This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(November 2024) |
Author | Ben Bova |
---|---|
Cover artist | Mark Harrison |
Language | English |
Series | Grand Tour |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton (UK) Tor Books (US) |
Publication date | Feb 2000 (UK) Apr 200 (US) |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 404 |
ISBN | 0-340-72846-9 |
OCLC | 42658991 |
Preceded by | The Silent War |
Followed by | Mercury |
Venus is a science fiction novel by American writer Ben Bova, [1] part of the Grand Tour novel series[ citation needed ] and first published in the year 2000. [1] The story follows Van Humphries, the son of the ruthless tycoon Martin Humphries, and his experiences on Venus.
Martin Humphries is the head of the giant Humphries Space Systems and at his 100th birthday party announces a prize of ten billion dollars to anyone who can recover any remains of his eldest son Alex. Alex was killed two years previously on a mission to Venus. Van Humphries, Martin's son and younger brother to Alex takes up the challenge despite, and because of, a mutual dislike between son and father.
Van assembles a ship and crew and heads off to Venus, shadowed by the mysterious Lars Fuchs. Upon entering the Venusian atmosphere they find the clouds are alive with bacterial life which, unfortunately, takes a liking to the ship. The ship is soon in trouble as it is eaten away by the bacteria. Van's more conservative ship is quickly eaten away by the bacteria, while Lars's bulky ship manages to survive. Van is rescued by Lars Fuch's ship but most of his crew are lost.
Van finds Lars a brutal yet intelligent man who rules his ship with a rod of iron. The heat builds as they descend through the Venusian atmosphere. Lars has to deal with mutiny and they find out that Lars Fuchs is Van Humphries' real father. At the end of the novel the intense heat, Lars's and Van's health and volcanic activity conspire to produce a climactic finale, in which a sulfur-based lifeform is revealed to exist on Venus. Alex's remains are recovered and the money claimed.
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is a terrestrial planet and is the closest in mass and size to its orbital neighbour Earth. Venus has by far the densest atmosphere of the terrestrial planets, composed mostly of carbon dioxide with a thick, global sulfuric acid cloud cover. At the surface it has a mean temperature of 737 K and a pressure 92 times that of Earth's at sea level. These extreme conditions compress carbon dioxide into a supercritical state at Venus's surface.
The Venera program was a series of space probes developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather information about the planet Venus.
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The terraforming of Venus or the terraformation of Venus is the hypothetical process of engineering the global environment of the planet Venus in order to make it suitable for human habitation. Adjustments to the existing environment of Venus to support human life would require at least three major changes to the planet's atmosphere:
The Grand Tour is a series of novels written by American science fiction author Ben Bova.
The atmosphere of Venus is the very dense layer of gases surrounding the planet Venus. Venus's atmosphere is composed of 96.5% carbon dioxide and 3.5% nitrogen, with other chemical compounds present only in trace amounts. It is much denser and hotter than that of Earth; the temperature at the surface is 740 K, and the pressure is 93 bar (1,350 psi), roughly the pressure found 900 m (3,000 ft) under water on Earth. The atmosphere of Venus supports decks of opaque clouds of sulfuric acid that cover the entire planet, preventing optical Earth-based and orbital observation of the surface. Information about surface topography has been obtained exclusively by radar imaging.
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