I don't understand why this isn't hailed as one of the biggest accomplishments in scientific history. The fact they were able do this, and do this with 70s Soviet era technology not once but five times blows my mind.
@@SVOWarrior Nazi Germany was also advanced but they also get downplayed a lot, mainly because people don't want to give credit to nations accused of genocide. It was also overshadowed by the Moon landing, as landing a man on the moon is infinitely more complicated, you only have 1 shot. Soviets wasted 8 landers before they got it right and they never could successfully land to Mars within 20 attempts. Soveits could have landed a man on the moon and USA could have landed a lander on Venus, different priorities. AMazing feat from USSR tho, with low budget and garbage QC
My dad was in the science council of the RFBR ( Russian foundation for basic research) . Once they had some anniversary meeting and he by chance was sitting next to the gentleman who designed the camera for Venus mission. He said that those were the strongest emotions of his life when the fist data successfully reached earth, nothing compared. "Even children's birth", my dad clarified? "Yes, not even that", he honestly replied.
I can imagine. Back then were more hopeful times. Nowadays we are so cynical, we hear about any kind of scientific advancement, and we don't feel any personal attachment to it. When Pfizer came up with the vaccine after taking their sweet, sweet time, we almost wished they had never developed one, for instance, with all the vaccine mandates. The electric cars were a disastrous and overhyped failure. Government in the 3rd world are bankrupting the country to buy "green energy" from the west. Parallel development, fraudulence, unethical resource extraction, automation threatening employment... It's hard to be excited about anything under capitalism. It truly stole our humanity.
@Mark Walther I can't see how you have managed to realize the sadness of living in Russia from what I said about the achievements of Soviet scientists. I am sure if you ask some NASA astronauts or researchers to openly share the overwhelming emotions (in the informal circumstances) they have experienced due to their professional success I am 100% sure you ll get similar response most of the time. The sadness of life in Russia, if you ask me, follows from: corruption, absence of court system and human rights, free media, respect of private property, drugs and AIDS, the number of orphans, alcoholism, the nature of military obligation.
@@Kociboss Ignorant of the fact that the Soviet Union had the highest living standard in the whole of Europe throughout the totality of the space race.
-"Comrades, you have lead melting temperatures, bottom of the ocean pressure and you know that acid in car batteries? Yeah that too.... so we need pictures" -"Colour or b&w?" -"Yes"
Indeed, comrades could send a space probe to Venus, while at least 3/4 of all households could not even dream about own washing machine of refrigerator...
@@kingcosworth2643 and gulags, dont forget about gulags! hundreds of millions were killed every day personally by stalin! thank lord avengers came to save everyone! god bless Armenia!
You forgot to mention Vega-1 and Vega-2 - the last Soviet landers on Venus. They carried two ballon aerobots that traveled about 11000 km in venusian atmosphere in 46 hours.
As a fan of space/astronomy/etc, I was always fascinated by those surface pics of Venus. It's old hat to see pictures of the surface of Mars these days, but Venus is another beast entirely. It was a great human achievement. Thanks for the video.
I loved this! NASA’s Viking probe sent back the first images of the surface of Mars when I was in 4th grade, and I remember staring at the posters of the Marscape in my school’s hallway for as long as possible. I didn’t know about the Soviet missions to Venus until I was in high school, and I’ve never had the chance to really inspect the Venusian landscape like I did in this video. Great work!
@HighSpeedNoDrag good catch, I should have said “NASA”. When I wrote “we” I actually meant humanity, but the rest of my comment doesn’t make that clear. I’ve edited the comment to reflect that.
Voyager never was even close to Mars. Viking landed there and with highly probably found some lifeforms - to this day is no other solution and the system never failed. Author of the experiments also confirmed the finding of life.
Getting to the surface of Venus seems like a space mission tailor made for the Soviet Union. What do we need to get to the surface lads? A space probe/tank/submarine thing made of every exotic material you can think of. Does it have to be particularly sophisticated? No, it just has to be TOUGH! Great achievement 👏 Great video 👍
An acidic atmosphere that's like having a half a mile of water on top of you and entry? That's an insane feat. To have anything function for any period of time is crazy
I remember being equally fascinated by Viking and Venera images. There's something about surface photos really bring it home. Nothing against New Horizons, but I liked the images from Huygens made feel the surface of Titan.
That's what real exploration is about. Not thinking about financial reward or benefit, just doing everything possible to achieve the goal. Respect to the Soviet engineers and to their space program. Even today, the experience they have in rocket technology, for example, is invaluable and indispensable.
лапоть, Ex-USSR here. Meanwhile, the toilet paper 🧻 wasn't available in USSR at the time they spent billions on those attempts of "peregnat' Ameriku!". No, household ACs aren't available too. Color TVs? Huh, chill out comrade!
They got the Hero of Socialist Labor award. That wasn't good enough. Anyone who makes a probe that lands on Venus that works should get the Demigod of Space Engineering award.
@just another human It worked for an hour, the thing is that the battery got cooked because the thermodynamics in Venus are friggin insane. The place is the closest thing to hell that we know in the solar system.
I learned from this video more than I learned in school ( back in USSR ). Very impressive achievements for 60-70th. Thank you for such interesting material!
One of the most interesting videos I have ever seen regarding the Soviet space program. The Soviets doggedly pursued exploration of Venus, in part, because of its close proximity to Earth. The surface pictures, many I have never seen, are stunning.
Actually soviets started with Mars, but landed just 3 small robots probed Mars soil at late 60es, but never actually pushed further for some reason, switching totally to Venus in their efforts.One of the reasons arguably is exocomet entered Solar system and passed very close to Venus at 80es. Vega project was done in collaboration with Europe space agency, though there was simply not enough data to calculate trajectory for landing on comet body. Vega probes were used to precise comet body position and trajectory, to make Europe probe land, though Europe probe failed as well. Though, it passed quite close and got quite weird data like complex organic molecules in comet flare.
@@miaguilar5512 Its indeed extremely weird stuff, but I guess mostly due to american *ssholes don't want to share their landing tech which is unique and patents are long expired. Soviet space station module was bought by americans and built at Russia for Internation space station and reverse-engineered somehow, I guess mostly due to tech focused intelligence for their own chinese station recently, so this tech is officially spread around. Manned landing is not. Though, maaaaybe actually manned landing was staged. There are evidences about huge spacecraft landed on moon, but if it was manned or not is questionable thing. Bcs for crippled soviet economy space race became an extreme toil, like between 61 when Gagarin was launched and 69 when first man stepped on Moon soviet union had a bench of revolts due to economical hardships pressing simple peoples. So it was easier to agree that americans won and cancel costly program, spending money and resources for something more useful.
The "baloons" you mentioned were an incredible achievement as well. As far, as I remember, the USSR and France joined forces to send the Vega series to Venus
@@thatdognotthepuppy5809 De Gaulle was a worthy leader. Last worthy leader we had in a while. He famously quoted that europe should be from the atlantic to the ourals, which resulted in him getting ousted by the americans, so i'm not surprised he agreed to cooperation with the USSR. :)
@@Datanditto I love how my six simple words triggered the ever-living shit out of you 😊. Are you a flat earth believer? In my head I imagine you are, I hope I'm correct.
Dude only asked for 700 likes??? This is one of the best made commentaries on the Soviet venus program on youtube. It deserves and has gotten a ton more. I hope this dude is doing well.
It's crazy to think they did all this with computers the size of houses that didn't even come close to the processing power of an iPhone or Android nowadays.. and we still have problems with the technologies we use to launch things now but yet somehow we're able to make these trips 50 years ago ..... Kind of mind numbing
Calculations were never a issue with computers. It was sending mass amounts of data at once that was. The calculations might take a hour to process but it happened eventually.
It just goes to show you don’t actually need computers to be productive. What’s crazy is how dependent we’ve become; teachers at my local school claim they can’t teach 6 year olds to read unless they each have their own $1000 iPad.
@@s4098429 my father taught me the basics of reading through the use of phonics and how to continue on my own by the time I was four. They must be terrible teachers.
As an engineering student, understanding what type of genius and ingenious that were used it still blows the mind. Soviet scientists are goats огромное уважение и спасибо всем советским ученым
The most sad thing, after Soviet union break all funds of labs were stopped and basically A LOT of scientist and engineers appeared on streets unemployed. Some of them, achieved to move around the world, like 90es economic and tech growth arguably was achieved due to cheap and experienced soviet engineers working now for labs around the world. Though, not all of them and in 90es at Russia a cliché of "PhD janitors" or "Dr. Janitor" appeared. Moreover it produced extreme arrogance toward education in general as "Educated merits nothing" Now, as you can guess, it bites Russia and other post-soviet countries into lower back quite hard. Though, extreme brain drain toward western countries or China doesn't permit to profit education on state scale. Like just 1 of 10 masters degree graduates stay at country after graduation. Its calculated from for some less required abroad professions or for example for IT more people stay at country after graduation, though programmers work for foreign companies from home. For professions required abroad it can go straightforward to less than 1% of graduates stays at country after graduation. So government makes education more and more private due to for state its futile expenses and obviously it becomes less and less affordable or as good as it was. Some big name universities are still kicking, though just some of them and mostly they prepare specialists who will work for highly classified weapon tech or kind of. And some "still decent though underfunded, so constantly degrading" public ones. Its not actually about low quality, its about job offers unlocked by degree. And even if western universities academic wise are worse, they prepare exactly for work environment you will face at western companies, so they are way better for your CV, what mostly counts for any reasonable student. And today its mostly done as old school soviet generation is mostly retired or will retire totally soon.
