Just watched LEMMiNO's video about early human predictions about our neighbourly planets and I was reminded of the peculiar trend of the Soviets going for Venus missions and the Americans for Mars.
Just a couple of coincidences or is there a nationwide obsession I am not aware of?
I actually asked this question before and got some answers from the likes of u/throfofnir
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/jdmhsl/why_did_the_soviet_space_program_put_such/