Unless I'm entirely mistaken (there's always a good chance of that being the case), we can accomplish certain types of research and explorations without a hitch, utilizing existing technology and even from existing inventory, or we can cry wolf and insist upon doing absolutely everything from scratch, thereby taking years if not decades and of costing hundreds of millions more, if not billions (Hubble for example has been more like the black hole of Arthur Andersen or perhaps ENRON style space mission funding that'll soon be overtaken by going after those lethal Mars microbes, neither of which offers any tangible prospects of benefiting humanity, only the risk of causing great disaster or simply that of diverting and thereby wasting the talents and resources of so many, or of the billions that would otherwise have improved upon as well as salvaged countless lives right here on Earth). You simply can not devote that level of talent and subsequent funding without being held personally responsible and thereby guilty of your knowingly denying so much other moral responsibilities.
In case you're wondering, I'm actually not the bad guy, as that should be obvious of why I've attempted to focus upon what's been overlooked and otherwise of highly obtainable goals, utilizing the technology and expertise we have at hand, of otherwise taking the least possible resources. Silly me, I thought this was a perfectly good idea, especially being that our very own resident warlord had previously insisted that "we should achieve more from less and then accomplish everything faster". As in "duh!" why the hell didn't anyone else or I think of that?.
Focusing upon anything frozen and as irradiated to death as Mars is hardly what I'd call justified, certainly not achieving more from less, nor is any 90 light year distant solar system hosting other planets of likewise representing anything humanly obtainable, especially since our best possible technology probe-speed can only hope for an encounter in roughly 900,000 years from now and, that's only if the specified target isn't in any recession. Even of good old Sirius represents 90,000 years at our best technology speed of advance, plus something considerably extra in order to offset the opposing speed of recession and, by far anything Sirius/a/b/c offers our most bang for the buck of what's outside of our solar system, as well as offering the better of opportunities for discovering truths than of any 90 light year distant planet(s). Good grief folks, in case you still can't count, even 90,000 years is simply too damn far off, not to mention way too damn expensive and, even if some others were paying for the entire package, there's still not likely one freaking accommodating benefit for Earth, unless that's of where the likes of bin Laden and Saddam are hiding out (presumably along with all those invisible WMDs) and, I'm not all that convinced those WMDs are even the of greater threat, as opposed to our own friendly fire and of our in-your-face policy that's currently being lead amuck by our very own resident warlord.
Under the pretext or guise that I had previously thought our leadership was being morally justified and thoughtfully reconsidering upon the overall global responsibilities for America, of redirecting exactly where our best talents and limited resources should be wisely invested, however this rude awakening was certainly the motivation of why I've tried to focus others upon some of these "can do" as opposed to the "can not possibly achieve" or at least "should not attempt to do" alternatives. The following are merely a few examples which I'm certain your ideas and ideals are different, of which I'll gladly entertain whatever it is that you may wish to offer, including exchanging flak if that's all you've got in mind.
One of the more recent of interesting topics of "can almost do" things; this one is having to do with our establishing a dynamic lunar/L1+ (ME-L1+ or LL1+) gravity-well space elevator, so that a depot of sufficient tonnage comprised of all that nifty clumping lunar soil can be delivered to ME L-1.1 and subsequently utilized as the ultimate lunar dirt depot for otherwise obtaining and subsequently accommodating the necessary shielding density for what almost any manned mission requires. Compared to any sort of Earth/Moon-L1 (EM-L1) concept elevator, the lunar solution is going to be literally dirt cheap as well as that product itself becoming highly useful dirt and, unlike any EM-L1 scheme, I believe ME-L1+ or LL1+ space elevator is something that's within our existing technology, spendy but nowhere nearly as spendy as doing the EM-L1 space elevator, like not likely 1% of the cost and we can start in today, not otherwise decades from now.
