To the 40th anniversary of the flight of the American spacecraft "Apollo-11"
"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"Thatisonesmallstepforaman,onegiantleapfor mankind) - these words were said by Neil Armstrong when the first man stepped on the surface of the moon. This landmark event took place 40 years ago, on July 20, 1969.
1. Twice two questions
As the decades passed, many legends and speculations developed around the topic of human visitation to the Moon. The most famous and sensational of them is that American astronauts did not land on the surface of the Moon, and all television reports about the landing and the Apollo program itself were a grandiose hoax. Some wisecrackers have even reworded Armstrong's phrase about "humanity's giant leap" into "humanity's giant swindle." The "irrefutable argument" in favor of the fact that people were not on the moon is already devoted to extensive literature and dozens, if not hundreds of films shot in different countries and in different languages.
Almost simultaneously with this, at the end of the 1980s, in the (then still) USSR, information was made public about the presence in the 1960s-1970s. Soviet program of manned flights to the moon. It became known that in the USSR it was also planned to first fly around the moon by astronauts, and then land on the surface of our natural satellite.
However, the leadership of the USSR, as well as the United States, saw only political meaning in landing on the moon.
After the flight of Apollo 11, it became clear that the Soviet Union was hopelessly behind the United States in the implementation of the lunar program. According to the leaders of the CPSU, the flight of Soviet cosmonauts to the moon under such conditions would not have had the desired effect in the rest of the world. Therefore, the Soviet lunar program was frozen at a stage already close to manned flight, and it was officially announced that the USSR had never had such a program. That the USSR was moving in an alternative way and focused not on political prestige, but on scientific research of the moon with the help of automatic devices in which our astronautics has indeed achieved great success. This is the most popular explanation for why Soviet cosmonauts never repeated the achievements of their American rivals.
So, in the historiography (if I may say so) of the lunar problem, two differently solved questions now dominate:
1. Did the Americans land on the moon?
2. Why was the Soviet lunar program not completed?
If you look closely, then both questions are interrelated, and the very formulation of the second is, as it were, the answer to the first. Indeed, if the Soviet lunar program really existed and was already close to being realized, why can't it be assumed that the Americans were able to really bring their Apollo program to life?
Another question that follows from here. If Soviet space specialists had even the slightest doubt about the authenticity of the fact of the American landing on the moon, would the Soviet leadership, proceeding precisely from the political goals of the lunar program, not bring it to the end only in order to convict the Americans of the universal lie and inflict the most mortal blow to the international prestige of the United States, while simultaneously raising the authority of the USSR to an unprecedented height?
Although these two questions already contain the answer to the very first one, let's deal with everything in order. Let's start with the official version of the history of the Apollo program.
2. How a German genius took the Yankees into space
The successes of American rocket science are associated primarily with the name of the famous German designer Baron Wernher von Braun, the creator of the first combat ballistic missiles V-2 (V-2). At the end of the war, Brown, along with other German experts in the field of advanced military technology, was taken to the United States.
However, the Americans did not trust Brown to conduct serious research for a long time. While working in the Huntsville, Alabama arsenal on short-range rockets, Brown continued to design advanced launch vehicles (LVs) capable of reaching space velocity. But the contract for the creation of such a rocket and satellite was received by the US Navy.
In July 1955, US President Dwight Eisenhower publicly promised that his country would soon launch the first artificial Earth satellite (AES). However, it was easier said than done. If we have the genius of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev quite quickly created fundamentally new missile systems, then the Americans did not have home-grown masters of this level.
Several unsuccessful attempts by the Navy to launch its invariably exploding rocket prompted the Pentagon to treat the former SS Sturmbannfuehrer, who became a US citizen in 1955, more favorably.
In 1956, Wernher von Braun received a contract to develop the Jupiter-S intercontinental ICBM and satellite.
In 1957, the news of the successful launch of the Soviet satellite sounded like a bolt from the blue for the Americans. It became clear that the United States was significantly behind the USSR in terms of penetration into space. After another failure of the Navy with the launch of its launch vehicle, the main work on the creation of promising launch vehicles and satellites was concentrated in Brown's hands. This area of activity was withdrawn from the Pentagon. For her, in 1958, a special structure was created - the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under the US federal government.
