recorded data for nearly an entire hour before the heat 346 00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:12,839 finally became too much and the electronics failed. This mission 347 00:17:12,880 --> 00:17:16,920 synthesized the final, terrible, complete truth about the Venusian environment. 348 00:17:17,240 --> 00:17:21,160 Speaker 1: So Venera eight confirmed the dual horror in stark detail. First, 349 00:17:21,519 --> 00:17:22,920 the atmospheric. 350 00:17:22,319 --> 00:17:25,039 Speaker 2: Pressure measured at the surface to be equivalent to ninety 351 00:17:25,039 --> 00:17:26,519 two times Earth's atmosphere. 352 00:17:26,599 --> 00:17:27,359 Speaker 1: Ninety two times. 353 00:17:27,440 --> 00:17:29,200 Speaker 2: That is the same pressure you would experience if you 354 00:17:29,240 --> 00:17:32,480 were submerged one kilometer deep in the ocean. This changes 355 00:17:32,519 --> 00:17:35,359 the dynamics of the atmosphere entirely and makes it behave 356 00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:37,799 less like a gas and more like a supercritical fluid. 357 00:17:38,119 --> 00:17:41,599 Speaker 1: And the second critical finding elevated the understanding beyond just 358 00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:45,079 pressure and heat. Venera eight confirmed the composition of the 359 00:17:45,079 --> 00:17:46,039 lower atmosphere. 360 00:17:46,119 --> 00:17:50,880 Speaker 2: It confirmed that the entire lower atmosphere is filled with corrosive, noxious, 361 00:17:51,079 --> 00:17:53,720 highly reactive sulfuric acid HASO. 362 00:17:54,039 --> 00:17:56,400 Speaker 1: And that's far more specific than just saying it's like 363 00:17:56,480 --> 00:17:57,759 the stuff inside a car battery. 364 00:17:57,759 --> 00:18:00,319 Speaker 2: Oh, it's a much more complex system. The sulfuric acid 365 00:18:00,319 --> 00:18:03,400 clouds on venus are formed high up at about fifty 366 00:18:03,440 --> 00:18:07,559 to seventy kilometers altitude through complex photochemical reactions. 367 00:18:07,599 --> 00:18:09,440 Speaker 1: So it's driven by sunlight, yes. 368 00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:12,559 Speaker 2: Involving sulfur dioxide and water vapor, and this creates a 369 00:18:12,599 --> 00:18:16,079 thermal inversion layer, a zone where the temperature actually rises 370 00:18:16,119 --> 00:18:20,759 with altitude, leading to massive instability and rapid corrosive chemical 371 00:18:20,799 --> 00:18:23,720 erosion of any material introduced into the atmosphere. 372 00:18:23,759 --> 00:18:27,680 Speaker 1: So you have extreme heat, crushing pressure, and extreme corrosiveness, 373 00:18:28,039 --> 00:18:31,759 a literal trifecta designed to melt, crush, and dissolve you 374 00:18:31,839 --> 00:18:34,400 all at once, precisely So, knowing this, I have to 375 00:18:34,400 --> 00:18:38,640 ask again, after confirming an environment that seems scientifically pointless 376 00:18:38,680 --> 00:18:41,799 to explore, given the cost and the tiny survival window, 377 00:18:42,799 --> 00:18:45,079 why continue? What kept the engineers going? 378 00:18:45,319 --> 00:18:49,079 Speaker 2: It was a combination of momentum and one last tantalizing 379 00:18:49,160 --> 00:18:52,440 fact returned by Venera eight, which was even with the 380 00:18:52,559 --> 00:18:57,200 dense sulfuric acid cloud cover, the probe's instruments measured that 381 00:18:57,400 --> 00:19:01,319 enough sunlight reached the surface to make photography possible. Ah 382 00:19:01,400 --> 00:19:05,279 it would be heavily filtered turning everything a sickly orange 383 00:19:05,319 --> 00:19:09,559 color due to atmospheric scattering. But it was there, and 384 00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:11,240 the next objective became clear. 385 00:19:11,440 --> 00:19:13,480 Speaker 1: The world needed to see what the surface of Hell 386 00:19:13,559 --> 00:19:13,960 looked like. 387 00:19:14,079 --> 00:19:16,720 Speaker 2: That was the new compelling and achievable goal. 388 00:19:17,039 --> 00:19:20,000 Speaker 1: So this quest for a photograph spurred the third and 389 00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:23,839 final fundamental design change for the Venera program, starting with 390 00:19:23,880 --> 00:19:24,440 Venera nine. 391 00:19:24,559 --> 00:19:28,359 Speaker 2: That's right, the engineers realized their previous design failed because 392 00:19:28,359 --> 00:19:31,079 they still spent too long in the atmosphere waiting for 393 00:19:31,119 --> 00:19:33,079 the parachute to gently lower them down. 394 00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:36,279 Speaker 1: The new philosophy was simple and brutal, minimal exposure. 395 00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:40,079 Speaker 2: Exactly, they intentionally decided to rapidly drop the capsule. 