The following is a much needed revision or further correction(s) upon what I've presented previously. Hopefully this effort will eventually become somewhat more accurate and of clear explanation as to what I've come to believe the very near future of interplanetary communications has to hold, including for that of terrestrial Earth requirements. What works for interplanetary ott to do quite nicely for line-of-sight as sought after and applied here on Earth, where Boeing's Phantom Works has been toying with a somewhat more lethal than UV/c of 193 nm, while on the other end of the spectrum are commercial enterprises such as Terabeam having been utilizing IR (1550 nm) for years with good binary throughput. Though I've informed others, including Terabeam, as to the virtues of going towards the near UV if not fully into the UV (say 365 nm) in order to achieve greater range and massively improved throughput, especially if we're implementing binary/FM or in other words quantum binary packets, that which would allow a giga bite if not tera bite sized packets per ms as sort of laser bullets, to replace the network reliance upon the traditional carrier.

This page is all about what's been possible and quite humanly obtainable for 13 years and counting, as for accomplishing interplanetary communications. This is not even talking about billions nor even millions in initial configuration, but as little as a few thousand could do this trick, of course that's without even involving our NASA nor having any federal regulation whatsoever. If NASA gets itself belatedly involved, then you can start talking in terms of those billions as well as further risk to astronauts.

Because I seem to care about what others don't, I've devised upon a sort of composite packet scheme that would also enable the biological sensors (nocturnal eye) as to seeing these packets arrive as perhaps 100 ms illuminations or up to 10 bps worth of visual stimulus as viewed from beneath those clouds, yet if technology should exist so that whomever or whatever could extract upon the greater data contained within what the eye sees as merely a cloud illuminating light show of relatively low bps data, that's an even bigger cigar for ET. In order to explain all of this without overdosing upon medications, I'll further calculate to show where those stimulus packets of as little as 1 ms to perhaps 100 ms worth of illuminations would offer ample photons to burn as viewed from beneath those nighttime clouds, as well as where the transmitted energy and focus as to accomplishing all this is relatively (excuse the pun) straight forward, simple and, certainly capable by what's off the shelf and thus dirt cheap by any standard.

From what I've learned, by way of some of those claiming as their being "all knowing", I've come to believe chances are most likely favorable for other life (obviously that's my village idiot opinion), as when Venus civilization matured so as to surviving such a truly bad greenhouse situation, it is most likely they've been forced or at least highly motivated into remaining at some altitude (obviously that's in preference to remaining within the equatorial death valley as being somewhat less desirable than of most any elevated and thus cooler sites, especially of their season of nighttime).

As for remaining in their season of nighttime (where migration at least every 2900 hours might have become required, that's not actually of any problem by way of rigid airship); Thus life NOT as we know it was most likely ever evolving towards a dependency of perhaps more perceptive to near UV or deeper into the UV spectrum as accommodating their enhanced nocturnal vision. By way of such visual communications, along with nearly any form of binary illuminations per second, could also incorporate a rather sophisticated frequency modulated (FM) factor that's quite similar to what our perception of what a prism generates (creating a rainbow of colors), somewhat interpreted exactly as we humans intercept acoustical sound waves that vary in frequency, where either way that's certainly communications. In either instance, there's absolutely nothing radio getting itself involved

Up until a little more than 100 years ago, the entire humanity of Earth had nothing of radio, where many today are still without radio nor given the means by which to apply such technology and, where countless millions will continue to die off by failing to live long enough and without once using a telephone, let alone anything radio. So, why and/or of what ulterior motivation should those opposing what's been discovered or uncovered as existing on Venus be, of merely considering what's most likely artificial and clearly existing, or perhaps what is there that's honestly worth to complain, fuss and fret against such other life NOT as we know it, as to be denying their managing to survive in spite of ourselves and without radio seems just as likely as not and, in the case of Venus it's become way more likely than not as for their being sufficiently motivated (especially since Earth's not ever coming to their rescue).

