WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:10.910 --> 00:00:11.177 Yeah. 2 00:00:11.177 --> 00:00:13.313 Venus has a few really big challenges. 3 00:00:13.313 --> 00:00:16.216 The surface temperature is like 900 degrees Fahrenheit, 4 00:00:16.216 --> 00:00:20.253 which is about even with a professional wood fired pizza oven. 5 00:00:20.587 --> 00:00:23.590 And the pressure is crushing at 90 times what we have on Earth. 6 00:00:24.190 --> 00:00:27.594 So we need to protect our delicate science instruments from that. 7 00:00:27.594 --> 00:00:30.063 They're not going to be able to survive that environment. 8 00:00:30.063 --> 00:00:33.466 So instead, we're taking essentially the science package from the Curiosity 9 00:00:33.466 --> 00:00:38.304 rover and sealing it up inside a 500 pound titanium sphere. 10 00:00:38.471 --> 00:00:39.906 It's about three foot diameter, 11 00:00:39.906 --> 00:00:42.709 and that'll protect it from the temperature and the pressure. 12 00:00:42.709 --> 00:00:45.712 And then we go send that sphere skydiving through Venus. 13 00:00:46.179 --> 00:00:48.581 We'll take all of our measurements on the way down. 14 00:00:48.581 --> 00:00:51.418 We'll take us about an hour to fall from the top of the atmosphere down 15 00:00:51.418 --> 00:00:52.052 to the surface. 16 00:00:53.386 --> 00:00:54.054 We have to take those 17 00:00:54.054 --> 00:00:57.357 measurements as they're happening and transmit them up to a relay. 18 00:00:57.357 --> 00:01:00.360 And then we will smack the surface at 30 miles an hour. 19 00:01:07.100 --> 00:01:07.667 Sure. 20 00:01:07.667 --> 00:01:09.102 I'm one of the engineers in charge 21 00:01:09.102 --> 00:01:12.272 of figuring out how to go take these measurements at the right time 22 00:01:12.272 --> 00:01:15.442 to get the scientists what they need and to guarantee that we get the data 23 00:01:15.442 --> 00:01:19.946 sent out before we have our up close and personal encounter with the surface. 24 00:01:20.613 --> 00:01:23.083 So that means a lot of working with the scientists 25 00:01:23.083 --> 00:01:27.153 and the engineers and optimizing what our descent looks like 26 00:01:27.153 --> 00:01:30.156 to get the best return for this really one shot event 27 00:01:30.156 --> 00:01:33.159 to make this work. 28 00:01:38.965 --> 00:01:43.403 So during the actual descent, during that hour, we're going 29 00:01:43.403 --> 00:01:46.673 to get a little bit of live data, but we can't talk to the probe at that point. 30 00:01:46.806 --> 00:01:50.076 It's busy doing running its canned sequence of events. 31 00:01:51.077 --> 00:01:53.813 And so we're all going to be sitting around in the operations center. 32 00:01:53.813 --> 00:01:56.983 Some of us have been working on these this mission for ten years or more, 33 00:01:57.450 --> 00:02:00.186 and we're just going to be waiting for a stream of data to come back 34 00:02:00.186 --> 00:02:03.189 to say whether this work, to see what we've learned. 35 00:02:03.990 --> 00:02:06.559 And by the time we get any of that data, 36 00:02:06.559 --> 00:02:09.162 the is already dead on the surface. 37 00:02:09.162 --> 00:02:11.931 So that'll be a really tense but exciting moment. 38 00:02:11.931 --> 00:02:15.201 Will be a great kind of capstone to to a decade or more of working 39 00:02:15.201 --> 00:02:18.204 on this project 40 00:02:23.243 --> 00:02:25.712 for So Earth and Venus have a lot in common. 41 00:02:25.712 --> 00:02:27.113 They're similar size. 42 00:02:27.113 --> 00:02:29.048 They're both rocky planets and Venus is our neighbor. 43 00:02:29.048 --> 00:02:32.051 They're just one planet closer to the sun than Earth is. 44 00:02:32.318 --> 00:02:34.721 But their atmosphere is just really punishing. 45 00:02:34.721 --> 00:02:38.191 By the time you get to the surface, it's a 900 degree atmosphere. 46 00:02:38.791 --> 00:02:40.860 That's the same as a wood fired pizza oven. 47 00:02:40.860 --> 00:02:43.463 It's a crushing 90 atmospheres of pressure. 48 00:02:43.463 --> 00:02:46.332 And that's about the same pressure you get at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. 49 00:02:47.500 --> 00:02:48.902 It's always cloudy on Venus. 50 00:02:48.902 --> 00:02:50.136 It's the clouds are really thick 51 00:02:50.136 --> 00:02:53.173 and hard to see through, which makes it hard to study from orbit. 52 00:02:53.740 --> 00:02:56.109 And those clouds happen to mostly be sulfuric acid. 53 00:02:56.109 --> 00:02:57.810 So they have a habit of trying to eat away 54 00:02:57.810 --> 00:03:00.780 a lot of materials if you're going to put them through the atmosphere. 55 00:03:01.247 --> 00:03:04.484 So all in all, it's it's a little bit earth like, but it's a horrible place to be.