This month saw the announcement of one of the most exciting findings about Venus in decades: the first direct evidence of an active volcano there. However, Smrekar questioned this rationale at a NASA town hall during the conference, saying that while a shorter delay may have been justifiable, the longer delay “has nothing to do with JPL workforce, or the Psyche overruns” and that the mission was being “effectively martyred” for the sake of other missions going over budget. With exoplanet discovery and characterization being a key aim for flagship NASA missions like the James Webb Space Telescope and the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, scientists argue that now is the time to be ramping up Venus exploration, not gutting the funding of a key mission