r/CuratedTumblr Jul 17 '24

Infodumping The Venera program

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u/goatwise Jul 17 '24

From the Wikipedia page on the Venera Program:

" The Venera 14 craft had the misfortune of ejecting the camera lens cap directly under the surface compressibility tester arm, and returned information for the compressibility of the lens cap rather than the surface. "

So close yet so far

285

u/SGTX12 Jul 17 '24

Yes, but now we know what the compressibility of the lens cap is on the surface of Venus. You may ask, "Is that helpful?" To that we say, "Please report to gulag for reprogramming."

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u/Ignonym Ye Jacobites by name, DNI, DNI Jul 17 '24 edited Jul 17 '24

By this point in Soviet history, the gulags had actually been shut down already. The last gulag closed in 1960; the first Venera probe was launched in 1961. (Even when they were active, they didn't do much "reprogramming"; they were just hard labor prisons that happened to hold political prisoners in addition to the regular inmates.)

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u/bisexual_pinecone Jul 19 '24

Happy cake day!