US funds may be allotted to map surface of Venus

Funds for a mission to map the mist-veiled surface of Venus will be included in next year's federal budget. NASA Administrator Robert Frosch said the Office of Management and Budget has assured him that President Carter, if reelected, would include start-up funds for the project in the fiscal 1982 budget. The Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar spacecraft program will cost an estimated $500 million to $600 million and will be launched by space shuttle in 1986. The spacecraft will circle Venus, the second planet from the sun, for at least seven months, taking radar pictures and measuring the atmosphere as well as the surface.