The Secrets Of Venus

– “For You To Enjoy And Share With Friends” –

Venus is our closest planetary neighbour and is named after the roman goddess of love and beauty. It is sometimes called Earth’s sister planet as it is of a similar size and gravity and at one time it was hoped that the atmospheric conditions could be conducive to life. However research has since shown that that was a very optimistic dream. The gravity at the planets surface is over ninety times that of Earth and the clouds are composed of sulphuric acid and the atmosphere is very dense and mainly carbon dioxide. In fact Venus is a perfect example of the green house effect gone mad!

Venus has been visited by many unmanned Russian and US probes. However in the early sixties a mission to send astronauts to flyby Venus was considered. The proposal was to use the Apollo Saturn 5 rocket to send three astronauts on a flyby mission that would have lasted a year with the launch having taken place in October 1973. As you probably know, nothing ever became of this.