Near us is a planet unique in its properties - Venus. What is she hiding? Can life exist there? The USSR at one time tried to answer such questions and took very serious steps to develop this planet. More on this later.
Back in the 60s and 70s. of the previous century, the USSR with a serious intention wanted to master Venus. He even planned to organize a colony of settlers there. In December 70, the first spacecraft in the history of cosmonautics landed on the surface of this planet. In general, for more than 20 years, they managed to send almost two dozen devices there. The world then called Venus "the Russian planet".
For what purposes is it necessary to conquer Venus?
Now we very often hear information regarding the polonization of Mars, but even half a century ago, Venus was considered much more promising for scientists in the USSR. Why then? There were several reasons for this, and the main one was concluded in the greatest similarity of Venus to Earth: here is the size, and mass, and composition. For example, Mars is too small, has a rarefied atmosphere and is located very far from the Earth. But Venus is considered for scientists, one might say, an earthly double.
As a second reason, we can consider the fact that even in the 1st half of the last century, the surface of the planet was a kind of giant ocean. It is the presence of the ocean, according to scientists, to some extent explains the clouds that eternally surround the planet. The ocean is life, and because of this, Venus is more attractive in this regard.
The third reason is the resources themselves. Venus is said to have immodest reserves of solid elements such as uranium. Also, due to its proximity to the luminary, Venus is a real natural thermonuclear reactor, capable of giving a strong impetus to energy development.
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Because of the above reasons, the USSR was forced to abandon Mars, the development of which was to be part of the tasks of the United States. For a more detailed study of the planet, a space program called "Venus" was created, which provided for the sending of a series of automatic interplanetary stations to the USSR. The program began in February 1961. It was extended over more than 20 years.
How was Venus “revived”?
They knew very little about Venus, since behind its dense layer, no telescope was able to examine the planetary surface, but because of this, the USSR did not stop in terms of building active tasks to colonize the planet. At the dawn of the 60s. of the last century, the astronomer from the United States Carl Sagan submitted an idea to the Soviet scientific community to disseminate the plan for terraforming Venus. In other words, this is the creation of conditions on the planet that resemble those of the earth.
At the first stage, it was envisaged to send unicellular green algae to the planet itself, which would multiply rapidly if there were no natural enemies. As soon as they fill the ocean, algae will begin to decompose in the excess of carbon dioxide available on the planet and enrich the atmosphere with oxygen. All such processes will reduce the greenhouse effect, and the planetary temperature will gradually decrease. It has been speculated that over the course of a century, temperatures could drop to less than 100 ° C.
But in 1967, the 1st space station of the USSR flew to the atmosphere of this planet and transmitted information that violated all the plans of the scientific community, because, according to it, it turned out that there was no ocean on Venus. In 1969, another station, called "Venus-6", flew to Venus, which gave even more accurate information, namely that the planet has more than 97% carbon dioxide, 2% nitrogen and 0.1% oxygen, and water vapor there are even fewer who can help start life.
Flying Islands
The above plan eventually collapsed, but it was replaced by a new concept. If the surface of the planet is so cruel and not suitable for life, is it not possible to settle on the clouds of the planet? At an altitude of 60 km. above the planetary surface there is a continuous cloud layer, the thickness of which is approximately 10 km.
The Venera-4 device recorded that at this altitude the temperature indicators reach -25 ° C. It is, of course, quite cold, but you can still endure if you compare it with +475, which is on the surface. The pressure in the area of the cloud layer is also very similar to that of the Earth. It is worth noting that clouds, like terrestrial ones, consist of the smallest ice crystals, so there is water there, although there is very little of it. All this makes the conditions for a person being there much more comfortable than on the Moon and Mars. Astronauts will not need a spacesuit, because a light mask with a unit for obtaining oxygen by a chemical method is enough.
The main disadvantage here is that there is no hard surface familiar to humans, but astronauts should not need it. There were suggestions that the first colonizers would live in drifting airship stations. Carbon dioxide is 1.5 times heavier than air, so that a light shell with air inside will float in a carbon dioxide atmosphere and will not even sink.
Soviet engineers have depicted a possible arrangement of such flying settlements. One drawing was posted back in 1971 in a magazine called "Technology for Youth". The ship was a platform of gigantic dimensions, surrounded by a spherical shell consisting of several layers of synthetic film, between which circulating movements of gas mixtures, which keep the "airship" itself afloat. The shell is transparent, and through it you can see the whitish sky of the planet. At the bottom of the platform, there are living quarters, warehouses and laboratories, and above them is the land where agricultural crops grow.
Hopes have been killed
Alas, in the future it was the research work on Venus that managed to destroy this concept. In 1978, the Venera-11 and Venera-12 satellites flew to the planet, which registered a noticeable number of electrical discharges in the planet's atmosphere. Only during the landing of "Venera-12" the number of lightning has exceeded a thousand.
4 years later, in 1982, the 14th device flew to Venus, which gave some more sad information: just at an altitude of 50-60 km. the strongest wind phenomena are observed over the planetary surface. They are so powerful that an island in the clouds can easily be blown apart.
It is worth noting that the 9-14 devices provided the USSR with a lot of valuable information regarding Venus: these are photos and panoramas of the planetary surface, the results of soil and atmospheric analyzes, measurements of temperature indicators, as well as pressure during descent in the atmospheric environment. However, the more scientists began to know about the 2nd planet from the Sun, the less interest was shown in this.
In 1984, the USSR decided to transform the Venus project into an international project called Vega, in which Japan, the United States and 10 other European countries took part. But the missions did not provide any new data, and this turned out to be the last step taken by our country in relation to Venus.
Conclusion
Here we have provided the readers with some very interesting information. After all, the colonization of Venus is a very serious matter, and it turns out that the USSR was striving to implement such ideas. Alas, it all collapsed later. But in the course of these attempts at colonization, mankind learned a lot about Venus. It is noteworthy that conditions can be created there like earthly ones, and people can live there, besides, as they say, it would presumably be more comfortable there than on Mars or even the Moon. We learned a lot thanks to this mission to Venus and everything is still ahead, because technology, perhaps, can allow any old ideas to be realized, and we will become the colonizers of Venus, not Mars.