Russia's space agency chief declares Venus a "Russian planet"

Even Trump hasn't said something this outrageous, at least not yet.  By this Russians reasoning, it would mean that the U.S. owns the moon.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/venus-russian-planet-space-agency-chief-claims/

 By Alexandra Odynova

September 17, 2020 / 2:43 PM

If there is life on Venus, it might want to start learning Russian. The boss of Russia's government space agency has claimed it as a "Russian planet."

The bold territorial claim comes on the heels of scientific research suggesting life could exist on Earth's celestial neighbor, the second planet from the sun.

Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin, who's known for espousing unconventional scientific views — and for frequently sarcastic anti-Western rhetoric — said this week that Russia wants to send its own mission to Venus, in addition to an already-proposed joint venture with the United States called "Venera-D."

"We think that Venus is a Russian planet, so we shouldn't lag behind," Rogozin, a former deputy prime minister, told reporters on Tuesday. He noted that the Soviet Union was "the first and the only one" to land a spacecraft on Venus.

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NASA's Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to fly by Venus and measure its extreme surface temperature in 1962. The Soviet Union launched several "Venera" spacecraft, and in 1970 Venera 7 became the first spacecraft to make a successful soft landing on the planet, though it melted within seconds.

Its successor Venera 9 took the first image, and the only one to date, of the Venusian surface from the ground-level perspective.

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