We can always return to orbiting Venus with another spendy mapping mission (Magellan-II), this time achieving a somewhat similar elliptical and/or preferably a lower base altitude while utilizing far better SAR technology (like the already bought and paid for shuttle-bay equipped mission which obtained 1.5 meter raw imaging resolution of Earth), except the Venus mission would be accomplishing perhaps 1 meter resolution in the lower elliptical orbit positions and perhaps of not ever exceeding 10 meters resolution at maximum orbit altitude. This effort can also provide 16 bits instead of the original 8 bits worth of imaging composition depth, as well as far more precise topography data. Along with other onboard instruments can access solar energy influx of various radiation factors (daytime as well as nighttime), plus more capable of thermal/IR as well as for obtaining detailed surface thermal spectrum readings, all the way into the UV spectrum, that which may require a few small secondary probe deployments, of which we now know of how to make such instruments sufficiently survivable (especially elevated nighttime territory survivable).
We can always establish a Venus L2 (VL2) communications relay platform, as well as providing peripheral solar observations (sort of a TRACE-II formulated with a few solid state lasers and arrays of efficient single channel CCD photon detectors), as outfitted with such relatively low power communications lasers and arrays of energy efficient CCD photon detectors best suited for the near UV (350~450 nm) down into the nocturnal peak UV/a spectrum sensitivity of 350 nm, thus also covering the most likely spectrums of cloud penetration as well as accommodating any nocturnal visual capabilities. Obviously other visible spectrums will need to be included, though the existing CCD imaging capability of the TRACE-II camera will more than suffice for pinpointing coordinates of any specific source/origin that's pertaining to any specific nighttime cloud illuminations (artificial or otherwise).
In spite of what the Hubble huggers have been stipulating about their multi trillion dollar recreational telescope; it too can look for signs of artificial nighttime illuminations on Venus, though they'd rather whine about losing their precious toy rather than contribute any worth for humanity (sounds an offal lot like Club SETI), they even think their Hubble is worthy of roasting another batch of astronauts, not to mention the billion + added investment and, that's only if nothing goes horribly wrong. Of course, the moon-SAR could easily outperform imaging any of our solar system planets, even accomplishing it's imaging while looking directly into the sun, as well as looking at the pitch black nighttime season of Venus or even of Mercury, imaging as though it was daytime and, there's no stinking lens nor mirror distortions to boot. Lunar SAR imaging scan/capture time can be in terms of a sub millisecond as opposed to seconds into minutes for anything Hubble.
As I've stated, we can nowadays package and configure any number of high temperature tolerant audio/video surface transceiver probes, of instruments that would be entirely interactive, linked through either the Magellan-II craft or preferably that of a relatively affordable and efficiently nighttime stationary VL2 relay platform. Either way we've got ourselves whatever sound and picture interactively established (a few minutes delay, as little as 4.5 minutes loop for any round trip duplex of send/receive message, or 2.25 minutes each way), just in case those Venus lizard heathens might care to see how ugly and pathetic we actually look and/or of how stupid we sound, since they probably already know what a total bunch of village idiots we already are (flying big and occupied aircraft into even more so occupied tall buildings, frying yet another batch of our astronauts for no apparent good reason and, of lately becoming the great invisible WMD hunters that we are and all, that's almost worse than snipe hunting while having your own friendly fire responsible for shooting off both feet), thus there shouldn't be any surprises, same old Earth with the likes of a Pope exterminating millions of Cathars and our very own warlord Bush about to do the same to anyone that's hiding WMDs, even though the largest and by far the most lethal stash of WMDs is owned and operated by the one and only USA.
We can also, if need be, forego any VL2 communications relay platform by simply increasing the laser power and/or reducing the delivery beam to sub milliradian performance levels (energy wise; the Boeing/TRW laser cannon way more than qualifies by at least 10,000 fold, 100,000 fold with their latest adaptive mirror that provides sub-milliradian performance), then for a minimum of a 4 month period (+/- 2 months) while Earth and Venus are at their closest, we should be able to directly place as well as receive those local area code laser packets and/or even of accomplishing xenon projection beam calls, as in to/from Venus. The reason why this form of direct planet to planet communications will be possible is that the distance becomes roughly 110 times that of the moon from Earth and, because Venus is a whole lot bigger than the moon (most of its nighttime side facing Earth), it'll eventually appear as roughly 3.25% the diameter of the moon, whereas by most recognized astronomical standards will simply have to concur, that's damn big as well as being more than sufficiently close, even though once again the spendy Hubble is (as usual) entirely useless, whereas TRACE can at least provide sufficiently fast scans that'll include Venus (even while it's traversing the solar photosphere).
Unfortunately, it's probably the case that we may not be up to their communication skills of what's considered as visually capable within near UV and of what UV/a format has to offer, as in any quantum binary packet level of data sharing but, I do believe it's entirely possible that Venus folks will intentionally subdue their capability down to a crude 1-bps if necessary, in order to accommodate our primitive or near heathen status. Even if we can't initially understand a damn Venus word, at least we'll certainly know that someone on Venus is trying their level best at dealing with their having such a thoroughly piss poor planetary neighbor, perhaps akin to that of our shining headlights at a deer and getting nothing in return but that stupified dumb-ass stare, very much like our dumb and dumber, duh!.
On another positive "can do" lunar note; We can certainly outfit the moon with that of an extremely affordable robotic lunar SAR receiving aperture, a relatively small and energy efficient module that'll give us better than 100 mm worth of raw 16 bit imaging of planets like Venus and Mars (10 mm is actually within this current technology). This is SAR/VLA imaging on steroids and, best of all it's not only been doable for more than decades but, it's yet another relatively lunar-dirt-cheap solution, somewhat like the (ME-L1.1 gravity-well space elevator), except that of anything moon or lunar-SAR doesn't have to ever involve the prospects of our frying another batch of astronauts.
As long as we're establishing this SAR receiving module on the moon, we might as well also establish a few laser cannon transceiver arrays, as it's another relatively small robotic package of existing technology, quite easily being robotically deployed and established for business, again comparatively dirt cheap as well as absolutely doable, as for us here on Earth to efficiently laser beam and/or microwave signals to/from the moon, while the lunar based and solar powered array of efficient laser cannons could be transmitting those quantum binary packets of interplanetary data and images, subsequently the associated photon receivers detecting whatever other worlds might have to say. In other freaking words, why should we strain our telescopes as well as our budgets trying to badly see what could otherwise be a crisp and detailed postcard that's been digitally transmitted directly from the surface or satellite of another world. We really do need to face some facts, such as for one thing, Hubble simply can not resolve decent smut, not even if its looking directly at Earth, so good grief folks, we need to communicate and, preferably doing such via a universal language of light, that which can be of laser and of mixed analog/quantum binary packet formats.
Radio maybe; Unlike the politically correct mannerism of Club SETI and of their supporters like David Grinspoon (at all cost avoiding formal conflicts with their pagan cash cow God) somehow believing and/or insisting upon the rest of us village idiots believing in pure rubbish, as without any apparent foundation other than the most recent of Earths' history as any model, that of all the other worlds (known and unknown), that they would and should still be utilizing the relatively primitive inefficiencies and complications of mere radio, and would for some unexplained reason(s) still be focused upon such radio and only of radio technology, instead of their utilizing the much greater range per JOULE or per WATT and of the sheer mega bandwidth capabilities of what the near UV and of UV/a spectrums have to offer. Whereas myself on the other hand, as the resident chief village idiot, I seem to understand or at least accept that other life need not have been so limited to such primitive radio in the first place, at least not of any prerequest in order to have evolved and even survived much longer than Earth, under far worst planetary environmental conditions at that.
Certainly there's no contest of communications proficiency by way of the visual spectrum medium verses radio, especially if that's including what's within the nocturnal UV visual spectrum, as this is offering way more universal conversation/data throughput potential as well as cross species interactive capabilities than of anything radio, than of all of radio, just as it has been such for millions of years on Earth, as in prior to anything radio. In fact, if you're insisting upon contemplating the rather narrow window or scope of radio archaeology, that by itself eliminates as much as 90% of what's populating Earth today (99.999% if you would care to include all the other sight and hearing capable species besides human) and, of just a little over a 100 years ago we're talking of 100+% of Earths' human inhabitance being entirely radio illiterate, that's not to even mention all of the various human language barriers or even of those species having their hearing within extended spectrums or octaves above or below what humans typically respond to and, not to forget that it takes a good deal of receiving technology, if not computer decryption, before one even comprehends a foreign language (not to mention the multi-billion to one odds of ever recognizing upon their own) and, for some God forsaken reason, it seems like SETI remains focused only upon multi-lightyear distant targets, or actually 100+ lightyear having been of recent interest to those of the SETI world of humanly unobtainable goals but, expensive none the less.
Unfortunately, there isn't any new law of physics or new math that's of help to radio communications, especially of our proficiently reaching out to what's outside our solar system, as even the closest external ET target of any worth being Sirius/a/b/c, that's roughly 9 lightyears and its supposedly going away from us at something like a 20 mile per second clip (that's 72,000 mph which is faster than any probe we've got). Perhaps the right time to have been sending off messages and of well over a decade and a half later listening for any reply from Sirius would have been of at least ten thousand years ago, as for obtaining nearly an 8 lightyear message delay (even that's waiting 16 years worth for an answer) and, how about your trying that 100,000 years ago, which might actually have been a really darn good time when Sirius was at least within our local laser area code, perchance requiring a mere lightyear for receiving that reply (still, how pathetically boring). Remember folks, Sirius is by far of what's closest to our solar system and not my any small factor, as of all other targets are of 50s into hundreds if not thousands of lightyears more distant. Good grief SETI, how about getting another grip.
NOTE: I consider a local laser area code is what's within a round trip of one year. I believe that limits our calling range or LD coverage plan to 4.71744^12 km.
Communications via anything of the visual format is simply way on the other positive side of this inter-species equation, by way of offering all sorts of positive resolve and of reinforcing arguments that have been successfully in place for millions of years, ever since creation and/or by way of evolution brought us sight and of the visual cortex by which to interpret such into the mainstream of life as we know it. Unfortunately, we humans continue to waste a good too many biological talents as well as resources, so our sight and cortex is barely utilized to the greater extent possible, as equally our remaining brain cells (in my case we're speaking of the three remaining) are preoccupied with either too much smut or simply skewed into the nearest toilet of whatever the Borg collective wants of you and I to believe is truth and moral.
If just to be further reconsidering by regressing upon the literally hot prospect of radio for Venus, whereas on that toasty planet the very idea of having to create a transmitter of any significant energy is certainly doable but, it's going to be one of the most inefficient alternatives around, where creating 10 watts of transmitter power may entail 100 watts of input, not to mention whatever the receiver demands involve. It's not that 10% efficiency represents any firewall, as much as the 10 times greater energy input will be making what's already too damn hot into hells' kitchen on fire. I mean, why bother generating such massive amounts of additional heat if you can otherwise efficiently as well as securely communicate through all of that nighttime season of calm and crystal clear CO2, for a hundred+ miles between nodes, accomplishing that on a mere fraction of a watt seems to beg for the opportunity.
An effective if not natural way of Venus folks creating such illumination via xenon beam format is simply through the most basic of applied physics, as taken from the surrounding pressurized and preheated illumination gas of the mostly CO2 atmosphere itself and, of such a an illumination beam generated requiring few electrons, as for bridging a very small (as little as 0.1 mm) gap made of simple electrodes, as well as requiring no containment bulb and of so few electrons that the energy resource for that could easily be biologically generated. Thus of any personal lizard to lizard communications could easily have become biolumination interactive and, in a very quantum packet way. In other words, you don't need any stinking cell phones nor even a spoken word if those nocturnal souls of Venus share a sort of collective visual neural network that's capable of communicating via the near UV and UV/a spectrums.
Unless I'm mistaken (wouldn't be the first nor the last time), of pertaining to human communications skills and of sheer communications throughput (data packets per ms), there's nothing that even comes remotely close to what can be achieved via sight or of the technologically utilizing the visible and UV spectrums of light. Seems the nearly perfect environment of their crystal clear season of nighttime, especially of the cooler elevated territories, is where nocturnal visual communications would have become quite the natural attribute if not imperative as for surviving such a difficult predicament. Certainly if there were sufficient opportunity and the timeline by which to adapt towards becoming more nocturnal, whereas the chances of surviving any greenhouse onset would have been greatly improved, especially if even a little applied renewable energy technology were getting involved (still not requiring of anything radio). So, why has there been all the focus and apparent arrogance towards Venus, as well as other shrouded planets, of insisting that other worlds need be radio qualified, as where's the advantage or even the need, except to perhaps qualify for dealing with such primitive planets and of such immoral inhabitance as of Earth, of which we've only recently become radio qualified within the last 0.1% of recorded human existance.
Apparently there's yet another worthwhile thing or two that we should know of, that which we can accomplish with all of that toasty CO2; such as first of all, especially if having all of that vertical CO2 differential of renewable energy about, we can first of all process CO2 into CO/O2 (CO2-->CO/O2), then we can process that a bit further by yet another recent invention of "HydroMax" (owned by Alchemix Corporation) for making some of that CO component into just plain old H2 rather efficiently. Of course, we'll be needing some of the cloud H2O content (the hotter the better), then some iron and tin alloy and a good deal of process heat. Gee whiz folks, I wonder where on Venus we could possibly locate such items, especially the process "heat" part.
I got myself accidently into this topic by a good lead as offered from; Peter Singfield / Belize
http://solstice.crest.org/discussion/gasification/200201/msg00089.html
"In regards to liquid tin metal baths -- production of pure H2 -- sparging with CO -- making methane by cooking any biomass in an H2 rich atmosphere -- etc."
"After a little checking; this became the exact URL for a PDF file that lays it all on the line. http://www.alchemix.us/hydromax.pdf"
Perhaps the problem being is that a production of merely 47 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscd) of hydrogen (40,000 metric tons per year) from a quantity of 1.6 million metric tons per year of steam is only a 25,000:1 ratio of obtaining H2 from H2O, which is obviously going to be a serious problem for those wishing to extinguish any possibility of other life on Venus and possibly even that of Mercury, as with such conversion capabilities comes a reality of other life (NOT as we know it) surviving elsewhere where mere humans can not (especially regarding really ignorant stupid Earthly humans, namely astrophysics types and of just about anyone associated with our braille astronomy, especially those within and/or associated with NASA's cult of cold-war space wizards).
Of things we apparently can't accomplish; seems like almost anything whatsoever having to do with our moon is simply off limits, such as our establishing distant/remote SAR imaging receiving aperture situated on the moon so that we can subsequently obtain the rather exceptional long range resolution of planets such as Venus and of all others. Though a relatively low cost and low risk robotic mission could deploy just such an SAR aperture of image receiving technology to the moon, with said instrument robotically unpacking itself and unfolding its solar panels so as to be taking in energy and aiming itself (this being just the receiving aperture portion) at a precise location on Earth, never the less, there seems to be a very black Apollo energy cloud obscuring this approach (must have been the very same black cloud that obscured all those Hasselblad cameras and of their radiation proof as well as thermal shock tolerant KODAK film from recording those otherwise extremely vibrant stars above all that 10% reflective lunar surface).
Another "can not possibly do" issue might soon become any Earth space elevator, being entirely unlike any moon L1+ (EM L-1.1) space elevator, even though a lunar s.e. is relatively dirt cheap, could be entirely robotic and within the current level of structural alloys and expertise.
The next issue that we can't seem to do much of anything about, especially with certain warlords running amuck, is for our utilizing ISS for anything but risking further astronauts and subsequently creating thousands of tonnes of very permanent CO2 contributions towards expediting Earths' greenhouse environment, not to mention our blowing all those billions of which obviously the astronomy community and other facets of NASA thinks such talents and resources need not be applied towards greater mankind nor of resolving down-to-Earth considerations, as they'd rather sustain their personal domains by their feeding of infomercials into our hungry for-tax-spending on whatever press and of all those NASA/NSA/DoD obligated publications that will gladly skew anything into the nearest toilet for another buck, even more so in order to exclude losing the bucks they now have.
Something other we can not do much of anything about is all those impending asteroid impacts, nor even offering the public some awareness of near misses until it's way too late, as that sort of effort would take a rather significant radar imaging of the sky's, perchance via the sort of SAR/VLA imaging that's having its receiving aperture placement on the moon, as at least that way we'd have sufficient resolution for detecting basketball sized objects at a hundred+ million miles, whereas the best we seem to manage is less than a thousand miles unless the object is the size of the Astro Dome and, that in-coming Astro Dome had better be within the 1% per month coverage of what's currently being scanned.
Of what we definitely can not seem to accomplish is for our utilizing what's currently within inventory, especially for any humanitarian consideration. As it seems we must always re-engineer and custom construct to every last detail of each and every specific mission, insuring that of every potential goal or achievement is accomplished at the absolute greatest possible cost as well as at the greatest possible risk, while knowingly ignoring what's already available and of more importantly ignoring the plight of so many folks right here on Earth, of those which could have had their problems extensively resolved with 10% of just what's been and is still being thrown away on such ludicrous (humanly unobtainable) goals, that which only the wealthiest of pretentious individuals obtain further benefit from. As other than space related Earth sciences, of what other the greater Borg collective of astronomy is looking at and continually looking for has not materialized enough worth to justify their cost nor the added risk. Hubble for example, as for being specific; can you honestly say there's even one image or of even an applied technology from which has benefitted Earth sciences and of thereby Earths' humanity (besides benefiting your privet cult/club and/or your own pocket)?
Even a village idiot (myself included) can understand and appreciate the likes of SOHO, TRACE and any number of Earth scanning/probing and of all those navigation/communications worth of satellites, including those searching for potentially hazardous space objects (presumably that's including the likes of bin Laden and of otherwise searching for all those invisible WMDs), even though we've wasted so much of our talents and resources over the past four decades (I believe 10 trillions most recently thanks to 9/11 and of our "dog wagging" response), so much so that if there should be an impending asteroid impact there's still almost nothing we can do about it. As I've already stated, I can even appreciate going our after whatever the moon may have to offer humanity, especially in the way of providing seriously deep space astronomy at mere a fraction of anything Hubble, while delivering at least another ten thousand fold if not potentially a million fold worth of SAR imaging magnification upon other planets within our solar system (that's almost better than being there in person).
Where I've drawn my DMZ line is when trusted agencies such as NASA are being orchestrated and/or run by the cloak and dagger likes of NSA/DoD, accomplishing various nondisclosure missions (such as the USS LIBERTY fiasco and now of the Boeing/TRW Phantom Works laser cannon) as well as numerous hidden agendas under the guise of being purely a wholesome scientific community, as otherwise this existing policy of ours is hardy anything that's just nor moral, especially in the case of the Apollo ruse having subsequently delivered a truly great deal of international world-war-III class of stress and carnage, not to mention thoroughly snookering our Senate appropriations as well as ourselves by essentially skewing science and physics and not to mention history into the nearest toilet (I'm thinking the likes of Arthur Andersen and of every dishonest corporation associated would be proud as punch, that goes for our incompetent SEC as well as our GAO).