396 00:19:40,200 --> 00:19:42,039 Speaker 1: To pull that off, they would have needed a beast 397 00:19:42,039 --> 00:19:42,759 of a machine, and. 398 00:19:42,759 --> 00:19:45,680 Speaker 2: They built one. The new probe design was massive, tipping 399 00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:49,039 the scales at nearly five metric tons, the approximate weight 400 00:19:49,079 --> 00:19:51,200 of a fully grown African elephant, and. 401 00:19:51,119 --> 00:19:55,160 Speaker 1: That sheer mass helped push the capsule through the less 402 00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:56,920 dense upper atmosphere. 403 00:19:56,480 --> 00:19:59,759 Speaker 2: Quickly it did, But the standout technical marvels of this 404 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:03,920 design were all centered on embracing the Venusian environment rather 405 00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:07,839 than fighting it. If you're going to intentionally drop the probe, 406 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:11,960 you need robust, simple landing gear and a braking system. 407 00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:13,599 Speaker 1: So they got rid of complex folding. 408 00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:17,480 Speaker 2: Legs completely in favor of an enormous flat metal circle 409 00:20:17,519 --> 00:20:20,920 at the bottom the impact ring. This ring, attached by 410 00:20:20,920 --> 00:20:24,519 shock absorber legs, served as rudimentary landing gear designed to 411 00:20:24,519 --> 00:20:27,640 distribute the enormous impact force regardless of the terrain. 412 00:20:28,079 --> 00:20:31,319 Speaker 1: But the truly ingenious part which really demonstrates how well 413 00:20:31,319 --> 00:20:35,079 the Soviets came to understand this alien environment, was the aerobrak. 414 00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:38,079 Speaker 2: The aerobrake is brilliant. It's that feature that looks like 415 00:20:38,119 --> 00:20:40,839 a large conical hat strapped to the top of the capsule, 416 00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:43,839 and it was the primary mechanism for slowing the probe 417 00:20:43,839 --> 00:20:46,559 down without a parachute. Had it work, it worked by 418 00:20:46,599 --> 00:20:50,640 exploiting the incredible density of the Venusian atmosphere. To reiterate, 419 00:20:50,920 --> 00:20:53,480 the air on the surface of Venus is about sixty 420 00:20:53,480 --> 00:20:55,799 five times denser than Earth's air at sea. 421 00:20:55,640 --> 00:20:57,880 Speaker 1: Level, it behaves more like water than air. 422 00:20:58,079 --> 00:21:01,279 Speaker 2: It really does so. By creating a massive surface area 423 00:21:01,359 --> 00:21:06,240 with that wide blunt cone, the probe generated enormous aerodynamic drag. 424 00:21:06,799 --> 00:21:10,640 Instead of relying on fragile heat and acid vulnerable parachutes 425 00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:13,960 for the main descent, they used the thick, heavy atmosphere 426 00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:16,440 itself as the primary braking mechanism. 427 00:21:16,640 --> 00:21:20,880 Speaker 1: That is a brilliant counterintuitive solution, using the problem to 428 00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:21,720 create the solution. 429 00:21:21,920 --> 00:21:24,240 Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite feats of engineering in the 430 00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:26,079 entire space race, and the risk. 431 00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:29,960 Speaker 1: Paid off immediately. Vanara nine, launched in nineteen seventy five, 432 00:21:30,039 --> 00:21:32,880 returned the first black and white photograph ever taken on 433 00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:34,680 the surface of another planet. 434 00:21:34,279 --> 00:21:37,519 Speaker 2: And it wasn't a scenic postcard, but its scientific significance 435 00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:41,640 was monumental. The photo showed a field of broken, jagged, 436 00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:45,200 sharp edged rocks surrounded by sand like material. 437 00:21:45,400 --> 00:21:47,559 Speaker 1: The sharpness of the rocks was a key finding right. 438 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:51,839 It suggested that the weathering processes, though corrosive, weren't sufficient 439 00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:54,160 to rapidly erode or smooth the terrain, or that. 440 00:21:54,119 --> 00:21:57,039 Speaker 2: The surface was geologically young and active, which is a 441 00:21:57,160 --> 00:21:58,200 huge discovery. 442 00:21:58,319 --> 00:22:01,240 Speaker 1: And just a few days later, an Era ten, an 443 00:22:01,279 --> 00:22:04,920 identical lander, sent back a completely different view. 444 00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:09,559 Speaker 2: Totally different a flatter ground with large, smooth, pancake shaped rocks. 