[mattashii]

Wouldn't it be possible to float teflon balloons (without ever descending to the surface), and use those to carry a launch platform? Samples do not need to be surface samples, the atmosphere itself seems quite interesting already.

And note that you may be able to "fish" for samples from an atmospheric floating platform; there is no specific need to get all the way down to the rocks with your rocket.

[arp242]

Lots of things are east to imagine in principle, but actually doing them is just so much harder. There are so many practicalities you run in to.

The first from the top of my head would be the required length and sheer weight of the cable attached to that Teflon balloon, to say nothing of the weight of the balloon itself or its contents. Speaking of which, actually keeping the contents in that balloon might also be surprisingly tricky.

You need to drag that all the way to Venus, then decelerate enough to stop all that mass, then accelerate that again to come back to Earth, before decelerating to land here. Even without any extra weight that's actually a huge challenge due to the amount of fuel required. There's a reason none of the Mars rovers have come back.

[pavel_lishin]

The balloon wouldn't contain anything except a gas that's more buoyant than the Venusian atmosphere at the desired height, and maybe we can use the atmosphere itself, just heated up - similar to how hot air balloons work, except presumably fully enclosed.

Not to say it'd be easy, but certainly easier than landing & returning.

[pavel_lishin]

> And note that you may be able to "fish" for samples from an atmospheric floating platform; there is no specific need to get all the way down to the rocks with your rocket.

That never even occurred to me! That's a brilliant idea.

[IgorPartola]

I thought the atmospheric conditions there were also quite violent.

[TeMPOraL]

That depends on the layer; there's apparently one that's quite nice, and there's been some work scoping a possible manned mission there - IIRC, there's even some ISRU possibility due to useful chemicals being in layers immediately below.

[OhMeadhbh]

Venus Express did aero-breaking to go into orbit in 2005(?). I don't think it was configured to scan its surface for microbes afterwards, maybe we could add something like that for later missions.

IIRC, there's only a thin layer of atmosphere where we think the microbes live, and I'm not sure if VE (or future missions) descended to that layer during aero-breaking, but it's an idea.

[IAmBroom]

> IIRC, there's only a thin layer of atmosphere where we think the microbes live,

COULD live

[OhMeadhbh]

Point well taken, COULD live.