They duped you. that's why. Freemasons duped you. The Cold war was fake... so were all of the Moon landings and Venus landings. Your mind was brainwashed, not blown.
Awesome vid! People don’t know enough about the achievements of the Soviet space program. They did a lot of amazing stuff, that was mostly overshadowed by the moon landing. Landing on Venus is almost like driving a sub to the bottom of an ocean, but on another planet.
@@brad7073 Not so much "insane" as "inevitable." Mostly space programs are a waste of money. They're worth it for satellite and missile tech but beyond that they're similar to getting a fountain in your garden because the neighbours have one.
@@Dmitrisnikioff I think it's more that by the 70s and 80s people had just gotten bored of the space race. By that point even moon landings weren't considered important.
@@peterhoulihan9766 you don’t understand just how much R&D come out of space programs. Composite materials, solar panels, small scale nuclear reactors, data transmission, computers, etc … Just be glad of all the tech that is around us and will be in the future thank to space programs
I really love this kind of historic extreme engineering content. Hell, you can even call this modern cutting edge extreme engineering because nobody has been back there!
@@kristoffer3000 The US took credit for the space race, acting as if the goal through the entire technological race was to land a man on the moon - and the world bought it. Everyone still believes the US won the race because they are too ashamed to admit defeat to a country they were raised to hate. The Soviet Union was a truly accomplished and legendary nation that never receives the credit it deserves modern-day because of mixed political beliefs.
@@snixal both countries got most of their tech from ex nazis brought in after ww2. Btw the first picture taken of the earth that showed its curvature was on the back of a stolen V2
Course corrections are more potent when you're farther from the sun's gravity well. And you effectively are speeding up your orbit to get out farther, so your approach is relatively slow.. Going in on the other hand, requires a lot of orbital decelleration. And that also means you're probably moving toward your target very fast, so you have to slow down when you get there. So all of this means lots of fuel, and very small windows to hit. Landing on Mars is throwing a basketball through the hoop on your garage from 6 feet away. Landing on Venus is throwing a baseball in the open passenger window of a car driving past your house at 35mph, while you stand way back at your garage.
@@WoolfEdits There are many fertile fields to occupy man's curiosity at home for long after mankind goes out into space. Then we will find new planets and likely find new conditions we hadn't imagined. Travis is "weirded out" by our lack of knowledge- I'm a little taken aback by how long it seems to be taking for mankind to realize how much we can do together is limited only by the stars, and how little we will get done bickering and squabbling over basic issues to the detriment of those that truly do affect us all. That weirds me out. FR
Between the Sputnik and Venera programs it is understandable why the US was so concerned about Russia during the space race. These events were all be fore my time but I agree that these things should be celebrated as incredible engineering achievements. The one area where humanity has been able to transcend National Boundaries and Politics is the research and mission collaboration through the various space programs. Thank you for this great video! I teach Aerospace Education for the cadets in my Civil Air Patrol squadron and I will definitely be doing a presentation on the Venera Program now. Regardless of the nation, this is an incredible feat of human engineering!
Salut was really what scared the US. The fact that they could maintain presence in space over and over again was in many ways equal to what we did with Apollo even if it wasn't hailed as such.
I first heard about the Venera missions at the Washington DC space museum. The exhibits were ho hum, except for one that caught my eye. It was a relatively small plaque showing the image of Venus. I thought it was impressive, but when I looked at the date, my jaw dropped to the floor! It was no surprise why it was my first time learning about it and why it was given such a subdued presentation.
"Ruski = bad, my own satanic children-carpet-bombing government = gud!" That's how your "average Joe" dipshit thinks, so of course no achievement from russians, chinese or arabs would ever be publicly accepted, let alone loved.. But if you ever been friends with any of the above, you know that they all love & accept our acomplishments.. It's only one-way with western society today, it seems.
Well, you got way more than 700 likes! Thanks for this - I never knew any of it. Fascinating! I knew about the Luna missions (mostly debacles) and of course Apollo, but not Venera. Thanks!
Great production. Totally unique video. Please make more like this. Fantastic to be able to survive on such a hostile environment. Well done audio content!
@Mark Walther indeed, mistêr phoreigner. You know for sure and better than even they. Continue to spread your obscurantist bullshit. Also, where did Alan Turing go? You didn't see him lately? God, was that place a goulag?
The engineering achievements of the Americans and Soviets during the “golden age” of space are nothing short of brilliant. I’ve always thought it was a shame that there wasn’t much cooperation and sharing of resources between the two, because their shared efforts perhaps could accomplished so much more (but then again, competition breeds creativity, so maybe it was necessary to be adversaries). It’s an often overlooked part of history that JFK, when he proposed the moon landing wanted it to be a joint program with the Soviets as a bridge to peace, Khrushchev declined the offer. It’s always been a major “what if” in my mind.
I think it's because allot of the tech involved was related to weapons, cutting edge stuff to "hopefully" have the edge on one another. I agree that a collaboration would have likely netted some even crazier stuff but I also see each side wanting to keep their cards close to their chest considering it was the cold war. Nvm each system (capitalism/communism) trying to prove their way was the best way and under no circumstances wanting to credit either side with anything that could even remotely gesture that their respective system produced anything of value. Sorry for the terrible grammar.
Wonderful video on a wonderful subject! I remember seeing apicture depicting a Venera probe in a book about space for children - the probe with the 'hat' was in the picture and the orange Venusian sky with lightning in the background. It was so intriguing. I waited almost 30 years to find out more about those probes - I take my hat off to you for making my dream come true.
Over the past couple of years, NASA has been working on potential ways of exploring the Venusian surface, including using a rover with a wind powered clockwork drive mechanism. The metal alloys that could work with this already exist (think on the lines of what is used in the thrust vectors of high-performance military aircraft). As for transmitting information back to a craft that is in orbit, it wouldn't have much bandwidth, but I would think that vacuum tube based electronics could be made to work at those temperatures.
Actually vacuum tubes are susceptible to heat, as well as generating a lot of heat. This is one of the reasons they were quickly abandoned for almost all electronics once semiconductors and solid states came along. What looks promising are a new class of solid states made of materials that help them work in very hot temps. I've seen some designed to work in temperatures as hot as 300 degrees Celsius. Still well below the surface temps of Venus but with proper probe design they could last longer than the previous Venera probes.
@@doncarlin9081 We probably have to wait for silicon carbide electronics to be developed because it is hard to process the crystal needed for those electronics, but the material is much more heat-resistant than silicon dioxide chips.
@@chaztitan6457 But I guess we are talking about 1970s not 2008 when new horizon took off for pluto. Interestingly the engine used in that rocket was Russian built.
Wow! I’ve been familiar with the landers before but this is the first I’ve learned of the amazing engineering they utilized to survive the harsh conditions. Thanks for making this!
USSR: 1957: First intercontinental ballistic missile and orbital launch vehicle, the R-7 Semyorka. 1957: First satellite, Sputnik 1. 1957: First animal in Earth orbit, the dog Laika on Sputnik 2. 1959: First rocket ignition in Earth orbit, first man-made object to escape Earth's gravity, Luna 1. 1959: First data communications, or telemetry, to and from outer space, Luna 1. 1959: First man-made object to pass near the Moon, first man-made object in Heliocentric orbit, Luna 1. 1959: First probe to impact the Moon, Luna 2. 1959: First images of the moon's far side, Luna 3. 1960: First animals to safely return from Earth orbit, the dogs Belka and Strelka on Sputnik 5. 1961: First probe launched to Venus, Venera 1. 1961: First person in space (International definition) and in Earth orbit, Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, Vostok program. 1961: First person to spend over 24 hours in space Gherman Titov, Vostok 2 (also first person to sleep in space). 1962: First dual crewed spaceflight, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4. 1962: First probe launched to Mars, Mars 1. 1963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, Vostok 6. 1964: First multi-person crew (3), Voskhod 1. 1965: First extra-vehicular activity (EVA), by Alexsei Leonov,[80] Voskhod 2. 1965: First radio telescope in space, Zond 3. 1965: First probe to hit another planet of the Solar System (Venus), Venera 3. 1966: First probe to make a soft landing on and transmit from the surface of the Moon, Luna 9. 1966: First probe in lunar orbit, Luna 10. 1966: First image of the whole Earth disk, Molniya 1. 1967: First uncrewed rendezvous and docking, Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188. 1968: First living beings to reach the Moon (circumlunar flights) and return unharmed to Earth, Russian tortoises and other lifeforms on Zond 5. 1969: First docking between two crewed craft in Earth orbit and exchange of crews, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5. 1970: First soil samples automatically extracted and returned to Earth from another celestial body, Luna 16. 1970: First robotic space rover, Lunokhod 1 on the Moon. 1970: First full interplanetary travel with a soft landing and useful data transmission. Data received from the surface of another planet of the Solar System (Venus), Venera 7 1971: First space station, Salyut 1. 1971: First probe to impact the surface of Mars, Mars 2. 1971: First probe to land on Mars, Mars 3. 1971: First armed space station, Almaz. 1975: First probe to orbit Venus, to make a soft landing on Venus, first photos from the surface of Venus, Venera 9. 1980: First Latin American, Cuban and person with African ancestry in space, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez on Soyuz 38. 1984: First woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaya (Salyut 7 space station). 1986: First crew to visit two separate space stations (Mir and Salyut 7). 1986: First probes to deploy robotic balloons into Venus atmosphere and to return pictures of a comet during close flyby Vega 1, Vega 2. 1986: First permanently crewed space station, Mir, 1986-2001, with a permanent presence on board (1989-1999). 1987: First crew to spend over one year in space, Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov on board of Soyuz TM-4 - Mir. 1988: First fully automated flight of a spaceplane (Buran). USA: 1963: First geosynchronous satellite 1964: First geostationary satellite 1969: First humans on the Moon Verdict: USA has won the space race!
