Has anything that has landed on Venus survived for more than a "few" hours due to heat/pressure? Landing humans on Venus seems more of a very cruel and unusual death sentence rather than some sort of a viable science mission. Now, if I were on death row and they offered me the choice of needle, chair, firing rage, or land on Venus, well, I know which one I'd take!

Landing on Venus would be ridiculous.

However, Geoffrey Landis has (among others) proposed that we put an atmosphere-floating habitat "on" Venus. PDF: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20030022668/downloads/20...

Abstract:

Although the surface of Venus is an extremely hostile environment, at about 50 kilometers above the surface the atmosphere of Venus is the most earthlike environment (other than Earth itself) in the solar system. It is proposed here that in the near term, human exploration of Venus could take place from aerostat vehicles in the atmosphere, and that in the long term, permanent settlements could be made in the form of cities designed to float at about fifty kilometer altitude in the atmosphere of Venus.

And, breathing air is buoyant.

N2 is only 13% of the atmosphere, but if my calculations are right, that means a very great deal more nitrogen than we have, just dissolved into a lot more air.

To terraform, release machines that crack CO2 in the clouds and drop diamonds. You release way too much oxygen, but that will bind to the surface minerals. Main thing is to keep the carbon from oxidizing again before you're ready.

Which is why <<I>> performed a flyby of the article and came directly to the comments.