A quantum binary bit having at least +/- 8 sub bits, but also for the null or "0" NO bit is able to having it's +/- 8 bits, so I'm not even all that certain but, I believe that's at least a 1024 improvement over any standard 1/0 bit or byte, not discounting upon what a purely +/- analog FM could accomplish, which is nearly infinite (limited only by the receiving/recording technology and/or physiological perceptions). Thus a relatively low bps biological (nocturnal eye) sensor rate is not necessarily a compromise for any non-radio and otherwise purely visually based communications civilization (on Earth we have numerous examples of species that accomplish the very same thing, of which we don't understand much of their language either). This is not my proclaiming that acoustical communications is out of the question, just perhaps overloaded with the planet's geology activity, as within such a dense and acoustically conductive CO2 environment could be considered relatively noisy, noisier yet is some fool is having to operate one of those CO/O2 turbine engines (since we're exceeding 90 bar, in that sort of nearly hydrodynamic environment we could easily be exceeding 160 db, which is not good for conversation unless you've got really big lungs with a set of vocal cords the size of Godzilla's).

A communications language of light is what I'm thinking would have become quite natural if not highly beneficial and certainly efficient, within that crystal clear lower atmosphere where external illuminations (other than of mostly Earthshine filtered through those clouds) would make their nighttime truly pitch black (stray photon free) but otherwise highly efficient for long range optical communications of 100+km. Remembering that on Venus, being already a compressed environment of mostly CO2, producing slight xenon illuminations that could sufficiently be detected at 100+km is not so difficult to obtain, where biologically a mere watt of energy could conservatively create a relatively broad WL spectrum of 100+ lumens, multiply that by 10e28 and you've got 100e28 photons. Should their biological receptor require 1000 photons/s (that might be considered as nearly blind as nocturnals go here on Earth), obviously that's still 10e27 photons/s, that which will travel as far as their horizon permits (mountain to mountain we're obviously talking in terms 100+ miles, possibly even as much as 500+km, as Venus has 17+km peaks and, the atmosphere in between is absolutely crystal clear (as wireless goes, that isn't all that bad and, who needs stinking fiber optics, though ceramic fibers would certainly be right at home with ample thermal reserves, with absolutely little of that nasty O2/H20 which only oxidises and otherwise corrodes everything in sight).

All that being said;  how hard would it possibly be to creating a few hundred of even a few kw worth of xenon illumination (enough to light up the tops of those clouds to such an extent that TRACE or just our braille amateur astronomers on Earth could detect such)?

After all, from the Venus standpoint or advantage, you wouldn't have to construct any highly pressurized xenon lamp containing CO2 and, as far as creating electrons across a tiny gap that's already in a toasty hot (preheated) environment, especially within such a highly insulative environment as far as electrons go, is not all that difficult. On other supportive energy research, I've noted how the available atmospheric pressure and thermal differentials per km of 4+bar/km and as much as 10°K/km are simply loaded with kinetic energy, not to mention what one can accomplish with metal alloys and some of that sulphuric acid (which by the way is stable at the nighttime temperature and pressure on Venus), then there's just thermopile extraction of electrons and again not to forget that Venus is still geologically active, thus there's all sorts of surface accessible geothermals to tap. To put this more simplistic, wherever there's heat, there's energy, much like I've learned other facts about astrophysics, where all of the solar influx of which any planet receives is equal to what's being heat/energy exchanged out the nighttime side, as otherwise planets would explode and, as of the last time I checked, Venus had not exploded (oddly, more recent IR imaging confirms upon this, just as it indicates a great deal of cloud contrast or density issues that seem to far exceed the 20:1 ratio from previous research, not to mention the 50/50 balance of O2/CO2 recorded just above 150 km).

