As someone who works in a silicon metal foundry, I found it highly interesting that an unwanted byproduct of the reduction process (SiC) is being used in a new way.
As a materials engineer I found this discussion really fascinating. Thanks Fraser! Also, I'm pretty sure my work laptop runs at temperatures hotter than the surface of Venus. I'd be glad to donate it to NASA for use in any missions there...
The whole concept of clockwork Straandbeest rovers and sensors with mechanical outputs is absolutely brilliant. Break out the top hats and corsets my fellows. We're going Steampunk to Venus!
I loved when you were asking about purely mechanical solutions and he said that even if you could gather information, you would need to beam it up to a satellite and that would still take electronics. He was somewhat taken aback by your description of doing that mechanically too. The bit rate is pretty small though.
My goodness... How have I been a self proclaimed curious individual for so many years and yet, I only found my way to your channel today. Instant sub, what great content and your an excellent interviewer!
In my layperson's opinion we should focus on this! Imagine the majestic scenes of enormous planetary cloud banks the drones could get. Shouldn't it also be easier? Add some small turbines or solar to extract energy along with a small spent nuclear fuel source for long-term power. How challenging would it be to make an adjustable ballast that can ascend or descend depending on acid rain content or atmospheric pressure?
@@marcomoreno6748 THEY ARE GOING TO DO THAT EVENTUALLY. AND ORBITERS TOO IN THE NEAR TERM. THEY NEED TO KNOW THE WEATHER BETTER BEFORE THEY TRY BALLOON DIRGIBLES. THIS GUY IS WORKING ON THE LANDER.
@@meesalikeu it does behave a little better than on earth, as there is no water to react with one's spacecraft with the acid. As a hint, a car battery has around 38% sulfuric acid to 62% water, the electrolyte isn't very effective without the water and just concentrated acid. For a manned craft, I'd yikes more over a methane atmosphere, as if any leaks inside the ship, you've got basically natural gas with no odor mixing with oxygen and that can swiftly equal an earth shattering kaboom. One would smell sulfur compounds and neutralizing the acid is fairly easy.
It would have been cool if they discussed a balloon concept ( completely feesable at higher elevations) that could drop either a tethered probe or an independent probe , or any combination of.
This has been one of my favorite interviews yet Fraser. Dr Kremic speaks well, explains well, and is very comfortable to listen to. Thank you again for knocking out these interviews, this was one of the best.
Bill Gates introduced the Ambri liquid metal battery. The calcium alloy anode is 500°C and the molten salt electrolyte is 801°C. The cathode is made of solid antimony particles. Given Venus' surface temperature of 460°C this battery would require *additional* heat to function.
Could you use the temperature gradient across a junction caused by wind over one side with static atmosphere on the other side? Does venus have a wind chill factor? At 500C surface temps the gradient could be large enough to generate enough power to charge a battery.
Fraser is super professional, he's an incredible interviewer, you can tell his guests are impressed with his questions......Pretty Pro for a Science Communicator super cool
GaN (gallium nitride) is used now for power semiconductors, it's one reason power supplies and chargers got a lot smaller and lighter (and more efficient) a few years ago. Researchers have pushed it as high as 900C operating temperature. They're not building EPYC or Xeon in GaN, Si is easier to work with and well understood, but you could probably fab simple 8 or 16 bit CPUs running at hundreds of MHz, which I think need only a few thousand transistors. That would be sufficient too send up images and accept remote control signals from a mothership satellite with the big computers.
This was very neat learning about the new High Temp chips. As an Electronics Tech in the oil patch our tools were only rated for 200c, but typically we could get about 250c. This was pre 1989 before the wall fell down, because within about 3 or 4 years it was hard to find military grade chips rated for 200c.
That was a great interview, thanks so much. Between the two of you, you asked all the right questions, and his answers were clear and precise without the usual teck talk. I am curious about one thing that you did not discuss.Why couldn't a Venus lander use a power system like the perseverance lander on mars?. Both of you were awesome. Again thank you.
Isn't that an RTG? There are some designs to do that. They're a lot less efficient than on Mars, because for a heat engine to work, you need a cold sink.
@@b43xoitSeversl users have mentioned dropping a tethered probe from a low altitude balloon and using elevation+windchill to provide the heat gradient.
