Back to the moon

[Gogolinius]

Armstrong 1969 .. they did not fake it sorry

Eagler

My parents lived in Moscow in 1969. I've had many conversations with them on the topic of the space race. The USSR, which had the technical capability to track the flight all the way to and from the moon, never made any serious attempts to deny it happened - and this was at the height of the cold war, when propagandizing American lies and failures were at a peak. How people with no technical (or mental) capability to speak of, try to today, defies reason.

Instead they took another route, and claimed that they were never in a space race to begin with - though surveillance images of Baikonur space launch facility showed clear signs of multiple failed launch attempts of very large and very powerful rockets, the very kind which would be required for lunar missions.

I'm sure Putin's government gets a kick out of modern denialism, though.

I view moon landing conspiracy theorists as one step removed from flat-Earthers, and the intersection between the two groups is usually pretty thorough.

[Chalenge]

American technologies really got a giant boost as a result of the original space program. We will benefit again with a return to the moon.

People in the Philippines still drink Tang!

[spudman]

The USSR had a manned moon rocket program the N1. I think it is still the most powerful rocket ever built but unfortunately unsuccessful in the 4 launches attempted. One of the launches resulted in the largest non nuclear explosion.

[morfiend]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSwopPDl3Oo


The world of tomorrow…

[Eagler]

You will be arrested for just making a fist and saying that today

Eagler

[bj229r]

I remember about the time Apollo 11 landed, the Russians had some kind of non-manned thing crash on the moon

[Gogolinius]

I remember about the time Apollo 11 landed, the Russians had some kind of non-manned thing crash on the moon

They landed a few. Give credit where it's due. Nevertheless, they fell far short of their ambitions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_programme

[MiloMorai]

I remember about the time Apollo 11 landed, the Russians had some kind of non-manned thing crash on the moon

Apollo 1 fire
On Jan. 27, 1967, a fire ignited in the Apollo 1 command module in the middle of a launch rehearsal. All three astronauts inside the module — Roger Chaffee, Ed White and Virgil "Gus" Grissom — died in the blaze.

An investigation later found that a stray spark, likely from damaged wires, started the fire. The module's pure-oxygen environment and flammable interior fed the conflagration. And the astronauts couldn't escape, because the hatch door opened inward and the pressure inside from the fire was so great that the astronauts couldn't pull the door open.

"It [the fire] both threatened the [Apollo 11] mission and made the mission possible," said Robert Pearlman, a U.S. space historian and the founder and editor of collectSpace. "It did set back the program for a year; they didn't fly again until 1968. But it also gave NASA the opportunity to step back, rethink its priorities."

NASA redesigned the hatch and enacted other safety measures, which ensured that the Apollo 11 mission wouldn't face similar obstacles in space.

[bj229r]

https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/cosmonaut-crashed-into-earth-crying-in-rage

It would be, Brezhnev hoped, a Soviet triumph on the 50th anniversary of the Communist revolution. Brezhnev made it very clear he wanted this to happen.

The problem was Gagarin. Already a Soviet hero, the first man ever in space, he and some senior technicians had inspected the Soyuz 1 and had found 203 structural problems — serious problems that would make this machine dangerous to navigate in space. The mission, Gagarin suggested, should be postponed.

The question was: Who would tell Brezhnev? Gagarin wrote a 10-page memo and gave it to his best friend in the KGB, Venyamin Russayev, but nobody dared send it up the chain of command. Everyone who saw that memo, including Russayev, was demoted, fired or sent to diplomatic Siberia. With less than a month to go before the launch, Komarov realized postponement was not an option. He met with Russayev, the now-demoted KGB agent, and said, "I'm not going to make it back from this flight."

Russayev asked, Why not refuse? According to the authors, Komarov answered: "If I don't make this flight, they'll send the backup pilot instead." That was Yuri Gagarin. Vladimir Komarov couldn't do that to his friend. "That's Yura," the book quotes him saying, "and he'll die instead of me. We've got to take care of him." Komarov then burst into tears.

On launch day, April 23, 1967, a Russian journalist, Yaroslav Golovanov, reported that Gagarin showed up at the launch site and demanded to be put into a spacesuit, though no one was expecting him to fly. Golovanov called this behavior "a sudden caprice," though afterward some observers thought Gagarin was trying to muscle onto the flight to save his friend. The Soyuz left Earth with Komarov on board.

Once the Soyuz began to orbit the Earth, the failures began. Antennas didn't open properly. Power was compromised. Navigation proved difficult. The next day's launch had to be canceled. And worse, Komarov's chances for a safe return to Earth were dwindling fast.

All the while, U.S. intelligence was listening in. The National Security Agency had a facility at an Air Force base near Istanbul. Previous reports said that U.S. listeners knew something was wrong but couldn't make out the words. In this account, an NSA analyst, identified in the book as Perry Fellwock, described overhearing Komarov tell ground control officials he knew he was about to die. Fellwock described how Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin called on a video phone to tell him he was a hero. Komarov's wife was also on the call to talk about what to say to their children. Kosygin was crying.

When the capsule began its descent and the parachutes failed to open, the book describes how American intelligence "picked up [Komarov's] cries of rage as he plunged to his death."

[spudman]

Soviet version of Major Tom?

[bj229r]

I bet Earth is the Alabama of the universe and we don't even know it

[-gg-]

My parents lived in Moscow in 1969. I've had many conversations with them on the topic of the space race. The USSR, which had the technical capability to track the flight all the way to and from the moon, never made any serious attempts to deny it happened - and this was at the height of the cold war, when propagandizing American lies and failures were at a peak. How people with no technical (or mental) capability to speak of, try to today, defies reason.

Instead they took another route, and claimed that they were never in a space race to begin with - though surveillance images of Baikonur space launch facility showed clear signs of multiple failed launch attempts of very large and very powerful rockets, the very kind which would be required for lunar missions.

I'm sure Putin's government gets a kick out of modern denialism, though.

I view moon landing conspiracy theorists as one step removed from flat-Earthers, and the intersection between the two groups is usually pretty thorough.

That's very interesting.

where do your parents live now? Did they get out of the USSR?

[Elfie]

where do your parents live now? Did they get out of the USSR?

They went looking for Boroda and haven't been seen since...

[Gogolinius]

That's very interesting.

where do your parents live now? Did they get out of the USSR?

We came here in 1981. I was 4. Lived in Maryland, and then Delaware. Mom lives in Bethany beach now.

[CptTrips]

I bet Earth is the Alabama of the universe and we don't even know it

At least we are not the Florida.