First Spaceship on Venus

Originally released in 1960 as "Der Schweigende Stern", the English-dubbed version "First Spaceship on Venus" (1962) begins with the discovery of an alien "spool" that proves there was life on Venus. A crack team of international scientists hop into their spaceship, The Cosmokrater, and charge off to Venus to check things out. What they find is chilling—and deadly. Will they be able to save Earth from the Venusians' atomic plans?

Directed by Stanislaw Lem, the Polish sci-fi author of "Solaris", "First Spaceship" explores the dangers of technology. As the explorers conclude, the Venusians developed their technology beyond a point they could control—leading to disaster. This theme is a staple for speculative fiction: whether manifesting as Frankenstein's monster or a forest of devices designed to exterminate life on Earth, the dangers in fiction are but a thin mask for human concerns about the flip side of the science and technology we love.