And then the AI will get to its Angry Birds phase of office productivity, then you're on a slippery slope to flaming balls of sulphuric lead raining down upon us from giant Venusian slingshots. 🤨
The issue with silicon at a high temperature is the band gap gets squeezed to the point that it becomes conductive at all times, negating it’s use as a semiconductor. The SiC band gap at high temps pushes it into the range of Si at terrestrial temps
@@sheldoniusRex yes, just like all semiconductor materials, doping the crystal lattice with P or N dopants will lower or raise the valence and conductive bands of the semiconductor respectively.
Would it be possible to have a ballon flying in a safe zone above ground and have sensor packages hanging in a cable down towards the surface? Just that could perhaps save some electronics. If the cable can be rolled up to safe altitudes to cool down the electronics in the sensors before the next dip down then thst would be even better.
Possible but not very practicall , room temperature for venus atmosphere is at 50/55 km above ground, imagine how hard would be to send down a probe 50 km from a balloon floating in the upper atmosphere of venus, that would be not ten times harder than probing the ocean floor for 5 km above, but 100 times more at least, and the advantages would be slims, because would be more cheaper to drop a probe that would measure the parameters than dipping a probe and lifting back before its backed .
Hey Fraser, many thanks for this interview. It's been one of the most exiting ones I've watched to date (and I watch pretty much all of them). I'm not sure if I understood what information we can ultimately expect to get from the surface of Venus based on the kind of technology that's suggested. I think I understand that the chips have to be far more robust, and that will translate into less capability compared to off the shelf chips that are used on other planetary probes. Any chance that you can expand on this in your next Q & A?
For high power: Beside very difficultsuperhot nuclear (not RTGs). I only see sending down energy as an option. Radio or physical storages. Problem is drift of sattellites and balloons. Poles might work for balloons.
What would the Venera spacecraft look like now? Obviously they’re not functional, but do they look the same? If we sent another lander that landed right next to one of them, would we even recognize it? Would the atmosphere have eaten through the metal? Did it melt?
One thing that I didn't get about just how strange the surface of Venus is was finding out that at the pressure and temperature at the surface, CO2 (the predominant atmospheric gas) is a *SUPERCRITICAL FLUID*. The "air" just gradually gets thicker until it's a form of liquid. No transition line like Earth's "air to water boundary" at the ocean surface. Just thicker and thicker air until you're basically swimming.
So this interview got me thinking about how to effectively probe in the soil or rock. Has it been considered to use a high velocity impactor(maybe with a delayed explosive device) to expose deeper layers or study the ejecta scattered on the surface immediately following the impact? Basically creating your own meteor crater.
Great interview, there is just this painful part, where the guest does not understand your question about possible benefits of the venus enviroirment from an engniering perspactive and instead starts to rectify the mission in itself..
I wonder if the Venus power groups have thought of generating thermoelectric power from the temperature differences between the surface and a tethered balloon high above it.
Parallel processing with a geosynchronous partner housing the high power processing, storage and communications. Being close the surface craft can use low power just to gather raw data and short range communication?
For processing power, i would place a zeppelin into the atmosphere, which is easy to do. Oxygen can be used to keep the zeppelin flying. And being high in the air, the entire surface of the zeppelin could be made from flexible (soft) solar cells. The zeppelin can receive data, process it, and send it much easier to Earth or to a Venus orbiter.
26:15 That's exactly what I was thinking. The data you collect in the first mission will help make sure the next mission is perfectly designed for the environment.
9:53 Interesting. We do have viable open source processors like RiscV nowadays, so maybe it wouldn't be _as_ expensive to fab them. They're not exactly cutting edge, about on par with a pi3, but that's still way more oomph than MERs & Curiosity had. There's probably an industrial demand for processors that can operate in those sort of temps too. Opportunities abound!
@@byrnemeister2008 i didn't say cheap, just not as expensive. Even a 1000x the price of a £5 processor is pretty cheap (relatively speaking). Open source means you're not paying for r&d, everything is documented and so on.
The way I read it, traditional designs won’t work as the fundamental switching approach is different using different gating tech then that used in consumer IC’s. So timing, cascades, wiring thickness, layers are all different. It would be like trying implementing FET in a MOSFET or JFET based design.
Perhaps a thermocoupling could take the heat being absorbed by the probe and power a transmitter to to "beam" the heat out of the probe. Be it a laser, maser, RF any frequency that could create a net heat loss would cool the probe. An added benefit of a thermocouple approach would be to do away with the need for batteries or onboard generator, Venusian heat would be the power source.
Great talk. Absolutely fantastic job. It is like the first divers with oxygen, a new world, visiting almost the first time. The russians were the only ones who successfully visit the place, and it is so sad that they are not using their talent only on those things.