Brown headed the John Marshall Space Center, which became NASA's Space Flight Center in 1960. Under his leadership, 2 thousand employees worked (then more), concentrated in 30 departments. All of the department heads were originally German, former employees of Brown's V-2 program. On February 1, 1958, the first successful launch of the Jupiter-S launch vehicle and the launch of the first American satellite Explorer-1 into orbit took place. But the crown of Wernher von Braun's life was his Saturn V rocket and the Apollo program.
3. On the way to the moon
The year 1961 was marked by a new triumph of Soviet science and technology. On April 12, Yuri Gagarin made the first flight on the Vostok spacecraft (SC). In an effort to create the appearance of covering the backlog from the USSR, on May 5, 1961, the Americans launched the Redstone-3 launch vehicle from the Mercury spacecraft along a ballistic trajectory. The first American astronaut officially considered as such, Alan Bartlett Shepard (who later went to the Moon), spent only 15 minutes in space and made a splashdown in Atlantic Ocean only 300 miles from the launch site at Cape Canaveral. The cosmic speed of his spacecraft never reached. The next quarter-hour suborbital flight of Mercury (astronaut Virgil E. Grissom) took place on July 21, 1961.
As if in mockery, on August 6-7, the second full-fledged orbital flight of the Soviet spacecraft took place. Cosmonaut German Titov on Vostok-2 spent 25 hours and 18 minutes in space, making 17 revolutions around the Earth during this time. The first normal orbital flight for the Americans turned out only on February 20, 1962 (astronaut John H. Glenn) thanks to the new, more powerful Atlas launch vehicle. The spacecraft "Mercury" made only 3 revolutions around the Earth, having spent less than five hours in orbit.
In 1961, US President John F. Kennedy proclaimed a kind of "national project" designed to put an end to the US lagging behind the USSR in the space field and overcome the inferiority complex that arose among the Americans.
He promised that the Americans would land on the moon before the Russians, and that this would happen before the end of the 1960s. From now on, any manned space flight programs in the United States (the next was the Gemini project) were subordinated to one goal - the preparation of a landing on the moon. This was the start of the Apollo project. True, Kennedy did not live to see its implementation.
Landing on the moon required the solution of two very difficult technical problems. The first is maneuvering, undocking and docking of spacecraft modules in near-Earth and near-lunar orbits. The second is the creation of a sufficiently powerful launch vehicle capable of giving the payload, consisting of a two-module spacecraft, three astronauts and life support systems (LSS), the second space velocity (11.2 km / s).
In the course of the flights of the Gemini spacecraft around the Earth, there has already been a tendency to overcome the backlog of the United States from the USSR in solving complex problems for spacecraft and man in space. Gemini 3 (crewed by V.I. Grissom and John W. Young) on March 23, 1965, made the first maneuver in space using manual control. In June 1965, astronaut Edward H. White left Gemini 4 and spent 21 minutes in outer space (three months earlier, our Alexei Leonov - 10 minutes). In August 1965, the crew of Gemini 5 (L. Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad) set a new world record for the duration of an orbital flight - 191 hours. For comparison: at that time, the Soviet record for the duration of an orbital flight, set in 1963 by the pilot of Vostok-5, Valery Bykovsky, was 119 hours.
And in December 1965, the Gemini 7 crew (Frank Borman and James A. Lovell) completed 206 orbits in 330 and a half hours! During this flight, Gemini-6A (Walter M. Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford) approached at a distance of less than two meters (!), and in this position both spacecraft made several revolutions around the Earth. Finally, in March 1966, the Gemini 8 crew (Neil A. Armstrong and David R. Scott) made the first orbital docking with the unmanned Agena module.
The first spacecraft of the Apollo series were unmanned. On them, the elements of the flight to the moon were worked out in automatic mode. The first test of the new powerful Saturn-5 launch vehicle was carried out in November 1967 in a block with the Apollo-4 spacecraft. The third stage of the launch vehicle gave the module a speed of about 11 km / s and put it into an elliptical orbit with an apogee of 18 thousand km, after which the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere. On "Apollo-5" in February 1968, different modes of operation of the lunar module were simulated in an unmanned satellite orbit.
"Saturn-5" is still the most powerful launch vehicle in history.
