Comments by "H. de Jong" (@h.dejong2531) on "How the Soviets Landed on Venus" video.

  1. False. 10,000 successful launches prove you wrong.
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  2.  @kordelas2514  Space is generally accepted to start at an altitude of 100 km. We've launched 10,000 satellites to altitudes greater than that, and their ability to stay up there for years to decades without propulsion indicates that they really are in space. The fact that you can find the occasional atom at higher altitudes doesn't change that.
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  3.  @anchorpoint5871  Of course it's a valid explanation. The moon missions were the most expensive project in history.
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  4. Each Venera mission consisted of a single spacecraft, with cameras inside looking out. So there are no photos of the craft in space or during the descent from outside. Illustrations are useful to explain those parts of the mission. After landing, the Veneras could only take photos in a few directions. The long distance meant low data rates, so we got only a small number of images before the lander broke down. For the moon landings, the BS is all on your side. Each mission was documented extensively, with television coverage for large chunks of each mission, plus high-quality film and thousands of photos. Illustrations are still used to e.g. show the mission profile, because illustrations are superior to photos for that.
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  5. To learn more about the planet, obviously.
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  6. The Soviets had a pretty extensive moon program. They retrieved lunar soil samples, and they operated 2 rovers. Their manned lunar program was hamstrung by indecision (they didn't get started properly until about 1965), infighting between design bureaus (no central agency like NASA to coordinate their efforts), the death of Korolev, and lack of money - with an economy only 1/10 the size of the USA they couldn't spend enough to keep up with the Apollo program. So in 1969, they launched the first N-1 moon rocket on an unmanned test (about 14 of those were planned). The launch failed. Then Apollo 11 happened and the Soviets lost interest.
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  7. That's nonsense.
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  8. They had a large Mars program as well, unfortunately that had a string of failures.
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  9. The Soviets cooperated with the USA on their last Venus missions (the Vega project). If they hadn't been able to deliver, it'd have come out then.
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  10. To get you started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEAVirFERU4 This is about the Deep Space Network, used by NASA to communicate with faraway spacecraft. The Soviets did something similar.
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  11. The Soviet Moon missions were all named Luna. The rovers were called Lunokhod. The Lunokhods had 8 wheels, not 6. They had a pressure hull with air inside - this simplified cooling the electronics. The Lunokhods were remote-controlled from Earth - this was very difficult on the crew, because they had to deal with 2 seconds of delay between giving a command and seeing the results. Short documentary on the Lunokhods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qELeRJesg_c&t=328s
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  12. They tried, but were unable to get their manned lunar program developed in time. The N-1 had its first unmanned test launch in 1969.
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  13. There is no dome. That whole concept is based on a translation error. In the original text, the Hebrew word raki'a is used. This word means simply "expansion." It denotes the space or expanse like an arch appearing immediately above us. In the Vulgate this was translated as 'firmamentum'. The original text does not describe a dome: that was added by the translators who created the Vulgate. God's cosmology is closer to what we know today than that of the Latin scholars of 380 AD who created the Vulgate. So there's no reason to diminish His creation by considering the heavens above a dome with lights instead of actual space with actual stars.
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  14. That's incorrect. Venus is a planet, not a "heavenly light". It is reachable, and has been visited 46 times.
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  15. The Moon missions ended because they were expensive. It took 5% of the Federal budget for a decade to get to the Moon. After Apollo, NASA's budget was slashed to 1/5 of what it was. So NASA concentrated on cheaper efforts: a reusable spacecraft (Space Shuttle), and learning how to live in space for longer periods (via the ISS). Now, NASA's working on Artemis, a new manned Moon program.
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  16. Hate to disappoint you, but that video isn't real.
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  17. In 2021, NASA started development of 2 Venus missions: DAVINCI+ and VERITAS.
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  18. Like any space mission, the Veneras communicated via radio. Get a large enough antenna, and getting signals form Venus isn't difficult and well within our capabilities in the 1970s.
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  19.  @vojislavdragic5090  We have millions of photos of Earth. The Himawari and GOES images (and Meteosat, which uses a similar imaging system) provide images in 10k x 10k resolution, in 16 spectral bands. The spectral bands are optimized for meteorology, so you won't get an RGB image. They do have red and blue channels, not green IIRC. There are other Earth observation satellites in GEO: NASA's Terra satellite makes full-disk images. A little farther out at the L1 point, we have DSCOVR, with another excellent camera on board. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPM2kITNtTs For more detailed images, we have lower-altitude satellites like Landsat, SPOT, the Maxar constellation etc. These are in low orbit, so they can't take full-hemisphere images. Still, several of these image the entire Earth on a regular basis. We have photos from several interplanetary missions, e.g. Voyager and Galileo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AR5c9w0T3k), which made full-disk images on their way out. And of course the photos and film made by the Apollo missions.
