Parallax Demon said:Venus?
The first time NASA send a probe to Venus, they lost contact within 10 minutes. Reason; it just evaporated.
The complete surface of Venus is made out of magma. See how long any humanoid survive in the middle of an active vulcano.
And yes: Titan or Europe would be your best bets.Venus's surface is a dry desertscape interspersed with slab-like rocks and periodically refreshed by volcanism.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VenusSorry you're also wrong about the probes.
Venera 3 crash landed on the surface of the planet but failed to transmit any data back.
Venera 4 was the first to enter and transmit back any data of a planet in our solar system (other than our own). However they miscalculated the rate of decent and the probe stopped transmitting data after descending for 93 minutes. It is however believed that it may not have withstood the surface pressures needed to continue the mission.
Venera 5 & 6 were never built to withstand more than 25 bar pressure and were crushed during their descent.
But those are all Russian probes, which were the first to explore the planet directly.
If you want NASA's first missions:
*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***In 1978, NASA sent two Pioneer spacecraft to Venus. The Pioneer mission consisted of two components, launched separately: an orbiter and a multiprobe. The Pioneer Venus Multiprobe carried one large and three small atmospheric probes. The large probe was released on November 16, 1978 and the three small probes on November 20. All four probes entered the Venusian atmosphere on December 9, followed by the delivery vehicle. Although not expected to survive the descent through the atmosphere, one probe continued to operate for 45 minutes after reaching the surface. The Pioneer Venus Orbiter was inserted into an elliptical orbit around Venus on December 4, 1978. It carried 17 experiments and operated until the fuel used to maintain its orbit was exhausted and atmospheric entry destroyed the spacecraft in August 1992.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observations_and_explorations_of_Venus#Observation_by_spacecraft
The thought is that the run away greenhouse effect (95% CO2) is what contributes to the high atmospheric pressure. So we can take that and add a little sci-fi terraforming and you now resolve the issue of high pressure and high surface temperature.
Anyways, the initial probes did not melt, as you implied and the surface is not a magma ocean.
But Terraforming as a sci-fi mechanic, which I believe is heavily implied when you visit these planets, does sort of allow the idea of humans on Venus.
This space for rent.