The Inflatable Spacecraft for Exploration of Venus

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With temperatures averaging 864 degrees Fahrenheit, Venus is a tough nut to crack when it comes to exploration solutions, but a group of engineers may have developed an ingenious solution.

Designed by a team at Northrop-Grumman and L’Garde, The Venus Atmospheric Maneuverable Platform (VAMP) is a powered inflatable aircraft that could stay afloat in the harsh confines of Venus’s atmosphere.

The VAMP mission would see it taken into Venus’s atmosphere on the back of a carrier craft before detaching and using powered flight to move into a desired altitude. Once it arrives at this predetermined point, the inflated VAMP will be able to cruise along the powerful winds that circumnavigate the planet.

Venuspioneeruv

Bottom photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Venus Atmospheric Maneuverable Platform at Caltech via Outer Places.

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I design video games for a living, write fiction, political theory and poetry for personal amusement, and train regularly in Western European 16th century swordwork. On frequent occasion I have been known to hunt for and explore abandoned graveyards, train tunnels and other interesting places wherever I may find them, but there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that I am preparing to set off a zombie apocalypse. Nothing that will stand up in court, at least. I use paranthesis with distressing frequency, have a deep passion for history, anthropology and sociological theory, and really, really, really hate mayonnaise. But I wash my hands after the writing. Promise.

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