Of comments I received from meetings discussing communications via laser beam;  this is where I was pleasantly surprised by being informed to regard 10 photons per bit as for being the minimum detection requirement (presumably that's above background noise) and, oddly of other comments about needing far less than 0.5 milliradian in order to accomplish that task. This is where these two statements seemed to badly conflict with each other. It's as though if we're talking about the photons generated by and received of IR (1550 nm), that somehow this is a good and wholesome endeavor but, as soon as we're striving towards greater distances and of interplanetary communications potential, all of the sudden I'm being told we'll be needing a thousand fold more source illumination and/or focus, even though free space detracts nothing from the photon count other than divergence, where as in atmosphere such transmission of IR is being badly affected, well beyond any initial beam divergence, so much so that it's limited to a few miles at sealevel and, that's only if it's a clear day, whereas even near UV (400 nm) would offer much lesser atmospheric divergence as well as penetrating fog or clouds to such a greater extent than possible by IR. So, in spite of those double standards being employed to discredit or derail my intent, I'll continue on from my previous inaccuracies and subsequent errors, as towards offering yet another fresh math run (this time, because others couldn't be bothered, I'll run those calculations a half dozen times, just to be sure).

Based upon utilizing the 0.5 milliradian source as for planet to planet efforts, even if that were exiting Earth's atmosphere at merely 5 watts and by the distance of 25^6 miles (40.25^6 km) diverging that beam as to covering the target radius of 351.5 km = an area of 388^9 m2.

If we're still to be considering the near UV of 400 nm at 684 lumens/w/m2 (lux/watt) and of 10^28 photons/lux (5*684*10^28 = 34.20^30), where I believe that grand total of 34.2^30/388^9 = 88^18 photons/s/m2 as spread equally over each of those cloud top 388^9 m2 or roughly a target diameter 703 km illuminated flood upon the top side clouds and subsequently, not likely diverged to more than 775 km on the cloud bottoms. In one reference to Earth's surface illumination, the Venus cloud transparency of white light (filtered as sort of yellowish below those clouds) is reportedly 4% (100 w/m2) of the total solar influx of 2650 w/m2, with nearly zero IR making itself past the first few km of cloud depth, not to mention roughly 80% of the longwave spectrum within Earthshine (one estimate is 450 w/m2) as background which could be nearly saturation (thus any laser of IR is nearly worthless unless we're talking Boeing/TRW GW class laser cannon, in which case we might only seriously aggravate whatever's looking back at Earth, especially if that's from their metro astronomy airship cruising above those nighttime clouds).

Just for further argument sake;  let us presume that the cloud top illuminated 703 km diameter zone of 388^9 m2 is further diverged so that the observed bottom cloud illumination is essentially covering twice that area (776^9 m2), that being a sky that's fully illuminated, as roughly a 170° FOV, then to be adding further insult to injury by assuming a pathetic near UV transparency of merely 1% (of which it isn't nearly that bad), that's still 4.4^17 photons/s/m2 of 400 nm illumination (presumably that initial 400 nm would include sidebands of at least +/- 5 nm).

In other words, worse case scenario of our having to divide that 4.4^17 photons by 1 gb = 4.4^8 photons/bit, and perhaps further knocking off another batch of those photons because those nocturnals are legally blind and/or their photon detecting technology isn't worth squat, places 4.4^6 photons per bit and, that's of a 1 gbps packet throughput that's otherwise appearing as a one second illumination to the biological sensor. As for dividing that by another factor of 20 for delivering those as 50 ms 1/0 illuminations and we're still at 0.22^6 or 220 thousand photons per bit. Good grief folks, that's certainly something far better off than any 10 photons/bit. And as for regarding background photon noise, (what noise?) it's nearly pitch black along with the only significant influx being Earthshine which offers nearly zip worth of anything UV, unless it's artificial and, whatever UV starshine isn't likely to be 1% of Earthshine, especially when we're mutually at near juncture (+/- 30 days).

If the fully UV lux/watt is way lesser (as would be the case by way of applying more into UV/a rather than near UV) then supposedly those numbers of photons will become less. However, 88^18 photons/m2 on top of those clouds and even 4.4^17 photons/m2 below seems to offer some room to spare, as that's based upon a mere 1 m2 collector concentrating those photons down to the 1 mm2 sensor and, there's nothing stopping anyone from utilizing 10 m2, 100 m2 or even 1000 m2 worth of collector, as what does size have to do with anything except as for making the prospect even better (certainly not worse). I believe the prime discovery image indicates somewhat substantial parabolic signatures, one of which is facing upward with a central tower or mast that so happens to be rather huge by Earth standards.

