Everyone is fixated on Mars, but 30 miles above the hellish surface of Venus there is a layer of sky where the pressure matches Earth’s and the temperature sits at room temperature — and NASA has a real concept to float crewed airships there, a mission that may be cheaper and closer than going to Mars at all.

Everyone is fixated on Mars, but 30 miles above the hellish surface of Venus there is a layer of sky where the pressure matches Earth’s and the temperature sits at room temperature — and NASA has a real concept to float crewed airships there, a mission that may be cheaper and closer than going to Mars at all.

People today are fixated on Mars. The Red Planet has long captured the imagination. A giant desert in space is within humanity’s reach. But there is another planet in our Solar System that is nearby–and quite different from the red deserts of Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun. That is the world of Venus, the second planet from the Sun.  The Planet Everyone Forgot  Long dubbed “Earth’s sister planet” because of its size and the fact that it ha…