The launch weight of the launch vehicle was 3,000 tons, of which 2,000 tons was the weight of the first stage fuel. The weight of the second stage is 500 tons. Two stages took the third with a two-module spacecraft into the satellite orbit. The third stage gave the spacecraft, consisting of an orbital compartment with a sustainer engine and a lunar cabin, divided into landing and takeoff stages, the second space velocity. Saturn-5 was capable of launching a payload weighing up to 150 tons into low-Earth orbit (including the weight of the third stage with full tanks), and on the flight path to the Moon - 50 tons. At the cosmodrome, this entire structure rose to a height of 110 m.
The first manned flight under the Apollo program took place in October 1968. Apollo 7 (Walter M. Schirra - the first man to fly into space three times, Donn F. Eisele, R. Walter Cunningham) made 163 revolutions around the Earth lasting 260 hours, which exceeded the calculated one when flying to the Moon and back. On December 21, 1968, Apollo 8 (Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, for whom this was the third space flight, and William A. Anders) set off on the first manned flight to the Moon in history. In fact, at first it was planned to work out by the crew all the elements of a flight to the Moon in satellite orbit, but the lunar descent vehicle (lunar cabin) was not yet ready. Therefore, it was decided to first fly around the moon on the orbital module. Apollo 8 made 10 orbits around the moon.
According to some reports, it was this flight that became decisive in the freezing of the Soviet leadership of its own lunar program: now our lagging behind the Americans has become obvious.
The crew of Apollo 9 (James A. McDivitt, David R. Scott, Russell L. Schweikart) in March 1969 performed all the maneuvers associated with the undocking and docking of modules, the transition of astronauts from one compartment to another through a sealed joint no spacewalk. And Apollo 10 (Thomas P. Stafford and John W. Young - for both it was the third flight into space, Eugene A. Cernan) in May 1969 did all the same, but already in lunar orbit! The orbital (command) compartment made 31 revolutions around the Moon. The lunar cabin, having undocked, performed two independent revolutions around the Moon, descending to a height of 15 km above the surface of the satellite! In general, all stages of the flight to the moon were completed, except, in fact, landing on it.
4. The first people on the moon
Apollo 11 (commander - Neil Alden Armstrong, lunar module pilot - Edwin Eugene Aldrin, orbital module pilot - Michael Collins; for all three it was the second flight into space) launched from Cape Canaveral on July 16, 1969. After checking the onboard systems, during one and a half turns in near-Earth orbit, the third stage was turned on and the spacecraft entered the flight path to the Moon. This journey took about three days.
The design of the Apollo required one major maneuver during the flight. The orbital module, docked with the lunar cabin with its tail section, where the sustainer engine was located, was undocked, made a 180-degree turn and docked to the lunar cabin with its nose section. After that, the spent third stage was separated from the spacecraft rebuilt in this way. The other six flights to the Moon followed the same pattern.
When approaching the Moon, the astronauts turned on the main engine of the orbital (command) module for braking and transfer to a lunar orbit. Then Armstrong and Aldrin moved to the lunar module, which was soon undocked from the orbital compartment and entered an independent orbit of the artificial satellite of the moon, choosing a landing site. On July 20, 1969, at 15:17 Eastern US time (23-17 Moscow time), the Apollo 11 lunar cabin made a soft landing on the Moon in the southwestern part of the Sea of Tranquility.
Six and a half hours later, after putting on spacesuits and depressurizing the lunar compartment, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the surface of the moon. It was then that he said his famous phrase.
Live television broadcast from the surface of the moon was carried out to hundreds of countries of the world. It was watched by 600 million people (out of a then world population of 3.5 billion) in six parts of the world, including Antarctica, as well as the socialist countries of Eastern Europe.
The USSR ignored this event.
“The lunar surface at the time of landing was brightly lit and resembled a desert on a hot day. Since the sky is black, one could imagine that one was on a sand-strewn sports ground at night, under the spotlights. Neither stars nor planets, with the exception of the Earth, were visible, ”Armstrong described his impressions. About the same thing he said to the TV camera and shortly after reaching the surface: “Like a high-mountainous desert in the United States. Unique beauty! “Great loneliness!” echoed Aldrin, who joined Armstrong 20 minutes later.
“The ground on the surface is soft and loose,” Armstrong reported of his impressions, “I easily raise dust with the toe of my shoe. I only sink an eighth of an inch into the ground, but I can see my footprints.” “The grayish-brown soil of the Moon,” wrote the November (1969) issue of the magazine “America”, published in the USSR, “turned out to be slippery, it stuck to the soles of the astronauts. When Aldrin inserted the pole into the ground, it seemed to him that the pole entered something damp. Subsequently, these "terrestrial" comparisons began to be used by skeptics to confirm the idea that the astronauts were not on the moon.