Some of those lumen/photon losses by going more UV/a (say 365 nm) will alternately result in a greater percentage of those photons exiting Earth but, that's also more so of importance as to increased transmission through those nighttime clouds of Venus, picking up improvements of having an overall UV transparency that's potentially 10% and, the more into the UV spectrum the better that photon throughput gets (UV exposure being another darn good reason for a nocturnal form of other life NOT as we know it) and, most likely still being visible (>320+nm) to a sufficiently evolved nocturnal sort and of most certainly detectable by way of technology. Of course, that technology may not yet be Venus originated, as certainly there's no reason for radio within the equation of surviving a greenhouse environment (until a little more than a hundred or so years ago Earth had no stinking radio), thus a surface transponder may need to be deployed on their behalf, where that instrument can be of UV laser transponder or of conventional microwave transceiver offering interactive audio/video format, which obviously may need some heat exchanging of which previous probes had virtually none of, thus "duh" fried within an hour or so.

Another recent learn is that derived from the Light Measurement Handbook of the photon energy level for what 400 nm represents is nearly 10 fold greater than what the 1550 nm IR spectrum delivers. I'm assuming this is a good thing, especially if those 400 nm photons were being observed by a nocturnal having a magnitude 5 advantage over what human sight can obtain, not to mention of what any good photon detector might need in order to record a significant signal to noise (s/n) ratio, of which there should not be all that much nighttime background noise within the area of 400 nm, least not from Earthshine when the bulk of our O2 absorbs rather than deflects solar UV.

Fortunately, today we have a number of components of substantially greater thermal stamina (plasma screens, recent solid state components that'll operate at 1/10th the electrical demand and even electro-mechanical devices that'll withstand all that Venus can deliver and then some) and besides all of that, I've noted on other research where lots of energy for heat transfer may be acquired from just the pressure and thermal differentials that will make for vertical wind kinetics into a robust and reliable energy solution that likes heat, up to a relatively high threshold, where the more heat the better and, where currently that upper thermal limit is at least 100°K above worst case environment impact and nearly 200°K above the nighttime environment of being at 5+km, thus powerful motor/generators are no longer an issue, in fact the CO2 environment is even better than Earth's atmosphere far for such testy heat transfers as well as there being absolutely no corrosion whatsoever.

I'm hardly a prophet but;  because the future is what it is, chuck full of surprises and demanding of ever more technology, or at least the tax dollars by which to pay for that technology, at the very least one of those ways of fulfilling the demands upon technology is for our ever increasing upon the performance and integrity of data communications (thus binary/FM quantum packets). Applying more data as crammed within ever larger packets, to such an extent that the message/signal integrity is simply so superior that handshake and/or checksum other than the "bof" and "eof" and subsequently of the beginning of the next GB+ packet need not slow things down.

Analogy;  as those packet bullets hit their target, those receiving have the option (not the requirement) of transmitting a reply, just as an ocean going containership loaded with thousands of individual containers, each stuffed with all sorts of commodities intended to be delivered to a specific target, though those receiving said containers are not obligated to a response, other than payment for the goods delivered or a request for more of the same is a fairly good indication that the containership packet hit it's mark and delivered the goods. As analogies go, this one as well as for the UV and near UV transparency of those Venus clouds is within the range of possibility, even if there's inaccuracies, where greater beam energy and of lesser divergence are both valid solutions, still within the current technologies of what Earth has to throw at Venus or any other planet for that matter.

Unless I've again mistakenly over/under shot the pretext of what I've intended to convey; this page is still about fundamental beam communications (not astronomy), with extensions capable of being commercially applied in ways if need be excluding interplanetary communications. However, seems this task is perhaps too far fetched for the greater body of American talents and expertise to appreciate the greater value of risk as opposed to the certain impact of what other nations can and will achieve, even though for what I believe is going to be pennies on the dollar as compared to traditional space research and explorations requiring ever deeper and more capable communications. The R&D and infrastructure investment is slight by all American standards of long range space communications however, what is slight by our standards could still be substantial by most others. On the other hand, I would not venture to discount what India, China, Russia, certainly Germany or even Cuba could manage in such affordable laser communications.

