Venus vs. Mars: Scientists Claim Earth’s ‘Evil Twin’ Is An Ideal Location For The First Manned Mission

A group of space experts is calling for undertaking a crewed voyage to Venus, Earth's closest neighbor before starting human exploration of Mars,

The team presented their argument during last week's International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Paris. According to Mashable, the researchers argued that since Venus is far closer to Earth than Mars, a crewed trip there might be completed in less time while still giving valuable data for future Mars trips.

Mission to Venus Should Happen Before Mars

Some researchers are arguing in favor of launching a crewed spacecraft to investigate Venus on the way to Mars.

A new idea from scientist Noam Izenberg, a researcher at the applied physics lab at Johns Hopkins University. Izenberg argued in favor of a flyby investigation of Venus.

During his speech at the International Astronautical Congress in Paris, he said that this planet is far closer to Earth than Mars.

"Venus gets a bad rap because it's got such a difficult surface environment," said Izenberg in a report.

"We're trying to make [a] case for Venus as an additional target on that pathway," continued Izenberg, citing the moon-to-Mars "paradigm of NASA.

(Photo : SDO/NASA via Getty Images)
IN SPACE - JUNE 5-6: In this handout composite image provided by NASA, the SDO satellite captures the path sequence of the transit of Venus across the face of the sun at on June 5-6, 2012 as seen from space. The last transit was in 2004 and the next pair of events will not happen again until the year 2117 and 2125.

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According to NASA, Venus is referred to as Earth's twin due to similarities in both structure and size. However, due to its surface temperature of around 900 degrees Fahrenheit, it is entirely unsuitable to human existence.

In several publications, Izenberg has advocated in favor of the Venus flyby. He suggested in 2020 that a crewed flyby of Venus on the way to Mars would effectively be a "two planets for the price of one-plus" chance for space study.

Izenberg and his co-authors Mallory Lefland and Alexander MacDonald argued once more for more effort to be put into researching Venus in a 2022 submission to the Keck Institute for Space Studies at the California Institute of Technology.

Izenberg said that a flyby of Venus makes sense because, despite Venus being in the "wrong" direction, completing a slingshot or gravity assist over Earth's sister planet might reduce the amount of time and fuel required to reach the red planet.

Some Experts Not Buying on the Idea

But not everyone is a fan of the concept, WIONews wrote. Prof. Andrew Coates of UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory said Venus is "really not a nice place" to go. He cited Venus' "hellish environment" for his stand.

Also, he underscored that thermal challenges for a human mission would be "quite considerable." Although Venus was legitimately the subject of scientific study, he asserted that "a human flyby wouldn't offer anything much."

Since the discovery raises the question of how many of these planets might be livable, there has been an increase in scientific interest in Venus as a result of the discovery of hundreds of exoplanets. The question of how and why Venus, a planet that is so similar to our own in terms of size, mass, and distance from the sun, came to have a hostile surface environment is now a topic of research for scientists.