Bud, I am extremely aware of the Soviet Unions achievements in space, but you can’t just call everything a grand achievement on the level of landing on the moon, and you are discounting a lot of American stuff. Both nations managed some cool things, with an early but failing lead by the Soviets. It’s ok.
@@aethelredtheready1739 Getting a man into space is also as tough as getting a man on the moon, because when the Soviets did it no other country on earth had done that, so it was very difficult and new. Plus, when the USA landed on the moon, they did this after many Soviet successes and learning from them, just like how China didn't collapse cuz it learned from the collapse of the USSR.
Billionaires - new sport for you: Which of you can make a probe last in surface of Venus longest. Holding that record on your name is a crowning award in engineering. Elon, is a whole day - or even week down on Venus plausibly possible? Show us how - break the Soviet record proper and claim the title of top bloke.
Sorry, Ilon is busy of plan B for our doomed civilization. See, if it's doomed to fail by itself, let's repeat it on Mars. Everything will go fine, he promises
Anything above an hour would be an extraordinary feat. Any material would melt at such a high temperature and pressure, cooling it even for a few hours would be almost impossible. It would ultimately come down who can make the thickest shield
Venus is the most durable planet if a probe lasted a half hour it says a lot about the quality of the engineering and might prove the materials battle worthiness back on earth pretty cool experiment
@@Kevin-cw8of wrong. The US explored every planet including dwarf planet Pluto and has 5 probes leaving the solar system forever. Also Hubble space telescope was US among many other space probes for all kinds of science, far more than Soviets.
@@jojobar5877 the soviets had the first satellite, first man in space, first woman in space, first "working" space station, first space walking. The Soviets did more in space advancement than the US before the US "invented" their space race to declare victory.
@@Kevin-cw8of first you say “the Soviets won every part of the space race except the moon race”. Then you say the US “invented” the space race. Lol. Make up your mind bud. Actually the Soviets did have the first space “firsts” until the US caught them around Gemini, 1966 or so. The US got the first radar rendezvous and docking and had much more time in space even before Apollo. Also it’s not like Soviet tech was vastly superior in aerospace. The US had the first nukes and go check out the Soviet exact copy of the B-29. Also some Soviet space firsts were gimmicky just for the headlines, like the first woman in space. Who gives a shit about that. Also the first 3 man crew where they jammed 3 poor guys in a 2 man capsule. Yuri Gagarin didn’t even land with his capsule. He bailed out of it.
16:48 "If this video does well... let's say 700 likes". One year later it has 44K likes and 1.1M views. I guess that mission went better than expected.
10:32 "Soviet engineers threw it out of an airplane 87 miles or 140 kilometers above the ground." That's 450,600 ft. But the airplane altitude record is only about 315,000 ft (X15), so I think that 87 miles is a bit off.
@@knightlypoleaxe2501 Still way higher then plausibel. Even if, the whole dropping in earths atmosphere makes no sense as a test for a craft meant for the atmospheric density of Venus.
@@knightlypoleaxe2501 That must be feet. 90 km is pretty much space, with no aerodynamic effects to speak of. Yes, the X15 reached such high altitudes, but it had a reaction control system (read: rocket engines) to control its attitude when leaving the atmosphere.
even though soviet people barely had something to eat but the government had to show the world that their dicks are just as long as those of the US. they weren't however.
Great video, very interesting. Always wondered how much work went into making something that could operate on the surface of Venus. It's absolutely mind-boggling that they were able to get ANY data back from the probes, let alone up to 30 minutes worth.
The Soviet space program was also the first to land a robotic probe on another celestial body and return a sample to Earth (Luna 16 in September 1970) And they were the first to send living creatures through the Van Allen Belts, loop around the moon, and return them safely to Earth (Zond 5, September 1968).
👽 At - 6:50 he says Soviet Engineers "shoved" that thing out of a plane at an altitude of 87 MILES!! That's just short of 500,000 feet!! That's more impressive than what's depicted in this video... maybe a video should be made on that instead of this?
I’m a bit confused. Russian pilot Alexandr Fedotov holds the world altitude record, set on August 31, 1977 when his MiG E-266M reached 123,523 feet. The reason the American X-15 ( that reached over 314,000 feet in altitude) is not included in the world record is because it was carried aloft by a modified B-52 and then released to climb higher on its own. So why isn’t the 87 mile record recognized?
I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and transcript has been updated. The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
I remember wondering why the Soviets went to Venus instead of going to a lot less hostile Mars as a youngster, and it turns out it was simply because Venus was closer to Earth and therefore easier to reach. Either way as a schoolboy in the seventies I remember seeing these pictures and being blown away at what I was looking at, a great achievement now to land on Venus and transmit photographs, but to do it in the seventies with the technology of the time, is truly remarkable.
Its mostly because of the challenges you face. Venus is tough but predictable. That made it fit well with Soviet specialty to make durable sturdy stuff. Mars required way-easier technology from the engineering side, but you need to have more advanced computing technology to e.g. wait out a sandstorm in orbit before landing. It still remained a remarkable feat. And in contrast to Mars, it still does, with today's technology.
Nit: The aerobrake was for terminal decent and landing where Venus' atmospheric pressure supercritical C02 is much denser than air on Earth. Not quite water, but I remember reading where they tested the lander in a pool for that. The high altitude test was for the parachute separation, and I guess to make sure it didn't go tail over teakettle on the way down.
Really nice video. I like all the technical details. Would you consider placing the values in the video? It really helps when comparing, for example, one mission to another. If you simply read numbers off, it turns into a memory test and I find that I need to re-wind sometimes. Anyway, keep up the good work.
This was huge accomplishment considering the technology at the time, I always admire what Russia achieved in the space race on a show string budget. Really enjoyed this video
@@jarls5890 yeah, but video said, that Венера-13 and 14 were the last landers on surface. Thats wrong. VEGA 1 and 2 had no cameras, bacause they sat on the night side. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program
Thank you for this video! The only thing I've heard in Western documentaries is: "It's the Soviet probe. Its thick armor failed in the Venusian atmosphere"))) But the filmmakers "forgot" to mention how long the probe had worked before its armor failed
...The Soviets had 4 probes fail in Venus' atmosphere before the first probe (Venera 7) successfully landed. They also attempted to lie and say Venera 4 landed, but this was thwarted by a NASA probe which measured the pressure of Venus' atmosphere to be much greater than the Soviets had been led to believe, which made it clear to the world that Venera 4 couldn't possibly have survived, since it wasn't built to handle those pressures.
Amazing technology. I wonder what it would take to go back.... multiple containment units within another? allowing designed degradation to make other instrument operate as it progresses. It will really nice if they develop a lander that lasts a month or so.
The way to go back would be to design instruments that have an operating temperature and pressure that matches Venus. Everything would need to be redesigned from the ground up, it would take a lot of work, but the technology would be very useful.
With modern tech, we could probably do a sample return by taking advantage of the thick atmosphere. A craft needs to be built to descend to the surface, grab a few grams of Venusian rock and ascend. Propellers powered by a RTG or nuclear reactor could be used for this because they can provide significantly more thrust and lift in the thick Venusian atmosphere. As for exploration probes, they will very likely be helicopters or aircraft that are solar or nuclear powered and can hover at the higher parts of Venus’ atmosphere to cool down and recharge.
