Even as the Apollo 14 astronauts went through final preparations last week for their mission to the moon, word of a remarkable Soviet achievement raised further doubts about U.S. emphasis on costly and risky manned space flights. In Moscow, Russian scientists belatedly revealed that the unmanned space probe Venera 7, which reached Venus on Dec. 15, had survived its descent through the murky Venusian atmosphere and continued to function after landing. Its radio transmissions carried the first scientific data to be transmitted to earth from the surface of another planet.
Venera 7 remained alive for 23 minutes on the hostile surface...
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