#venera i

[deep-space-netwerk]

So Venus is my favorite planet in the solar system - everything about it is just so weird.

It has this extraordinarily dense atmosphere that by all accounts shouldn't exist - Venus is close enough to the sun (and therefore hot enough) that the atmosphere should have literally evaporated away, just like Mercury's. We think Earth manages to keep its atmosphere by virtue of our magnetic field, but Venus doesn't even have that going for it. While Venus is probably volcanically active, it definitely doesn't have an internal magnetic dynamo, so whatever form of volcanism it has going on is very different from ours. And, it spins backwards! For some reason!!

But, for as many mysteries as Venus has, the United States really hasn't spent much time investigating it. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, sent no less than 16 probes to Venus between 1961 and 1984 as part of the Venera program - most of them looked like this!

The Soviet Union had a very different approach to space than the United States. NASA missions are typically extremely risk averse, and the spacecraft we launch are generally very expensive one-offs that have only one chance to succeed or fail.

It's lead to some really amazing science, but to put it into perspective, the Mars Opportunity rover only had to survive on Mars for 90 days for the mission to be declared a complete success. That thing lasted 15 years. I love the Opportunity rover as much as any self-respecting NASA engineer, but how much extra time and money did we spend that we didn't technically "need" to for it to last 60x longer than required?

Anyway, all to say, the Soviet Union took a more incremental approach, where failures were far less devastating. The Venera 9 through 14 probes were designed to land on the surface of Venus, and survive long enough to take a picture with two cameras - not an easy task, but a fairly straightforward goal compared to NASA standards. They had…mixed results.

Venera 9 managed to take a picture with one camera, but the other one's lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 10 also managed to take a picture with one camera, but again the other lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 11 took no pictures - neither lens cap deployed this time.

Venera 12 also took no pictures - because again, neither lens cap deployed.

Lotta problems with lens caps.

For Venera 13 and 14, in addition to the cameras they sent a device to sample the Venusian "soil". Upon landing, the arm was supposed to swing down and analyze the surface it touched - it was a simple mechanism that couldn't be re-deployed or adjusted after the first go.

This time, both lens caps FINALLY ejected perfectly, and we were treated to these marvelous, eerie pictures of the Venus landscape:

However, when the Venera 14 soil sampler arm deployed, instead of sampling the Venus surface, it managed to swing down and land perfectly on….an ejected lens cap.

#space #space history #venus #NASA #Venera #spost #I will talk all day about venus #ask me about venus floating sky cities #unpopular opinion venus > mars #this is probably my favorite space history story #the surface of venus is made of lens caps #don't try to tell me the universe doesn't have a sense of humor #well #I guess its more that people have a sense of humor and we happen to live in the universe

[shellibisshe]

VENERA MAI. mortal kombat

I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king

[icons] [template by @unholymilf]

tag list! (ask to be added or removed): @bloodofvalyria @loriane-elmuerto @queennymeria @statichvm @jackiesarch @thedeadthree @chuckhansen @risingsh0t @nightbloodbix @confidentandgood @leviiackrman @florbelles @adelaidedrubman @shallow-gravy @blissfulalchemist @socially-awkward-skeleton @roofgeese @poisonedtruth @quickhacked @inafieldofdaisies @heroofpenamstan @deputyash @katsigian @benwishaw

#venera mai #my edits #i am being so brave. if u see spelling mistakes then no u dont #yall i am. so insane abt her rn s/o to hev and heather and lori for listening to me yap #i am posting this rn i love her this has been in my wip folder for like a week. not rlly but. it feels like it

[queenofnohr]

Saint Venera (she/her) in Nero Bride's outfit by @iunarbahamut on twitter!

