text: But, why would anybody even want to study Venus? It's so brutal over their. Well, scientists think that long ago, it may have been an Earth-like planet. This is where the mountains, etc come in. Because Earth and Venus both have these rock formations. The atmosphere is almost 97% carbon dioxide, which could have come from severe global warming, which brings the temp. up to 800*F. We're slowly heading that way, so people on Mars, in a long, long time, might be making these same observations, about Earth. Or maybe, they already did, a long, long time ago. Either way, NASA wants to be able to make closer observations about Venus. They think hovering 30 miles above its surface would still be at temperatures of around 170* F, which is still pretty warm, you'll want a lot of AC. But, the radiation levels won't be unlike that of earth, and the air pressure would be about that of sea level on earth. So, it'd be rough living, but it'd be fairly survivable for humans to live in.