Quick, after that last post, I desperately need a thorough brain cleanse. Maybe a quick vacation on the paradisial water world of Venus, or Amtor as Edgar Rice Burroughs called it.
OK, maybe 575°C and 90 atmospheres of pressure rule out visiting it for spring break (actually, I’m visiting Des Moines, Iowa at that time, which should be more pleasant), but this is a reminder that Soviet engineering and science actually accomplished great and admirable things. And they were so persistent and creative in their efforts to put a probe on the surface!
As far as I can tell there isn’t a single billionaire there, so it’s not all bad.
575°C – but is it a dry heat?
In terms of ‘places off Earth to live’, about 50 km up in the Venusian atmosphere isn’t half bad. At least, the temperature and pressure are fine and the atmosphere above you provides at least some shielding from cosmic rays even if Venus lacks a magnetosphere. Your air supply is even lighter than the local atmosphere, so adds buoyancy. Sure, it’s dry as a bone and the atmosphere will suffocate you, and it is a very long fall to the ground but you’re probably above the sulfuric acid clouds at least.
(There is a reason why longer-duration exploration of Venus might be best done by putting the probes on balloons. Sure you can’t do the poke-the-rocks-with-your-instruments thing the Mars rovers can do, but it turns out heat and pressure kill robots faster than cold and sand.)
The Soviet probes worked much better on Venus than US probes, because they used vacuum tubes, which tolerate extreme heat much better than semiconductors.
I suggest we send some immediately. Call it Project VenusGate or something.