My beautiful bride 🥺🥺🥺

#ffxiv oc #ff14 oc #ff14 au ra #ffxiv au ra #HER FAT TAIL!!!!!!!!!! #HER WITTLE FANGSIES................. #i lob my little lizard....... my little big lizard bride............ #transgirl lizard! transgirl lizard!!!!!! #saint venera tag

[vampireoccult]

bro's first trip to space & he brings back a whole alien.

sixami translation under cut

melody: milo? i'm back from my walk-- milo: …and this is the coffee maker. venera [in sixami]: and this? milo: the oven. try it. venera [in simlish]: oh-ven. milo: very good! we’ll practice your simlish when i’m not at work and maybe i can learn a little bit of sixami! venera [in sixami]: yes! sixami!

melody: what the entire fuck is that?

melody: AH! venera: my name is venera! i am from sixam and have studied your culture extensively! milo: yeah she has personal space issues...

milo: okay so don't freak out-- melody: i'm already freaking out, milo. there's a purple...thing in our kitchen. what the fuck did you do.

milo: i finally finished all the upgrades on my rocket and, well...this one hitched a ride back somehow. melody: we have to get rid of her. isn't your job making sure these things don't...break containment or whatever?

milo: yeah, but-- melody: milo, we cannot keep her. what if our house gets raided or something?

milo: we'll hide her.

melody: we are not hiding an alien in our fucking house, dude. milo: technically, it's my house. melody: don't be petty right now. think seriously.

melody: you. can't. stay. here. milo: she's not going to understand you. melody: she'll understand this: get. out. milo: melody.

milo: look! you made her cry! apologize! i didn't even know aliens could cry...fascinating... melody: i refuse to be the only logical one about this situation.

#ts4 gp #ts4 gameplay #ts4 #I need to start tagging names tbh #melody munch #milo munch #venera cassini #gp: munch spawn

[loriane-elmuerto]

Venera Mai, the Edenian spy. (template) (icon)

Happy birthday, @shellibisshe! 💕💕💕

#also happiest of birthdays to amara as well <333 #oc: venera mai #breaking my hiatus to post this little piece #EVERYONE GO WISH SHELL A HAPPY BDAY RN 🔫🔫🔫 #loriedits #if i left any mistakes i have Not

[jestiamy]

still thinking about this

#lyrics by mitski's song 'nobody.' and whatever #second ever attempt at a more 'comic' format and I think this one actually came out. pretty good. #art stuffs #oh my god which one of those is my art tag. #one of them. probably. #edit I found the art tag #fallout: canon aligned venera #venera. #lego monkie kid #lego monkie kid oc #lego monkie kid fanart #lmk fanart #monkie kid #monkie kid fanart #swk #macaque the. ever #the hero and the warrior were like the sun and moon. oh and venus is there too. I guess. #lmk oc #monkie kid oc

[druidgroves]

hesitant to post art anymore but maybe a watermark will deter….something, at least.

anyways im obsessing over my current sims household involving a boy, his sister, & his soon to be alien girlfriend

#rae.txt #rae.psd #their names are venera & milo :^) #she’s of a similar or same type of alien species as my other alien girl portia #in that this is just how i prefer to make aliens in sims lol

[missionspecialist]

People rightly get emotional about the perceived humanity of the Mars rovers but I just have to go off for a moment about the Soviet Venera program of the 60s-80s and how it gets me feeling just as emotional.

I think part of the appeal of the Mars rovers is their longevity—they have stuck around far longer than their projected lifespans, occasionally performing little rituals that reinforce the connection between these robots and their human parents (eg. the “happy birthday” song).

In contrast, the final and most sophisticated Venera landers lasted barely 2 hours on the surface of Venus. Why? Venus is a fucking hellscape that’s like 850°F (454°C) on the surface, with an atmospheric pressure 95 times higher than Earth’s, cloaked in corrosive clouds. Despite these insane conditions, Soviet scientists and engineers sent 16 spacecraft to Venus.

They failed a lot. The first two probes didn’t even get there. Venera 3 made it all the way. On board it carried a variety of scientific sensors, and a set of Soviet medallions. It impacted the surface in March 1966, but its instruments failed long before it could send back anything relevant. It was pulverized by the pressure and melted down into slag by the heat.

A year later, a reinforced Venera 4 managed to send back the atmospheric data its sibling hadn’t been able to capture. It was the first spacecraft to take these measurements on another planet. As it descended down into the hell that it was analyzing (91°F...200°F...oh...346°F... 504°F...oh god), the probe cracked open at the top and was crushed before reaching the surface. Like an egg. Like a skull.

