From studying the dusty surface of Mars, to plunging into the atmosphere of Venus, over the last 60 years, we've launched hundreds of probes into space on trajectories to visit each of the terrestrial planets.
But for all the fascinating discoveries made on the way, humanity's journey towards the stars started out in a much darker place- a battlefront between the world's then two great competing superpowers.
And in this first episode on my new series on probes, we will revisit this space race, and the major milestones on route to visiting each of the terrestrial planets.
There will be two other episodes of this series in late November and mid-December, eventually covering all of the planets and beyond!
00:00 | Introduction
02:32 | The Space Race
04:48 | Pioneer Probes
07:32 | Mariner Probes
09:55 | Mariner 4 Mars Mission
12:27 | Mariner 6 & 7
14:27 | Mars Orbiters
17:05 | Landing on Mars
18:57 | Landing on Venus
21:30 | The Viking Probes
26:12 | Mercury Missions
33:00 | Mars Rover Missions
38:16 | Closing Statements