Artists' impressions always played key role in promoting the ideas of space travel, forming our view of future, preparing people for the upcoming of manned or unmanned cosmic missions, spreading the visions of astronomical scientists and aerospace engineers.

Mad Men reintroduced us to the American advertising aesthetic of the 1960s, but they don't hold a candle to the visual wonder (and occasional oddity) of early Soviet and pre-Soviet print ads. Here are a few of our favorite ways advertisers peddled soap, tobacco, gunpowder, and more.

According to the fresh news from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory there is a chance that four pieces of hardware from a spacecraft that the Soviet Union landed on Mars in 1971 appear in images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Krampnitz Kaserne was a massive military complex, housing in its history members of not just the Nazi military but also the Soviet military. Now, aside from the occasional urban explorer and movie crew, the complex sits abandoned, though some chilling reminders of its wartime existence still remain.

Even before Laika set paw in Sputnik 2, Soviet researchers sent dogs into higher altitudes than any canine creature had traveled before. To help keep those dogs safe—and to test the equipment that would allow humans to eventually reach orbit—these scientists created high pressure suits, complete with helmets fitted to…

Once upon a time, these preserved human and animal brains were once lovingly studied by Soviet-era neuroscientists. But when the lab was abandoned — perhaps in a hurry — these lonely brains were left behind.

The selling point of Yakov Protazanov's 1924 silent film Aelita: Queen of Mars isn't its plot, but its elaborate Constructivist sets and costuming that were highly experimental for the 1920s and predated the futurist aesthetic of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

The Soviet Union may be a thing of the past, but it still inhabits many an alternate future. A group of artists entered their futuristic visions for a Soviet Republic in "CCCP-2061," which envisions a USSR that has colonized Mars.

The Soviet lunar program was covered up, forgotten after failing to put a man on the moon. These rare photos from a lab inside the Moscow Aviation Institute show a junkyard of rarely-seen spacecraft, including a never-to-be-used Russian lunar lander.

Ever wondered what happened to the corpses of Hitler, Eva Braun, and Goebbels? Russia has just released the official story of what happened after the KGB grabbed the corpses in Berlin.