The Post-Apollo Human Mission to Venus 

The only man that took a photo of the Earth and the Lunar Lander in 1 pic. He was the only man that was not in a picture of all humanity. How lonely he must have felt.

Only 10 moon visitors still with us.

Heard that this morning were loosing too many of them sadly

I’ve read his book, it was very good

I didn't know he passed. RIP, the most underrated apollo 11 crewmember.

Exactly the same for me (64). However as I was only 9 at the time of the Apollo 11 mission, I wouldn’t have been following the details, assuming the manned Venus-Mars mission was ever even made public.

@@Cdearle I was 8 in 1969 & after our 3rd moon mission, I told my parents that we'd be landing on Mars in less than 5 years...boy was I wrong!

That was the November 1988 issue. For me, it sparked an enthusiasm for manned space exploration that has only grown with time.

@@peterbalholm2138 thanks, I remember being about 13-14 at the time and I devoured that article repeatedly. Two space craft. Tethered together and spun to induce gravity and sitting on a heat shield for aero braking.

@@abbaszaidi8371 I read that when I was 19. My grandparents first gave me a subscription to Nat Geo when I turned 13 and kept it up until they passed away.

It's not that different than what ballistic missile submarine crews experience. They go on patrol, cruise beneath the waves for months on end, and return to port. The main difference is it's 100-something people instead of three. Submariners develop a unique psychology; they can hate each others' guts, but they would die for each other, laughing and cracking (extremely dark) jokes all the while.

@@Fragolux your analogy is spot on Sir. Some of the cruelest comments are made at great depths, especially if things creek on occasion. lol

Imagine being cooped up with 99 insufferable puking whooping internet influencers in a Starship!

@@incargeek In a craft boasted to cost just a tenth that of a passenger jet and just $2 million to launch. Riiiiight suuuuuure

@@RideAcrossTheRiver haha exactly

The way it looks now is boots on Mars in 1995.

@@alexlandherr Boot on Venus 2005

@@vovical fly by Venus or perhaps Zeppelins above Venus.

I just started watching that show today, so far pretty darned good!

@@marklechman2225 it gets better in season 2 but still juggling too many subplots!

You might want to check your spelling, please.

@@matthewblack7206 Yup... Mike was no nut..

Always use the inner woman, to get to the outer man, when you're the in-between. --- Swami G

It would also be interesting if NASA had encouraged private spaceflight ventures.

We gave up because people whine and whine and whine about social 'issues'. Money is constantly redirected to social causes at the expense of actual beneficial causes that push humans forward. All this money has been spent on social programs and after decades we have more social problems than ever!

Following Apollo 11, public interest waned, except for an uptick during Apollo 13. People didn't give two dry shits, we beat the Russians, who cares? The public became apathetic and support for deep space exploration dried up. Nixon was sold an idea for a reuseable space plane that could, possibly, make the U.S. some money launching other countries' payloads on top of paying for itself. Yeah, THAT worked out well. And the public still didn't care. And they still don't care. Some people think space exploration is a hollow pursuit, up there with FPS video games and beer pong. You can't have a space program without the support of the general public.

@@rubydooby1679 What are you even talking about? We had tons of social issues receiving government funding in the 70’s. None of which had anything to do with NASA. Nobody gave up, funding got cut. They just went ahead and you know did other stuff like the space shuttle.

@@rubydooby1679 How can you be so callous? I love space and all that it entails but... We can't just ignore Earth and say that our adventures will help it out one day. Change has to happen now and you don't always need a fancy new technology to do it. So I understand why people often say that "space travel is a money-pit, we should be focusing on issues at home".

@John Murphy: Nice to hear from you. At 67 I enjoy the memories Amy rekindles. BTW, I am also named John. Cheers from Ohio!

I was 12. Michael Collins, THANK YOU for just orbiting. Apollo 11 wouldn't, couldn't have happened, without you driving the getaway car. Like others have said, Rest in Peace. Shake Neil's hand up there. steve

I'm 60. I watched Armstrong and Aldrin walk on the moon when I was 81/2 years old. Yes, she is a treasure. Born here in Canada and now making her home in the US. She is well read and prepared.

Thanks for sharing all your thorough research, I also saw the 1st Moon Landing and have NG Magazine with 45 RPM record of their audio recordings. Now I am in my mid 70’s, all of a sudden I have acquired a further interest in space. This past Winter, I found the Lego Models of the Saturn V Rocket, the Lunar Lander, the ISS and the Shuttle with the Hubble Telescope. I have assembled them all and bought several books on the programs. Keep me busy during the Pandemic Isolation.

There were 2 Mariner spacecraft to attempt the Mars flyby - Mariner 3 was lost during lauch when the payload fairing collapsed from aerodynamic loads and pinned the spacecraft inside so was unablw to deploy

News flash: 'Merica was annihilated in the space race.

