text: In the essay the author states that "Astronomers are fascinated by Venus because it may well once have been the most Earth-like planet in our solar system." This statement in the essay opens many new ideas to support why exploring Venus would be a worthy pursuit. Its starts to make the reader wonder what happened to the planet to make it look the way it does now. Even though it is very dangerous the mission to Venus could posibbly be held to many discorvory's, and this is what the author is telling us he thinks that it is worth it and it definetly is.