>>17822692
>first craft on different planet (venus)
Reality:
>Venera 3 became the first human-made object to impact another planet's surface as it crash-landed on 1 March 1966. However, as the spacecraft's data probes had failed upon atmospheric penetration, no data from within the Venusian atmosphere were retrieved from the mission.
That's pretty much the Soviet space program in a nutshell. Their disregard for safety and redundancy in the name of being "first" meant their early missions had no real value to them.
The first Soviet spacecraft (Sputnik) was just a metal ball that made noise, the first American Spacecraft (Explorer 1) actually had useful scientific instruments.
While the Soviets just wanted to be the first, Americas response was to focus on application.