Fraser, instead of going to all the effort to develop high temperature electronics for venus, why not simply cool the interior of the landing capsule? So the question is, how much power do you need for an adequate heat pump?
Why can't you use something like pelteir units or a mini heat pump to extract energy from the heat difference between inside and outside the device. Rovers could possibly be steam powered or for locomotion and cooling the electronics before allowing the water to expand.
Fraser, what I don't get here is why use solar or wind to charge the battery when there is like 400 degrees temperature? Is there no way to create a thermo-generator that can harness that energy much like a thermo-nuclear generator?
Maybe we can design an aircraft that normally fly at high altitude on venus where the environment is milder and have it dim down to a few feet above the surface for observation before returning to a safety altitude hence reducing the contact with the harse surface
So, here is a great example and retort for the question “ why do we invest in space” we get great technologies we can use on earth, I want to see the Solder they develop that can stay solid at 500C !!!!!!
My curiosity about Venus is the subterranean. Caves on earth, depending on depth and location, are typically cooler than the surface leval. Do you think there a good chance to find caves on Venus that at certain depths would be something of an easier environment to explore in?
About the power here are my thoughts. you tether a balloon to the lander. One of two things should be true: 1. the wind becomes useful at some height or 2. the tether can be really long. 2 should allow for the temperature differences to be used for energy usage.
initially I thought about 2 balloons connected by a tether and some hows or something. But I thought about it a bit and here is my pitch: We use H2O as a lifting gas. at hight, the water condenses in the balloon and gets collected in the gondola. So it loses buoyancy and starts to sink. At lower hight the water in the gondola boils. The steam is used to power a turbine and released backe into the balloon. The balloon gets more buoyancy and rises again to a point where the water can condense again. rins and repeat. you should probably use an other lifting gas too (f.e. H2) and perhaps multible chambers to control the process.
What about a Blimparine? Float up where it's a cooler 100C or so and dive down to the surface for a short time to look around then when warming up too much re-inflate balloons and rise back up to cold 100-200C atmosphere.
A de pressure tank would cool the atmosphere wouldn't it? The atmosphere has a very earthlike temperature profile, put the mobile phone technology in orbit, like in the atmosphere level.
Is it not only the sensors , antennas and connections to them that need to temperature hardened .Why can't the main electronics and battery be suspended in a vacum surrounded by reflective foil ?
I have seen a design for that. But the refrigeration takes a lot of power and I don't think the design was to last so long as what they talk about here.
Thanks. Strandbeests on Venus! As we try to explore the neighborhood, we learn what our shortcomings really are. This will help us. We'll also learn when high-tech works, and when to go old school. Anyone who doesn't think this benefits all humans doesn't understand how science & technology work. tavi.
When I heard about the plan to try to do a Venus mission, my thought was to have a lander and and orbiter, and let the orbiter be the real brains and have the lander be the "remote hands" of the orbiter. I thought there wasn't any electronics that might work, and from what I understand the atmosphere is limited visibility and quite dark on the ground. So I thought why not leverage the high pressure for navigation, and create a system where the rover uses echo location, and the orbiter listens to the rover using microwaves to hear those sounds by designing a target for it to beam the microwaves to similar to the one used by the soviets to spy on the Whitehouse. The rover might also be able to have some circuitry to gain power from the orbiter this way. If possible the listening method could be used to send data by having the rover transmit sounds, anything to minimize the needed components of the river since even it's cameras and such would really only be used for ovservation
Trying to make sense of what I'm hearing. Taking high temperature electronics that can deliver reliability in an oven, but with simplicity like the moon landing in the 60's, but with more modern capabilities? Do they have microprocessors, do they have software? Operating systems?
Not sustainably. over time, the internal temp of the probe will even out to venus temperature. energy can only be extracted when there is a temperature gradient. once everything is the same temperature, you can’t get energy out of the atmosphere.
Just started watching, so not sure if you mention it, but wasn't the biggest problem for the Russian Venera probes the fact that the lens caps wouldn't open properly? I think the first three probes couldn't take the photos they wanted because of this.
There is a HUGE difference between FETs and BJTs. Like he said, BJTs are 1950s technology. You can create logic gates using BJTs, but they will be discrete and not integrated. Speeds are much slower, and power capabilities are in the basement compared to FETs. The development of field effect transistors is really what brought our technology into the 21st century. We wouldn't have things like smart phones and multi-core processors that run at gigahertz speeds. Think of old school computers from the 50s and 60s before the invention of the microprocessor.
