I do not beleive that the author justifies their statement of "Venus has value" in paragraph 8. The author does not explain the pros of exploring Venus as well as they explain the cons of why we should explore Venus. Why do I think this? Well the autor describes the deadly, hot and thick atmosphere of Venus, stating that the reason exploring Venus is worth the risk is because "Venus still has some features that are analigous to those on Earth." Well, does that justify spending millions or hundreds of millions of dollars on a rover or a spacecraft to explore it? I don't beleive so.

It's quite simple to explain why Venus does not need to be explored or closly examined from high up in it's atmosphere. The pros do outweigh the cons in this aticle, here is a quote from the author: "On the planet's surface, temperatures average over 800 degrees Fahrenheit, and the atmospheric pressure is 90 times greater than what we experience on our own planet." That temperature is obviously deadly to humans, and that is a major risk when it comes to spending millions on making a rover that will only last up to a couple hours just to get a glimps on the planet. Or maybe just to get a couple pictures. The author does not go on to say how exploring Venus with genuinley benifit the human race. The author simply explains how scientists are curious about the planet and what is on it, I do not beleive that satisfying our curiosity will help anyone. This is a quote from paragraph 8 of the article that states: "Striving to meet the challenge presented by Venus has value, not only because of the insight to be gained on the planet itself, but also because human curiosity will likley lead us into many equally intimidating endeavors."

Now, to add on to the last quote I stated from the article, the author does not state what the human race would do with that "insight" that we would gain about Venus, they just state that we would have insight. well then I would ask the author, what is the point in the insight if we wouldn't be able to do anything with the insight that we have gained from the exploration? All that we would gain from spending millions on sending a spacecraft to Venus would be meaningless insight and the feeding of our curiosity. When there are many bigger issues to be solved here on Earth. For example, the crisis that is curently happening in Venesuala, their government is shut down and millions are starving, some familys have resorted in digging through the trash for food and we could help them, but instead we want to spend money on gaining "insight" about Venus? Which the article states that Venus is too dangerous to go to anyway. It angers me that half of New York could be underwater in the next thirty years from global warming but we are worried about getting a small peek into the world of Venus.

I do understand why Scientists would like to go to Venus, it would be a great acheivement for humanity. But I am a firm beleiver that our planet should come first, after all, we do only get one Earth, that means we must take care of it. Maybe one day when Our problems down here are solved and we have the ability to really gain benifits from Venus then I will want us to explore more. But for now I'm sticking to the thought that our planet comes first. In conclusion, no, I do not beleive that the author of this article did a good job at explaining why studying Venus is a worthy pursuit despite the dangers of it. Because in the end it's not just the dangers of going to Venus that keeps me from beleiving that we should. It's the problems that we are facing here on Earth that are far more important.