In fact, the capsule could also burn up on reentry. Sure, it's a Venera-8 double designed to enter Venus' atmosphere at 11.6km/s... but it has extra mass on it (the upper stage never separated so it should look like [1]) and the capsule's CoG doesn't take all that stuff into account, which might cause it to tumble, reenter backwards, or damage it. On the other hand, it's reentering from a really low-energy orbit so it could survive the reentry - but not the impact in case it lands on the ground.

[1] https://epizodyspace.ru/01/2u/solnthe/ams/v-8/v-8.html

I think it's a safe bet that any descent mechanism designed for the thick atmosphere of Venus is not going to function the same way on Earth.

http://www.astronautix.com/v/venera.html via https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4384/1 via Wikipedia article on the probe.

For Venus it is unlikely to need anything like that, as the expected flight duration was much shorter (quite important for not very durable Soviet electronics) and main issue would be actually cooling.

That said, I wonder whether with advances in material science and the likes they could build something that lasts longer.

Reading my uncle’s old tech magazines and sci-fi from the 70’s was fascinating. Eastern European sci fi was all about colonizing Venus and the Venera landers. The way kids in USA are obsessed with Mars, kids in my part of Europe used to be obsessed with Venus before the influx of Western media.

Getting to grow up on the cusp of that vibe shift was cool.

The photos, the huge effort involved, and general strangeness of Venus is a great read. Lots of good youtube docs as well.

Edit: Oop, missed that someone else posted a link to that same site (different page) a while before me. Well, nevertheless.

It’s sad that I will probably not live long enough to see a better quality picture of the Venusian hellscape.

Some of it came down in New Zealand in 1972, the Soviets didn't own up to it, so the farmer kept it.