Matthew M. Ployhart

42 million miles from Earth, actually. Or at least it is on average. In the 1970s, as the focus of the ongoing Space Race expanded from the now-conquered Moon to the other planets in our Solar System, both the United States and the other major global superpower at the time, the Soviet Union, would launch several outer space exploration programs. While the American Pioneer Missions, and Voyager Missions 1 and 2, capture most of the public memory, an equally profound story was unfolding at the same time as these great programs, across the Iron Curtain.

The Soviet Venera program is among the most fascinating in the history of space exploration. Although Soviet plans to send a probe to Venus had been on the drawing board since the 1950s, the first Venera probe would not be launched until 1961, and on its initial attempt it didn't even leave the atmosphere. Yet, amidst the competitive pressures exerted from each side of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's scientists engaged in a staggering level of research and development to gradually improve the success rate of future Venera probes.

The Venera program - Venera (Венера) means "Venus," in Russian - sought to target a planet that many at the time assumed harbored conditions similar to those on Earth. Venus's gravity was comparable to Earth's, and there was no reason to suspect that the atmosphere was particularlly dense. In the days before images of terraforming Mars became commonplace in science fiction, Venus was viewed by many as the planet in the Solar System most likely to potentially support life. Yet, the Soviets quickly found that the Venus was not as hospitable as had been hoped, and the first Venera probes left tragic yet monumental marks of human achievement. Venera 2 was among the first to overheat near Venus, and Venera 3 the first human-made object to crash-land onto the planet's surface.

Throughout each mission, the scientists working on the Venera program learned more and more about the elusive planet. Venera 4 relayed information about the atmosphere's density and its high levels of carbon dioxide before succumbing to failure. Venera 5 sent back valuable data regarding the scorchingly-high temperature of Venus's atmosphere, as did Venera 6. Because of these missions, scientists learned enough about the planet to perfect their probes: they calculated the weight needed to sink through the dense atmosphere of Venus, and the coolants required to stave off the intense atmospheric heat.  Yet even these adjustments did not promise success.

Venera 7 abruptly touched down on Venus's surface in late 1970, disabled but transmitting data. Venera 8 landed successfully, and took light measurements on the planet's surface - the Soviets wanted to know if it was possible to take a photograph on Venus. It was, and this was the mission for which Venera 9, 10, 11, and 12 were launched (two of which would malfunction). Each probe, upon landing on Venus's surface, frantically sent back data until it died a swift death. The longest lifespan any probe could attain in the hellish environment and intense atmospheric conditions of Venus was that maintained by Venera 13, which continued to transmit data an astonishing 127 minutes after landing. Venera 13, launched in 1981, had not only persisted in an environment in which it was not expected to survive longer than 30 minutes, it had also transmitted the first ever color photographs of Venus's surface to Earth: a bleak and hazy picture of sprawling rock and yellow clouds (Venera 13 also sent back the first ever audio recordings of Venus's surface).

But still the Soviets sent more probes, these ones to orbit. Even to this day, there has never been another successful project to "soft-land" a probe on the surface of Venus.  Of all of the Venera probes, Venera 13 stands out as the most unique, not strictly in terms of what it accomplished - the first color photograph and audio recording of Venus's surface - but also in the fact that this accomplishment was the culmination of decades of research, observation, and scientific innovation: small adjustments that had accumulated after every attempt. Even then, Venus remains an elusive planetary body within our Solar System, and no longer sits disguised as the habitable world it was once suspected to be. Yet for a few decades, it captured the fascination of the Soviet space program, and the scientists who served it.

I have named this website "Venera 13" to emphasize its character as a place for bits and pieces of everything. Throughout the Venera saga, corrections, adjustments, and modifications were constantly made, as will be the case with this site. It is certainly not my first attempt at hosting a website, though this one is a product of its ancestors.

This will also be a website that, like Venera 13, can only capture bits and snippets of what it is intended to share. While this platform serves as a means to communicate and record professional developments, each entry is, ultimately, only a snapshot, a glimpse into a moment in time.

I hope, therefore, you will enjoy these few snapshots on this website, when they do appear. Like the precious bits of data returned by Venera, each update here will be short and small, a fraction of what it represents - although unlike Venera, they will not alter our perceptions of planets.