Just a reminder that Mars missions are populist missions.
Venus is the closest planet, but noone wants to deal with the necessity to persuade the public that spending 12hrs on Venus is an astonishing, record breaking result.
I also kek at how ppl get excited whenever a new outer space "earth" is discovered. Our system could be teeming with life, but we too lazy to search for it. There are dozens of unexplored or fly-by explored satellites with hints on being inhabited.
Europa internal ocean, Enceladus and its carbohydrate geyzers, Venus clouds, Ganymede...
For all we know, every star system could be inhabited, but we can't assume the conditions on exoplanet moons, never mind detect em.
