*the threshold is 524° C, it's close but not quite there
I'm sure if you email them, they can direct you to the reports. The are usually hosted on the NIAC site, but there was some dustup over accessibility concerns, I think.
In other words, if there was a human down on the surface who could somehow survive and look around from a nuclear-powered refrigerated spacesuit, they would only be able to distinguish the robot structure by the radiation it was reflecting/emitting other than the blackbody radiation associated with the ambient temperature.
Maybe by summing via multiple weirdly-shaped cams? Or somehow extracting information from the motion of a double-pendulum system?
Impractical, perhaps, but I can't help wondering the best way to do such a thing.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20150002090/downloads/20...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272522839_Venus_hig...
I like the unique constraints of trying to make the computation mechanical, but... It was IMO clear well before 2017 that the electronics option was more feasible than the mechanical approach. Glenn Research Center has had high temperature electronics for quite a while.
EDIT:And now we have full up high temperature SiC integrated circuits and memories. Totally obsoletes the hand wavy SiC circuits in my intern paper, but it is truly an amazing capability compared to anything mechanical: https://hackaday.com/2021/05/03/silicon-carbide-chips-can-go...
I wonder how you assemble circuits of components that run above solder-melting temperatures. Laser welding, probably.
NASA exploration budgets are so constrained now, risk is the limiting factor. The best way to gather Venus data is probably going to be disposable autonomous swarm drones. If they can be fabricated cheaply enough, just let them burn up.
Lofted Environmental Venus Sensors (LEAVES)
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2021_Phase_...
Why are they so constrained and by whom?
Fluidics based computations should give much better performance, miniaturization and reliability.
Wind technology is a mature technology however. I cannot see why other means of energy generation on Venus would have a head start.
All solutions will need to be adapted to the conditions on Venus.
As for communication range. You just need to reach something like an airship or balloons higher up. At higher altitudes you temperature and pressure is no longer an issue and you can use whatever technology works on Earth.
To clarify, I never meant to suggest that we could just drop a rover on Venus right now. I was simply trying to challenge the idea that a mechanical rover was the better idea. I see you mention Robotbeat which seems perhaps like a better solution. But I still cannot see why a fluidics solution would not be better than the mechanical solution proposed here. Yes, carbide based chips may be even better.
You need to be able to use temperature differential to produce rotation -- that could be taken care of by simple Stirling engine. Fortunately, given how thick the atmosphere is, the engine would be very small.
Another problem is bearings which would be essential to get and keep it running constantly. But here the thick atmosphere also helps. The thick atmosphere would make it easy to create efficient aerodynamic bearing.
The last problem is magnets. To produce electricity you need a magnet. Now, looking at a chart I see that there is a bunch of materials with curie temperature higher than temperature on the surface of Venus.
Now... just because we can get electronics to run somewhere deep below multiple layers of insulation doesn't yet mean we can do anything useful. For that you need sensors and I don't know what kind of sensors you can build that can withstand that kind of temperature.
I strongly recommend anyone who likes reading about crazy ideas that just might work to check out the NIAC awardees [2]
1. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-venus-rover-challenge-wi...
2. https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/NIAC_funded...
Disclaimer, my idea was funded this year so I'm on the list. :)
https://www.ozarkic.com/2020/05/26/ozark-ic-to-continue-ultr...
