This is a question about early planetary missions. It looks like there was only one early (unsuccessful) landing mission to Mars and that subsequently Venus became the target for interplanetary landings. Here's my question:
Why was Venus prioritized when (at least with modern technology) the surface of Mars seems way easier to explore, and e.g. send back amazing images? Does this have something to do with the difficulty of getting there? Something with the fact that we didn't know about the extremeness of Venus' atmosphere? Or was there a non-technology related reason that deemed the Venus as the more exciting destination?
