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  • drexnx - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link

    wow, 800C is serious business

    wonder what copper alloy they're using as most of the high temp stuff is mostly nickel based (inconel, incoloy, hastelloy, etc.) and Monel won't go anywhere near that high
  • bigvlada - Sunday, June 30, 2019 - link

    This would be perfect as storage for Venus surface robots, since it's around 450 degrees Celsius on the surface of the planet.
  • Peter2k - Sunday, June 30, 2019 - link

    You would need to design a return vehicle, that can actually make it back with the disk

    And
    It's not the high temps that are an issue on Venus
    It's the combination of high temp, high pressure AND the acidity of the atmosphere itself that makes it so difficult
    Instead of a metal alloy a (hightech) ceramic would probably be better
    But then we also need to talk about weight in the first place

    Btw
    Coppery things and sulfuric acid don't mix well
  • Opencg - Tuesday, July 2, 2019 - link

    how bout mercury?
  • Eletriarnation - Thursday, July 4, 2019 - link

    Needs to be able to go down to -170C for that, unless it's going to follow the sun.
  • mindless1 - Tuesday, July 2, 2019 - link

    Did you overlook the part about "up to 30 minutes"? That's not just referring to flames, will become an oven that destroys the drive by eventually reaching a damaging temperature inside.

    As far as what copper alloy, plain old pure copper melting point is 1083C so I don't understand the confusion about it needing to be a wondermetal.
  • surt - Sunday, July 7, 2019 - link

    As long as you don't need to get any data in to or out of the device (because by design the connector melts right away to avoid transferring heat), and your landing is under 30 minutes.
  • BombCat - Thursday, July 4, 2019 - link

    Inconel was used for the X-15 airframe, so i also wonder what copper alloy this is, and more specifically, why a copper alloy...... if it is meant to resist high heat for a few minutes, what about impact protection, or crushing force(s)?

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