As a new era of commercialized space flight begins, NASA and private space companies are rushing to colonize the Moon and Mars for space tourism and exploration. Although this follows a well-sought out plan to land astronauts on the lunar south pole by 2024, and a crewed surface lander on the red planet by 2030, we have yet to learn a great deal from our closest neighbor, Earth’s sister planet Venus.

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Albeit different to Earth in so many ways, the scorching conditions on Venus were once Earth-like. Although no U.S. lander has ventured to the surface of the planet since the 1980s, NASA’s revived interest in Venus could lead to a potential flagship mission to learn how habitable our doppelgänger planet may have been. Successful future explorations into the extreme environment of Venus’ surface—where the thick atmosphere traps the Sun’s heat, resulting in surface temperatures higher than 880 […]

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