Returning to the lunar cabin, the astronauts pumped up oxygen, took off their spacesuits and, after resting, began to prepare for takeoff. The spent landing stage was undocked, and now the lunar module consisted of one takeoff stage. The total time the astronauts spent on the Moon was 21 hours and 37 minutes, of which the astronauts spent just over two hours outside the lunar cabin.
In orbit, the lunar compartment joined the main one, piloted by Michael Collins. He was destined for the most unenviable, but also the safest role in the lunar expedition - circling in orbit, waiting for his colleagues. Moving into the orbital compartment, the astronauts battened down the transfer hatch and undocked what was left of the lunar cabin. Now the spacecraft "Apollo 11" was one main block, which headed for Earth. The return trip was shorter than the trip to the Moon and was only two and a half days - falling to Earth is easier and faster than flying away from it.
The second moon landing took place on November 19, 1969. Apollo 12 crew members Charles Peter Conrad (the third flight into space; he made four of them in total) and Alan Laverne Bean stayed on the surface of the Moon for 31 hours and a half, of which 7.5 hours outside the spacecraft for two exits. In addition to installing scientific instruments, the astronauts dismantled a number of instruments from the American Surveyor-3 automatic spacecraft (ASA), which landed on the lunar surface in 1967, for delivery to Earth.
The Apollo 13 flight in April 1970 was unsuccessful. In flight, a serious accident occurred, there was a threat of failure of the LSS. Having forcedly canceled the landing on the Moon, the Apollo 13 crew flew around our natural satellite and returned to Earth in the same elliptical orbit. The commander of the ship, James Arthur Lovell, became the first person to fly to the moon twice (although he was never destined to visit its surface).
This seems to be the only flight to the moon that Hollywood has responded to with a feature film. Successful flights did not attract his attention.
The near-accident with Apollo 13 forced increased attention the reliability of all on-board QC systems. The next flight under the lunar program took place only in 1971.
On February 5, 1971, American astronaut veteran Alan Bartlett Shepard and newcomer Edgar Dean Mitchell landed on the moon near the Fra Mauro crater. They went to the lunar surface twice (more than four hours each time), and the total time spent by the Apollo 14 module on the Moon was 33 hours and 24 minutes.
On July 30, 1971, the Apollo 15 module landed on the lunar surface with David Randolph Scott (the third flight into space) and James Benson Irwin. For the first time, astronauts used a mechanical vehicle on the Moon - the "lunar car" - a platform with an electric motor with a power of only 0.25 horsepower. The astronauts made three excursions with a total duration of 18 hours and 35 minutes and traveled 27 kilometers on the Moon. The total time spent on the moon was 66 hours 55 minutes. Before starting from the moon, the astronauts left a television camera on its surface, which worked in automatic mode. She transmitted to the screens of terrestrial television the moment of takeoff of the lunar cabin.
The Lunar Vehicle was used by members of the next two expeditions. On April 21, 1972, Apollo 16 commander John Watts Young and lunar module pilot Charles Moss Duke landed at Descartes Crater. For Young, this was the second flight to the moon, but the first landing on it (in total, Young made six flights into space). Almost three days SC spent on the Moon. During this time, three excursions were made with a total duration of 20 hours and 14 minutes.
The last people to have walked on the moon to date, December 11-14, 1972, were Eugene Andrew Cernan (for whom, like Young, this was the second flight to the moon and the first landing on it) and Harrison Hagan Schmitt. The Apollo 17 crew set a number of records: they spent 75 hours on the Moon, of which 22 hours were outside spacecraft, traveled 36 km on the surface of the night star and brought back 110 kg of lunar rock samples.
By this point, the total cost of the Apollo program had exceeded $25 billion ($135 billion in 2005 prices), prompting NASA to curtail its further implementation. Scheduled flights on Apollo 18, -19 and -20 were cancelled. Of the three remaining Saturn-5 launch vehicles, one launched the only American Skylab orbital station into orbit in 1973, and the other two became museum exhibits.
The liquidation of the Apollo program and the cancellation of some other ambitious projects (in particular, a manned flight to Mars) were a disappointment for Wernher von Braun, who became NASA's deputy director of space flight planning in 1970, and may have hastened his death. Brown retired from NASA in 1972 and died five years later.
Having initially stimulated the start of the lunar programs of the USA and the USSR, the Cold War then directed the development of space technologies into the narrow channel of the arms race.
For the United States, the Space Shuttle program of reusable use became a priority, for the USSR - long-term orbital stations. It seemed that the world was heading irresistibly toward "star wars" in near-Earth space. The era of cosmic romance and the conquest of spaces was fading into the past...
5. Where does the doubt come from?
After several years, doubts began to be expressed: did the Americans really land on the moon? Now there is already a fairly large layer of literature and a rich film library proving that the Apollo program was a grandiose hoax. At the same time, there are two points of view among skeptics. According to one, the Apollo program did not carry out any space flights at all. The astronauts remained on Earth all the time, and the "moon shots" were filmed in a special secret laboratory, created by NASA specialists somewhere in the desert. More moderate skeptics recognize the possibility of real flybys of the moon by the Americans, but the landing moments themselves are considered fake and film editing.
Adherents of this sensational hypothesis have developed a detailed argument. The strongest argument, in their opinion, is that in the footage of the landing of astronauts on the moon, the lunar surface does not look like (again, in their understanding) it should look like. So, they believe that stars should be visible in the pictures, since there is no atmosphere on the moon. They also pay attention to the fact that in some pictures, supposedly, the position of the shadows indicates a very close, within a few meters, location of the light source. They also note an excessively close and, as it were, cropped horizon line.
The next group of arguments is related to the "wrong" behavior of material bodies. So, the US flag set by the astronauts waved as if under gusts of wind, while there was a vacuum on the Moon. Pay attention to the strange movement of astronauts in spacesuits. They argue that under conditions of gravity six times less than the earth's astronauts had to move huge (almost a dozen meters) jumps. And they assure that the strange gait of the astronauts just imitated, under the conditions of terrestrial gravity, a “hopping” movement on the Moon with the help of ... spring mechanisms in spacesuits.
They suggest that almost all the astronauts who flew, according to the official version, to the Moon subsequently refused to talk about their flights, give interviews, or write memoirs. Many went crazy, died mysterious deaths, and so on. For skeptics, this is proof that the astronauts experienced terrible stress associated with the need to hide some terrible secret.
It is curious that for ufologists, the strange behavior of many astronauts of the “lunar detachment” serves to prove something completely different, namely, that on the Moon they allegedly made contact with an extraterrestrial civilization!
Finally, the last group of arguments is based on the thesis that the technologies of the late 1960s and early 1970s did not allow three people to make a manned flight to the Moon and return to Earth. They point to the insufficient power of the then launch vehicles, and most importantly (an irresistible argument in our time!) - to the imperfection of computers! And here the skeptics contradict themselves. Thus, they are forced to admit that in those days there were no opportunities for computer-graphic simulation of the course of the lunar expedition!
Supporters of the authenticity of the landings of man on the moon have an equally detailed system of counterarguments. In addition to pointing out the internal contradictions of the skeptical theory, as well as the fact that its arguments can be used to prove several mutually exclusive points of view at once, which is logically considered an automatic refutation of all of them, they provide a physical explanation for the noted "oddities".
The first is the lunar sky, where no stars are visible. Try looking up at a clear sky at night from the bright light of a street lamp. Can you see even one star? But they are there: as soon as you move into the shadow of the lantern, the stars will show through. Looking at the lunar world in the brightest (in a vacuum!) light of the Sun through powerful light filters, both the astronauts and the “eye” of the TV camera, of course, could only capture the brightest objects – the lunar surface, the lunar cabin and people in space suits.
The moon is almost four times smaller than the Earth, so the curvature of the surface there is greater, and the horizon line is closer than we are used to. The effect of proximity is enhanced by the absence of air - objects on the horizon of the Moon are visible as clearly as those located near the observer.
Fluctuations of the foil flag occurred, of course, not under the influence of the wind, but according to the principle of a pendulum - the shaft was stuck with force into the lunar soil. In the future, he received more impulses for oscillations from the steps of the astronauts. The seismograph installed by them immediately caught the ground shaking caused by the movement of people. These oscillations, like any others, had a wave nature and were accordingly transmitted to the flag.