Due to the data it sent back, the mission was considered a success, but its engineers had actually hoped that it would have been able to endure and make a soft landing. They had designed it to survive even in the unlikely event that it landed in water, and had equipped it with a battery that would last up to 100 minutes. Initially did not want to accept that it had not reached the surface intact.

In 1970, Venera 7 was the first probe to succeed in landing, but not without its own struggles. Things were going well until just before touchdown, when its parachute failed. The probe hit harder than expected, but it was so incredibly overbuilt that this time its titanium skull did not crack, merely toppling over onto its side and throwing its transmitter out of alignment. It was presumed dead, but, as scientists would only realize weeks later, it fought on for another 23 minutes, transmitting a faint stream of data back to its home millions of miles away before succumbing to the temperature and pressure.

Into the 80s, the Soviet Union landed 6 more spacecraft on the surface of Venus. They took color photographs (the first from another planet), recorded sound, and analyzed the soil. They allowed us to pull back Venus’s poisonous veil and see something we were not designed to see. These later landers were rated to last only 30 minutes on the surface, but they generally doubled or tripled that time. Under stifling heat, toxic air, and immense pressure, they gave their best until they ultimately boiled away.

If Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids, Venus is worse. The Mars rovers are like children you can watch grow up and slowly become more distant with age. The Venera probes/landers were children that their Soviet parents poured their time and energy and love into all the while knowing that they were going to be consumed in a blaze of glory turned miserable death. That their useful lifespans would be measured in mere minutes.

Maybe this is just me ascribing feelings that weren’t there to the engineers and anthropomorphizing the robots too much, I’m no scientist, but emotionally that is gut wrenching. When I first learned about these missions I cried. And not only because I feel for the spacecraft. This is also a story about a nation and culture that no longer physically exists (paralleling the landers themselves). Throwing a bunch of progressively more overbuilt stuff at a seemingly crazy task is one of the most stereotypically Soviet things I can think of. All of the Venera missions carried special medallions engraved with Soviet imagery and made out of titanium so as to withstand the Veniusian environment. On some other planet, possibly the only evidence of human existence is a bunch of melted metal and possibly a few representations of something that no longer exists, something that a lot of people at the time believed in, that held their hopes and dreams—that is haunting. To me the Venera program encapsulates a lot of the same elements of unexpected humanity as the saga of the Mars rovers, but is more tragic because it has a different level of temporality.

#feeling emotional about some hunks of metal again tonight lads #long post #sorry about that #I only meant for this to be like 1 paragraph and then realized I couldn't fit in it all in to just that #also like even if you hate the soviet union I think we can agree there is something to this #like on a human sociological level #venera #venera program #ussr #venus #mars #Soviet Space Program

[cepheusgalaxy]

Story Ideas that I need to elabroate eventually

Blonde Knight One: a lady knight swore loyalty to the crown, but after finding how vile and twisted her kingdom was, she swears loyalty to a tricksy witch and becomes her knight. The story follows the adventures of her and two magicians: a transgender sorcerer (she/her) called Adam (short for Adamite) who is very very cheesy and has a boosted ego, and her equally chaotic counterpart, a black trans bard called Eve who is way too flamboyant. The separated may be prime examples of magic casting, but together, they are so unhinged the knight's job is usually to keep them from getting them expelles from whatever kingdom they have a mission on. Based on random ideas from my daily life that somehow fit together, and Vibes.

Venera and [unnamed]: Venera is a russian lved in paranormal adventures with this nonbinary guy (clove motif) that has a more open and dumbass personality than him. They are a great contrast, but they work well together. Based on a design challenge.

The Chosen One: Victor is a chosen one hero from a prophecy in a fantasy world; he knows what his duty is, and hed be happy to comply, if there wasnt so much paperwork. Victor is supposed to slay The Dragon, but each time he gets close, he has to sign so much stuff and get so many appointments before getting close to actually killing it that hes in that for ages. Gabriel, on a fairly distant country, is a magician (he has his diplome) that uses his time helping passerbys and prophecy heroes that criss his path. He is quite poor and had a hard time paying for his magic scholarship, unlike his friend Toriel, a way wealthier magician. One day, Victor stumbles upon the bar where Gabriel usually hangs out, and after they meet, the three of them go in a mission to try and slay the dragon that has been terrorizing their kingdom for ages.

