Don't ignore Venus — Earth's twin hides surprising opportunities (op-ed)

Interesting op-ed. I noted this in the report ""Everything points to Venus and Earth having been twins," planetary scientist David Grinspoon says in our film. "There's a lot of circumstantial evidence that Venus had a more Earthlike environment when it was young. They may have both had warm oceans and all the other conditions necessary for an origin of life at the time when Earth, apparently, had an origin of life."

Okay, in 1911 what was the view of life on Venus?

News Flash: We Could Live on Venus, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/newsflash-we-could-live-on-venus/, March 1911. “Venus is nearly as large as the earth and, as it is much nearer the sun, its temperature must be higher than that of the earth. The average temperature is estimated to be about 140 degrees F. Various phenomena appear to indicate that the planet is surrounded by a comparatively dense and cloudy atmosphere which, indeed, is apparently seen as a luminous border, in the transits of Venus over the sun’s disk, which occur once or twice in a century. This dense atmosphere strongly reflects the sun’s rays and thus prevents the surface of the planet from attaining a temperature too elevated for highly organized life. The planet would be regarded as habitable.” —Scientific American, March 1911"

Looks like belief in abiogenesis at Venus and life evolving on Venus, is not a falsifiable science. The 1911 view of a habitable Venus collapsed yet abiogenesis view continues for Venus it seems.
 
Venus is outside the habitable zone in our solar system. We have been force fed a diet that tells us liquid water could not exist there, as it would boil away. How could it ever have had liquid oceans? Are we going to be told next that Mecury had oceans too?
As for terraforming, same problem. At least on Mars you can deal with the cold, but Venus? Forgetaboutit. No one will ever step foot on Venus.
And why do people keep calling it a twin? It's similar in size and composition only. In pretty much every other way it's extremely different. In by book, twins look the same.

At least with Mars you can bring your heaters with you and create fuel on the planet as needed. With Venus, even our machinery can't survive past a few hours on the surface. Mining would be out, there would be no water. I really don't even see why there is any debate of Venus vs Mars.
 

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