@@planetvegan7843 After Sergei Korolev died, the Russians had no chance. The N1 was a dismal failure. Their Salyut stations were a nothingburger. The Buran-Energia was a bigger nothingburger. But, nice attempt at trolling.

@@planetvegan7843 I don’t see Soviet flags on the moon

Annihilation: 1957: First intercontinental ballistic missile and orbital launch vehicle, the R-7 Semyorka. 1957: First satellite, Sputnik 1. 1957: First animal in Earth orbit, the dog Laika on Sputnik 2. 1959: First rocket ignition in Earth orbit, first man-made object to escape Earth's gravity, Luna 1. 1959: First data communications, or telemetry, to and from outer space, Luna 1. 1959: First man-made object to pass near the Moon, first man-made object in Heliocentric orbit, Luna 1. 1959: First probe to impact the Moon, Luna 2. 1959: First images of the moon's far side, Luna 3. 1960: First animals to safely return from Earth orbit, the dogs Belka and Strelka on Sputnik 5. 1961: First probe launched to Venus, Venera 1. 1961: First person in space (International definition) and in Earth orbit, Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, Vostok program. 1961: First person to spend over 24 hours in space Gherman Titov, Vostok 2 (also first person to sleep in space). 1962: First dual crewed spaceflight, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4. 1962: First probe launched to Mars, Mars 1. 1963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, Vostok 6. 1964: First multi-person crew (3), Voskhod 1. 1965: First extra-vehicular activity (EVA), by Alexsei Leonov,[23] Voskhod 2. 1965: First radio telescope in space, Zond 3. 1965: First probe to hit another planet of the Solar System (Venus), Venera 3. 1966: First probe to make a soft landing on and transmit from the surface of the Moon, Luna 9. 1966: First probe in lunar orbit, Luna 10. 1966: first image of the whole Earth disk, Molniya 1.[24] 1967: First uncrewed rendezvous and docking, Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188. 1968: First living beings to reach the Moon (circumlunar flights) and return unharmed to Earth, Russian tortoises and other lifeforms on Zond 5. 1969: First docking between two crewed craft in Earth orbit and exchange of crews, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5. 1970: First soil samples automatically extracted and returned to Earth from another celestial body, Luna 16. 1970: First robotic space rover, Lunokhod 1 on the Moon. 1970: First full interplanetary travel with a soft landing and useful data transmission. Data received from the surface of another planet of the Solar System (Venus), Venera 71971: First space station, Salyut 1. 1971: First probe to impact the surface of Mars, Mars 2. 1971: First probe to land on Mars, Mars 3. 1975: First probe to orbit Venus, to make a soft landing on Venus, first photos from the surface of Venus, Venera 9. 1980: First Hispanic and Black person in space, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez on Soyuz 38. 1984: First woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaya (Salyut 7 space station). 1986: First crew to visit two separate space stations (Mir and Salyut 7). 1986: First probes to deploy robotic balloons into Venus atmosphere and to return pictures of a comet during close flyby Vega 1, Vega 2. 1986: First permanently crewed space station, Mir, 1986-2001, with a permanent presence on board (1989-1999). 1987: First crew to spend over one year in space, Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov on board of Soyuz TM-4 - Mir. 1988: First fully automated flight of a spaceplane (Buran).

It was called the space race, not the moon race.

What about John Young? He did it first on Apollo 10...

@@rubydooby1679 WAT ABOUT LAIKA?

@@meesalikeu he wanst a man

@@rubydooby1679Thats right!

That's actually an awesome idea! I would for sure love to see this in season 3! We know that season 3 involves mars already, they could integrate this into the script (fingers crossed)

Ronald D. Moore has a plan. Just like he did with Battlestar Galactica. A five-season plan. He's already got the next three seasons plotted out. There's interviews with Moore here on RU-vid.

@John Murphy Sure. Just not in our lifetimes.

Yes , nice girl

It wasn't well publicized, as were most things in the Apollo Applications Program.

Maybe it will. With Starship the crazy seems possible again.

Michael Collins, mission complete Sir!

@@catch_me_if_you_can1147 If Space X could make it work. I don't doubt that they could. I just can't see it happening anytime soon.

The technology for a safe Mars mission simply wasn't there. Decades had to pass for us to learn about the dangers of extended time in microgravity, radiation, oxygen and water recycling landing systems, etc. We're almost there, but not quite yet.

@@GumaroRVillamil What's even the Mars mission profile? Everyone is concerned with getting there and back. What about the stay?

Those are my favorite raisins. Those French know what they're doing. ;)

Oh, where can we read this short story?

Yes, is it selling somewhere? Is there a link?

