Venus Envy

Europe's Venus Express spacecraft blasts off this week, and will rendezvous with our nearest planetary neighbour next year to study it from orbit.

The mission aims to shed light on an enduring mystery about this world: how a planet so similar to our own in size, mass, and composition has evolved so differently over the last 4.6 billion years.

Say what you want about NASA, but they sure know how to name things. Apollo, Gemini, Mercury, Voyager, Viking. I would have thought that Europe would have had more of a touch of the poetic and grand about them. But "Venus Express?" It sounds like a subway line. And I can't take the express; I have to take the "Venus Local" so I can get off at 49th Street.