
The first photograph taken from the surface of Mars (1976) - gw5815
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_910.html
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julianpye
Also really cool are the first pictures from Venus from the USSR Venera
missions:
[http://www.space.com/18551-venera-13.html](http://www.space.com/18551-venera-13.html)

The environmental challenge here was of course far greater than for Mars.

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peter303
I am old enough to remember watching come in live on TV. It was painfully slow
in those days: They showed the image build up scanline by scanline over tens
of minutes. I forget which TV station had the patience to do this. Wouldnt
happen nowadays.

~~~
mseebach
There's no shortage of willingness to cover excruciatingly boring stories, as
long as a "Breaking News" label can be slapped on it. I'm talking about live
feeds from closed doors, behind which someone may or may not be having an
important conversation, which may or may not conclude in the near future, and
when it does, that person may or may not exit through this door. So why not a
slowly appearing picture from another planet?

They'll probably run it split screen along with a panel of bickering
"analysts", though.

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avian
The technology used to record images from these early landings is quite
interesting as well. It's pretty exotic if all you're used to are modern CCD
sensors.

More on Viking Lander Camera System:

[http://pdsimage.wr.usgs.gov/cdroms/Viking_Lander/vl_0001/doc...](http://pdsimage.wr.usgs.gov/cdroms/Viking_Lander/vl_0001/document/volinfo.htm#S04)

Details about Soviet space cameras:

[http://mentallandscape.com/V_Cameras.htm](http://mentallandscape.com/V_Cameras.htm)

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adrianhoward
First image of _Mars_ ever taken from the surface of Mars — yes.

The first image _from_ Mars (although from all accounts not actually a
successful picture of the martian surface) goes to the 70 scan lines that poor
old Mars-3 sent in 1971
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3#Entry.2C_descent.2C_lan...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3#Entry.2C_descent.2C_landing.2C_and_transmission_failure)

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deepnet
Viking 1 Orbiter, Photo No. AC85-0760-4 -- Early morning clouds in Noctis
Labyrinthus on the Planet Mars. Condensate clouds are seen here in early
morning in the canyons of Labyrinthus Noctis, which lies at the western end of
the equatorial Valles Marineris system.

[http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/images/content/73476main_Ma...](http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/images/content/73476main_Marsclouds.jpg)

and

Viking II's photo of Water Ice on Utopia Planitia " This high-resolution color
photo of the surface of Mars was taken by Viking Lander 2 at its Utopia
Planitia landing site on May 18, 1979, and relayed to Earth by Orbiter 1 on
June 7. It shows a thin coating of water ice on the rocks and soil. "

[http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00571](http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00571)

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jakejake
It's mind-boggling to me the effort it must have taken to get to Mars and send
back photographs with the technology available in the 1970's. We're walking
around with more computing power in our pocket than was probably available to
all of NASA back then!

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colinprince
I love the Viking missions.

Also, the first images from the surface of Venus:

[http://www.unbelievable-facts.com/2013/08/the-soviets-
landed...](http://www.unbelievable-facts.com/2013/08/the-soviets-landed-
spacecraft-on-venus.html)

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jakeogh
The Avaneya project created software to decode the Viking Lander tapes. A few
tapes contain images that were (as far as I know) never released. Beautiful
results:
[https://gist.github.com/jakeogh/fa995a3277d500ab59b1](https://gist.github.com/jakeogh/fa995a3277d500ab59b1)

[https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Avaneya:_Viking_Lander_Remast...](https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Avaneya:_Viking_Lander_Remastered_DVD)

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ddingus
That's engineering. They had nothing compared to what we have today, and they
got it done. Love it.