Fact about Apollo.11 mission. Michael Collins at one point while orbiting the moon actually forgot the area where the LEM.had landed, because of all the moon's surface began looking the same after a while. He eventually caught on to the landing site. R.I.P. Michael Collins, command module pilot, Apollo 11, 1969. Died at age 90.

You're right, the dV is the same no matter whether you go to a higher or lower orbit.

Love your pun - no pressure Subject is Space haha

Because NASA wants to take a brute force approach and just use rocket power to go there directly... If you've never read about Buzz Aldrin's "Mars cyclers" its an interesting concept that makes a LOT of sense. Basically they're more or less "permanent" spacecraft in an orbit that loops perpetually out to Mars and back down to Earth's orbit at regular intervals. Your Mars-bound spacecraft still has to accelerate to the delta-v necessary to match orbits, but then you can rendezvous and dock with it and use IT for your habitat/shelter for the trip out to Mars, using supplies either pre-positioned on board (or resupplied by launches from Earth that docked to it on previous encounters) or supplies you brought with you for the trip. Ride the cycler all the way out to Mars, and once you're in the vicinity of Mars, separate from the cycler which continues on its loop past Mars and starts heading back towards Earth again... meanwhile you burn your engines to set course for Mars and then decelerate into Mars orbit, and if landing, then enter Mars atmosphere and land. When you're done, take off from Mars, rendezvous and dock with your Mars ship in Mars orbit, then at the proper time, ignite your engines to blast out of Mars orbit and set course to rendezvous with the cycler (or a second cycler), dock with it, and ride it back to the vicinity of Earth, where you separate from it and do a short engine burn to set course for Earth entry, leaving the cycler behind to continue past Earth and heading back out for Mars on its own again... Later! OL J R :)

She’s on Travel Channel too, Mysteries At The Museum.

Doing that for Venus is an interesting and dramatic story. By the mid 1950's, astronomers had a good idea of the planet's size and a fairly good idea of its mass. They were sure that Venus was entirely covered with clouds, though they weren't sure what was underneath it. A tropical jungle? An ocean of water? An ocean of hydrocarbons? A desert? In 1958, a year after Sputnik 1, some radio astronomers looked at Venus with their telescope. They found that it had a surface temperature of about 300 C. Or was it some weird ionospheric effect with the same brightness? That issue was resolved by Mariner 2. In its 1962 flyby, it scanned across the planet, finding nearly constant surface temperature of around 300 C and finding a bit more brightness in the projected disk center than at its edge or limb. This supported the hot-surface theory. Around this time a young astronomer named Carl Sagan tried to calculate how much of a greenhouse effect CO2 would make. He found plenty. The next spacecraft to make it were Venera 4, and a day later, Mariner 5, in 1967. Venera 4 entered the planet's atmosphere, deployed its parachute, and slowly fell. Its last reported temperature was 250 C. Mariner 5 did a flyby, with its radio broadcasts going through the planet's atmosphere. This yielded a density profile that could be extrapolated to the planet's surface, giving a temperature of around 500 C and a pressure of around 75 - 100 bar. Soviet planetary scientists thought that Venera 4 had landed, while American ones thought that it had conked out on the way down. Despite this controversy, the Soviet ones took no chances with later Venus landers, and when one finally reported back from the planet's surface, Venera 7 in 1970, it reported some 475 C and 90 bar. Something weird about Mariner 2 and Mariner 5. They had no cameras, because all their designers expected to see was a "fuzzy white tennis ball". The first spacecraft to take pictures of Venus up close was Mariner 10 in 1972, which it did on its way to Mercury.

NO trying to land people on Venus would be more down to ignorance

@@thechurchofsupersampling Nobody was gonna LAND on Venus... just do a lot of observations and science as they flew by... even going into Venus orbit would have required basically the equivalent of an S-IVB stage for the braking thrust, and then that much power to get back out of Venus orbit again and on a path back to Earth. That's why orbiter spacecraft around other planets is SO much harder than fly-by's... The Soviets have landed some Venera probes on Venus, but it's 900 degrees F on the surface and under a pressure of 90 atmospheres, equivalent to being under about a half mile or so of seawater on Earth. The first Venera lander was crushed like a pop can descending toward the surface by the pressure; subsequent landers were built much stronger like a beefed up submarine hull just to survive the crushing pressure at the surface. The temperature killed the probes anyway after a very short time on the surface as it fries the electronics. No human could hope to survive a landing on Venus, and there's no point to it. Later! OL J R :)

@@lukestrawwalker what in the video called the post apollo humans mission to Venus?

@@thechurchofsupersampling should have been titled "human FLY-BY mission to Venus" then I guess... Get it NOW???

I think the Space Shuttle had gathered a lot of attention. It may have been something else than NASA planned (originally it had a two-stage fully-reusable flyback design, which was too expensive), but it was pretty impressive.