Always loved the Venera series of probes, especially the pictures of hell from the surface (though IO might be in the running). And I’ve always wondered why the US never tried a lander after the successes of Venera,
what I am interested in is: what kind of incremental chemical transformations of the atmosphere are possible once we have, say, a floating nuclear reactor as an energy source in the outer layers of Venusian clouds? can we produce something more inert, less 'greenhouse-active' material out of sulfuric acid (elemental sulfur + water)? is it feasible to combine this with shading the planet in the L1 point achieve some meaningful change in a reasonable timeframe?
sulfur + water will recombine. And it's not the biggest issue. most of the atmosphere is not sulphuric acid which is only found in the high atmosphere clouds. It's 96% carbon dioxyde, which he forgot to mention in the video :p The pressure is so intense that CO2 is not even a gas anymore but a supercritic fluid. The gentle breezes he was talking about have so much mass behind them that if you stood there in a 2 or 3 mph wind, you'd be dragged backwards as if you were facing a hurricane on earth. And you also forget this thing is... a planet. it's big, it's huge, it's almost the size of earth. you can't change anything with a few reactors. But kudos to us, in a couple of hundred years of intense industrial activity, we managed to change our planet's temperature by 2 or 3°C. It's all a matter of scale, as it were.
You're aware that the Soviets were an amalgam of several countries, called the Soviet Union, of which Russia was one of 16 total, right? It's kinda like saying: *excellent technological achievement of California, landing on the moon.*
Why did I only find the great achievements of the Soviet Union on TH-cam? I don't recall these Venutian landings making news in my country at the time. The surface reminds me of slate. Would be wonderful to return sometime in the future for more exploration
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I don't understand why this isn't hailed as one of the biggest accomplishments in scientific history. The fact they were able do this, and do this with 70s Soviet era technology not once but five times blows my mind.
because there were commies
@@leland818 unfortunately not everywhere 😩
At least in the Latin American country where I lived, Venera 13 and 14 touching down on Venus were front-page news!
@@leland818 agreed and it sucks that people are sometimes indoctrinated from a young and impressionable age to think a certain divisive way 🤷♂️
@@leland818 This is true. I think most people would be surprised if they knew how much data was shared between NASA and the Soviet space agency.
Blows my mind that this happened in the 70s, and you rarely hear anything about these landers.
Sounds like you just are not knowledgeable about this...
@@Daveeeeeeyhowyoudoing Oookay buddy, chill out.
Cold War specifics. The West tended to downplay, strait ignore or even badmouth Soviet achivements.Things didn't change much, did they?
@@SVOWarrior The more things change, the more they stay the same.
@@SVOWarrior Nazi Germany was also advanced but they also get downplayed a lot, mainly because people don't want to give credit to nations accused of genocide. It was also overshadowed by the Moon landing, as landing a man on the moon is infinitely more complicated, you only have 1 shot. Soviets wasted 8 landers before they got it right and they never could successfully land to Mars within 20 attempts.
Soveits could have landed a man on the moon and USA could have landed a lander on Venus, different priorities. AMazing feat from USSR tho, with low budget and garbage QC
My dad was in the science council of the RFBR ( Russian foundation for basic research) . Once they had some anniversary meeting and he by chance was sitting next to the gentleman who designed the camera for Venus mission. He said that those were the strongest emotions of his life when the fist data successfully reached earth, nothing compared. "Even children's birth", my dad clarified? "Yes, not even that", he honestly replied.
I can imagine. Back then were more hopeful times. Nowadays we are so cynical, we hear about any kind of scientific advancement, and we don't feel any personal attachment to it.
When Pfizer came up with the vaccine after taking their sweet, sweet time, we almost wished they had never developed one, for instance, with all the vaccine mandates. The electric cars were a disastrous and overhyped failure. Government in the 3rd world are bankrupting the country to buy "green energy" from the west. Parallel development, fraudulence, unethical resource extraction, automation threatening employment... It's hard to be excited about anything under capitalism. It truly stole our humanity.
Hats off to your father and the team for the huge accomplishment of the century.
@@Tawheed_101 biggest*
@Mark Walther I can't see how you have managed to realize the sadness of living in Russia from what I said about the achievements of Soviet scientists. I am sure if you ask some NASA astronauts or researchers to openly share the overwhelming emotions (in the informal circumstances) they have experienced due to their professional success I am 100% sure you ll get similar response most of the time.
The sadness of life in Russia, if you ask me, follows from: corruption, absence of court system and human rights, free media, respect of private property, drugs and AIDS, the number of orphans, alcoholism, the nature of military obligation.
@@papashirt you described all the problems in the US at the moment
Great video. So many Soviet advancements get swept under the rug these days. Glad to see the work of these incredible people see the light of day.
"Our rockets fly far but our assess are naked" - This quote greatly summarizes CCCP & today's Russia.
@@Kociboss Ignorant of the fact that the Soviet Union had the highest living standard in the whole of Europe throughout the totality of the space race.
@@henryatkinson1479 Thank you, you made my day :) :)
This isn’t true
@@henryatkinson1479 absolute utter nonsense.
Im proud of my professor in atomic physics at the university in Moscow. She was a young assistant in Venera 14 project
-"Comrades, you have lead melting temperatures, bottom of the ocean pressure and you know that acid in car batteries? Yeah that too.... so we need pictures"
-"Colour or b&w?"
-"Yes"
Indeed, comrades could send a space probe to Venus, while at least 3/4 of all households could not even dream about own washing machine of refrigerator...
@@danender5555 Or having food for that matter
@@kingcosworth2643 and gulags, dont forget about gulags! hundreds of millions were killed every day personally by stalin! thank lord avengers came to save everyone! god bless Armenia!
@@Timsturbs Stalin died in 53 the space stuff happened after.
That's having the right priorities:D
You forgot to mention Vega-1 and Vega-2 - the last Soviet landers on Venus. They carried two ballon aerobots that traveled about 11000 km in venusian atmosphere in 46 hours.
@@steve0504 seek help
@@steve0504 your kid doesn't love you
@@Lizarenx LMFAO
@@steve0504 manchild
@@steve0504 hopeless.
As a fan of space/astronomy/etc, I was always fascinated by those surface pics of Venus. It's old hat to see pictures of the surface of Mars these days, but Venus is another beast entirely. It was a great human achievement. Thanks for the video.
Still blows my mind what they achieved in the 70s.
How can anyone be sure Venus even exists???!!!!??
We need another Cold War or something because the space race slowed wayyyyyyy down since then lol
🤦♂️
@@HighSpeedNoDrag how can anyone be sure that clouds exist?
@@nicehorn5250 No we don't. We just need Americans to change their attitude so it doesn't have to be WAR for the US to do anything good.
The space programs of the 60s through 80s made being a kid back the GREAT.
@Stellvia Hoenheim Learning about the solar system is ignorance? Oh, that is right the earth is flat?
Yup technology and people we not to smart to prove them wrong imagine if google existed in that time period, the world would be a better place
@@cyclenut lol
That's a big 10-4 Big Buddy.
Yep it was. I used to love watching Carl Sagan. I could hang on his every word.
I loved this! NASA’s Viking probe sent back the first images of the surface of Mars when I was in 4th grade, and I remember staring at the posters of the Marscape in my school’s hallway for as long as possible. I didn’t know about the Soviet missions to Venus until I was in high school, and I’ve never had the chance to really inspect the Venusian landscape like I did in this video. Great work!
What do mean and or intend by "We"?
@HighSpeedNoDrag good catch, I should have said “NASA”. When I wrote “we” I actually meant humanity, but the rest of my comment doesn’t make that clear. I’ve edited the comment to reflect that.
Voyager never was even close to Mars. Viking landed there and with highly probably found some lifeforms - to this day is no other solution and the system never failed. Author of the experiments also confirmed the finding of life.
you mean Viking probe?
i think you meant viking?
Getting to the surface of Venus seems like a space mission tailor made for the Soviet Union. What do we need to get to the surface lads? A space probe/tank/submarine thing made of every exotic material you can think of. Does it have to be particularly sophisticated? No, it just has to be TOUGH! Great achievement 👏 Great video 👍
An acidic atmosphere that's like having a half a mile of water on top of you and entry? That's an insane feat. To have anything function for any period of time is crazy
I remember being equally fascinated by Viking and Venera images. There's something about surface photos really bring it home.
Nothing against New Horizons, but I liked the images from Huygens made feel the surface of Titan.
Pressure like the bottom of the ocean, and hotter than a volcano.
capitalism will do anything. (. jk), except give credit for a accomplishment made by the working class, especially under capitalism
@@katiebarber407 You must be joking I hope.
@@brandoninhofer6592 totally serious sadly. unless you have examples to the contrary
That's what real exploration is about. Not thinking about financial reward or benefit, just doing everything possible to achieve the goal. Respect to the Soviet engineers and to their space program. Even today, the experience they have in rocket technology, for example, is invaluable and indispensable.
Because the Soviet program and the idea of a “space race” was so crucial in the founding of the American space program it really is a big one huh
Freemason lies.
лапоть, Ex-USSR here. Meanwhile, the toilet paper 🧻 wasn't available in USSR at the time they spent billions on those attempts of "peregnat' Ameriku!". No, household ACs aren't available too. Color TVs? Huh, chill out comrade!
Also, belgrad gorí!
Technology that they stole from the US via a network of spies.
That the US inherited from the Nazis as spoils of war via Operation Paperclip.
