A Way to Explore Venus

Explore Venus from a cloud city

NASA Langley researchers want to get a better idea about conditions on our nearest planetary neighbor, Venus, so they have come up with HAVOC:  High Altitude Venus Operational Concept. This is a lighter-than-Venus-air “solar zeppelin” that would float in the clouds.  The initial mission would consist of two astronauts who would spend 30 days exploring the planet’s atmosphere.  In the future, NASA envisions clouds of floating airships. Exploration of Venus is a challenge not only because of its smog-like sulfuric acid-laced atmosphere, but also because of its extremely hot surface temperature and extremely high air pressure on the surface.