Diamond chips would be much better than silicone carbide at these temperatures. They already exist and are highly capable. Unsure about the camera portion.
OK not related but as I recall, the solid core that seeded Saturn was maybe ten earth masses and is believed to have dissolved completely since the planet formed.
Reaction equals useful energy. Plus, I read a "discovery mag??" where you have layers metals/material that turn thermo to use electrical energy at each layer till the last where the last layer absorbs the last bit of thermal energy.
Could an RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs)) be turned inside out with no isotope needed. Using the heat of Venus through the inside out RTG. To provide long duration power to a Venus lander? Because no isotope would be used. There could be many RTGs on the outside of the lander. Hence power would be a resolved issue. Just a thought my friend.
Thanks for the interview. A few questions pop up for me. 1) Can this high temp high pressure technology be used anywhere else? 2) Can any form of air conditioning be used? I am sure this would be nearly impossible with a compressor/evaporator set up. 3) Is the atmosphere hard on radio communications? Like, is it ionized? I suppose the Soviets were able to get around it. 4) Will stainless steel be the right metal to use? Or is there something better to deal with the sulfuric acid. Thanks.
The atmosphere of venus is actually an ocean of various acid liquids. The density is that of a liquid. The sulphuric acid rain doesn’t vaporizes, it just mixes into the ocean. Originally the ocean of Venus was sulphuric acid, not water and if there once was life it was a low ph one.
As someone who works in a silicon metal foundry, I found it highly interesting that an unwanted byproduct of the reduction process (SiC) is being used in a new way.
As a materials engineer I found this discussion really fascinating. Thanks Fraser! Also, I'm pretty sure my work laptop runs at temperatures hotter than the surface of Venus. I'd be glad to donate it to NASA for use in any missions there...
The whole concept of clockwork Straandbeest rovers and sensors with mechanical outputs is absolutely brilliant.
Break out the top hats and corsets my fellows. We're going Steampunk to Venus!
IT SURE SOUNDS LIKE THAT IS THE WAY TO HANDLE VENUS LOL
Boy what an exciting era of exploration a focus on Venus would be! Hope we can make something that intensely resilient.
I loved when you were asking about purely mechanical solutions and he said that even if you could gather information, you would need to beam it up to a satellite and that would still take electronics. He was somewhat taken aback by your description of doing that mechanically too. The bit rate is pretty small though.
My goodness... How have I been a self proclaimed curious individual for so many years and yet, I only found my way to your channel today. Instant sub, what great content and your an excellent interviewer!
It would be interesting to have weather balloons to explore Venusian clouds and could deploy retractable drones.
In my layperson's opinion we should focus on this! Imagine the majestic scenes of enormous planetary cloud banks the drones could get. Shouldn't it also be easier? Add some small turbines or solar to extract energy along with a small spent nuclear fuel source for long-term power. How challenging would it be to make an adjustable ballast that can ascend or descend depending on acid rain content or atmospheric pressure?
@@marcomoreno6748 THEY ARE GOING TO DO THAT EVENTUALLY. AND ORBITERS TOO IN THE NEAR TERM. THEY NEED TO KNOW THE WEATHER BETTER BEFORE THEY TRY BALLOON DIRGIBLES. THIS GUY IS WORKING ON THE LANDER.
ALSO A DIRGIBLE WOULD STILL NEED TO DEAL WITH SULFURIC ACID CLOUDS. YIKES.
@@meesalikeu it does behave a little better than on earth, as there is no water to react with one's spacecraft with the acid. As a hint, a car battery has around 38% sulfuric acid to 62% water, the electrolyte isn't very effective without the water and just concentrated acid.
For a manned craft, I'd yikes more over a methane atmosphere, as if any leaks inside the ship, you've got basically natural gas with no odor mixing with oxygen and that can swiftly equal an earth shattering kaboom. One would smell sulfur compounds and neutralizing the acid is fairly easy.
It would have been cool if they discussed a balloon concept ( completely feesable at higher elevations) that could drop either a tethered probe or an independent probe , or any combination of.
Nitrogen would be an effective lifting gas for Venus as well.
This has been one of my favorite interviews yet Fraser. Dr Kremic speaks well, explains well, and is very comfortable to listen to. Thank you again for knocking out these interviews, this was one of the best.
Couldn’t agree more! It was delightful to listen to.
