Chris L Peterson:
Also, even if Mars is dead now, there's a very real possibility that
it wasn't always so, and that evidence of past life will be found.

If Venus ever had life, it is beyond discovery.

Unless it's not "life as we know it." Improbable, but not impossible.

And Venus is recently
resurfaced, which means it's much less useful than Mars for
understanding the developmental processes of the Solar System.

Agreed. Useful mainly to amateur astrophotographers for producing
pretty pictures.

There are many reasons for Mars to be the focus of most of our
planetary research at this time.

Agreed, so long as we don't go and do something really crazy like spend
$billions (or perhaps a $trillion) to try to send humans there to do
what robots could do far more cheaply.

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm