In the ASB subforum, I've recently started a timeline (thread
here) about a potentially habitable Venus. Setting aside the ASB aspects - which are outside the scope of the post-1900 subforum - I'm interested in people's thoughts about how the space race would have turned out if there was a realistic option of sending a manned mission to Venus.
It seems to me that while getting a manned mission to Venus may be a problem (though it's much closer than Mars) getting
off Venus may be more of a problem, given the need to build a (probably) multi-stage rocket to take off from Venus.
So, I'd be interested in people's thoughts on two questions:
Assuming that there's some reason for people to be intensely interested in Venus, and that history as we know it largely proceeds the same until c. 1962 when the first space probe (Mariner 2) shows a Venus that is potentially habitable beneath the clouds, then:
(1) What would the space program look like post-Apollo; and
(2) When would it be realistically possible (if ever) to send a manned mission to Venus that
wasn't a one-way trip?