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We do need more Venus exploration, but the reason Mars is getting all the attention is that we can actually settle Mars with our current tech, whereas Venus is

We do need more Venus exploration, but the reason Mars is getting all the attention is that we can actually settle Mars with our current tech, whereas Venus is probably only habitable with floating habitats that will need to be constantly supplied from Earth. There's a difference between exploration and colonization. As an example, you can visit an Antarctic research station, but people actually live in Arizona.

Arizhel 10y ago
The other thing to consider is: what the heck are you going to do there? On Mars, you can do a lot of things. You can mine, you can build underground habitats, you can try to grow stuff in the soil, you can explore the place and learn about the geology, etc. And you can do these things a lot faster and easier in some ways than with remote-control rovers. On Venus, what are you going to do there? Sit around in your giant dirigible city and enjoy the scenery? You can't send people to the surface, and you can't even send probes there for very long. You can't mine (the equipment won't last long enough to make any progress), you can't do too much geology (again, the probes won't last long), you certainly can't dig and build underground habitats, and you sure as hell can't grow anything on the surface. You're limited to whatever you can do in your floating habitat. And I fail to see how you're really going to get that much more done on-site in a floating habitat than just using using automated probes sent from Earth. According to everything I've read, floating habitats are perfectly feasible on Venus, but getting them there would be a huge and expensive challenge, and what's the point when you can't go to the surface? Yeah, it'd be kinda cool to hang out there in a giant dirigible for a little while, and supposedly you could even go outside with just a breathing mask on for a little while, and it is nice that the gravity is almost the same as Earth's, but that's a huge investment for not much return. The Moon, Mars, and even Mercury and Ceres all make more sense for sending humans for long-term missions.

Arizhel 10y ago

The other thing to consider is: what the heck are you going to do there? On Mars, you can do a lot of things. You can mine, you can build underground habitats, you can try to grow stuff in the soil, you can explore the place and learn about the geology, etc. And you can do these things a lot faster and easier in some ways than with remote-control rovers. On Venus, what are you going to do there? Sit around in your giant dirigible city and enjoy the scenery? You can't send people to the surface, and you can't even send probes there for very long. You can't mine (the equipment won't last long enough to make any progress), you can't do too much geology (again, the probes won't last long), you certainly can't dig and build underground habitats, and you sure as hell can't grow anything on the surface. You're limited to whatever you can do in your floating habitat. And I fail to see how you're really going to get that much more done on-site in a floating habitat than just using using automated probes sent from Earth. According to everything I've read, floating habitats are perfectly feasible on Venus, but getting them there would be a huge and expensive challenge, and what's the point when you can't go to the surface? Yeah, it'd be kinda cool to hang out there in a giant dirigible for a little while, and supposedly you could even go outside with just a breathing mask on for a little while, and it is nice that the gravity is almost the same as Earth's, but that's a huge investment for not much return. The Moon, Mars, and even Mercury and Ceres all make more sense for sending humans for long-term missions.