Fifty years ago to day a space ship passed by the planet Venus. The Earthlings had named the space craft “Mariner 2″ and sent it to Venus for purely scientific purposes. Interplanetary domination was never the intention of this or any other Earth mission.
And that began the story of planetary exploration as we know it.
I believe Mariner 2 was the 13th exploratory un-personed space mission by NASA.