How Long Would It Take Us To Go To Venus?
Venus is the brightest planet in our sky. In fact it is just in the list of brightest objects after
the sun and the moon. Also known as a twin of our planet earth, exploration of Venus has been one
of the most important interplanetary objectives after mars. Humanity has sent many missions to
the “morning star”, but the mysteries around the planet are still to be answered. And to answer
those questions, we need to first go to there. So how long would it take us to go to Venus?
It is full of scientific marvels, such as being the hottest planet in our solar system and having
92 times the surface pressure of Earth. We have sent several unmanned expeditions to Venus,
but we have yet to set foot on its surface. When considering an accomplishment like this,
there are several elements to consider. There’s also a question about Humans terraforming Venus.
How long would a manned mission to Venus be? In this video we will answer all of that and more.
The sun is the brightest object in our sky because it is a huge ball of fire.
The moon is bright because it is incredibly close and reflects the light from the sun.
But Venus is bright for two main reasons- Its highly reflective atmosphere and its very close
distance to the Earth. SO what is the distance of Venus from Earth, let's talk about that first.
We all know planets follow an elliptical orbit. All the planets follow their orbits and because
of this type distances between them might vary. They might be closest at a certain point of time
and they might be farthest too. So there is no one distance between Earth and Venus. You will observe
Venus to be on the opposite side of the sun from us when it reaches ‘superior conjunction’.
The largest distance between the two planets is when the Earth is at the extreme end of
its orbital ellipse. In the same manner, they are closest to each other at the
‘inferior conjunction’, which happens every 584 days. This is the point at which Earth,
Venus, and the sun all align, with Venus and Earth on opposite sides of the sun.
The closest Venus can get to Earth is when it passes through the least curved region of Earth's
orbit. This occurs when the Earth is close to perihelion, its closest approach to the sun.
The orbits of both the planets are mathematically linked and repeat almost perfectly at every five
conjunctions, which last for around eight years. This indicates that the distance
between Earth and Venus at each conjunction will be roughly the same after five conjunctions. With
all this information under our belt, we know that there is no one answer to the question
of “how far away is venus”? But we do know its closest, farthest and average distance from us.
As we mentioned above, all planets orbit in an ellipse, rather than a circle. But Venus
has the most circular orbit. The average distance between the planet and the sun
is 67 million miles (108 million km). Venus is closest to Earth at its ‘Inferior conjunction’,
where it is just 25 million miles (40 million km) distant at its closest (perihelion).
Because of changes in Earth's orbit throughout time, the minimum distance between our two planets
has risen. Since 1623, Venus has been no closer to Earth than 24.5 million miles (39.5 million
kilometers). Venus will not approach within 24.8 million miles (40 million kilometers) of
Earth for more than 60,000 years after the year 5683. Venus's closest and farthest approaches
occur only every 19 months or so. Between times, its average distance from Earth is around 42.2
million miles or 68 million kilometers. This isn't the whole story, because the distance to
Venus changes every day and fluctuates greatly over each orbit, but it's a good starting point.
Venus is even closer to Earth than mars. Scientists today think that Venus had
habitable conditions a few billion years ago, until a runaway greenhouse effect caused by
volcanic activity and water loss from Venus' atmosphere This process sentenced Venus to
its current terrible landscape. BEcause of many reasons and mysteries like this,
the morning star has been a prominent target for space missions, with the first space missions
launched by Soviets and American in the early space race of 1960s. Both the countries sent
various spacecraft to the hellish planet in the space race. Out of the 41 missions launched
to Venus since the advent of the space era, 23 (American and Soviet) have successfully traveled
to Venus (counting all of those that flew past Venus without being dedicated to studying it).
This success rate easily exceeds the success rate of missions to mars. These spacecraft
which have been to Venus can offer valuable insights on how much time it takes to reach it.
The Venera 1 spacecraft by the Soviet Union was the first space probe to be launched towards
Venus. The mission was launched on February 12,1961, with the primary goal of reaching
the planet. However on February 17th, scientists lost touch with the space probe. Because mission
controllers did not have time to make a course correction that would have brought it closer
to Venus, it is believed to have passed within 100,000 kilometers of the planet on May 19th.
That's a total of 97 days, or little more than three months.
NASA's Mariner 2 completed the first successful Venus flyby. This spacecraft was launched on
August 8, 1962, and successfully completed a flyby on December 14, 1962. So the total time
from launch to arrival at Venus is 110 days. The Pioneer Venus 1 mission was launched on 20 May,
1978 and arrived at its destination in 198 days. ESA's Venus Express was the most recent spacecraft
to visit Venus. It was launched on November 9th, 2005, and traveled to Venus in 153 days.
Why is there such a difference between the time taken by different spacecraft?
Traveling to the planet in a spacecraft is not an easy task. It is not feasible to simply
determine its location, point a spaceship at it, and click the huge launch button.
Instead, we must account for the movement of the planets as they orbit the sun. We must also avoid
our own gravitational pull at the beginning of our voyage and enter Venus's at the finish.
It all comes down to several factors like the route, fuel-efficiency and others.
Let’s take a look at some of these. All of this is like a physics ballet; often, the best path
to our destination is not the most direct, which adds to the time it takes to get there. It all
boils down to launch velocity and trajectory. The Earth and Venus are both in orbits around the Sun.
In order to reach the morning star, You must travel in a transfer orbit between Earth's
orbit and Venus' orbit, catching up with Venus and, ideally, entering orbit. To accomplish the
journey with a smaller, less costly rocket, you must take a longer, more time-consuming route.
Another important factor to consider is the sort of engine driving the spacecraft,whether
it is fuel efficient or not, and a third factor to consider is that slowing down takes a long time,
so if a spacecraft is only going to flyby, it must slow down, but if it is going to orbit,
its voyage to Venus will take longer. So because of this, it is very clear that there is no one
answer for how long it would take to reach venus. It all depends on a variety of factors. But based
on the history of missions to Jupiter, the shortest time a spacecraft took was 109 days,
and the longest was 198 days. On an average missions to Jupiter take between 120 to 135 days.
But what about Humans going to Venus? Terraforming it has been an important topic for discussion
lately. If Venus was once habitable, could it be made habitable again. To be honest, the process
would be really hard because of the planet’s hellish atmosphere but certain ways can allow
the terraforming of Venus. But that’s a topic for another video. Today we wanna talk about whether
a human mission to Venus would be possible? Humans have never made the trip but someday we
can expect at least a flyby mission, as landing on the planet itself would be very unpleasant.
The only probes that landed safely on Venus and sent back images of its surface area were
Venera 9 and Venera 10 which lasted for 53 minutes and 65 minutes respectively.
The surface temperature of Venus can reach upto 950 degrees Fahrenheit, not to mention thousands
of volcanoes and a planet like an oven. Simply surviving on Venus's surface would necessitate
technology that could endure tremendous heat and corrosion from sulfuric acid in the atmosphere,
not to mention the strain on the human body. Humanity will send several unmanned
expeditions to the planet. Even so, machines can only retrieve so much data and information.
We'll arrive at a moment in time when our next move will be to set foot on the planet.
There are a few basic properties of Venus that fascinate astronomers all around the world. The
fact that there is a layer of atmosphere in which humanity may exist, and that the planet's rocky
surface is similar to Earth's. We can just imagine what a human landing on Venus would look like.
On an average with the best of our spacecrafts we can even shorten the journey to 60-80 days in
the future with better engines and propulsion systems. But only time will tell. What do you
think about going to Venus? When will Humanity try a manned mission there? Any estimates?
Let us know what you think in the comment section below and share the video with your friends!