00😊
best one for dumb,voting,ignorant ,public school zombie cnts
But he couldn't explain the battery chemistry
Stay off social media, and stick to exploring Venus. Conditions on Venus are a lot less hostile.
Lmao
Either way there’s lots of free energy not being taken advantage of my friend 😊❤️
Just watch out for those "Venereal" diseases...
Edit. Also, don't forget the sunscreen and the Ray Bans.
I'll be going to Mars, to get more candy bars.
💯
Ooh you asked good questions, and he explains so well. Very interesting technology, good job guys👍
Bill Gates introduced the Ambri liquid metal battery. The calcium alloy anode is 500°C and the molten salt electrolyte is 801°C. The cathode is made of solid antimony particles. Given Venus' surface temperature of 460°C this battery would require *additional* heat to function.
Excellent! A different combination of materials would operate at different temperatures. We'd optimize for performance and mass.
Great interview! I love Dr. Kremic's enthusiasm for the many challenges. Lots of food for thought here, and quite a bit of dream fuel too.
Could you use the temperature gradient across a junction caused by wind over one side with static atmosphere on the other side? Does venus have a wind chill factor? At 500C surface temps the gradient could be large enough to generate enough power to charge a battery.
Awesome guest, awesome interview. Thank you Fraser.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Fraser is super professional, he's an incredible interviewer, you can tell his guests are impressed with his questions......Pretty Pro for a Science Communicator super cool
GaN (gallium nitride) is used now for power semiconductors, it's one reason power supplies and chargers got a lot smaller and lighter (and more efficient) a few years ago. Researchers have pushed it as high as 900C operating temperature. They're not building EPYC or Xeon in GaN, Si is easier to work with and well understood, but you could probably fab simple 8 or 16 bit CPUs running at hundreds of MHz, which I think need only a few thousand transistors. That would be sufficient too send up images and accept remote control signals from a mothership satellite with the big computers.
This was very neat learning about the new High Temp chips. As an Electronics Tech in the oil patch our tools were only rated for 200c, but typically we could get about 250c. This was pre 1989 before the wall fell down, because within about 3 or 4 years it was hard to find military grade chips rated for 200c.
Thanks for the incredible interviews, Fraser!
Can’t wait for the upcoming missions!
Super, super interesting! Thank you! It was a real pleasure again to listen to two people thinking through really great ideas.
That was a great interview, thanks so much. Between the two of you, you asked all the right questions, and his answers were clear and precise without the usual teck talk. I am curious about one thing that you did not discuss.Why couldn't a Venus lander use a power system like the perseverance lander on mars?. Both of you were awesome. Again thank you.
Isn't that an RTG? There are some designs to do that. They're a lot less efficient than on Mars, because for a heat engine to work, you need a cold sink.
@@b43xoitSeversl users have mentioned dropping a tethered probe from a low altitude balloon and using elevation+windchill to provide the heat gradient.
I understand that the electronics aren't going to be super powerful, but I guarantee it can run DOOM... on the surface of Venus.
That'll be one of the first applications they develop for it, no question.
And then the AI will get to its Angry Birds phase of office productivity, then you're on a slippery slope to flaming balls of sulphuric lead raining down upon us from giant Venusian slingshots. 🤨
@@3p1cand3rs0n What's Angry Birds? ;-) (J/K)
DOOM is the perfect game to be run on Venus. Even more so than on Mars
Thats actually a great point. The first person to play DOOM on Mars will be a legend. Playing a game in its original setting
The issue with silicon at a high temperature is the band gap gets squeezed to the point that it becomes conductive at all times, negating it’s use as a semiconductor. The SiC band gap at high temps pushes it into the range of Si at terrestrial temps
Does doping the SiC with other elements to control the flow of electrons work the same way as it does with silicon?
@@sheldoniusRex yes, just like all semiconductor materials, doping the crystal lattice with P or N dopants will lower or raise the valence and conductive bands of the semiconductor respectively.
If they chose a wind generator for power, would harnessing surface heat convection be faster/stronger than side wind?
Would it be possible to have a ballon flying in a safe zone above ground and have sensor packages hanging in a cable down towards the surface? Just that could perhaps save some electronics. If the cable can be rolled up to safe altitudes to cool down the electronics in the sensors before the next dip down then thst would be even better.
Possible but not very practicall , room temperature for venus atmosphere is at 50/55 km above ground, imagine how hard would be to send down a probe 50 km from a balloon floating in the upper atmosphere of venus, that would be not ten times harder than probing the ocean floor for 5 km above, but 100 times more at least, and the advantages would be slims, because would be more cheaper to drop a probe that would measure the parameters than dipping a probe and lifting back before its backed .
