Venus and the VRM mission

The most profound advances in the Earth sciences during the next decade will not be made on Earth. This paradoxical situation has come about because, while it is becoming more and more difficult to find new approaches to investigating the planet we are so familiar with, by the end of the decade we will have had the opportunity to study a second planet that is remarkably similar to the Earth, but one that has evolved quite differently: Venus. Such study may help us to learn why the Earth evolved in the way that it did, with the unique combination of surface conditions that allow life to be sustained.