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  20. We have proof: images and other data sent by the probes, signals received from the mission by radio astronomers outside the USSR. Data corroborated by later missions. You on the other hand are making a claim without evidence.
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  21.  @kordelas2514  That is ridiculous nonsense. We have launched 10,000 spacecraft to orbit. Some of those are visible with the naked eye. With simple tools, you can measure their speed and altitude https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zApGNHOi0s You'll find an altitude of more than 200 km and a speed of 8 km/s, which means they have to be outside our atmosphere, proving you wrong.
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  22. You're arguing from ignorance: you don't know how they were able to send pictures from Venus, and instead of learning how they did it, you just claim they faked the mission. That's a worthless argument.
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  23. Look at the sky tonight. You can see satellites pass overhead. With simple tools, you can measure their speed and altitude https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zApGNHOi0s You'll find an altitude of more than 200 km and a speed of 8 km/s. Every day, you benefit from data generated in space, proving space is real and Earth is not flat.
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  24. That's a load of nonsense.
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  25. In 2021, NASA started development of 2 Venus missions: DAVINCI+ and VERITAS. A rover would be an immensely complex project: the Venera record stands at about 90 minutes of surface operations. You want a rover to survive for months or years.
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  26. Probably 8.7 miles instead. Or even 8.7 km.
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  27.  @kordelas2514  Proving you wrong, again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zApGNHOi0s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_ADBlrIRsM and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn7Jklb0qZw
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  28. The Moon landings are real. Every single argument made by moon landing deniers falls apart when you look at it: they're all arguments from ignorance.
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  29. Yes, this is all real.
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  30. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, neither was true.
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  31. The Venera probes did that: each mission consisted of an orbiter and a lander.
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  32. They have more than that: photos from several missions, and lots of measurements. The Veneras had about 10 science instruments on board.
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  33. easier local environment, but a longer trip - and the Soviets had trouble making electronics that lasted long enough to get to Mars. So they had a whole string of failed Mars missions.
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  34. You're getting most of that wish: In 2021, NASA started development of 2 Venus missions: DAVINCI+ and VERITAS.
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  35. Radio. The lander transmitted to the orbiter, which transmitted back to Earth. Reception was done with a dish antenna with a diameter of 70 m.
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  36.  @anthonybowers7571  I've never seen a video on the Russian deep space communications system. The USA has a similar system, the Deep Space Network. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzRP1qdwPKw
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  37. The only bullshit is the stuff you're spouting. We have run over 200 missions that left Earth orbit.
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  38. No. A TEG needs a temperature difference to work, and the only way to keep a lander cool is by running a refrigerator, which always takes more power than TEGs can harvest from the temperature difference.
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  39. The Moon landings are real. Every single argument made by moon landing deniers falls apart when you look at it: they're all arguments from ignorance. You're doing the same for Venus.
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  40. both had their moments. The Soviets ran an extensive unmanned lunar program, including rovers and sample return missions. They had a string of Venus missions, but a lot of failures on Mars. No outer planet missions, but a series of manned stations in Earth orbit. The Americans produced a large number of failures early on, but by the end of the 1960s they were ahead with the Apollo program. Then their planetary exploration program really kicked off with the Voyagers. The Soviets suffered from a lack of available money. Their manned lunar program was run on a shoestring budget, and it showed: first unmanned test launch in 1969.
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  41. Air pressure doesn't do anything to rock. Wind would, but wind speeds on Venus are low. Heat: 400ºC is far below the melting temperature of rock. Acidic air leads to erosion, but that's a slow process.
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  42. The issue is heat removal. A fusion reactor sits in an ambient temperature much lower than the reactor temperature, so it's easy to remove heat. To remove heat from a Venus probe, you need a heat pump that can remove heat from inside and lose it outside - where the temperature is 400ºC. It's technically possible (a fridge pumps heat from a cold environment to a warm environment, after all), but we've never built a system for that extreme environment. It'll need a lot of power, which means a nuclear reactor, which produces a lot of heat itself. This drives the mass of the probe up.
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  43. 3.35m, actually. Close enough.
