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 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.