There seemed to be no problems with the equipment or supplies, which was just as well, as any hint of a foreseeable problem and the jackals of the press would have a field day. They were all sitting back on Earth in their comfortable offices, well away from the perils of zero gravity and zero oxygen (most of them were much closer to the perils of 100% alcohol). They were all just hoping for something to go wrong so they could all write hyped stories about it and boost their ratings, readerships, salaries and bonuses.

Whether or not there would be problems landing on Venus, exploring Venus and getting home again would be another matter. Even the most respected experts didn’t really know what was down there, beyond that it was pretty horrible. It had been eight years and four days since the unmanned craft had landed on Venus. And it had been eight years, three days, twenty-three hours and fifty-two minutes since that unmanned craft had been ripped apart by something down there. They presumed it had been the force of the various nasty particles flying around near the surface, though it could just as easily have been a huge three-headed bug-eyed monster with an appetite for space vehicles.

The astronauts had been assured of the mighty strength of the craft they would be landing in. Penis I was tougher than the "top dog" in a women’s prison, and the NASA scientists told everybody they could find how confident they felt about the craft coming to no harm whatsoever. Privately some of them may have been running a book on how many millions of pieces the craft would end up in, but publicly they were putting on a very brave face.

The astronauts themselves were fairly confident. As they approached Venus, both Ralph and Chuck were confident that they’d be able to land, have a poke around down there, and set up whatever weird and wonderful scientific collection and analysis instruments they’d been provided with. And when they'd finished, and maybe had time for a cup of tea, they would return to the waiting Earth as the greatest heroes of the world since that Jesus bloke.