Word: venusized
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Perhaps the most striking thing about space navigation is the ease of longdistance travel after successful launching. Mars never comes closer to the earth than 34.5 million miles, Venus never closer than 25 million miles. To cover these great distances, it takes more time (146 days to Venus, 260 days to Mars), but only slightly more speed than is needed to go to the moon, which is only 230,000 miles away. This is because space between the planets is comparatively smooth. It is only slightly affected by planetary gravitation, and the great pull of the sun is countered...
...Planets. Nearest planet to the earth is Venus. It is about as big as the earth and has an atmosphere, but it seems even less attractive as real estate than the airless, sun-seared moon. Its atmosphere is so cloudy that outsiders, peering from the earth, can see only its slightly yellowish cloud deck, which sometimes shows faint, impermanent markings...
...Venusian atmosphere contains carbon dioxide. This information does not mean (as many science-fiction writers seem to think) that Venus under its clouds is covered with lush jungles. Earthside plants need carbon dioxide, but their flourishing presence on earth is the reason why the earth's modern atmosphere contains only a trace of CO2. This abundance of carbon dioxide in the Venusian atmosphere is excellent proof that the planet has no earthlike plants...
...life at all. Dr. Kuiper thinks that it has no water or free oxygen. Radio waves, which penetrate the murky atmosphere, hint that the temperature of the invisible surface is something like 500° F., which is much too high for the earth's kinds of life. Venus rotates only once in several weeks, making the sunlit side much hotter than the dark side, and causing violent storms that sweep perpetually over its hot, dry deserts...
...will make soft landings on the moon, braked gently to the airless surface by retrorockets. Once they get there, they can look around with television eyes, telling the earth what they see. When the probes get good enough to tackle the planets, they can swoop into the atmosphere of Venus for a look at its unknown surface, swing around Mars looking for signs of life...