Here's the Wind-up...

[stickmaker]

 
Fascinating. Some engineers at NASA are working on a purely mechanical probe for Venus. Like an old-fashioned music box it would perform weeks of tests. The data would be physically encoded onto LP-like metal disks, which would be lifted by balloon for retrieval by a drone. 

Power would come from a windmill on the lander winding a spring. 

Comments

[solarbird]

huh. Because of the harsh conditions, I presume.

URL for that? That's pretty neat.

[stickmaker]

This came from an article in the April issue of _Discover_ magazine. You could probably find something online with a search.