They got the Hero of Socialist Labor award. That wasn't good enough. Anyone who makes a probe that lands on Venus that works should get the Demigod of Space Engineering award.
@just another human They took pictures.
@just another human the us would of been very quick to discredit the soviets if they would of found any foul play
@just another human And that would be the Illuminati? Blofeld? Lizard people? Bezos?
@just another human It worked for an hour, the thing is that the battery got cooked because the thermodynamics in Venus are friggin insane.
The place is the closest thing to hell that we know in the solar system.
Not to be outdone, the U.S. established the Villain of Capitalist Ownership award! Bezos has won it several years consecutively!
I learned from this video more than I learned in school ( back in USSR ). Very impressive achievements for 60-70th. Thank you for such interesting material!
One of the most interesting videos I have ever seen regarding the Soviet space program. The Soviets doggedly pursued exploration of Venus, in part, because of its close proximity to Earth. The surface pictures, many I have never seen, are stunning.
Actually soviets started with Mars, but landed just 3 small robots probed Mars soil at late 60es, but never actually pushed further for some reason, switching totally to Venus in their efforts.One of the reasons arguably is exocomet entered Solar system and passed very close to Venus at 80es. Vega project was done in collaboration with Europe space agency, though there was simply not enough data to calculate trajectory for landing on comet body. Vega probes were used to precise comet body position and trajectory, to make Europe probe land, though Europe probe failed as well. Though, it passed quite close and got quite weird data like complex organic molecules in comet flare.
We question the moon 🌝 landing the US videos and 🤙 call with the president... Plus NASA lost most paperwork!?
@@miaguilar5512 Its indeed extremely weird stuff, but I guess mostly due to american *ssholes don't want to share their landing tech which is unique and patents are long expired.
Soviet space station module was bought by americans and built at Russia for Internation space station and reverse-engineered somehow, I guess mostly due to tech focused intelligence for their own chinese station recently, so this tech is officially spread around. Manned landing is not.
Though, maaaaybe actually manned landing was staged. There are evidences about huge spacecraft landed on moon, but if it was manned or not is questionable thing. Bcs for crippled soviet economy space race became an extreme toil, like between 61 when Gagarin was launched and 69 when first man stepped on Moon soviet union had a bench of revolts due to economical hardships pressing simple peoples. So it was easier to agree that americans won and cancel costly program, spending money and resources for something more useful.
The "baloons" you mentioned were an incredible achievement as well. As far, as I remember, the USSR and France joined forces to send the Vega series to Venus
Didn't know that France helped them, that's fascinating.
@@thatdognotthepuppy5809 as far as I remember, they also measured the distance to the Moon using a French laser with a Soviet reflector
@@TheKopalhem the reflectors on the Lunokhod rovers were French-made.
@@MarzoVarea I meant the whole rover as "Soviet reflector")))
Thank you for the correction
@@thatdognotthepuppy5809 De Gaulle was a worthy leader. Last worthy leader we had in a while. He famously quoted that europe should be from the atlantic to the ourals, which resulted in him getting ousted by the americans, so i'm not surprised he agreed to cooperation with the USSR.
:)
Incredible technical achievement.
Still nothing like it.!!!!
Your mind has been controlled with lies.
@@Datanditto yup amerika fell for every trick in the book !!!!
@@Datanditto but you know the truth, right?
@@Datanditto I love how my six simple words triggered the ever-living shit out of you 😊.
Are you a flat earth believer?
In my head I imagine you are, I hope I'm correct.
Dude only asked for 700 likes??? This is one of the best made commentaries on the Soviet venus program on youtube.
It deserves and has gotten a ton more. I hope this dude is doing well.
True!
Well he's approaching 40k likes a year later so I'd say people agree with you!
10:10 insane that this disk was enough to slow down the probe, due to the atmosphere being so freaking dense.
I guess the atmosphere is made of flat earthers
@@Helperbot-2000 Flat earthers are quite "dense", yes.
@@renerpho yes that certainly is the joke i made
My thoughts exactly.
I was like : "How the fuck can a disk, be a parachute at 100 atmospheres ?"
The density is what makes it work. Just like how a fan will fall slower in water than air.
Soviet engineering is greatly under reported in the west.. great video 🙏
Soviet engineering was greatly under reported around the world, not just the west.
@@ADITADDICTS I was about to do the same thing.
It's all fake, bro.
@@ssgllc7007 Great avatar btw. 👍
@Mark Walther lol! Exactly!
It's crazy to think they did all this with computers the size of houses that didn't even come close to the processing power of an iPhone or Android nowadays.. and we still have problems with the technologies we use to launch things now but yet somehow we're able to make these trips 50 years ago ..... Kind of mind numbing
I think the fail rate is lower today. At least I hope so...
THEY NEVER LANDED ON THE MOON I AM THE DARKSIDE.......
Calculations were never a issue with computers. It was sending mass amounts of data at once that was. The calculations might take a hour to process but it happened eventually.
It just goes to show you don’t actually need computers to be productive.
What’s crazy is how dependent we’ve become; teachers at my local school claim they can’t teach 6 year olds to read unless they each have their own $1000 iPad.
@@s4098429 my father taught me the basics of reading through the use of phonics and how to continue on my own by the time I was four. They must be terrible teachers.
Phenomenal achievement!!! Just learned about this recently and it blew my mind!
Cheers to all who were involved in the program!!
As an engineering student, understanding what type of genius and ingenious that were used it still blows the mind.
Soviet scientists are goats
огромное уважение и спасибо всем советским ученым
They can't even make a light bulb without importing technology from the West.
The most sad thing, after Soviet union break all funds of labs were stopped and basically A LOT of scientist and engineers appeared on streets unemployed. Some of them, achieved to move around the world, like 90es economic and tech growth arguably was achieved due to cheap and experienced soviet engineers working now for labs around the world. Though, not all of them and in 90es at Russia a cliché of "PhD janitors" or "Dr. Janitor" appeared. Moreover it produced extreme arrogance toward education in general as "Educated merits nothing"
Now, as you can guess, it bites Russia and other post-soviet countries into lower back quite hard. Though, extreme brain drain toward western countries or China doesn't permit to profit education on state scale. Like just 1 of 10 masters degree graduates stay at country after graduation. Its calculated from for some less required abroad professions or for example for IT more people stay at country after graduation, though programmers work for foreign companies from home. For professions required abroad it can go straightforward to less than 1% of graduates stays at country after graduation. So government makes education more and more private due to for state its futile expenses and obviously it becomes less and less affordable or as good as it was. Some big name universities are still kicking, though just some of them and mostly they prepare specialists who will work for highly classified weapon tech or kind of. And some "still decent though underfunded, so constantly degrading" public ones. Its not actually about low quality, its about job offers unlocked by degree. And even if western universities academic wise are worse, they prepare exactly for work environment you will face at western companies, so they are way better for your CV, what mostly counts for any reasonable student. And today its mostly done as old school soviet generation is mostly retired or will retire totally soon.
They duped you. that's why.
Freemasons duped you.
The Cold war was fake... so were all of the Moon landings and Venus landings.
Your mind was brainwashed, not blown.
@@antonzhdanov9653 one of the myriad tragedies
All soviet scientists??? There were many that did terrible things in gulags
Awesome vid! People don’t know enough about the achievements of the Soviet space program. They did a lot of amazing stuff, that was mostly overshadowed by the moon landing.
Landing on Venus is almost like driving a sub to the bottom of an ocean, but on another planet.
@Paol Vrobel Sputnik alone was insane and the real first manned orbit dude what are you saying???
@@brad7073 Not so much "insane" as "inevitable."
Mostly space programs are a waste of money. They're worth it for satellite and missile tech but beyond that they're similar to getting a fountain in your garden because the neighbours have one.
It was intentionally downplayed because of American failures on every other stage
@@Dmitrisnikioff I think it's more that by the 70s and 80s people had just gotten bored of the space race. By that point even moon landings weren't considered important.
@@peterhoulihan9766 you don’t understand just how much R&D come out of space programs. Composite materials, solar panels, small scale nuclear reactors, data transmission, computers, etc … Just be glad of all the tech that is around us and will be in the future thank to space programs
I have maintained for decades that this was the single most impressive feat of space exploration.
The US landed men on the moon. Lol
Yea im shocked and can’t figure if Iv known and forgot or never knew
@@Shepardofman Yeah if they had landed men, sure
But sacrificial robots - wildly impressive
Still not living things
@@Shepardofman the moon is very close to us, and the moon is relative forgiving comparing venusian conditionts. Two very different things
@@Shepardofman The moon is heaven compared to Venus.
I really love this kind of historic extreme engineering content. Hell, you can even call this modern cutting edge extreme engineering because nobody has been back there!
Loss of words - Salute to the Soviet engineers of the time who achieved this feat with limited tech at their disposal. ✨✨✨✨
Wait till you find out that they did everything but put a man on the moon first with a fraction of the budget of NASA. ;)
@@kristoffer3000 The US took credit for the space race, acting as if the goal through the entire technological race was to land a man on the moon - and the world bought it. Everyone still believes the US won the race because they are too ashamed to admit defeat to a country they were raised to hate. The Soviet Union was a truly accomplished and legendary nation that never receives the credit it deserves modern-day because of mixed political beliefs.
>limited tech
The soviets were cutting edge, we were the ones who got to the space race late lol
@@snixal both countries got most of their tech from ex nazis brought in after ww2.
Btw the first picture taken of the earth that showed its curvature was on the back of a stolen V2
@@snixal No, by 1970s, Soviet was seriously lagging in supercomputer technology.
I've heard that it's much more difficult to send probes to the inner planets than the outer ones, which, if true, adds to the accomplishment
Course corrections are more potent when you're farther from the sun's gravity well. And you effectively are speeding up your orbit to get out farther, so your approach is relatively slow.. Going in on the other hand, requires a lot of orbital decelleration. And that also means you're probably moving toward your target very fast, so you have to slow down when you get there. So all of this means lots of fuel, and very small windows to hit. Landing on Mars is throwing a basketball through the hoop on your garage from 6 feet away. Landing on Venus is throwing a baseball in the open passenger window of a car driving past your house at 35mph, while you stand way back at your garage.
@@virt1one cue trick shot compilation video of kids landing rovers on Venus in 2055.
Yeah, adding heat to a spacecraft to stay warm is a lot easier than trying to pump heat out to a very hot environment.
@@virt1oneAlso the car is on fire.
Yep getting to Mercury takes more fuel than leaving the solar system! That's why only 3 probes have ever been sent to it.
Whenever I think about weird space discoveries I get super weirded out by how much we actually don't know and how much is still just a good guess.
We actually know more about near space- 104 km to 350 km- than we know about the bottom of the ocean. Another hostile environment problem. FR
Yeah I’ve realised that lately, won’t be long till we know a lot more about what’s out there
@@fredericrike5974 So much unexplored area just in our solar system rather than the galaxy
Wierded out ?
@@WoolfEdits There are many fertile fields to occupy man's curiosity at home for long after mankind goes out into space. Then we will find new planets and likely find new conditions we hadn't imagined. Travis is "weirded out" by our lack of knowledge- I'm a little taken aback by how long it seems to be taking for mankind to realize how much we can do together is limited only by the stars, and how little we will get done bickering and squabbling over basic issues to the detriment of those that truly do affect us all. That weirds me out. FR
I’ve always wondered about this. It felt mysterious because it wasn’t widely talked about. This was awesome.
Between the Sputnik and Venera programs it is understandable why the US was so concerned about Russia during the space race. These events were all be fore my time but I agree that these things should be celebrated as incredible engineering achievements.
The one area where humanity has been able to transcend National Boundaries and Politics is the research and mission collaboration through the various space programs.
Thank you for this great video!
I teach Aerospace Education for the cadets in my Civil Air Patrol squadron and I will definitely be doing a presentation on the Venera Program now. Regardless of the nation, this is an incredible feat of human engineering!
I'd say it's more correct to write it as Vênêra. And after all it gives it more foreign look.
Good post.
Salut was really what scared the US. The fact that they could maintain presence in space over and over again was in many ways equal to what we did with Apollo even if it wasn't hailed as such.
Great post. Another interesting topic rarely heard about.
Right! I'm a Cold war child of the '80s and I have never heard of this until now. I have to admit I'm kind of embarrassed. Awesome stuff!!
I first heard about the Venera missions at the Washington DC space museum. The exhibits were ho hum, except for one that caught my eye. It was a relatively small plaque showing the image of Venus. I thought it was impressive, but when I looked at the date, my jaw dropped to the floor! It was no surprise why it was my first time learning about it and why it was given such a subdued presentation.
"Ruski = bad, my own satanic children-carpet-bombing government = gud!"
That's how your "average Joe" dipshit thinks, so of course no achievement from russians, chinese or arabs would ever be publicly accepted, let alone loved..
But if you ever been friends with any of the above, you know that they all love & accept our acomplishments.. It's only one-way with western society today, it seems.
US propaganda has always hushed up the achievements of great nations.
Well, you got way more than 700 likes! Thanks for this - I never knew any of it. Fascinating! I knew about the Luna missions (mostly debacles) and of course Apollo, but not Venera. Thanks!
We need an award for major science and technology achievements either forgotten by the public or isn't famous enough
Great production. Totally unique video. Please make more like this. Fantastic to be able to survive on such a hostile environment. Well done audio content!
A Great Salute to Soviet Engineers 👌
@Mark Walther indeed, mistêr phoreigner. You know for sure and better than even they.
Continue to spread your obscurantist bullshit.
Also, where did Alan Turing go? You didn't see him lately? God, was that place a goulag?
@Mark Walther that's cope and you know it
@User Canceled What about great depression death
The engineering achievements of the Americans and Soviets during the “golden age” of space are nothing short of brilliant.
I’ve always thought it was a shame that there wasn’t much cooperation and sharing of resources between the two, because their shared efforts perhaps could accomplished so much more (but then again, competition breeds creativity, so maybe it was necessary to be adversaries).
It’s an often overlooked part of history that JFK, when he proposed the moon landing wanted it to be a joint program with the Soviets as a bridge to peace, Khrushchev declined the offer.
It’s always been a major “what if” in my mind.
I think it's because allot of the tech involved was related to weapons, cutting edge stuff to "hopefully" have the edge on one another. I agree that a collaboration would have likely netted some even crazier stuff but I also see each side wanting to keep their cards close to their chest considering it was the cold war.
Nvm each system (capitalism/communism) trying to prove their way was the best way and under no circumstances wanting to credit either side with anything that could even remotely gesture that their respective system produced anything of value. Sorry for the terrible grammar.
Did khrushchev decline it or did he die before he said anything?
Dude you create very high quality videos, thumbs up.
Wonderful video on a wonderful subject! I remember seeing apicture depicting a Venera probe in a book about space for children - the probe with the 'hat' was in the picture and the orange Venusian sky with lightning in the background. It was so intriguing. I waited almost 30 years to find out more about those probes - I take my hat off to you for making my dream come true.
It’s 100 atmospheres of pressure but it looks so clear, the visibility is uncanny considering how much atmosphere there is per unit volume
That's not how it works. If you compress normal air to 100 atm it would still be transparent (assuming no fase changes).
@@MuitaMerdaAoVivo I know, it still feels strange, cuz you're looking through 100x more gas.
@Madcalf Mooring Yeah they would, deep ocean divers stand pressures way bigger than that and the water is the same.
@Madcalf Mooring it's nice to see you don't know what an example is.
It didn’t look very clear to me.
Hazy, with no view to any distance scenery. Visibility looked to be 10m, but it is hard to judge.
700 likes? How about 59,000?! Well done. Loving this channel.
amazing work comrades. a great success, then and now. Long Live the Memory of Gagarin. spasiba.
Over the past couple of years, NASA has been working on potential ways of exploring the Venusian surface, including using a rover with a wind powered clockwork drive mechanism. The metal alloys that could work with this already exist (think on the lines of what is used in the thrust vectors of high-performance military aircraft). As for transmitting information back to a craft that is in orbit, it wouldn't have much bandwidth, but I would think that vacuum tube based electronics could be made to work at those temperatures.
Actually vacuum tubes are susceptible to heat, as well as generating a lot of heat. This is one of the reasons they were quickly abandoned for almost all electronics once semiconductors and solid states came along.
What looks promising are a new class of solid states made of materials that help them work in very hot temps. I've seen some designed to work in temperatures as hot as 300 degrees Celsius. Still well below the surface temps of Venus but with proper probe design they could last longer than the previous Venera probes.
@@doncarlin9081 We probably have to wait for silicon carbide electronics to be developed because it is hard to process the crystal needed for those electronics, but the material is much more heat-resistant than silicon dioxide chips.
@@richardarriaga6271 germanium? Those things are much more resistant to heat
@@doncarlin9081 What do you think of Silicon Carbide chips? etc could those potentially work
we're probably still a while away from them actually trying it
USA: We land humans on the Moon!
USSR: Yeah that's a very cool achievement, but have you ever landed 5 probes on Venus?
i got pictures of my back yard, ER i mean PLuto!
beat that!!!
@@chaztitan6457 But I guess we are talking about 1970s not 2008 when new horizon took off for pluto. Interestingly the engine used in that rocket was Russian built.
The astronauts landed on the Moon six times, if you choose to talk numbers.
humans on moon > pictures from venus
@@JH-ot5mn In terms of sheer technical difficulty, landing a probe on Venus is much more difficult.
Excellent episode, this channel is simply must to watch, great stuff👍
Wow! I’ve been familiar with the landers before but this is the first I’ve learned of the amazing engineering they utilized to survive the harsh conditions. Thanks for making this!
Have never seen most of these photos. Dumbfounded by the views we had of another world "like earth" 50 years ago.... Thank you!!!
You are welcome.
Steven can I be frank with you?
Insane!! This is WAY more impressive than anything that's been sent, well ... ANYWHERE! (Except the voyagers) Great job with the research.
