In the article "The Challenge of Exploring Venus," the author gives the reader basic insight on what Venus is, its history, why scientists are trying to explore it, and the challenges scientists have faced.

Overall it is a very informative article and the point of it was to convince the reader that despite all of the struggles there is that comes with exploring Venus, that it is worth exploring anyway.

Though it is an admirable arguement, it is simply not supported throughout this type of article.

In the article, the author does not support his or her argument well because of his or her informative over-kill, lack of analysis, and lack of data in his or her favor.

To begin, the author gives us too many facts that are simply just an introduction. In paragraph three, the whole paragraph is stating facts about Venus and its atmosphere.

For example the author states that, "...atmospheric pressure is 90 times great than what we experience on our own planet."

This does resonate with the arguement considering that it is about how Venus should be explored despite the challenges.

The real problem with this example is that this is placed in the third paragraph and everything before it was also facts.

The author spent three paragraphs talking about the weather of Venus instead of analyzing how it should be disregared and we should explore it for better reasons. Additionally, the author gives facts that have nothing to do with the arguement provided.

In the second paragraph, the author states that, "...sometimes we are closer to Mars and other times to Venus."

This simply has nothing to do with the supposed topic.

Not only is there too many facts, but these facts have nothing to do with the topic and the author seems to -in fact- trail off a bit.

Multiple times.

Additionally, the author seems to provide no analysis towards the plethera of information.

For example, the first true analysis is seen is in paragraph five when he or she states, "Not easy conditions, but survivable for humans."

By the time someone is writing to paragraph five, there should already be an extreme of amount of noticable analysis before that.

The basic structure of any arguement would be to state a fact, and give a well thought-out analysis about that fact and how it applies to one's topic.

The noticable structure here, would be an overwhelming amount of facts, and then slight analysis by assuming that the evidence speaks for itself.

When you have that much information thrown at the reader at once, the evidence really doesn't speak for itself.

That's where the supposed analysis comes in.

The analysis is supposed to connect the dots for the reader and explain how it applies.

It seems that is lacking here.

Finally, the author seems to be arguing against themselves with the type of evidence that is being presented.

Throughout the whole article the author seems to be only stating the things wrong with this idea.

For example in paragraph two, the author states that, "...no spacecraft survived the landing for than a few hours."

Then backed that up with no analysis on how that should be worth the risk so scientists can can continue exploring.

This is a problem because that is the point of the article: that despite all the risks, scientists should perservere. That's is not what followed that unsettling fact, though.

All that followed was more facts.

Additionally in paragraph six, the author finally states a good fact on how exploration can continue, but then follow it with analysis that once again goes against the arguement.

For example, after talking about the solution NASA has made to this problem, the author follow it with, "However, peering at Venus from a ship orbiting or hovering safely far above the planet can only provide limited insight..."

This was a poor choice of support because the author is basically going against his or her idea, without reconciling it.

In conclusion, the author makes it unclear which side he or she is trying to prove.

It is a very well-written article, but only for informational purposes.

If one it looking for a well-supported idea on how despite all the risks, science should continue, this article is not the place to look.

If anything, it seems that the author is arguing against continuing to explore Venus-considering all the facts and analysis that went against the idea.

Once again, this is a well written informative article, not an arguable one.