ESA Venus Mission Delayed

MrShaggy writes "The BBC is reporting that the ESA has announced that they have to hold the Venus Mission. According to the article, contamination is being blamed. From the article: 'Esa said the delay had been prompted by the discovery that insulation from the rocket launcher had contaminated the Venus Express spacecraft. "The satellite is contaminated, so they will have to dismantle and re-mount it again," a spokesperson for the space agency told the BBC News website.'"

Comments

At least they're doing it right.

[CyricZ]

It's good to see that they're doing the right thing, regardless of the financial costs.

It'll tell us something about greenhouse gases

[Cerdic]

From the article:

Composed chiefly of carbon dioxide, Venus' atmosphere generates intense greenhouse warming, whereby trapped solar radiation heats the surface of the planet to an average of temperature of 467C.

Experts think Venus could teach us more about how the Earth's climate will respond to the release of greenhouse gases resulting from human activities.

It will tell us what many of us know - that putting too much CO2 into the atmosphere will heat up the planet. Unfortunately, those with real power to do anything about it will continue to aim for quick gains with little regard for the future.

I know someone will respond about how the earth naturally spews CO2, but many of our processes that produce CO2 also produce pollutants such as CO, arsenic, and PCBs. These other pollutants are proven to be dangerous. Why does nobody (hello media?) ever mention that?

More info at the wikipedia

[Saiyine]

Interestingly enough, the mission has a pretty complete wikipedia article.

But even better are these pictures of the surface of Venus from the old Venera missions.