Russian lunar rovers
 

Wow, I had never heard of this before... in 1970, and again in 1973, the Russians landed remote-controlled rovers on the moon in a program called Lunokhod. The rovers had basic instrumentation and took thousands of photos. Nifty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/upload/5/54/Lunokhod.jpg

Those Russian scientists came out with some pretty neat stuff back when they actually had some money to work with. This makes me wonder how many of their other innovations I've never heard of. Unfortunately, they're usually better known for the creations they blatantly copied and stole.

Damn...now I want to see the thousands of pictures.

Wha!? I knew that they sent many satellites to observe the moon, but I hadn't known that they had lunar rovers!

The Soviets also landed on Venus back in '75 and sent back some interesting shots:

http://www.mentallandscape.com/Venera13Camera2.jpg

Here's some more...

Here is the parent link - many more goodies in addition to photos

edited to add 2nd link; remainder unchanged.

Wow, that is so cool! Look at this...

http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_V13bigimage.jpg

That's fucking VENUS, man!


(at least, I hope so..)

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edit-- ok, I feel better about it now.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990124.html
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/photo_gal...ery-venus.html

Nice find HP!

...surface temperature is about 900 degrees Fahrenheit (482 degrees C) at an atmospheric pressure of 92 times that of sea-level on Earth...

This makes landing on mars sound like cake in comparison. Then again, the Veneras only lasted a hour or so as opposed to the mars vehicles that have lasted weeks.


edit:clarification

Yeah, the Venus landings were another great example of Russian ingenuity, and at least those are well-known. So far everyone I've mentioned the early 70s lunar rovers to had never heard of them before.

Venus is a nutty place. I've read that if one were able to stand on the surface, the horizon would actually appear to curve upwards, because the atmospere is so dense that it acts as a distorting lens. Overhead would be thick clouds comprised mainly of sulfuric acid, and underfoot would be mostly volcanic rock, possibly peppered with standing pools of molten lead, left in their molten state due to the 870 degree F daytime temps. There are few craters, because only objects comprised of very hard substances can cut through the syrupy atmospere without being completely destroyed.

Though wind speeds are relatively low, the atmospheric pressure is 90 times greater than Earth's, so one could not stand up against the wind unanchored, it would just slowly push a person across the surface. Sound would travel VERY far, and shockwaves from a chance meteor colliding with the upper atmosphere would still carry the force to crush rocks into dust on the surface.

Not very inviting, but pretty spiffy.