Why Not Venus?
On sending humans to the Earth's evil twin.
When most people talk about sending people beyond Earth, they have one of two destinations in mind. The first is the Moon, which is lovely and all, but really a very boring place. The other is Mars, which is just about close enough for a crew to reach, rocky enough for them to land on, and with a great deal of effort might be habitable enough for them to survive on.
This article will argue for a third option: Venus.
I can almost hear you laughing. If Mars is barely habitable, then Venus is, well, a hellhole. Temperatures on the surface routinely soar into the hundreds of degrees, clouds of sulphuric acid swirl through its atmosphere, and intense pressures crush anything that dares land there.
When a Soviet probe visited in 1982, it only lasted for about two hours before it perished in the brutal conditions. And that’s the record. Nothing we have built has endured the hell of Venus for longer.
Yet there are reasons to seriously think about Venus as a destination for astronauts. One, put simply, is that it is closer and easier to reach than any other planet. If we want to test our endurance skills and our ability to fly beyond Earth for any extended period of time, then Venus offers a good proving ground.
Alongside that, however, there is a portion of Venus that is surprisingly Earthlike. Instead of targeting its surface, we could send astronauts or other probes to the planet’s upper atmosphere. Here, about fifty kilometres above the surface, temperatures are much more reasonable. The air pressure resembles that of Earth’s surface, as does gravity. And importantly, Venus’ atmosphere still provides high protection against the Sun’s radiation.
Put together, this makes the Venusian upper atmosphere one of the most Earth-like places known beyond, well, Earth itself. And theoretically, some have mused, humans could pay a visit. An airship placed there, for example, would gently traverse the skies of Venus, offering a chance to live and study around another world.