445 00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:12,720 It was likely the top of an ancient lava flow. 446 00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:17,839 This demonstrated the diverse active geological features of Venus right 447 00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:18,200 from the. 448 00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:23,880 Speaker 1: Start, but the subsequent missions Venera eleven and twelve were frustrating. 449 00:22:23,319 --> 00:22:27,839 Speaker 2: Setbacks, very frustrating. They failed to return any photographs because 450 00:22:27,839 --> 00:22:29,200 of lens cap failures. 451 00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:32,000 Speaker 1: It sounds like such a simple problem, but when you 452 00:22:32,039 --> 00:22:36,039 think about the complex engineering hurdle, it's incredible. The camera 453 00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:37,960 lens had to be protected by a cap on the 454 00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:38,640 way down. 455 00:22:38,519 --> 00:22:41,960 Speaker 2: Shielded from the melting heat and the corrosive acid, and then. 456 00:22:41,960 --> 00:22:45,839 Speaker 1: An automated high precision, high temperature system had to jettison 457 00:22:45,839 --> 00:22:48,640 that cap at the precise moment of landing before the 458 00:22:48,680 --> 00:22:50,640 lander's electronics failed entirely. 459 00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:53,839 Speaker 2: The synchronization was incredibly difficult, and for those two missions 460 00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:55,240 the caps just didn't come off. 461 00:22:55,319 --> 00:22:57,599 Speaker 1: It just highlights the knife edge of survival they were 462 00:22:57,640 --> 00:23:01,559 operating on. They were performing cutting edge interplanetary science with 463 00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:04,480 automated systems that had mere minutes to function in an 464 00:23:04,599 --> 00:23:07,240 environment that was actively trying to destroy them. 465 00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:09,279 Speaker 2: But then we get to the pinnacle of the program, 466 00:23:09,559 --> 00:23:13,880 Venera thirteen in nineteen eighty one, a truly remarkable success. 467 00:23:14,480 --> 00:23:17,240 This probe returned the first successful color photo of the 468 00:23:17,319 --> 00:23:18,759 Venusian surface, and that. 469 00:23:18,759 --> 00:23:22,160 Speaker 1: Color photo is incredible. It showed flat sandy rock, but 470 00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:24,240 because the lander touched down right near the edge of 471 00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:26,759 a cliff or a large boulder, you could finally get 472 00:23:26,759 --> 00:23:28,079 a sense of scale and depth. 473 00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:31,400 Speaker 2: It made the alien landscape feel tangible and real for 474 00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:32,039 the first time. 475 00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:34,640 Speaker 1: Yeah, you can even clearly see the metal base of 476 00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:37,720 the lander in the foreground, and it demonstrates that color 477 00:23:37,759 --> 00:23:41,680 shift caused by the filtering atmosphere, a hazy orange glow 478 00:23:41,759 --> 00:23:42,640 across everything. 479 00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:46,519 Speaker 2: Venera thirteen also featured another set of subtle but critical 480 00:23:46,559 --> 00:23:49,480 design improvements. It had these metal fins added to the 481 00:23:49,519 --> 00:23:53,119 outside of the impact ring. They were dubbed aerodynamic teeth. 482 00:23:53,279 --> 00:23:54,119 Speaker 1: What were those four? 483 00:23:54,519 --> 00:23:56,880 Speaker 2: They were crucial for ensuring the probe did not spin 484 00:23:57,079 --> 00:23:59,920 or shade excessively as it fell through the dense atmosphere. 485 00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:03,640 It ensured a smoother trajectory and more reliable instrument readings 486 00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:04,400 upon impact. 487 00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:07,319 Speaker 1: But Venera thirteen was far more than just a camera. 488 00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:11,319 It was equipped with a sophisticated miniature drill and a surface. 489 00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:15,640 Speaker 2: Sampler, the first ever on site chemical analysis of Venusian soil. 490 00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:16,640 Speaker 1: What did they find? 491 00:24:16,839 --> 00:24:19,720 Speaker 2: The analysis showed the material was very similar to a 492 00:24:19,799 --> 00:24:24,440 terrestrial rock called tough which is essentially solidified volcanic ash. 493 00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:27,240 Speaker 1: So this confirmed that Venus wasn't just hot and crushed, 494 00:24:27,599 --> 00:24:32,640 It was extremely geologically active with significant past volcanism. 