[beloch]

Landing probes on Venus has been a low priority because it really offers poor value to send something all that way only for it to die within a few hours of landing in the acidic pressure-cooking hell that is Venus' atmosphere. Venera 13 and 14 lasted 127 and 57 minutes respectively. That sounds awful, but the design goal was just 32 minutes! Perhaps our inability to have any kind of presence on Venus' surface has reduced interest in orbital missions too, which is a shame.

[twic]

You wouldn't have to land. The Soviets sent a couple of balloons:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program

And Geoffrey Landis proposed sending a solar-powered drone:

http://media.cleveland.com/science_impact/other/Landis%20Ven...