From my perspective, focusing our talents and resources towards Venus seems only prudent, within our grasp, through utilizing available technologies and where these ventures being the least costly and least risky are of laser beam communications. Of course, I could be entirely dead wrong about those unusual planetary formations, as they could have been created by entirely new laws of tectonics, lava/mud flows and erosions that only skewed science and skewed physics can account for, as otherwise we have not a record nor even a workable conjecture as to how such artificial looking attributes (especially of such size and notable community like associations) could have been created so naturally, whereas artificially there's all sorts of supportive science and physics, not to mention what a little of Darwin's evolution could imply towards the physiology aspects.

Upon being on the receiving end of so much warm and fuzzy flak, in self defence I've learned a great deal about the laws of physics, especially those of the liquid/vapor phases where in every instance the properties of any vapor phase is directly tied into the associated pressure. It seems that vapor molecules don't much care to being pressurized, such as at 92+bar, as it's damn hard at being a vapor if you're not allowed to expand. That seems to apply to blood, just as it applies to H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) and even H2SO4 (sulfuric acid). Physiologically, I've learned that life as we know it can survive on extremely little O2, especially as pressure is applied, so here again I must have missed something in those words of wisdom proclaiming purely doom and gloom regarding other life NOT as we know it surviving on Venus, just like all those good books (moderated by NASA) have been stipulating upon a version of truths that oddly don't seem to comply to their own recorded laws of science and physics. The same double standards seem to apply to factors of illumination, where I've been informed those "all knowing" that no amount of artificial illumination could be detected as coming from another planet, this being where I'm specifically discussing the nighttime season of Venus as having to receive a signal from within Earthshine and vise versa (Venus nighttime directed towards Earth).

How hard can this be to comprehend, as to understanding that an artificial illumination (say from the darkened area of our moon) would be easily detected from almost any Earth based sensor, like how about the naked human eye. Certainly Venus is further away but, it's nighttime sphere is even darker than of our moon's surface as illuminated by Earthshine, thus with somewhat limited optics, one ott to capable of detecting something illuminating where obviously there's not supposed to be anything artificial. And, what part about "life NOT as we know it" do you not understand?

As village idiots seem to go, I must have missed something, as when those non village idiots I've contacted and some that I've informed about my observations have taken their preciously valuable time as to informing me that life on Venus never happened and more so, even if whatever life never survived the greenhouse environment, it's been dead an gone for millions of years. This is quite odd, being that according to their own sanctimonious words, Venus wasn't always so toasty hot, in fact the greenhouse transition according to many of my critics having stipulated as taking millions of years, where I concurred by stipulating that even if the transition were merely having to deal with a 0.1°K per year of migrating from a cozy warm 300K to the current 720K, that's only 4,200 years in which to evolve (intellectually as well as physiologically), apply a little ingenuity or die trying seems entirely feasible, whereas millions of years seems entirely OK by that comparison.

I'm beginning to think the only facet of being a village idiot is having nothing whatsoever to do with astronomy, nor science or physics but, having only to do about my not being successfully snookered by all those having "the right stuff", as somehow when those Borg implants were being passed out they missed their opportunity as to inject my body with the necessary brain interceptors that would have allowed garbage in to compute as truths. Obviously if I had gotten my Borg implant, I'd see nothing immoral nor dastardly about our cold wars, nothing inferior with everything since that brought us all sorts of new and warm and fuzzy adventures such as 9/11, where I'd not have considered for a moment the possibilities of hidden agendas nor ulterior motives, just as where there's not an once of irrefutable lunar evidence, I too would believe we Americans somehow walked on the solar radiated moon and were no worse for ware (in fact unmeasurably so) and, where dog wagging is the accepted norm, even if that means starting another war where we kill off 10 fold more than the worst atrocities of those were claiming victory over (somewhat like the Pope claiming victory over Cathars).

