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A look at future missions to Venus

Link here. The article gives a nice summary of what we presently know about Venus, as well as outlining the various proposed missions to it.

First off the starting line, and as far as I know the only mission actually approved, is an orbiter from India, scheduled for launch in 2023. After this are a number of proposals in the U.S. Europe, and Russia.

It appears that the discovery of many exoplanets with features somewhat similar to Venus is one of the factors generating the new interest in going back there.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

3 comments

  • Lee S

    I have long considered the atmosphere of Venus to be worthy of exploration…. I haven’t read the piece yet… But will when I head for bed..
    The fact that at certain depths the atmosphere is earth like in density and temperature, and no more acidic than that which some extreamophile bacteria survive in here on earth, makes me think that it’s a promising environment for life…. The dark streaks occasionally observed, in my head at least, could be a Venus analogue for algae blooms in our oceans….

  • Lee S

    Nice link! Thank you…. I just hope some of these missions come to fruition!

  • Brad

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bzKsNkzP4s

    Someday? Maybe a SpaceX Starship test flight? One year long mission, manned Venus flyby, perhaps with teleoperation of Venus rovers?

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