venus

Venus is one of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System, meaning that it is terrestrial world not unlike like Earth. It is similar to Earth in size and mass and is often described as Earth's "sister" or "twin".

Venus is the second planet from the Sun. Orbiting inferiorly, it appears in Earth's sky always close to the Sun, as either a "morning star" or an "evening star". While this is also true for Mercury, Venus appears much more prominently, since it is the third brightest object in Earth's sky after the Moon and the Sun, appearing brighter than any other star-like classical planet or any fixed star. With such prominence in Earth's sky, Venus has historically been a common and important celestial body for humans. Due to the planet's slightly white-blue coloration, it was alternatively called "Poseidon" by ancient humans until that name fell out of favor upon shifting cultural norms.

For centuries, the allure of Venus attracted many people to study the planet. Subsequent observations through more advanced telescopes throughout the 17th and 18th centuries began to tell more about the planet. It was confirmed to have an atmosphere, with many observations claiming to see small tiny moons orbiting the planet. It's atmosphere had shrouded the planet beneath the veil of its depths, and in the early 20th century it was confirmed that Venus had a system of 4 small asteroidal moons orbiting close within the planet's sphere of influence, with a faint ring over the equator that is not visible in visual telescopes.

Venus was imagined by many to be a lush tropical world, and in a way - those assumptions were correct - up to a point. In the early 1960s, the German Empire would send the first satellite probes to the planet - with the first two doing flybys. The third, would be an orbiter mission that would study the planet more in depth. It was confirmed through these first visitations that Venus orbited on it's axis once every 19 hours. It was this one that would prove the existence of Venusian oceans, and the atmosphere would confirmed to be over twice the thickness of Earth's. An American lander sent to the planet would be the first to prove that the planet was host to life - sending back images of a dark and odd landscape marked by thick forests of what seemed to be trees. The probe would continue to take images for the next few months before an unexplained event lead to loss of contact.

More probes began to be sent to Venus throughout the 70s, with the Confederates, West Russians, and Japanese sending their own landers to the planet. The discovery of life on the planet would send shockwaves throughout scientific circles, leading to a vast increase in studying the planet's ecology. The subsequent missions sent there would confirm that Venus was a heavily forested planet with a dense atmosphere rich in water vapor, approximately twice the thickness of Earth, with its forests shrouded in a hot mist.

The real question was - who was going to get a man there first? Thus began the race to Venus, with the Germans already establishing orbiting probes, and the West Russians sending a spree of more landers there in the 70s, working with the Germans. The British had various failed attempts, but their spirit persevered, with a few probes sent to study the Venusian poles, finding that the conditions for human life were more appealing at higher latitudes, and at higher altitudes where the atmosphere proved to be thinner.

The Germans floated the notion of sending a man there, however they were beat to it by a joint United States-Confederate States mission that took advantage of a close planetary alignment in 1982. The United States supplied one half of the ship that would get to Venus, with the Confederates supplying the propulsion systems and other elements. This mission would last approximately under a year, with a crew of 4. Two Confederates. Two Americans.

The joint mission - named "Mayflower 1" would flyby the planet and provide stunning images to the world, with the crew successfully making it back. A manned landing on the planet would prove to be too daring for the times, with the Germans also performing a flyby of Venus in 1989 along similar lines. Throughout the 90's, the Americans and Germans would do several followup manned flybys. In 2001 and 2002, a series of West Russian missions would be sent past the planet, with the one in 2002 marking the longest timeframe a human spaceflight had taken.

It was only during 2012 that another joint American-Confederate mission would finally be able to cough up the funds to finally performed a manned mission to land on the planet itself, after successful sample returns were made in 2010 through a highly costly probed mission to confirm that there was no danger to human life there. The life there had been examined to be mostly plant based, with some large docile insect-like life that had dwelled there in the treetops and scurrying along the ground. It would seem that on Venus, very little lifeforms in the way of animal life had evolved - with the insects there of very large stature - being the size of very large birds.

The manned mission that had went there was pre-ceded by an orbital station being pre-prepared. There, the first men touched down on Venus and began to study it up close. It was possible to breathe, but oxygen masks proved to be more comfortable for longer periods of time. The insect life here proved to be relatively docile towards humans - if a bit curious. The men had spent a period of 6 months on the planet, surveying the landing site and surrounding areas, confirming no current places of intelligent life that existed.

Subsequent German, West Russian, and eventually even Japanese missions were made by 2020. By 2020, the most advanced nations began to prepare orbital infrastructure in orbit of the planet to pave the way for more serious missions there - aimed at establishing permanent bases.

Not without competition of course, for these missions that had come to Venus, had also came to lay land claims to the planet itself in the name of humanity.