Fifty years ago, it was easy for us to imagine Venus, closer to the Sun and wrapped in clouds, to be our scorched, tropical sister, swarming with life.

 

There was this picture of Venus as a kind of primitive steamy Earth, complete with giant tree ferns and dinosaurs.

 

Altogether, it seemed to us that it should be, just possibly, even populated.

 

In the late 1950s, the space race begins. While America aims for the Moon, Russia sets its sights on meeting the neighbors.

 

Venus and Mars still was in the human dreams to meet, the species which could be very similar to us. Venus was even easier than Mars to reach.

 

But landing on Venus proves surprisingly difficult. One by one, the Soviet Venera probes disappear within the thick Venusian atmosphere, their last transmissions warning of a world of inconceivably high temperatures and pressure.

 

Persistence and tough Russian engineering eventually pay off.

 

In 1975, the camera on the redesigned Venera 9 finally penetrates the Venusian veil. But what it sees is nothing like the tropical paradise imagined.