Venus Revisited

Venus has long been an irresistible target for Russian space scientists, who have sent at least nine unmanned probes arcing toward the cloud-shrouded planet --compared with only four sent by the U.S. Last week, as Venus moved into a favorable position once more (as it does every 18 months), the Soviets launched two more ships on the four-month, 230 million-mile journey.

Guarded as usual, the Russians said only that Venera 9 and 10 were a "new type of spacecraft" that would make scientific explorations of Venus and its environment. Western observers expected the ships to attempt soft landings on the scalding Venusian surface, where the temperature is more than 1,000DEG F.--hot enough to melt lead--and atmospheric pressure is 90 times that of the earth's at sea level.

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