New one: Two freed slaves, a guard dog and a guy who was forced to do sex services, go on a journey together and the Romantic finds out he is actually a chosen one. And can fuel the power of The Seven Deadly Sins, that are the basis of the magic system on this world. Neither the guard dog nor the romantic have pleasant personalities, but now they'll have to save the world ^v^

#oc ideas #story ideas #my wips #ocs tag #my ocs #The Oc Masterpost #i have to add them there #but just to save and compilate #i promised myself id let them go but i love these so much #btw feel free to ask me stuff about them #i may never talk a thing about there BUT #i have so much lore #you can tell i have my favorite tropes #sex ment tw #implied noncon #the new one doesn't have much thought behind it because its literally 1 day old in my mind but i rlly like The Vibes #*sighs* uh #i will have to go through my wips to see which will become ufos and which will be deleted and which will be continued #AND remake the oc masterpost that is outdated #anyways i love these stories in particuar #i am very fond of them #specially the venera one #they have designs even #oh yea gabriel and toriel too #this chosen hero one is made with my friend :)

[toxicentity405]

It’s been a while since I’ve drawn my courier. So, here she is in my slightly updated art-style.

#fallout new vegas #fnv #courier six #courier oc #venera dubrovhsky #my art #I hate shading

[mariacallous]

I just really love this dress

#also I really enjoy venera gimadieva's singing

[riotgrrrlhole]

A polka footwork sequence of a Russian Romani Workshop I took a year ago

#i think I’m gonna try to practice dance stuff again more often #it cheered me up #Russian Romani dance #also my shoes suck and the footwork is kinda bad at the end haha #also this is a combo of Venera Ferrar

[shellibisshe]

CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER - OUTWORLD OCS

enid belongs to @bloodofvalyria, inara belongs to @loriane-elmuerto, nazira and su belong to @jendoe, odette belongs to @perpetuagf, vyllaki belongs to @ghostfvcker, and xinbei belongs to @bloodskinandteeth

[template by @unholymilf] [icons]

tag list! check out this post if you would like to be added! @malefiquinn @risingsh0t @kyber-infinitygems @gwynbleidd @captastra @swanfey @statichvm @xtinafrye @calenhads @poetikat @nonfunctioning-queer @dickytwister @inafieldofdaisies

#mortal kombat #hi. look at them #also sorry yall ur gonna have to click on the images #my edits #happy early birthday aj btw #enid malice #inara daiyu #nazira akhmet #odette haliçi #sayuri anam #su ming tian #venera mai #vyllaki nanoya #tatiana “xinbei” reyoh #if theres spelling mistakes i literally do not need to know

[queenofnohr]

i love saint venera she’s soooooooooooooooooooooo mwah mwah mwah

girl u are so pathetic it’s insane (you’re insane)

she just wants to be loved she wants to be a bride that’s it that’s all but all her beloveds keep dying no surprises as to the cause

she suffers from passionlip syndrome in that she thinks she’s totally normal. she doesn’t understand why people are mean to her while simultaneously having 0 self-reflection to realize that she’ll start stalking the people she likes and doing absolutely deranged shit until she eventually kills them

the eye that’s covered she pulled out to give to one of her beloveds like a cat bringing home an unwanted dead mouse

#i hope asha's player makes her counterpart moros shard soon i want to imagine them in cute situations #'cute' #saint venera tag

[vampireoccult]

late night simlish lessons...

#ts4 gp #ts4 gameplay #ts4 #gp: faust munch fam #the way milo IMMEDIATELY got an attraction moodlet when i added her to the household lmfao #venera reciprocated pretty quickly as well lol #but then every time ven tries to flirt w/ him bc of the language barrier she 9/10 gets an embarrassed moodlet lmao #plus she has the cringe trait bc she has an earnest zest for life & an interest in human culture #beyond...biology... #milo munch #venera cassini #gp: munch spawn

[jestiamy]

fighting my demons (urge to spend five hours going really in depth on the venera 'evil'/antagonist au) to the death during the character ask game so I can finish it within less then. five years.

#venera. #ask games are. surprisingly fun. 10/10 would do again #(actively fighting the urge to spam a lot on my page) (I apparently REALLY like info dumping about my ocs) #saying stuff