Mankind had yet to set foot upon the Moon during the mid-1960s but NASA scientists had already made plans on what to do with the Apollo program beyond the Moon and it was exciting. It was an era when one could dream and it seemed that dreams could come true, but one dream would forever remain just that, a dream, and perhaps it was lucky that it remained a dream for the astronauts that would have attempted the journey.

Venus is an inferno with a seething hot surface of nearly 900ºF and an atmospheric pressure 92 times Earth's laced with a sulfuric acid mist but a manned mission to Venus does not necessarily mean landing on it. A flyby mission is just as productive and far less complex and less expensive than landing on it or orbiting around it. Back in the 1960s Venus was just beginning to reveal itself as a toxic, pressurized inferno instead of a planet covered in a lush tropical rainforest with possible prehistoric life. Venus is the closest planet to Earth in size and distance, coming within 25 million miles of Earth. This made it an attractive destination for a manned flyby mission once the Moon landings wound down. It was possible to send astronauts past Venus and back to Earth in about 400 days using Apollo hardware that would be modified to include a crew compartment similar to Skylab in place of a lunar module. It would be attached to the command/service module and could be propelled towards Venus. An optimum launch window was possible in late 1973, which is what Mariner 10 took advantage of to fly past Venus and on to Mercury in hardly five months. The Venus adventure would begin with launch on October 31, 1973, a flyby of Venus on March 3, 1974, and splashdown back on Earth on December 1, 1974.

The science would be excellent in spite of the swift flyby that would last about 45 minutes because the sensitive human eye is able to see the changing weather patterns on Venus in fine detail by watching clouds evolve. The eye is sensitive in the dark and would be capable of nighttime observations such as lightning and any sky glow, aurora, and other glows such as possible erupting volcanoes, glowing lava flows, other surface glows from the intense heat through thinner clouds, and perhaps even solve the mystery of the Ashen Light. Instruments would be deployed and smaller probes could be dropped towards the surface. By the early to mid 1970s the Soviet Union had just started to land on the surface and the spacecraft barely lasted an hour in the hostile conditions, so these probes were not expected to last long. The environment around Venus would be explored while the spacecraft flew by and would measure the effects and interaction of the solar wind with Venus and any potential magnetic field. An added bonus shortly after the Venus flyby would be a precious, excellent, though distant view of Mercury thanks to a rare alignment. It would be the closest approach to Mercury by astronauts for probably centuries.

Such a mission to Venus is still feasible with the new SLS/Orion rocket that is now being tested. These free-return trajectories will make exploring the worlds closest to Earth exciting and inspiring and besides Venus can also be done with Mars, near-Earth asteroids, and even Mercury, although very risky due to its close proximity to the Sun. The proposed Venus mission was never intended to fly and was only a concept study. It would have launched during the Sun’s solar minimum which normally would have a lower probability of a solar flare and therefore less risk of exposure from deadly radiation. As fate would have it a powerful solar flare erupted during the summer of 1974 spewing deadly radiation through space in the direction where the astronauts would have been during their flight back to Earth. A dream that could have come true could have ended in a nightmare with the astronauts gravely ill from radiation poisoning and eventually dying or possibly dying instantly. Such long duration missions far away from Earth in the future will have spacecraft with thick shielding to protect astronauts from radiation as much as possible. Human exploration will always have its risks, but dreaming is healthy because that is how mankind will eventually evolve to reach for the stars.

Mankind had yet to set foot upon the Moon during the mid-1960s but NASA scientists had already made plans on what to do with the Apollo program beyond the Moon and it was exciting. It was an era when one could dream and it seemed that dreams could come true, but one dream would forever remain just that, a dream, and perhaps it was lucky that it remained a dream for the astronauts that would have attempted the journey.

Venus is an inferno with a seething hot surface of nearly 900ºF and an atmospheric pressure 92 times Earth’s laced with a sulfuric acid mist but a manned mission to Venus does not necessarily mean landing on it. A flyby mission is just as productive and far less complex and less expensive than landing on it or orbiting around it. Back in the 1960s Venus was just beginning to reveal itself as a toxic, pressurized inferno instead of a planet covered in a lush tropical rainforest with possible prehistoric life. Venus is the closest planet to Earth in size and distance, coming within 25 million miles of Earth. This made it an attractive destination for a manned flyby mission once the Moon landings wound down. It was possible to send astronauts past Venus and back to Earth in about 400 days using Apollo hardware that would be modified to include a crew compartment similar to Skylab in place of a lunar module. It would be attached to the command/service module and could be propelled towards Venus. An optimum launch window was possible in late 1973, which is what Mariner 10 took advantage of to fly past Venus and on to Mercury in hardly five months. The Venus adventure would begin with launch on October 31, 1973, a flyby of Venus on March 3, 1974, and splashdown back on Earth on December 1, 1974.

The science would be excellent in spite of the swift flyby that would last about 45 minutes because the sensitive human eye is able to see the changing weather patterns on Venus in fine detail by watching clouds evolve. The eye is sensitive in the dark and would be capable of nighttime observations such as lightning and any sky glow, aurora, and other glows such as possible erupting volcanoes, glowing lava flows, other surface glows from the intense heat through thinner clouds, and perhaps even solve the mystery of the Ashen Light. Instruments would be deployed and smaller probes could be dropped towards the surface. By the early to mid 1970s the Soviet Union had just started to land on the surface and the spacecraft barely lasted an hour in the hostile conditions, so these probes were not expected to last long. The environment around Venus would be explored while the spacecraft flew by and would measure the effects and interaction of the solar wind with Venus and any potential magnetic field. An added bonus shortly after the Venus flyby would be a precious, excellent, though distant view of Mercury thanks to a rare alignment. It would be the closest approach to Mercury by astronauts for probably centuries.

Such a mission to Venus is still feasible with the new SLS/Orion rocket that is now being tested. These free-return trajectories will make exploring the worlds closest to Earth exciting and inspiring and besides Venus can also be done with Mars, near-Earth asteroids, and even Mercury, although very risky due to its close proximity to the Sun. The proposed Venus mission was never intended to fly and was only a concept study. It would have launched during the Sun’s solar minimum which normally would have a lower probability of a solar flare and therefore less risk of exposure from deadly radiation. As fate would have it a powerful solar flare erupted during the summer of 1974 spewing deadly radiation through space in the direction where the astronauts would have been during their flight back to Earth. A dream that could have come true could have ended in a nightmare with the astronauts gravely ill from radiation poisoning and eventually dying or possibly dying instantly. Such long duration missions far away from Earth in the future will have spacecraft with thick shielding to protect astronauts from radiation as much as possible. Human exploration will always have its risks, but dreaming is healthy because that is how mankind will eventually evolve to reach for the stars.