# Why does Mars get all the pop culture glory? What about Venus? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 20, 2009, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640 "2009-02-20T00:34:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FalconFinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@FalconFinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FalconFinder)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640/21 "2009-02-25T16:56:14Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > A shocking assertion. Color me blue. > Bananawhut? Clever reference! LOL (For those who don’t know better: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2DBcbZc3ck](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2DBcbZc3ck)) The original is best… ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640/22 "2009-02-25T17:51:20Z")
Definitely more Mars fiction than Venus fiction for the reasons stated above. Some of my favorite Venusian stuff: Heinlein’s Future History series, esp. “The Logic of Empire” and _Space Cadet_. Venus is hot, wet and marshy but habitable in those. Likewise Ray Bradbury’s “The Long Rain,” but the rainfall is so relentlessly bad it’ll drive you nuts if you’re out in it too long. There are also hostile native Venusians who like nothing better than to very slowly drown any Earthlings they find. “I Am the Doorway” by Stephen King. Venus is, as one astronaut says, a haunted house in space. A U.S. mission orbits the planet but doesn’t land. When the astronaut returns to Earth, he finds that he has become “infected” in a very unsettling and creepy way. ---
**Author:** ![Saltire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saltire/32/553_2.png) [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640/23 "2009-02-25T18:04:08Z")
I think it was the supposed canals, along with Percival Lowell’s popular belief in a Martian civilisation that brought fiction writers to write so much about Mars. For Venus, I think my favorite early-20th-century story was [Within the Walls of Eryx](http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/TombTales/00000017.htm), one of H.P. Lovecraft’s rare SF stories. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640/24 "2009-02-25T19:10:50Z")
I’d suggest that there’s at least a small element of psychology here. Mars was not always the singular fascination above other “rogue stars” in the sky; it was one of many. Then came the Copernican revolution, putting the planets in their orbits around the sun. We on Earth are in one “slot” — Mars is one slot “outside,” with respect to the sun at the center. If you think about it, from that point forward, we found ourselves looking “out” at Mars. It’s human nature to put our backs to the middle of the fortress and regard with suspicion the barbarians riding in from elsewhere. In this model, Venus is essentially “behind” us, while we’re staring out at Mars and the larger universe beyond. Realistically speaking, this makes no rational sense, as Mars is most commonly off to one side or way off on the other side of the sun, also “behind” us, but if you think about the typical diagram of the solar system, putting all the planets more or less in a line, and the layperson’s probably unexamined acceptance of that diagram, I would argue that there is something compelling there that connects to our subconscious, and explains the prominence of Mars in our view of the skies. I’m not saying this is the only reason, but it just feels right to me, and I’d say it’s a contributor. ---
**Author:** ![AllWalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@AllWalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AllWalker)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640/25 "2009-02-25T23:10:44Z")
A lot of the alien invasion stories from the 50s and 60s were thinly veiled metaphors for the Soviet Union’s evilness and alienness. Mars is red, Mars is the god of war, red is communism, therefore communism is war. Then again, **Cervaise** ’s theory is simply delicious. I like it. ---
**Author:** ![jimigorilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@jimigorilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimigorilla)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640/26 "2009-02-26T13:04:45Z")
“of war and Communism” and Republicans 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640/27 "2009-02-26T15:48:44Z")
Some of us might remember when Abbott and Costello went to Venus. That’s a planet that looked pretty cool to me. 😃 [The movie was _Abbott and Costello Go to Mars_, though they never actually got there.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_and_Costello_Go_to_Mars) ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640/28 "2009-02-26T16:36:21Z")
**Cervaise** : That, and a lot of science fiction is about our destiny in the stars, implicitly meaning ones other than the Sun, so Mars, being the next planet ‘out’, is a logical stepping-stone to the gas giants and, eventually, whole other solar systems. Venus just seems like back closer to ‘home’ in that analogy. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640/29 "2009-02-26T17:22:02Z")
Venus gets no glory? Nuts! Venus is the home of the [Queen of Outer Space](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052104/plotsummary). “Oooh Zat Qveeen! I hayt her, I hayt her!” ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640/30 "2009-02-27T17:24:33Z")
Wa da ya mean, no Venus? Spock Spock Spock Spock Spock Spock Spock Spock Spock Spock (not easy to type 10 times fast) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640/31 "2009-02-27T19:05:00Z")
Even for a Vulcan… ---
**Author:** ![Gotterfunken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/58956e/32.png) [@Gotterfunken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gotterfunken)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640/32 "2009-02-27T19:43:56Z")
> [@Interrobang](#): > > Invaders from Mars, not even a fruit basket from Venus. Maybe not a fruit basket, but what about a giant pickle-shaped alien from Venus? I’m talking, of course, about Roger Corman’s classic: [It Conquered the World](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049370/). (MST3k fans will probably recognize this). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-mars-get-all-the-pop-culture-glory-what-about-venus/486640.md?page=1)