With the understanding of a Venus perspective, the communications detection only having to overcome Earthshine, of which contains little natural UV, and of the reciprocal of our dealing with Venus nighttime, where of this sphere of mostly nighttime (presumably through good optics and applied band pass filters is only appreciably illuminated by Earthshine) we're not having to contend with all that much solar reflection as photon impact becoming any significant or insurmountable percentage of solar generated UV, that which would otherwise swamp or saturate a selected spectrum of UV photon sensor.

Presumably, accomplishing this task by way of good band-pass filters and of targeting upon the Venus nighttime and not upon it's Venusshine which is still relatively low in natural UV content, thereby sufficient exclusion of any indirect solar UV flux should permit reasonable detections by those of Venus of artificially created photons, especially if those were of UV or even near UV as emitted from Earthshine as from the perspective from their portion or zone of half sphere of nighttime facing Earth, where obviously vice versa, there shouldn't be such illuminations because it's supposedly so damn "hot and nasty", even though it's actually not nearly so hot and nasty when that's tempered by such good pressure and, of being above those nighttime clouds where it's downright cold is simply a win-win for lizardkind, yet I'm at a total loss of words (not really) for what all that could mean for mankind that's too busy stuffing Apollo documents into the toilet, as to be bothered with what Venus might have to say.

In order to better deliver those photons, just for the mere exercise plus certain biological sensory safety reasons, I implied utilizing a free space 5 watt beam of 0.5 milliradian worth of near UV, again as for applying something that's within current technology but certainly not limited to 5 watts nor even limited to 0.5 milliradian. Such an Earth surface originating beam (again, this is only because you nor I have the bucks to accomplish anything space based) would likely exit Earth's atmosphere at something under 1 m2 at the altitude of 50+km, where from that point on there'd be little cause to think there would be losses other than of the mathematical expansion of divergence, until the target is hit.

Obviously, this initial energy level selection could be shifted upwards into several KW as well as to utilizing 555 nm or even into the lower IR spectrum, as well as for applying a 0.1 milliradian beam is certainly obtainable (cost being no object), however the notion of applying visible spectrum seems rather counterproductive as well as for the IR spectrum which I believe represents an application of much greater energy in order to exit Earth's atmosphere as well as having to overcome increased divergence or distortions caused by Earth's atmosphere, along with severely limited penetration into those Venus clouds. None the less, if sufficient power levels and overall transceiver cost and/or if applying multiple synchronized transceivers were sufficiently separated by hundreds or even 1000+ miles were not an issue, then I'm certain, just as others have supported, such WL and IR spectrums will do quite nicely.

Under the umbrella or cloak of most any NASA program, I'd expect this simple task could conceivably consume a hundred million if not billions as for any space platform based application, where the actual researchers that'll make everything happen will likely not see but 1% of that, plus whatever the outcome will become public, which sort of takes all the fun out of it, not to mention eliminating all the profits other than researcher salary and perhaps a little furthering job security. Thus I fully realize it does one little good being right if you're out of a job and broke (these days our NASA has manage both in great flaming shuttle style, where obviously a half billion per shuttle mission [excluding payload, excluding replacement astronauts] simply doesn't cut it anymore).

Other than any fixation by those opposing or disqualifying upon the elected 400 nm as not being an acceptable choice, I'll certainly attempt to re-clarify that I'll concur that nearly any spectrum may be utilized. However, it would seem preferable as to be utilizing a spectrum that's not as background saturated, as in having white light nor even IR, especially when the solar flux reflected as Earthshine or for that matter Venusshine contains such a great deal of those medium and longwave spectrums, whereas the shortwave or near UV and certainly below 400 nm (such as 365 nm) is nearly as minimal saturation as these spectrums get, where UV/b is all that much better off, and UV/a is nearly free of those solar created photons as reflected via planetshine, as most of the UV/b and UV/c spectrums are absorbed by Earth's atmospheres with extremely little reflected from the surface, thus a whole lot lesser background photons.