When we see astronauts in space suits on TV screens, we are always amazed at their clumsiness in such a bulky design. And on the Moon, despite a sixfold lower gravity, they would not be able to fly with all their desire, which for some reason was expected of them. They tried to move by jumping, but then they found that the earth step (in spacesuits) is also acceptable on the Moon. On the screens, Armstrong easily lifted a heavy (on Earth) toolbox and said with childish delight: “This is where you can throw any thing far!” However, skeptics claim that the scene was feigned, and that the box from which the astronauts then took out scientific equipment was ... empty at that moment.
The hoax would have to be too grandiose and long-term, and more than one thousand scientists would have to devote more than one thousand scientists to the secret!
It is unlikely that even a totalitarian state is capable of exercising such strict control over such a mass of people and preventing information leakage. The crew members of Apollo 11 installed a laser reflector on the Moon, which was then used for laser ranging from the Earth and determining the exact distance to the Moon. Was the location session also fabricated? Or were the reflector and other devices that transmitted signals to Earth until the 1980s all installed by machines?
The astronauts of all six expeditions that landed (according to the official version) on the Moon brought to Earth a total of 380 kg of samples of lunar rocks and lunar dust (for comparison: Soviet and American AKA - only 330 grams, which proves much more high efficiency manned flights compared to ASA for the study of celestial bodies). Were they all collected on Earth, and then passed off as lunar ones? Even those whose age is 4.6 billion years, what has no recognized analogues on Earth? However, skeptics say (and they are partly right) that no reliable methods for exact definition the age of such ancient rocks. And all these centners of lunar soil were allegedly brought to Earth by machine guns. Then why is their weight three orders of magnitude higher than that brought by all other AKAs combined? And if they are terrestrial, then why is their composition identical to the lunar soil delivered by automata to Earth or analyzed by our Lunokhods on the Moon itself?
It is also noteworthy that skeptics concentrate their efforts mainly on refuting the authenticity of the first landing of a man on the moon. Whereas, in order to confirm their theory, they need to separately refute the authenticity of each of the six officially occurring landings. What they don't do
As for the imperfection of the then technologies, the “deadly” of this argument reflects the inferiority of the consciousness of modern civilized humanity, which has put itself in a fatal dependence on computers.
Just at the turn of the 1960-1970s. civilization began to drastically change the paradigm of its development. The attitude to conquer space was replaced by the attitude to the production and use of information, moreover, for utilitarian, consumer purposes. This caused a surge in the development of computer technology, but at the same time put an end to the external expansion of mankind. Along the way, in the same years, the general attitude towards scientific progress began to change - from enthusiastic it first became restrained, and then negative began to prevail. This change in public sentiment was well reflected (and perhaps, to a certain extent, shaped) by Hollywood cinema, one of the textbook images of which was a scientist whose experiments and discoveries become a terrible threat to people's safety.
Most modern people, brought up in the categories of linear progress, find it difficult to imagine that even 40-50 years ago our civilization was in some respects higher (I would even say loftier) than it is now, more idealistic. Including in the field of technologies related to penetration into extraterrestrial space. This was facilitated by the competition of alternative socio-economic systems. The virus of self-satisfied all-consuming consumerism has not yet completely killed the romance and heroism of struggle and expansion.
Therefore, all references to the impossibility for the Americans to build a lunar spacecraft in the 1960s are simply untenable. In those years, the United States really overtook the USSR in many areas of space research. So, another triumph of the overseas power was the AKA Voyager program. In 1977, two vehicles of this series were launched to the distant planets of the solar system. The first flew near Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, the second explored all four giant planets. Thousands of stunning images were transmitted to Earth, which bypassed the pages of all popular science publications. The result was sensational scientific discoveries, in particular, dozens of new satellites of the outer planets, the rings of Jupiter and Neptune, and others. Is this also a hoax?! By the way, communication with both ASCs, which are now at a distance of 90 astronomical units (14.85 billion km) from the Earth and are already exploring interstellar space, is still maintained.
So there is no reason to deny the ability of the civilization of the second half of the last century, including the United States, to make a series of manned flights to the moon. Moreover, a similar program was carried out in the USSR.
Its presence and the degree of its development serve as the most important proof of the authenticity of the event that took place 40 years ago.
