Windsurfing on Venus

Even though the cloud-shrouded Venus is often labeled as Earth's twin due to its similar size, gravity and "terrestrial" composition-primarily made up of silicate rocks or metals-this second-planet from the Sun is a hellish place. Astrobiologists study the extreme environment of Venus to gain clues about how the future climate of Earth might respond if out planet's temperature were to dramatically increase.

Venus is cloaked in a thick layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid. It has the densest atmosphere of the four terrestrial planets, consisting mostly of carbon dioxide. The crushing atmospheric pressure at the planet's surface is 92 times that of Earth's. To top it off, Venus' surface temperature is hotter than an oven.

No wonder then, that investigating this wicked world gives pause to space exploration engineers.

But that's just the challenge being tackled by Geoffrey Landis of NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. And thanks to funding from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, he and his team are looking into the limits of technology in high-temperature electronics, robotics, and "Venus-hardened" systems.

Working with the Collaborative Modeling for Parametric Assessment of Space Systems (COMPASS) Laboratory at Glenn, Landis has set sail on a new type of spacecraft: the Venus Landsailing Rover, dubbed the Zephyr and taken from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty.