In the New York Times last week, author Rebecca Boyle and I wrote a colloquium about the dominance of the Mars program in planetary science and what worlds are neglected as a result. Wrote Rebecca:

Even in other countries, Venus doesn’t get the attention that other worlds do. Dr. Byrne told me he attended a meeting in Moscow in October focused on future Venus missions, including a beefed-up, modern version of the Soviet Venera lander, so far the only spacecraft that has survived on the Venusian surface (the last one, Venera 12, lasted 110 minutes). Only two Russian geologists turned up to the meeting.

“There isn’t a tradition among young Russian scientists to do Venus, same as here,” he said. “There hasn’t been much of an effective selling of Venus. It’s being subsumed by Mars. And people who were funded for Venus have, with very few exceptions, gone away” to retirement or other projects, he said.

Moreover, we discuss the benefits and consequences of an aggressive Mars strategy, and look at what is next now that the Perseverance rover has launched. You can find the piece here.