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DVD: www.amazon.com thefilmarchive.org First Spaceship on Venus, German: Der schweigende Stern (en: The Silent Star), Polish: Milcząca Gwiazda, is a 1960 East German/Polish film directed by Kurt Maetzig and based on the novel The Astronauts by Stanisław Lem. The film is also known as Planet of the Dead, Silent Star and Spaceship Venus Does Not Reply A much shortened 1962 Crown International Pictures English dubbed release inthe USA used the name First Spaceship on Venus where it was double billed with Varan the Unbelievable. Lem disowned the movie.[citation needed] First Spaceship on Venus was featured in episodes of both Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Cinema Insomnia. The film begins in 1985, when engineers involvedin an industrial project to irrigate the Gobi Desert accidentally unearth a mysterious and apparently artificial "spool." When found to be made of a material unknown on Earth, the spool is circumstantially linked to the Tunguska explosion of 1908. The "spool" is seized on as evidence that the explosion, originally blamed on a meteor, was actually caused by a spaceship. Professor Harringway deduces the alien craft must have come from {[Venus]]. The spool itself is determined to be a flight recorder, and partially decoded by an international team of scientists led by Professor Sikarna and Dr. Tchen Yu. When radio greetings sent to Venus go unanswered, Harringway announces that a journey to Venus is Earth's only alternative. The recently-completed Cosmokrator...