Hey Fraser, many thanks for this interview. It's been one of the most exiting ones I've watched to date (and I watch pretty much all of them). I'm not sure if I understood what information we can ultimately expect to get from the surface of Venus based on the kind of technology that's suggested. I think I understand that the chips have to be far more robust, and that will translate into less capability compared to off the shelf chips that are used on other planetary probes. Any chance that you can expand on this in your next Q & A?
23:52 "… the hardest problem with rovers on the surface of Venus is power systems …"
Yes. Exactly that.
Dynamic soaring might be a potential energy source no one thinks about.
For high power: Beside very difficultsuperhot nuclear (not RTGs). I only see sending down energy as an option. Radio or physical storages. Problem is drift of sattellites and balloons. Poles might work for balloons.
It could have been interesting to ask him to explain the differences between using SiC or something like Diamond electronics
What would the Venera spacecraft look like now? Obviously they’re not functional, but do they look the same? If we sent another lander that landed right next to one of them, would we even recognize it? Would the atmosphere have eaten through the metal? Did it melt?
great interview. so relaxed and conversational. one question I don't think was asked: when will the next venus probe be launched ?
One thing that I didn't get about just how strange the surface of Venus is was finding out that at the pressure and temperature at the surface, CO2 (the predominant atmospheric gas) is a *SUPERCRITICAL FLUID*. The "air" just gradually gets thicker until it's a form of liquid. No transition line like Earth's "air to water boundary" at the ocean surface. Just thicker and thicker air until you're basically swimming.
So this interview got me thinking about how to effectively probe in the soil or rock. Has it been considered to use a high velocity impactor(maybe with a delayed explosive device) to expose deeper layers or study the ejecta scattered on the surface immediately following the impact? Basically creating your own meteor crater.
Great interview, there is just this painful part, where the guest does not understand your question about possible benefits of the venus enviroirment from an engniering perspactive and instead starts to rectify the mission in itself..
Very interesting interview.
He said keeping track of time uses alot of battery energy ..try a wound spring clock ..with a 60 day duration slow release spring
I wonder if the Venus power groups have thought of generating thermoelectric power from the temperature differences between the surface and a tethered balloon high above it.
For some reason and sadly, the Soviets had continuing issues with lens caps.
amazing inventions.
mechanical thermometer...
wind sail...
openable door... yea, cool very innovative
I've wondered if 'flow batteries' could be used for the power source?
Parallel processing with a geosynchronous partner housing the high power processing, storage and communications. Being close the surface craft can use low power just to gather raw data and short range communication?
A balloon with some sensors and a Transponder on it would help !
For processing power, i would place a zeppelin into the atmosphere, which is easy to do. Oxygen can be used to keep the zeppelin flying. And being high in the air, the entire surface of the zeppelin could be made from flexible (soft) solar cells. The zeppelin can receive data, process it, and send it much easier to Earth or to a Venus orbiter.
26:15 That's exactly what I was thinking. The data you collect in the first mission will help make sure the next mission is perfectly designed for the environment.
9:53 Interesting. We do have viable open source processors like RiscV nowadays, so maybe it wouldn't be _as_ expensive to fab them. They're not exactly cutting edge, about on par with a pi3, but that's still way more oomph than MERs & Curiosity had. There's probably an industrial demand for processors that can operate in those sort of temps too. Opportunities abound!
Always been a low volume niche market. This is why mil Spec semiconductors are so expensive. 125c. 10x to 100x normal spec.
@@byrnemeister2008 i didn't say cheap, just not as expensive. Even a 1000x the price of a £5 processor is pretty cheap (relatively speaking). Open source means you're not paying for r&d, everything is documented and so on.
Irrelevant. The hard part isn't the RTL design, it's the fabrication. You could just take an ARM design too, it's basically free compared to this.
The way I read it, traditional designs won’t work as the fundamental switching approach is different using different gating tech then that used in consumer IC’s. So timing, cascades, wiring thickness, layers are all different. It would be like trying implementing FET in a MOSFET or JFET based design.
Venus exploration is so hardcore.
Perhaps a thermocoupling could take the heat being absorbed by the probe and power a transmitter to to "beam" the heat out of the probe. Be it a laser, maser, RF any frequency that could create a net heat loss would cool the probe. An added benefit of a thermocouple approach would be to do away with the need for batteries or onboard generator, Venusian heat would be the power source.