495 00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:37,759 Speaker 2: Absolutely, And one final incredible detail about Venera thirteen. It 496 00:24:37,839 --> 00:24:39,799 carried a microphone. 497 00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:41,079 Speaker 1: So we have the sound of Venus. What did it 498 00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:44,440 actually sound like? Captured through a ninety two bar atmosphere. 499 00:24:44,839 --> 00:24:47,839 Speaker 2: The recordings were limited. They primarily captured wind noise and 500 00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:50,559 the mechanical sound of the probe operating, but it was 501 00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:54,799 noted as sounding strange and alien, a deep, thick acoustic 502 00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:58,839 environment consistent with moving air molecules under enormous pressure. 503 00:24:58,599 --> 00:25:01,240 Speaker 1: The sound of a super dense a atmosphere in motion. Yes. 504 00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:03,839 Speaker 2: And the final chapter was Venera fourteen, which was nearly 505 00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:06,920 identical to thirteen, and it lanted successfully in nineteen eighty two. 506 00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:09,920 Speaker 1: It found another flat plane of smooth rocks, and its 507 00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:12,960 soil analysis confirmed the geological findings it did. 508 00:25:13,079 --> 00:25:16,559 Speaker 2: It identified the material as being very similar to selatic bus. 509 00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:18,920 Speaker 1: Salts, which is a critical piece of data. 510 00:25:18,599 --> 00:25:22,480 Speaker 2: Hugely critical. Phialatic refault is the most common volcanic rock 511 00:25:22,559 --> 00:25:24,720 on Earth. It makes up most of our ocean floor, 512 00:25:25,119 --> 00:25:29,359 so the finding strongly connected Venus's subsurface material to Earth's 513 00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:30,359 mantle composition. 514 00:25:30,519 --> 00:25:34,480 Speaker 1: So despite the catastrophic divergence in their atmospheric evolution, their 515 00:25:34,519 --> 00:25:36,720 basic geological building blocks are similar. 516 00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:38,319 Speaker 2: They're twins in a way. 517 00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:42,119 Speaker 1: And that was it. Venera fourteen delivered the last photograph 518 00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:46,359 ever taken of that hellish landscape. Over two decades of relentless, 519 00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:49,559 often failing effort culminated in a handful of photos and 520 00:25:49,599 --> 00:25:52,160 a couple of hours of irreplaceable surface data. 521 00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:55,200 Speaker 2: So we have to ask the inevitable question. After all 522 00:25:55,279 --> 00:25:59,000 that monumental effort, the design breakthroughs, the survival against impossible odds, 523 00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,880 the expenditure of billions of rubles, why did the vendor 524 00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,599 program stop? And why hasn't humanity gone back to the 525 00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:05,839 surface since nineteen eighty two. 526 00:26:06,279 --> 00:26:09,119 Speaker 1: The reasons are multiple, and looking at it purely from 527 00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:13,119 a return on investment perspective, very sensible. The first factor 528 00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:16,200 was just the devastatingly high cost versus the low data payoff. 529 00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:21,079 Speaker 2: Right, You're talking about designing bespoke, single use titanium armored 530 00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:23,839 probes for an immense expense only to get a few 531 00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:26,839 minutes or at best a couple of hours of data. 532 00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,799 Speaker 1: The longest of an arrow lander ever survived was just 533 00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:30,759 under two hours. 