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  44. The Moon landings are real. Every single argument made by moon landing deniers falls apart when you look at it: they're all arguments from ignorance.
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  45.  @dw4956  We discovered the van Allen belts using satellites. No satellites, no knowledge of what's above 30 km altitude. That's a contradiction. There's what we actually know, instead of what you fantasize about the van Allen belts: For radiation, there are 2 important variables: 1. the radiation intensity 2. the amount of time you are exposed to this intensity. You can multiply these two and get the total radiation dose. Humans die if they receive a dose of about 300 Rad. In 1958, James van Allen and his team discovered the belts that were later named after him. He also measured the radiation intensity. This is what he found: in the part of the belt where the intensity is highest, it is high enough that if you stay for about a week (inside an Apollo command module), you receive a lethal dose. So for the Apollo missions, the trajectory was designed to minimize the amount of time spent there. When the Apollo astronauts flew through the van Allen belts (which took about 3 hours), they received a dose of radiation of between 0.16 and 1.14 rads, or less than 1% of a lethal dose. More details in this video from Scott Manley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9YN50xXFJY
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  46. The main factor that limits that approach is weight: you'd need tons of water per day.
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  47. Not just one. 12 men walked on the Moon.
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  48. Here's what we actually know, instead of what you fantasize about the van Allen belts: For radiation, there are 2 important variables:  1. the radiation intensity  2. the amount of time you are exposed to this intensity.  You can multiply these two and get the total radiation dose. Humans die if they receive a dose of about 300 Rad. In 1958, James van Allen and his team discovered the belts that were later named after him. He also measured the radiation intensity. This is what he found: in the part of the belt where the intensity is highest, it is high enough that if you stay for about a week (inside an Apollo command module), you receive a lethal dose. So for the Apollo missions, the trajectory was designed to minimize the amount of time spent there. When the Apollo astronauts flew through the van Allen belts (which took about 3 hours), they received a dose of radiation of between 0.16 and 1.14 rads, or less than 1% of a lethal dose. More details in this video from Scott Manley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9YN50xXFJY
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  49. The Moon landings are real. Every single argument made by moon landing deniers falls apart when you look at it: they're all arguments from ignorance.
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  50. They spent a lot of time and effort, and several missions, going from a first lander that was destroyed during descent to several landers that landed intact, and worked for up to 90 minutes before failure.
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  51. We didn't lose the knowledge: all of the scientific and engineering principles remain well-known and easily found. What's lost is some of the practical experience of operating the Apollo spacecraft (why did we do X at time Y and not half an hour earlier), the kind of minutiae nobody thinks to document because it doesn't seem important enough. It's the problem any organization has when people move to a different job or retire: some institutional knowledge is lost, and it's not feasible to document everything to the extent you'd need to prevent that entirely.
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  52.  @misplacedidentity1036  Minutes are universal. Nobody's going to set up a different timekeeping system for each planet. We use sols (the length of a local day), but those are divided into Earth hours and minutes because doing anything else is madness.
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  53. What you're doing is not critical thinking. It's blindly assuming the Soviets were lying without presenting evidence for your claim.
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  54.  @eddiebaker3267  I'm well aware of that. I'm also aware that Soviet scientists do actual research with verifiable findings, and the Venera program is part of that. The Venera program isn't the only missions ever done to Venus; other countries have run missions too. By and large, lying gets you nowhere in science because other people will try to repeat your experiments and check your results, so fraud is discovered sooner or later.
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  55. Nope. They lost small amounts of data (not surprising, as these projects are now 50 years old), but Venera science results are still available, as are mountains of Apollo data.
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  56. The Russians did try to put a man on the moon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi6fjs_8Yx8 They had a few problems: They started late (1964), there was no central coordination (like NASA did for the American program), and the only person who could coordinate efforts (Korolev) died in 1966. Their program had far less funding than Apollo. The result was that their moon rocket, the N-1 had its first unmanned test launch in 1969. After Apollo 11, the Russians lost interest. They did run an extensive unmanned lunar program, with sample return missions and 2 lunar rovers. The Russians ran a series of Mars missions, they all failed. Their early Venus missions were successful, so they concentrated on those. The Americans had the opposite: failurs at Venus, success on Mars, culminating in the Viking landers.
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  57. You're making grand claims without any evidence to back you up. You're the gullible one.
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  58. The only Saturn V stuff that's lost is the manufacturing facility, and the logistics chain. Drawings for every part are available, test reports, etc.
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  59. Science. We learnt a lot about Venus from the Venera program.
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