Study thermo.
Ben Bova's Venus always had some cool ideas for both exotic and low tech solutions for exploring Venus.
Great talk. Absolutely fantastic job. It is like the first divers with oxygen, a new world, visiting almost the first time. The russians were the only ones who successfully visit the place, and it is so sad that they are not using their talent only on those things.
There is an insulation wrap that is used in making backyard forges now. It can really take the heat.
Excellent topic!
Thanks for watching.
Fraser, instead of going to all the effort to develop high temperature electronics for venus, why not simply cool the interior of the landing capsule? So the question is, how much power do you need for an adequate heat pump?
Why can't you use something like pelteir units or a mini heat pump to extract energy from the heat difference between inside and outside the device.
Rovers could possibly be steam powered or for locomotion and cooling the electronics before allowing the water to expand.
If you are moving heat from outside to inside to extract useful work from the temperature difference, the inside is going to heat up very quickly.
TIL that SiC JFETs can run at 500degC. Incredible.
Fraser, what I don't get here is why use solar or wind to charge the battery when there is like 400 degrees temperature? Is there no way to create a thermo-generator that can harness that energy much like a thermo-nuclear generator?
There is plenty of heat, but what is your cold temp which you are using to extract useful work from the heat? Efficiency is Delta_T / T_hot_absolute
Rocket Lab intends to send a spacecraft to Venus and I wonder if they have been communicating with each other?
Maybe we can design an aircraft that normally fly at high altitude on venus where the environment is milder and have it dim down to a few feet above the surface for observation before returning to a safety altitude hence reducing the contact with the harse surface
So, here is a great example and retort for the question “ why do we invest in space” we get great technologies we can use on earth, I want to see the Solder they develop that can stay solid at 500C !!!!!!
High temperature electronics would have so many applications on Earth.
My curiosity about Venus is the subterranean. Caves on earth, depending on depth and location, are typically cooler than the surface leval. Do you think there a good chance to find caves on Venus that at certain depths would be something of an easier environment to explore in?
They're only cooler than the surface level (not leval) at certain seasons.
About the power here are my thoughts.
you tether a balloon to the lander. One of two things should be true:
1. the wind becomes useful at some height
or
2. the tether can be really long.
2 should allow for the temperature differences to be used for energy usage.
initially I thought about 2 balloons connected by a tether and some hows or something. But I thought about it a bit and here is my pitch:
We use H2O as a lifting gas. at hight, the water condenses in the balloon and gets collected in the gondola. So it loses buoyancy and starts to sink. At lower hight the water in the gondola boils. The steam is used to power a turbine and released backe into the balloon. The balloon gets more buoyancy and rises again to a point where the water can condense again. rins and repeat.
you should probably use an other lifting gas too (f.e. H2) and perhaps multible chambers to control the process.
SiliconDisulphide as a gate dielectric maybe
dissimilar metals can create power with heat when combined in a junction thermocouple the problem is having different temps on each end
What about a Blimparine? Float up where it's a cooler 100C or so and dive down to the surface for a short time to look around then when warming up too much re-inflate balloons and rise back up to cold 100-200C atmosphere.
Cal Aluminum phosphide work? Hmm, Boron Nitride?
High temperature solar cells could be very useful for close in solar orbiters.
Yeah, that would be a really cool application.
A de pressure tank would cool the atmosphere wouldn't it? The atmosphere has a very earthlike temperature profile, put the mobile phone technology in orbit, like in the atmosphere level.
Good stuff Doc, but I couldn't help but notice the similarities with the character played (very well) by William Bruce Davis lol early days obviously
A great interview, but some visual representations on what you're actually talking about would help. I'm a visual learner.
Is it not only the sensors , antennas and connections to them that need to temperature hardened .Why can't the main electronics and battery be suspended in a vacum surrounded by reflective foil ?
Could it be possible to enclose the electronics of the lander in an air-conditioned "shell"? Then you could just use normal electronics.
I have seen a design for that. But the refrigeration takes a lot of power and I don't think the design was to last so long as what they talk about here.
Thanks. Strandbeests on Venus! As we try to explore the neighborhood, we learn what our shortcomings really are. This will help us. We'll also learn when high-tech works, and when to go old school. Anyone who doesn't think this benefits all humans doesn't understand how science & technology work. tavi.
When I heard about the plan to try to do a Venus mission, my thought was to have a lander and and orbiter, and let the orbiter be the real brains and have the lander be the "remote hands" of the orbiter.
