Facts About Venus
More Venus Facts
The surface is in many ways like the earth, with high mountains, rifts, a couple of continents, several large “islands”, or at least large areas of higher elevation, and an abundance of volcanoes, some of which are thought to still be active, though this has not yet been proven to be true. The mountains are quite a bit taller than those found on earth, with many ranges and peaks much higher than Mt. Everest. There the similarity ends. There is not believed to be any water on the surface of Venus, and it has no oceans, lakes or rivers. Besides the clouds of sulphuric acid, the atmosphere contains mainly carbon dioxide, a little nitrogen, and traces of carbon monoxide, argon, and water vapor. You can forget about protecting yourself in a space suit providing you with oxygen however. A few more facts about Venus reveals that the atmosphere is so thick, 90 times as thick as our own, it would literally crush you. And if that wasn't enough, the surface temperature is well over 400 degrees C, hot enough to melt lead. So your visit would likely be on the order of a few seconds, at most. Someone once made an interesting observation about the thickness of the atmosphere on Venus. If the planet was perfectly smooth, and you were to look off in the distance, because of the way that the atmosphere would bend the light, you would theoretically be able to see, in the distance, the back of your own head!
If You Can't Go In Person, Send A Probe - Now most of this terrifying information has come about since the mid-20th century. Before that time, the known facts about Venus seemed to support the idea of a hospitable sister planet that we would surely visit some day. The planet has been visited, of course, by a number of space flybys, probes, and a few landing probes. Some of the earlier attempts either crashed, burned up in the atmosphere, or communications were lost. Eventually however the USA and the USSR began to have some successes and we began to learn more and more about Venus.
The USA and other countries are still sending up satellites to gain more and more facts about Venus. The USSR first visited Venus with a flyby in 1961 and the USA followed the next year with 2 flybys. An attempt in 1965 by the USSR to dispatch an atmospheric probe failed, but a second attempt in 1967 was successful. In 1972 the Soviets landed a capsule on the surface which transmitted data for just under an hour. Mariner 10 (USA) photographed cloud tops from a distance of 3,500 miles in 1973. Since then, there have been additional landings on the surface and a fairly comprehensive radar mapping of the planet's surface (USA 1978-1992). The Soviets were able to analyze soil samples during a mission in 1981.
Given these acts about Venus, anyone desiring to go there would certainly have second thoughts. It would appear that, of all the planets in our solar system, Mars would be the only planet we will likely ever visit. Aside from the possibility of also visiting Deimos and Phobos, Mar's moons, and perhaps an asteroid or two, it would appear that we are going to have to settle on sticking to home for a long, long time, unless of course we can design a spaceship which will safely transport humans at warp speed, out to other worlds within our galaxy or others. Until then, we'll just have to be content with flybys, probes, and an occasional lander.