Venus: The Forgotten Planet

Anonymous Coward from Winnipeg writes "These days many of us are consumed by daily batches of spectacular images from our twin Marsbots and international fleet of Mars-orbiting craft. But we should not forget our sister planet, Venus, which has undergone significant exploration in years past. Don P. Mitchell's home page features an intriguing refinement of Soviet surface images using modern reprocessing techniques. Don also includes a terrific overview of the Soviet Venus exploration program. Complete radar mapping of Venus was provided by Magellan ten years ago. Sadly, according to the Venus Exploration Timeline, only two new missions to Venus are envisioned: ESA's Venus Express (using leftover Mars Express and Rosetta equipment) and JAXA's Planet-C orbiter. Apparently, no landings on Venus are planned - is this another case of humanity losing advanced space travel capability due to neglect, like Apollo?" (We've mentioned Mitchell's reworked images before -- amazing stuff.)

Comments

Venus: An Enigma

[Shafe]

I once heard a conspiracy theory that Venus might actually be friendly to Earth beings, and the only evidence was an obvious question about the Venus landers. If the pressure at the surface is 90 bars (90 times that of Earth's surface) and the heat is about 864 degrees (F), how could our puny lander EVER reach the surface of the planet using terrestrial technologies. I don't take interest in most conspiracy theories, but that did spark my curiosity. Can anyone explain? I know the lander survived to the surface for a short amount of time, but even that feat is amazing given the surface conditions.

Venus is hell...

[sterno]

The problem with Venus is that it is one of the most hostile environments we've yet to find in our searches. It's hot, it's acidic, and so it's hard on equipment, and it's potential for harboring life is low (given what little we know about the subject).

Our first objective in exploring the universe is answering the "are we alone" question. If we can find something as simple as bacteria on another planet, then it sets the groundwork for finding other more highly evolved forms of life. We just need to really prove that life is out there. I have zero doubt that there is, but we still have to proove it.

Once we find aliens, fine, then it might be neat to look at Venus.

Venus is cloudy

[NotQuiteReal]

Cloudy places are depressing, like Washington (USA).

Depressing places drive you to do stuff like write Windows(tm).

The space program uses open source software and is attempting to eschew cloudly places.