In the early 20th century the way we thought of Venus was entirely different to what we now know prevails in the atmosphere and on the surface of the second planet from the Sun.
Venus has an impenetrable cloud cover and this gave both scientists and science fiction writers free rein to speculate on the nature of the Venusian surface. The facts that were known at this time was that Venus was a very similar size to the Earth, it had a similar density and it had a substantial atmosphere. It was thus natural to think of Venus as being like an early Earth - in its carboniferous or Cambrian phase. A steamy jungle or rain forest teaming with life - a waterworld with amazing marine creatures. This was reinforced in 1918 when Nobel laureat Svante Arrhenius proclaimed that Venus' cloud cover was water.
Early science fiction writers were only too keen to embrace this vision:
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However, the majority of scientists also embraced this view. Science magazine displayed an artist's view of such a Venus on the cover of its 6 July 1979 issue, which issue was devoted to the findings of the Pioneer Venus spacecraft in its first 120 days orbiting the planet.
Painting by Ron Miller, Woodbridge, Virginia.
In 1922, astronomers Charles St. John and Seth Nicholson failed to detect any spectroscopic signs of oxygen or water in the Venusian atmosphere, and proposed an alternative dusty, windy desert Venus. This never gained the popularity of the wet Venus model, although a few science fiction authors based their stories on this minority view. Patrick Moore, in "The Boy's Book of Space" decided to illustrate the two opposing theories with black and white plates of both a wet and a dry, dusty Venusian surface:
Both above drawings by A L Helm.
The romantic idea of a wet planet persisted, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, until well into the 1960's when spacecraft finally dealt a blow to any possibility that life of any form could exist on the 'morning' star. The most conclusive proof was the landing by the Russian Venera 4 which showed that the surface was at a temperature of around 400 Celcius, the atmosphere was corrosive and at the enormous pressure of 90 bar (ie 90 times the pressure at the Earth's surface). The Russian spacecraft transmitted its data to Earth for a period of only 20 minutes before its systems succumbed to the 'hell' of Venus.
Image of the Venusian surface from the Russian Venera-4 lander
Science fiction writer Ben Bova, with a full understanding of the Venusian environment as we understood it in 2000, returned to the planet in the "Venus" volume of his grand tour of the solar system series. This series was meant to re-excite interest in space exploration in a jaded population. The rescue of remains from the 'real' Venusian surface is just as exciting as the older fantasy stories about our 'twin' planet.