USSR:
1957: First intercontinental ballistic missile and orbital launch vehicle, the R-7 Semyorka.
1957: First satellite, Sputnik 1.
1957: First animal in Earth orbit, the dog Laika on Sputnik 2.
1959: First rocket ignition in Earth orbit, first man-made object to escape Earth's gravity, Luna 1.
1959: First data communications, or telemetry, to and from outer space, Luna 1.
1959: First man-made object to pass near the Moon, first man-made object in Heliocentric orbit, Luna 1.
1959: First probe to impact the Moon, Luna 2.
1959: First images of the moon's far side, Luna 3.
1960: First animals to safely return from Earth orbit, the dogs Belka and Strelka on Sputnik 5.
1961: First probe launched to Venus, Venera 1.
1961: First person in space (International definition) and in Earth orbit, Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, Vostok program.
1961: First person to spend over 24 hours in space Gherman Titov, Vostok 2 (also first person to sleep in space).
1962: First dual crewed spaceflight, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4.
1962: First probe launched to Mars, Mars 1.
1963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, Vostok 6.
1964: First multi-person crew (3), Voskhod 1.
1965: First extra-vehicular activity (EVA), by Alexsei Leonov,[80] Voskhod 2.
1965: First radio telescope in space, Zond 3.
1965: First probe to hit another planet of the Solar System (Venus), Venera 3.
1966: First probe to make a soft landing on and transmit from the surface of the Moon, Luna 9.
1966: First probe in lunar orbit, Luna 10.
1966: First image of the whole Earth disk, Molniya 1.
1967: First uncrewed rendezvous and docking, Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188.
1968: First living beings to reach the Moon (circumlunar flights) and return unharmed to Earth, Russian tortoises and other lifeforms on Zond 5.
1969: First docking between two crewed craft in Earth orbit and exchange of crews, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5.
1970: First soil samples automatically extracted and returned to Earth from another celestial body, Luna 16.
1970: First robotic space rover, Lunokhod 1 on the Moon.
1970: First full interplanetary travel with a soft landing and useful data transmission. Data received from the surface of another planet of the Solar System (Venus), Venera 7
1971: First space station, Salyut 1.
1971: First probe to impact the surface of Mars, Mars 2.
1971: First probe to land on Mars, Mars 3.
1971: First armed space station, Almaz.
1975: First probe to orbit Venus, to make a soft landing on Venus, first photos from the surface of Venus, Venera 9.
1980: First Latin American, Cuban and person with African ancestry in space, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez on Soyuz 38.
1984: First woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaya (Salyut 7 space station).
1986: First crew to visit two separate space stations (Mir and Salyut 7).
1986: First probes to deploy robotic balloons into Venus atmosphere and to return pictures of a comet during close flyby Vega 1, Vega 2.
1986: First permanently crewed space station, Mir, 1986-2001, with a permanent presence on board (1989-1999).
1987: First crew to spend over one year in space, Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov on board of Soyuz TM-4 - Mir.
1988: First fully automated flight of a spaceplane (Buran).
USA:
1963: First geosynchronous satellite
1964: First geostationary satellite
1969: First humans on the Moon
Verdict:
USA has won the space race!
No one ever was in space
American only movies
Bud, I am extremely aware of the Soviet Unions achievements in space, but you can’t just call everything a grand achievement on the level of landing on the moon, and you are discounting a lot of American stuff. Both nations managed some cool things, with an early but failing lead by the Soviets. It’s ok.
You’re still not getting a trophy…
@@aethelredtheready1739 Getting a man into space is also as tough as getting a man on the moon, because when the Soviets did it no other country on earth had done that, so it was very difficult and new. Plus, when the USA landed on the moon, they did this after many Soviet successes and learning from them, just like how China didn't collapse cuz it learned from the collapse of the USSR.
Billionaires - new sport for you: Which of you can make a probe last in surface of Venus longest. Holding that record on your name is a crowning award in engineering. Elon, is a whole day - or even week down on Venus plausibly possible? Show us how - break the Soviet record proper and claim the title of top bloke.
@@daniellinville192 👢 👅
Sorry, Ilon is busy of plan B for our doomed civilization. See, if it's doomed to fail by itself, let's repeat it on Mars. Everything will go fine, he promises
Anything above an hour would be an extraordinary feat. Any material would melt at such a high temperature and pressure, cooling it even for a few hours would be almost impossible. It would ultimately come down who can make the thickest shield
The Soviets taught us how many different ways there are for a probe to die on Venus. Turns out, more ways than there are probes.
Hey
may it be that you have no idea what temperatures and pressures are on Venus?
@@alestbest Its in the video. May it be that you didn't watch the video?
Venus is the most durable planet if a probe lasted a half hour it says a lot about the quality of the engineering and might prove the materials battle worthiness back on earth pretty cool experiment
Wtf your comment is very harmless you are not saying anything weird or rude. Why people attacking you here.
Respect to the Soviets. There's space program is on par with the United States with half of the budget.
The Soviets won every part of the space race expect for the moon race.
@@Kevin-cw8of wrong. The US explored every planet including dwarf planet Pluto and has 5 probes leaving the solar system forever. Also Hubble space telescope was US among many other space probes for all kinds of science, far more than Soviets.
@@jojobar5877 the soviets had the first satellite, first man in space, first woman in space, first "working" space station, first space walking. The Soviets did more in space advancement than the US before the US "invented" their space race to declare victory.
@@Kevin-cw8of first you say “the Soviets won every part of the space race except the moon race”. Then you say the US “invented” the space race. Lol. Make up your mind bud. Actually the Soviets did have the first space “firsts” until the US caught them around Gemini, 1966 or so. The US got the first radar rendezvous and docking and had much more time in space even before Apollo. Also it’s not like Soviet tech was vastly superior in aerospace. The US had the first nukes and go check out the Soviet exact copy of the B-29. Also some Soviet space firsts were gimmicky just for the headlines, like the first woman in space. Who gives a shit about that. Also the first 3 man crew where they jammed 3 poor guys in a 2 man capsule. Yuri Gagarin didn’t even land with his capsule. He bailed out of it.
@Lalibela Dogo I never said the soviets landing on Venus wasn’t astonishing. It was, especially for the time all those years ago.
16:48 "If this video does well... let's say 700 likes". One year later it has 44K likes and 1.1M views. I guess that mission went better than expected.
Now 1.4 M views and 52k likes.
1.5 million views and 52k likes 👍
59K likes right now
1.8M views and 59K likes right now and still going strong!
Great post, as usual! Unusual but very interesting topic. Very surprised that they were so advanced.
10:32 "Soviet engineers threw it out of an airplane 87 miles or 140 kilometers above the ground." That's 450,600 ft. But the airplane altitude record is only about 315,000 ft (X15), so I think that 87 miles is a bit off.
probably threw it out 87 Kilometers instead of miles.
@@knightlypoleaxe2501 Still way higher then plausibel. Even if, the whole dropping in earths atmosphere makes no sense as a test for a craft meant for the atmospheric density of Venus.
@@yagwaw I heard some military airplanes descending(?) to 90,000 meters from higher, so 87km might be possible but idk.
@@knightlypoleaxe2501 That must be feet. 90 km is pretty much space, with no aerodynamic effects to speak of. Yes, the X15 reached such high altitudes, but it had a reaction control system (read: rocket engines) to control its attitude when leaving the atmosphere.
I feel like many of those photos look waaaaaaay better quality than possible for the time too.
1969 USA: we got a man to the moon
1970 CCCP: Hold my vodka
SUPER ABSOBLOODLUTELY THE COOLEST VIDEO I EVER SAW ON THE SUBJECT !
THANK YOU VERY MUCH !
KEEP UP THE EXCELLENT WORK AND MAY GOD BLESS YOU ALWAYS !
Brilliant & well done. I'd never heard about this before. Fascinating. You've earned a like and a sub.
Great video! Love stories of the space race and the USSR programs. Subscribed!
The Soviets were some tough people! They built everything like a tank:).
Apart from Chernobyl
@@RyleKittenhouse We've made mistakes and had accident too as well as other nations. Try shooting down one of their HIND's:)
even though soviet people barely had something to eat but the government had to show the world that their dicks are just as long as those of the US. they weren't however.
@@RyleKittenhouse Fukushima
@@pauliusgecas472 did you live there to know
Excellent job. I appreciate the research that wenit into making this , it was presented very well.
"To test it the engineers threw it out of an airplane 70 miles / 140km above the ground" Something is wrong with that statement.
It definitely made me pause
I believe they dropped it from a high altitude weather balloon.
Made me wonder, too
Definitely wasn't a plane
70 miles isnt 140km and a plane cant fly to 140km of altitude
Great video, very interesting. Always wondered how much work went into making something that could operate on the surface of Venus. It's absolutely mind-boggling that they were able to get ANY data back from the probes, let alone up to 30 minutes worth.
"I'd like it if you would". Best way to say it.
The Soviet space program was also the first to land a robotic probe on another celestial body and return a sample to Earth (Luna 16 in September 1970)
And they were the first to send living creatures through the Van Allen Belts, loop around the moon, and return them safely to Earth (Zond 5, September 1968).