534 00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:33,440 Speaker 2: Now compare that to the robotic missions we send to 535 00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:37,640 Mars today. They're also expensive, but they can last for years, 536 00:26:37,799 --> 00:26:41,440 even decades, collecting continuous long term data sets. 537 00:26:41,599 --> 00:26:44,839 Speaker 1: When you're presenting a budget to politicians, advocating for a 538 00:26:44,839 --> 00:26:47,200 probe that costs hundreds of millions of dollars and will 539 00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:50,160 melt in one hundred and twenty minutes is a very 540 00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:54,440 tough sell against missions that provide stable, long term. 541 00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:56,720 Speaker 2: Data a very tough sell. And we cannot, in this 542 00:26:56,880 --> 00:27:00,079 historical analysis ignore the immense political transformation that. 543 00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:01,799 Speaker 1: Was happening the fall of the Soviet Union. 544 00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:04,680 Speaker 2: The Venera program essentially came to a hard stop right 545 00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,000 as the Soviet Union itself was dissolving in the late 546 00:27:07,079 --> 00:27:11,480 nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties. Space exploration, particularly costly 547 00:27:11,559 --> 00:27:14,160 deep space planetary emissions, was the first thing to be 548 00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:15,480 cut when priorities shifted. 549 00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:20,200 Speaker 1: The entire institutional structure that supported this ambitious program just vanished. 550 00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:26,119 Speaker 2: It did, And meanwhile, NASA maintained its sensible reluctance designing 551 00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:29,880 probes that must withstand nine hundred degrees fahrenheit and ninety 552 00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:33,160 two atmospheres of pressure is an engineering problem of the 553 00:27:33,279 --> 00:27:34,039 highest order. 554 00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:37,839 Speaker 1: The difficulty in justifying that immense cost when the data 555 00:27:37,839 --> 00:27:40,799 return is so short lived has been the persistent barrier. 556 00:27:41,079 --> 00:27:44,519 Speaker 2: So they focused their planetary science budgets on orbital missions 557 00:27:44,519 --> 00:27:48,359 for Venus like Magellan, which gave us incredible radar maps. 558 00:27:48,079 --> 00:27:50,880 Speaker 1: And surface missions from Mars where longevity was guaranteed. 559 00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:53,559 Speaker 2: The net result is that the Venera program, despite the 560 00:27:53,599 --> 00:27:56,480 heroic efforts of the Soviet engineers to pierce the veil, 561 00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:59,799 ended up confirming the sheer violence of the environment. It 562 00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:03,119 force us to rethink how planetary atmospheres evolved. 563 00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:07,000 Speaker 1: It established Venus as the ultimate warning the stark consequence 564 00:28:07,039 --> 00:28:08,559 of a runaway greenhouse effect. 565 00:28:08,839 --> 00:28:11,079 Speaker 2: But the legacy is far greater than just a warning 566 00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:14,880 about planetary doom. The Soviets provided foundational data that is 567 00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:18,440 still critical today. They identified the rock types, the tough 568 00:28:18,519 --> 00:28:22,000 and the salt, which established that Venus's basic material composition 569 00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:24,359 is strikingly similar to Earth's, which. 570 00:28:24,319 --> 00:28:28,440 Speaker 1: Raises profound questions about planetary divergence. Why did these two 571 00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:32,759 planetary twins, formed under similar conditions end up following such 572 00:28:32,839 --> 00:28:35,559 dramatically different evolutionary paths and. 573 00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:38,200 Speaker 2: That is where the story truly shifts from history to 574 00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:42,640 the future. The Venera data drives modern proposals. We now 575 00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,000 know that the hostile environment isn't a reason to quit. 576 00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,200 It's a challenge that must be overcome to fully understand 577 00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:49,880 planetary dynamics exactly. 578 00:28:50,039 --> 00:28:53,240 Speaker 1: The Venera findings are the bedrock for the modern missions 579 00:28:53,319 --> 00:28:57,039 NASA's planning, like Da Vinci Plus and Veritas. 