It doesn't much help that supposedly qualified souls like David Grinspoon keep emphasizing the hot and nasty aspects of Venus without offering an once of applied physics for what the season of nighttime offers nor of what all that nifty pressure and pressure/thermal differential is having to offer (it's as though pressure doesn't matter in his skewed interpretation of physics, just as the somewhat cooler nighttime season and of whatever elevated territories is given no consideration whatsoever). It's very true that Venus nighttime is still humanly hot and nasty, especially within any Venus death valley pretext, though even within their season of daytime those rocks are NOT as David claims "glowing hot" and, there is even a small degree of O2 (sufficient for other life) as well as there being a working gradient of O2 as for making elevated and especially of the nighttime season a whole lot more likely survivable than not for sustaining life NOT as we may know it, and/or of that visual evidence of life which they simply wish not to admit to overlooking for at least the past 14 years.
BTW; even though Venus is smaller than Earth, although the mass of the Venus atmosphere is nearly 100 times greater than Earth's atmospheric mass, and even if the sulphur content of that atmosphere were contributing 50%, that's still offering nearly 50 times more potential as atmospheric H20. So, besides the fact of there being more recorded O2 at higher elevations, there's also the rather obvious implication of there being mega tonnes worth of H2O conveniently trapped in those thick acidic clouds, being held buoyant in a highly airship navigable ocean of mostly clear and relatively calm CO2, whereas extracting from the least complicated methods of applied vacuum distillation processing would easily obtain whatever amounts of pure H2O and, of subsequently stored and/or converted such into H2O2, as well for further on-demand taking out just the H2 element, as for thermal insulation as well as for obtaining such a terrific airship buoyancy gas.
Of acquiring surface energy certainly isn't an issue, unless you're a true diehard cold-war village idiot because, just the vertical pressure differential of 4+bar/km and of perhaps as much as 10°K/km in thermal shift is offering rather incredible energy, it's almost like having a terrifically sustainable hydroelectric power plant situated in nearly every back yard, except this is more of a hybrid kinetic conversion of vertical differential dense CO2 flow that's representing more than sufficient mass throughput as well as for being about as green of renewable energy resource as you're ever going to get, not to mention what all that energy can accommodate in the way of processing CO2-->CO/O2.
I still realize that my abilities outside of observationology are no match for the talents of so many others, though regardless of how smart others claim being, what possible good is any of that smartness if their perception and thereby knowledge of history, including their science and of physics, is so thoroughly skewed by the likes of what our cold-war(s) brought upon Earth by our own doing. As how can a truthful and morally well-intentioned individual even morally function if they're being so willingly snookered by those having "the right stuff". It seems rather pointless to continue an effort at enlightening others that offer no open channel and of no recourse by which to share ideas or even to acknowledge the possibilities of other life besides Earth.
At times I'm deeply regretful that I've learned how pathetically petty and arrogant our American idea and ideals of world domination has become and, of lately how Pope/Cathar our methods of skewing truths and even of justifying extermination have become. Perhaps there's not a chance in holy hell of there being any reality of others accepting there's other life on Venus, as if so, that could mean that somehow there's potential of other life existing on Jupiter and even possibly those of frozen and irradiated to death planets such as Mars. At least the likes of David Grinspoon have published material that's somewhat less doom and gloom than most proclaim of Venus, suggesting that their timeline of planetary evolutionary plight hasn't been all that different than Earths', of not the millions of years of aftermath disaster proposed by so many, but of more recent (Earth like) history of volcanic eruption disasters and of the subsequent environment changes of creating their more recent greenhouse, where I believe that's certainly making a whole lot more sense than not.
At least the ESA Venus Express team is still on track and will likely reveal a whole lot more truth than all of what our American/NASA interest may have to show. Too bad our crack NASA/NSA/DoD is so preoccupied with their accomplishing warlord and of domination agendas to otherwise give a flying puck about anything Venus. Too bad our Senate Appropriation folks are so into their Arthur Andersen mode of justifying more important issues like appeasing our resident warlord and of his 18 billion dollar per year subsidy plan intended for the wealthiest of cotton growers that have been flooding a surplus world cotton market for the past decade.