It truly was an amazing feat of engineering, especially being so long ago now.
Great job, this was one of the best!
👽 At - 6:50 he says Soviet Engineers "shoved" that thing out of a plane at an altitude of 87 MILES!! That's just short of 500,000 feet!! That's more impressive than what's depicted in this video... maybe a video should be made on that instead of this?
I’m a bit confused. Russian pilot Alexandr Fedotov holds the world altitude record, set on August 31, 1977 when his MiG E-266M reached 123,523 feet. The reason the American X-15 ( that reached over 314,000 feet in altitude) is not included in the world record is because it was carried aloft by a modified B-52 and then released to climb higher on its own. So why isn’t the 87 mile record recognized?
I am sure this was a mistake since this altitude would be a world record
It would have been a rocket that launched it that high. 100km is the recognized start of space, but not high enough to put something in orbit.
I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and transcript has been updated.
The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
Great research. I really enjoyed this video and I had honestly never heard of these missions. Thank you for bringing this information to us.
Love that you are not afraid of covering all the important details
Nothing to be afraid of. This stuff is well known if you grew up with it. I can't say why people aren't curious enough to check it out on their own.
Amazing accomplishment. I did not realize they had done this!
I remember wondering why the Soviets went to Venus instead of going to a lot less hostile Mars as a youngster, and it turns out it was simply because Venus was closer to Earth and therefore easier to reach. Either way as a schoolboy in the seventies I remember seeing these pictures and being blown away at what I was looking at, a great achievement now to land on Venus and transmit photographs, but to do it in the seventies with the technology of the time, is truly remarkable.
No, it's harder to approach. Space navigation is more complex than you were told.
@@worldoftancraft What is harder to approach? Venus was closer to Earth than Mars at the time. Flying towards Sun you are pulled by it’s gravity.
@@pawelpap9 you might not heard, but slowing down is also a consumption of fuel
they went to Venus not because it is closer to Earth, but because it is an extremely difficult task in space exploration.
Its mostly because of the challenges you face. Venus is tough but predictable. That made it fit well with Soviet specialty to make durable sturdy stuff. Mars required way-easier technology from the engineering side, but you need to have more advanced computing technology to e.g. wait out a sandstorm in orbit before landing. It still remained a remarkable feat. And in contrast to Mars, it still does, with today's technology.
Fascinating episode. Thanks for posting!
Nit: The aerobrake was for terminal decent and landing where Venus' atmospheric pressure supercritical C02 is much denser than air on Earth. Not quite water, but I remember reading where they tested the lander in a pool for that. The high altitude test was for the parachute separation, and I guess to make sure it didn't go tail over teakettle on the way down.
Very interesting topic. This is why I'm subscribed to this channel.
Really nice video. I like all the technical details. Would you consider placing the values in the video? It really helps when comparing, for example, one mission to another. If you simply read numbers off, it turns into a memory test and I find that I need to re-wind sometimes. Anyway, keep up the good work.
Those were some of the most entertaining and informative 17 minutes I’ve ever spent on this site
This was huge accomplishment considering the technology at the time, I always admire what Russia achieved in the space race on a show string budget. Really enjoyed this video
You got WAY more than 700 likes man!
Very well done!
Very interesting. Also that Venus has always been regarded as Earth's sister planet, not Mars.
Earth was like the ideal sister while Venus is like this hot-headed, energetic, and stressed sister just wanting to vent out sometime
@@freshbakedclips4659 She sounds pretty hot, ngl.
I recommend noisegating the audio to cleanup this highpitch-hiss.
Otherwise: As always - enjoying the hell out of your content! 😁
You have forgot two VEGA missions. There were landers and baloons.
You can actually see the two VEGA landing spots on the map pictures shown in this video - labeled "VEGA 1 and 2".
@@jarls5890 yeah, but video said, that Венера-13 and 14 were the last landers on surface. Thats wrong. VEGA 1 and 2 had no cameras, bacause they sat on the night side. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program
@@ShklovSkyEther Thank you for the link.
A brilliant video: the depth of information is amazing -- I knew a bit about these landers, but the technical info was mostly new to me.
Kids at NASA: Lets go to Mars
Men at Russian Space Agency: Lets go to Venus
Elders In Mexico, Let's go UNDERGROUND
Soviet Union landed on Mars too.... after that Mars is called the Red Planet...
@@novemberalpha6023 Bruhhhhhh
@@novemberalpha6023 So the Russians are martians... it all makes sense now.
@@life4trinity Russians are from Mars, Americans are from VenUS
You did a fantastic job relaying the information.
How did I not know of this incredible feat of space engineering!?!?!?
You never visit Wikipedia 😂
Thank you for this video!
The only thing I've heard in Western documentaries is:
"It's the Soviet probe. Its thick armor failed in the Venusian atmosphere")))
But the filmmakers "forgot" to mention how long the probe had worked before its armor failed
...The Soviets had 4 probes fail in Venus' atmosphere before the first probe (Venera 7) successfully landed. They also attempted to lie and say Venera 4 landed, but this was thwarted by a NASA probe which measured the pressure of Venus' atmosphere to be much greater than the Soviets had been led to believe, which made it clear to the world that Venera 4 couldn't possibly have survived, since it wasn't built to handle those pressures.
Amazing technology. I wonder what it would take to go back.... multiple containment units within another? allowing designed degradation to make other instrument operate as it progresses. It will really nice if they develop a lander that lasts a month or so.
The way to go back would be to design instruments that have an operating temperature and pressure that matches Venus.
Everything would need to be redesigned from the ground up, it would take a lot of work, but the technology would be very useful.
With modern tech, we could probably do a sample return by taking advantage of the thick atmosphere. A craft needs to be built to descend to the surface, grab a few grams of Venusian rock and ascend. Propellers powered by a RTG or nuclear reactor could be used for this because they can provide significantly more thrust and lift in the thick Venusian atmosphere.
As for exploration probes, they will very likely be helicopters or aircraft that are solar or nuclear powered and can hover at the higher parts of Venus’ atmosphere to cool down and recharge.
You certainly got your 700 likes heh. Watched this quite a few times now and have been receiving the news letter since forever, very much enjoyed!
Didn't NASA brag about the fact that their latest Mars lander has recorded the first sound on another planet?
UNLESS NASA IS INVISIBLE THEY NOT GOING THROUGH THE DOME.......
@@atomatman3104 and that means what?
@@IntyMichael THERE A HARDHAT OVER YOUR HEAD MCFLY HELLOE. IT NO LONGER EXIST.
@@atomatman3104 your caps lock is stuck
@@IntyMichael His mind is stuck.
Always loved the Venera series of probes, especially the pictures of hell from the surface (though IO might be in the running). And I’ve always wondered why the US never tried a lander after the successes of Venera,
what I am interested in is: what kind of incremental chemical transformations of the atmosphere are possible once we have, say, a floating nuclear reactor as an energy source in the outer layers of Venusian clouds? can we produce something more inert, less 'greenhouse-active' material out of sulfuric acid (elemental sulfur + water)? is it feasible to combine this with shading the planet in the L1 point achieve some meaningful change in a reasonable timeframe?
sulfur + water will recombine. And it's not the biggest issue. most of the atmosphere is not sulphuric acid which is only found in the high atmosphere clouds. It's 96% carbon dioxyde, which he forgot to mention in the video :p
The pressure is so intense that CO2 is not even a gas anymore but a supercritic fluid. The gentle breezes he was talking about have so much mass behind them that if you stood there in a 2 or 3 mph wind, you'd be dragged backwards as if you were facing a hurricane on earth.
And you also forget this thing is... a planet. it's big, it's huge, it's almost the size of earth. you can't change anything with a few reactors.
But kudos to us, in a couple of hundred years of intense industrial activity, we managed to change our planet's temperature by 2 or 3°C. It's all a matter of scale, as it were.
@@ledoynier3694 all it takes is a hundred years’ worth of aluminum foil
Just discovered this channel, what a gem!
I hope you will make more videos like this. This was very informative.
Is the Truth portrayed here without exception? Watch Capricorn One.
@@HighSpeedNoDrag what's that?
@@HighSpeedNoDrag I checked it out, will watch the film. Thanks for recommending.
@@MinhajMalik It's good movie regardless of one's beliefs.
BRAVO Engineers of Russia. Awesome work.
You're aware that the Soviets were an amalgam of several countries, called the Soviet Union, of which Russia was one of 16 total, right?
It's kinda like saying:
*excellent technological achievement of California, landing on the moon.*
@@d.cypher2920 The vast majority of engineers were russian. All the smaller countries were only just being built up by the soviets.
Why did I only find the great achievements of the Soviet Union on TH-cam? I don't recall these Venutian landings making news in my country at the time. The surface reminds me of slate. Would be wonderful to return sometime in the future for more exploration
Seems your national news agencies werent too keen on reporting CCCP successes.
they went to Venus not because it is closer to Earth, but because it is an extremely difficult task in space exploration.