Ideally (if cost as well as time being no object) a Venus L2 (VL2) platform would be situated within the umbrella or 90+% shade of Venus, quite easily capable of redirecting Earth sent packets (microwave and/or laser) towards tightly selected sites of the nighttime clouded sphere covered by those thick Venus clouds (less thick within nighttime and of greater density ratio than daytime) and, subsequently relaying if any planet generated packets towards Earth via laser beam or just by way of conventional radio microwave. Being this a typically "cost plus" NASA type of venture (where all the true cost is cloaked and/or disguised as within existing NSA/DoD communications infrastructure), whatever energy for microwave and subsequent utilization of a half dozen of Earth's largest radio receiving observatories could certainly do the trick. I don't know about yourself but, I'm always amazed at what those billions will accomplish in place of what a few million or even a few hundred thousand would more than suffice, not to mention avoiding unacceptable astronaut exposure to loss of life as well as loss of shuttle by not having to launch something so complexly massive as the Magellan class probe.

Clearly from the spendy but excellent vantage point of VL2 (1014230 km), of whatever beam divergence and previous 25+ million mile distent target zone would no longer be the 360+km radius illuminating upon 388^9 m2, as if having to be applied planet to planet. At the same 0.5 milliradian, VL2 would deliver a spot diameter of 17.5 km illumination of 243^6 m2 (that's 34.2^30/243^6 = 146^21 photons), whereas a 0.05 milliradian of whatever spectrum of WL and especially down into UV (say 365 nm) should become a fairly respectable spot of 1.75 km illumination diameter of 2.43^6 m2 (146^23 photons). With such focus and nearness and/or packet quickness, one might even expect a fairly good number of those photons to not only illuminate sufficiently through those UV semi-transparent or opaque nighttime clouds but reflect off the surface below, remembering that those Venus clouds are somewhat more transparent to UV, that it's reportedly crystal clear as well as nearly absolutely black as it gets below those nighttime clouds. And please do so remember, I'm not referring to mere human eyesight perception, as how many times must I refer to life NOT as we know it, as compared to humans being quite inferior in more ways than just our impudent nightvision, as obviously our intelligence is severely lacking as well and not to mention there being more than a few black holes in our morality.

When I'm speaking of mission cost, for that of creating and sustaining the VL2 platform as a communications relay format, that spendy cost would be 1/10 that of sending out another Magellan-II class SAR imaging probe and but not 1% of the Earth based communications support. So spendy is in the eye of the beholder, where obviously NASA's eye is chuck full of money grabbing or tax dollar looting black holes which must exist and be sustained in order to fortify their ongoing ruse, that's including whatever expendable astronauts or of whatever it takes as to wag their dog.

So far I've manage to explain about how cheap, how safe and how obtainable it is to perform interplanetary communications as based upon the most universal of all languages, while I've also managed to return some of that warm and fuzzy flak associated with those objecting to absolutely anything and everything Venus, as in returning the favor for their preferences towards supporting the status quo of skewed science and skewed physics that no longer computes, all of which having been interwoven towards supporting skewed history. All of that said, perhaps your expertise in almost any category is superior to that of mine and, I'll certainly insure that you receive the credits and rewards for whatever it is that suits your fancy.

It's only too bad that all this didn't commence as of 13+ years ago and, it's certainly been pathetic that since January 2001 that our infamous NASA couldn't morally nor rightfully respond in any positive manner except on behalf of their own sanctimonious "spin" and "damage control", as that alone could have saved the taxpayer untold billions, not to mention further reducing if not entirely eliminating astronaut risk factors, as there's nothing of any robotic VL2 mission that's involving shuttle, unless we're talking about pushing ISS off to VL2. As I've come to understand that relocating ISS would involve some sort of serious rocket engines and obviously tonnes of fuel (not to mention 18+ months worth of beer and pizza plus a great deal more radiation shielding, or at least commandeering one of those big space rocks to hide behind) in order to make all that happen. Besides such technical issues, I still haven't convinced Martha Stewart and Bill Gates among others from ENRON/Andersen and WorldCom to volunteer for the mission (the Pope has already turned me down, simply because I indicated those Venus lizard folk could be Cathars).