Russia gains lead in space race

The initial reaction of experts in this country to the successful Soviet probe of the planet Venus is that the Russians have once again excelled the U.S. in “spacemanship”. It is admitted here [Washington] that the Soviet feat of parachuting a space capsule through Venus’s atmospheric layer (there is some doubt among scientists here as to whether the capsule survived the intense heat on Venus and actually landed intact on the planet’s surface) puts the Russians at least four years ahead of the U.S. American scientists, it is said, have yet to perfect a parachuting technique for their Venus vehicles.