Question Invade Venus

[dgatsoulis]

approaching Venus from the sun sounds like an extremely high energy transfer (also, you might get grilled on the way...) :shifty:

Not if you use Jupiter. Sure it's more expensive than going directly to Venus, but 2 slings at Jupiter, placed at 1/2 a Jovian orbit apart, can send you to Venus with an encounter velocity of ~32 km/s. (You will gain a couple of km/s as you drop inside the Venusian gravity well).
You will be approaching Venus from the Sun side, and assuming a 90° reentry angle for the first wave of kinetic bombs, it will be mid-morning when/where they hit Venus.
Perihelion is ~ 1/2 the Venus-Sun distance.
Total travel time: ~10.2 years
DV from Earth = 9.2 + 6.5 = 15.7 km/s (launch+eject burn)
DV from the Moon 1.8 + 0.85 + 3.4 = 6.5 km/s (launch + drop_to_Earth + Earth_eject)

You can time your manned fleet to arrive at Venus with a conventional Earth-Venus trajectory a few hours later and demand surrender otherwise a second wave of kinetic projectiles will hit a day later.

 

[kamaz]

Not if you use Jupiter.

Finally! The forces of nature in the service of man :lol:

You can time your manned fleet to arrive at Venus with a conventional Earth-Venus trajectory a few hours later and demand surrender otherwise a second wave of kinetic projectiles will hit a day later.

Wait, wait. How do you stop them?

 

[dgatsoulis]

Finally! The forces of nature in the service of man :lol:

It can also be done with a single sling at Jupiter, with less flight time. In a quick TransX scenario, I got ~5 years of flight time and impact at Venus with 38 km/s. The deltaV was only slightly higher.

Wait, wait. How do you stop them?

You don't. :lol:

I dunno, depends on the nature of the kinetic bombs. If it's tugsteen rods, a self destruct mechanism to blow them up? They still hit the atmosphere but the pieces burn up instead of reaching the ground. The energy is the same but it gets spread over a much larger area.

They can also be diverted to miss Venus with a little bit of delta-v. The mass of each individual rod is not that high, a small rocket motor could do the trick. A day early is plenty of time.

If it is something bigger... send Bruce Willis to drill a hole and nuke it? :lol:

 

[thepenguin]

It can also be done with a single sling at Jupiter, with less flight time. In a quick TransX scenario, I got ~5 years of flight time and impact at Venus with 38 km/s. The deltaV was only slightly higher.



You don't. :lol:

I dunno, depends on the nature of the kinetic bombs. If it's tugsteen rods, a self destruct mechanism to blow them up? They still hit the atmosphere but the pieces burn up instead of reaching the ground. The energy is the same but it gets spread over a much larger area.

They can also be diverted to miss Venus with a little bit of delta-v. The mass of each individual rod is not that high, a small rocket motor could do the trick. A day early is plenty of time.

If it is something bigger... send Bruce Willis to drill a hole and nuke it? :lol:

Anyway, the tungsten rods would need something to stabilize them and target them. just apply a little RCS rotation to it, and you're set. Burnup. or go for linear thrust and have them miss the planet entirely.

 

[Sky Captain]

I think it is not possible for one planet to conquer another planet at similar technological development level. Unless Venus is willing to surrender when threatened with nuclear bombardment, but that works both ways so likely result is interplanetary cold war. Consider logistics involved in minor conflict like Iraq or Afghanistan war. Hundreds of thousands of men and hundreds of thousands tons of hardware shipped to conflict area. Now multiply it by 100 and ship to another planet.
Maybe if Earth already have massive presence in Solar system, well developed asteroid mining, in space manufacturing and interplanetary transport network capable of moving massive payloads while Venus remain the same military given in OP then it could work.
Earth forces would need
1. capability to ship massive payloads easily
2. very good anti missile defense, it would do no good to make it to Venus only to have your ships shot to pieces by surface launched missiles. Very effective anti missile lasers is a must have.
3. massive orbit to surface shuttles to land ground forces.
4. advanced manufacturing so once a beachhead is established most of the hardware could be manufactured on site.
5. AI at least as good as dumb soldier. Goal would be to have locally fabricated robots do most of the duties of regular footsoldier otherwise I would have to land millions of troops.

My battle strategy would be
1 have a good intel. I would try to get as many spysats on a flyby or if I could in Venus orbit so when my main forces arrive I would know about Venusian military as much as possible
2 at first achieve orbital and air superiority, destroy as many of Venusian military as possible before setting boots on the ground
3 Try to force them to surrender. If I can get them surrender without setting boots on the ground it would make things easier.
4 If 3 does not work then I would try to establish a beachhead in some remote area. At this point my main worry would be enemy submarines since all major surface warships, air bases and large concentrations of ground forces would be destroyed from orbit. Hopefully my ground, air and space based anti missile defenses would be able to catch stealthy cruise missiles launched from submarines and trucks otherwise establishing a beachhead may not be possible.