Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanW
If nothing else, Mariner 10 would be planned to flyby Venus in Feb, 1974. Possible if the change in Mars was noted and Venus was not the hardware could have been repurposed, I guess.
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There's no real question about Mars. That's a nightly object for thousands of professionals, students and amateurs. I was looking at Mars through an 8 inch Celestron in my Astronomy lab class in 1977.
By contrast they never had us look at Venus. Not much to see with simple optical telescopes in our world.