By James H. Burns: If prognostication holds sway, come a future Chanukah or Christmas, or Thanksgiving (of course), some folks might be cooking a turkey in the acidic atmosphere of VENUS…

A NASA research group is suggesting a manned mission to our sister planet.

But Venus is actually closer to Earth than Mars, and experts say a manned mission there isn’t unreasonable. Venus is one of the least hospitable places in the solar system. Its close proximity to the sun makes its surface unimaginably hot — 462 degrees Celsius. And its lower atmosphere is a highly pressurized oven of noxious gases.

And it turns out the idea of DIRIGIBLE-homes in the Venusian atmosphere has been gaining ground at the Atlantic CityLab:

Why worry about building a colony on Mars when instead you could float one high above the surface of Venus? Science fiction writer Charles Stross recently revived the idea of building a Venutian colony when he suggested, cheekily, that billionaires ought to be compelled to donate to massive humanity-improving projects. He suggested two: a Manhattan Project-like focus on developing commercial nuclear fusion, or the construction of a floating city on Venus.

There is much discussion of these potential “floating cities,” and other fascinating extra-terran possibilities, at the intriguing website, Selenian Boondocks (see its Venus category), already an abode for many scientists and science fiction writers.