580 00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:59,440 Speaker 2: And those missions won't attempt long term surface survival, but 581 00:28:59,519 --> 00:29:01,759 they use the a Narra data to model the atmospheric 582 00:29:01,799 --> 00:29:04,400 layers and map the surface in high detail from orbit. 583 00:29:04,799 --> 00:29:08,279 They were chasing the secrets of Venus's atmospheric chemistry, which 584 00:29:08,279 --> 00:29:10,680 the Venera probes only sampled fleetingly. 585 00:29:10,759 --> 00:29:13,759 Speaker 1: We still want to know is Venus still volcanically active today? 586 00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:17,680 What drives the incredible super rotation of its atmosphere, which 587 00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:20,680 circles the planet faster than the planet itself rotates. 588 00:29:20,799 --> 00:29:22,960 Speaker 2: The answers to those questions require going back. 589 00:29:23,079 --> 00:29:25,400 Speaker 1: What stands out to be the most looking at the 590 00:29:25,519 --> 00:29:29,319 entire arc of this program is the relentless engineering adaptation 591 00:29:30,039 --> 00:29:33,119 from those early primitive rockets that just failed. 592 00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:36,000 Speaker 2: Completely to the decision to use titanium pressure. 593 00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:38,960 Speaker 1: Spheres, and that brilliant move to rely on the atmosphere 594 00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:42,720 itself as an aerobrake. It is a masterclass in iterating 595 00:29:42,759 --> 00:29:47,640 against physics. They continually redesigned against increasingly overwhelming. 596 00:29:47,039 --> 00:29:49,559 Speaker 2: Odds just to capture two hours of data and a 597 00:29:49,599 --> 00:29:51,440 handful of indelible photographs. 598 00:29:51,799 --> 00:29:54,200 Speaker 1: It's a truly profound story of human dedication. 599 00:29:54,559 --> 00:29:58,160 Speaker 2: It is they solved every engineering problem Venus through at them, 600 00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:00,880 short of achieving infinite power or creating some kind of 601 00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,400 superconducting material that could operate indefinitely at nine hundred degrees, 602 00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:06,720 they proved that a probe can land and. 603 00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:09,519 Speaker 1: Function, and that leads us to the pondering question. The 604 00:30:09,559 --> 00:30:12,839 Soviets confirmed the horrific environment, yet they establish that the 605 00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:16,559 materials are similar to Earth's and that sunlight reaches the surface. 606 00:30:17,799 --> 00:30:21,599 So if humanity can now build machines that last for 607 00:30:21,759 --> 00:30:24,759 years on Mars, knowing everything the van Or program taught 608 00:30:24,839 --> 00:30:28,759 us the extreme survival requirements, the necessity of the aerobrake. 609 00:30:29,359 --> 00:30:33,119 Does the potential scientific payoff finally justified the enormous engineering 610 00:30:33,119 --> 00:30:37,000 effort and financial cost of another longer lived soft landing. 611 00:30:37,319 --> 00:30:40,480 Speaker 2: Well, the scientific potential is immense. Studying why Venus went 612 00:30:40,559 --> 00:30:43,720 so catastrophically wrong compared to Earth is essential for understanding 613 00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:46,160 exoplanets in our own climate. But we have to solve 614 00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:49,960 the longevity problem. So what's the technologically active cooling systems, 615 00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:53,240 exotic materials designed to laugh at sulfuric acid and five 616 00:30:53,279 --> 00:30:56,880 hundred degree temperatures, or maybe fundamentally new robotic architectures that 617 00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:59,920 rely on heat resistant pneumatic systems rather than delicate electron 618 00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:02,759 What would it take to make a multi year surface 619 00:31:02,799 --> 00:31:04,599 mission on Venus finally possible? 620 00:31:04,759 --> 00:31:07,000 Speaker 1: I want to know what you, the listener, think the 621 00:31:07,039 --> 00:31:10,079 necessary technological leap is what would it take to build 622 00:31:10,079 --> 00:31:13,359 a robot that could survive not just two hours, but 623 00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:17,000 two years on the surface of Venus. That is a 624 00:31:17,039 --> 00:31:19,680 fascinating challenge to ponder. Thank you for joining us on 625 00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:22,400 this deep dive into the scorching legacy of the Soviet 626 00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:25,039 space program here on Throwing Threads. We'll see you next time.