'Robot pedalo' planned to probe Saturn's moon

Not sure if this made it to ATS. Please feel free to close the thread if indeed a duplicate one.

First Mars now Saturn. Looks like there will be a space race amongst several countries to send probes to our planetary system.

Plans to send an interplanetary pedalo to Saturn's largest moon Titan have been unveiled by scientists.
The robot craft would land in one of the moon's lakes and sail around propelled by paddles.
Other versions of the probe are fitted with screws or wheels.

LINK

Interesting find, but many must ask why not probe Venus as much as Mars?

Originally posted by Ophiuchus 13
Interesting find, but many must ask why not probe Venus as much as Mars?

Nothing interesting to probe on Venus? Perhaps Uranus ?

Originally posted by Ophiuchus 13
Interesting find, but many must ask why not probe Venus as much as Mars?

Because making a lander that could survive the harshness of the surface of Venus for an appreciable amount of time would be technologically difficult (i.e., would be VERY expensive).

It's not just the heat, but the crushing pressures and corrosive atmosphere. Making a Mars lander is much easier.

I think they should, however, consider a probe that would float in the clouds of Venus. There are scientists at NASA (Geoffrey Landis, for one) who have proposed that it may be possible that life exists in the clouds of Venus, and has shown that there are chemical imbalances in the atmosphere that COULD (but not necessarily do) indicate biological activity in those clouds.

As for why so much attention to Mars? Because it seems that it could be possible that it may be relatively easier (stress RELATIVELY) to find past signs of life there, or at least more easily study how Mars could have once supported life.