This. I can't see the economic sense of having landers on at least one moon of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune simultaneously, thereby requiring simultaneous orbiters. I can foresee the possibility, perhaps in a scenario where space science takes the form of a four-way Great Power rivalry, but as a rational economic proposition it leaves much to be desired. However, you can't send landers to Venus with foreseeable technology, and I'd expect everything you can learn about Venus with orbiters to be wrapped up within a few decades.
I reserve the right to change my answer if inner system orbiters come within the budget of individual universities, which would bring the opportunity to make spurious economic decisions regarding same to thousands of actors.
At least two Venus near-term landing missions are seriously being planned even as you read this - the Venus In-Situ Explorer (VISE) and the European Venus Explorer (EVE). At least one has a reasonable chance of being funded. You can also find more speculative but not completely nutty plans on the web for nuclear powered long-term Venus rovers.
Also, even if landers remain short-lived, the most interesting exploration of Venus might be done by long-lived balloons. Balloon exploration of Venus has has already been done once, and there are plans to do it again.
Finally, I can't believe that everything you can learn about Venus will be learned within a few decades - Venus has quite a few mysteries already and I'm confident there will be more mysteries as we learn more. For now, as a lay person, I have these questions: Where did the water go? Were there oceans? Did the surface really re-form all at once, and when, and why? Did life ever start there? Is there life in the upper atmosphere even now? What's that weird radar-bright stuff on the Venusian mountaintops? I'm looking forward to finding out!
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I reserve the right to change my answer if inner system orbiters come within the budget of individual universities, which would bring the opportunity to make spurious economic decisions regarding same to thousands of actors.
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I was thinking in terms of pure research, to be honest.
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Also, even if landers remain short-lived, the most interesting exploration of Venus might be done by long-lived balloons. Balloon exploration of Venus has has already been done once, and there are plans to do it again.
Finally, I can't believe that everything you can learn about Venus will be learned within a few decades - Venus has quite a few mysteries already and I'm confident there will be more mysteries as we learn more. For now, as a lay person, I have these questions: Where did the water go? Were there oceans? Did the surface really re-form all at once, and when, and why? Did life ever start there? Is there life in the upper atmosphere even now? What's that weird radar-bright stuff on the Venusian mountaintops? I'm looking forward to finding out!
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*boggles*
*checks the surface temperature of Venus. 740k.*
*reviews melting points on the periodic table*
Okay, I suppose I can see what sort of wheeled vehicle could rove upon Venus. Perhaps we will probe the other seven planets simultaneously some day.
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Yeah! Check out the Venus Future Missions thread in the Venus section at http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/ for a discussion (I love that forum).
And this Wikipedia page cites a paper by the Geoffrey A. Landis (the name is probably familiar) on Venus rovers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observations_and_explorations_of_Venus#Future_missions