I thought there wasn't any electronics that might work, and from what I understand the atmosphere is limited visibility and quite dark on the ground.
So I thought why not leverage the high pressure for navigation, and create a system where the rover uses echo location, and the orbiter listens to the rover using microwaves to hear those sounds by designing a target for it to beam the microwaves to similar to the one used by the soviets to spy on the Whitehouse.
The rover might also be able to have some circuitry to gain power from the orbiter this way.
If possible the listening method could be used to send data by having the rover transmit sounds, anything to minimize the needed components of the river since even it's cameras and such would really only be used for ovservation
Materials engineering will be the big challenge.
Trying to make sense of what I'm hearing. Taking high temperature electronics that can deliver reliability in an oven, but with simplicity like the moon landing in the 60's, but with more modern capabilities?
Do they have microprocessors, do they have software? Operating systems?
Great questions. Covered very well
Would it be possible to power a probe/rover using Venus's surface temperature via a thermal couple?
Not sustainably. over time, the internal temp of the probe will even out to venus temperature. energy can only be extracted when there is a temperature gradient. once everything is the same temperature, you can’t get energy out of the atmosphere.
i subscribed because youre a good sport
Listening to the part on power usage and keeping a measure on TIME over time i was thinking thermoelctric generation.
You rock Fray Cay!
question: could a balloon use the temperature differences in the atmosphere as an energy source?
great Episode
Just started watching, so not sure if you mention it, but wasn't the biggest problem for the Russian Venera probes the fact that the lens caps wouldn't open properly? I think the first three probes couldn't take the photos they wanted because of this.
High temperature camera?
I was surprised there was no use of the heat to produce power like heating a liquid to run a turbine
You need a temperature gradient. If everything is the same temperature you can't do work.
@@frasercain could you produce a gradient by the inside being cooler or hotter due to the other components
There is a HUGE difference between FETs and BJTs. Like he said, BJTs are 1950s technology. You can create logic gates using BJTs, but they will be discrete and not integrated. Speeds are much slower, and power capabilities are in the basement compared to FETs. The development of field effect transistors is really what brought our technology into the 21st century. We wouldn't have things like smart phones and multi-core processors that run at gigahertz speeds. Think of old school computers from the 50s and 60s before the invention of the microprocessor.
Can aerogel be used to protect components from a high heat environment?
Diamond chips would be much better than silicone carbide at these temperatures. They already exist and are highly capable. Unsure about the camera portion.
definitely no Earth's typical plastic, rubber and other stuff like low melting things
I wonder why the can't just add some sort of nuclear power source to it, like an RTG or beta voltaic generator.
OK not related but as I recall, the solid core that seeded Saturn was maybe ten earth masses and is believed to have dissolved completely since the planet formed.
Reaction equals useful energy. Plus, I read a "discovery mag??" where you have layers metals/material that turn thermo to use electrical energy at each layer till the last where the last layer absorbs the last bit of thermal energy.
There is no such thing as a layer that absorbs thermal energy for long.
Amazing!
Will the Venera probes have been corroded away by now?
Could an RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs)) be turned inside out with no isotope needed. Using the heat of Venus through the inside out RTG. To provide long duration power to a Venus lander? Because no isotope would be used. There could be many RTGs on the outside of the lander. Hence power would be a resolved issue. Just a thought my friend.
Thanks for the interview. A few questions pop up for me. 1) Can this high temp high pressure technology be used anywhere else? 2) Can any form of air conditioning be used? I am sure this would be nearly impossible with a compressor/evaporator set up. 3) Is the atmosphere hard on radio communications? Like, is it ionized? I suppose the Soviets were able to get around it. 4) Will stainless steel be the right metal to use? Or is there something better to deal with the sulfuric acid. Thanks.
I have seen a design that uses a refrigerator. But it's for much shorter duration than was being discussed here, I think.
Thermoelectric generators without the nuclear heat source. Seems like a logical choice.
What do you use for the hot and cold sides?
How about a huge balloon in the upper atmosphere that drops a series of short-term probes down on the surface?
Mars is cold but Venus is so hot
The atmosphere of venus is actually an ocean of various acid liquids. The density is that of a liquid. The sulphuric acid rain doesn’t vaporizes, it just mixes into the ocean. Originally the ocean of Venus was sulphuric acid, not water and if there once was life it was a low ph one.
My brain wants so badly for Venus to be a second Earth. It would just be so cool to have a second planet ready to visit.