6. Why did our astronauts never go to the moon?
One of the answers to the question posed is that the Soviet leadership, unlike the American one, did not concentrate its main efforts on this direction. The development of cosmonautics in the USSR after the successful launches of satellites and the first manned flights became "multi-vector". The functions of satellite systems were expanded, spacecraft for near-Earth flights were improved, ASCs were launched to Venus and Mars. It seemed that the first successes in themselves created a fairly solid and long-term backlog of Soviet leadership in this area.
The second reason is that our specialists failed to solve many technical problems that arose during the implementation of the lunar program. Thus, Soviet designers were unable to create a sufficiently powerful launch vehicle, an analogue of Saturn-5. The prototype of such a missile is the RN N-1 (on the picture)- suffered a series of disasters. After that, work on it, in connection with the already completed flights of Americans to the moon, was curtailed.
The third reason was that, paradoxically, it was in the USSR, unlike the United States, that there was real competition between the options for lunar programs between the joint design bureaus (OKB). The political leadership of the USSR was faced with the need to choose a priority project, and due to its scientific and technical incompetence, it could not always make a good choice. Parallel support of two or more programs led to the dispersion of human and financial resources.
In other words, in the USSR, unlike the USA, the lunar program was not unified.
It consisted of various, often multifunctional projects that never merged into one. The programs for flying around the moon, landing on the moon, and creating a heavy launch vehicle were implemented largely separately.
Finally, the leadership of the USSR considered the landing of a man on the moon exclusively in a political context. For some reason, the lag behind the United States in the implementation of a manned flight to the moon was for some reason assessed by him as a worse admission of defeat than an “excuse” that the USSR did not have a lunar program at all. Few people believed in the latter even then, and the absence of a hint of at least trying to repeat the achievement of the Americans was perceived both in our society and throughout the world as a sign of a hopeless lag behind the United States in the field of space technology.
The project LK-1 ("Lunar ship-1"), which provided for a flight around the moon with one astronaut on board the spacecraft, was signed by the head of OKB-52 Vladimir Nikolaevich Chelomey on August 3, 1964. It was guided by the UR500K launch vehicle developed in the same design bureau (a prototype of the subsequent Proton launch vehicle, successfully tested for the first time on July 16, 1965). But in December 1965, the Politburo decided to concentrate all the practical work on the lunar program in Sergei Korolev's OKB-1. There were presented two projects.
The L-1 project provided for a crew of two to fly around the moon. Another (L-3), signed by Korolev back in December 1964, is a flight to the Moon of a crew of two people, with one astronaut landing on the surface of the Moon. Initially, the term for its implementation was appointed by Korolev for 1967-1968.
In 1966, the Chief Designer dies unexpectedly during an unsuccessful operation. Vasily Pavlovich Mishin becomes the head of OKB-1. The history of the leadership and scientific and technical support of Soviet cosmonautics, the role of individuals in this is a special topic, its analysis would take us too far.
The first successful launch of the Proton-L-1 complex was carried out from Baikonur on March 10, 1967. A model of the module was launched into the orbit of the satellite, which received the official designation "Cosmos-146". By this time, the Americans had already conducted the first Apollo test in automatic mode for almost a year.
On March 2, 1968, the prototype L-1 under the official name "Zond-4" flew around the Moon, but the descent in the earth's atmosphere was unsuccessful. The subsequent two launch attempts were unsuccessful due to failures in the operation of the launch vehicle engines. Only on September 15, 1968, L-1 was launched on the flight path to the Moon under the name "Zond-5". However, the descent took place in an unplanned area. The atmospheric descent systems also failed Zond-6 upon its return in November 1968. Recall that already in October 1968, the Americans switched from automatic to manned flights under the Apollo program. And in December of the same year, the first triumphant flyby of the moon was made by Apollo 8.
In January 1969, the RN started to feel down again at the start. Only in August 1969 did the successful unmanned flight of Zonda-7 take place with a return to Earth in a given area. By this time, the Americans had already visited the moon ...
In October 1970, the Zonda-8 flight took place. Almost all technical problems have been solved. The next two devices of this series were already prepared for manned flights, but ... the program was ordered to be curtailed.
The L-3 project, intended for landing on the moon, had significant differences from the American one. circuit diagram flight was the same. However, the more powerful LK engine did not require the cabin to be divided into landing and takeoff stages. Another difference was that the astronaut's transition between LOK and LK had to be carried out through outer space. This was due to the fact that by that time, domestic cosmonautics had not yet solved the technical problems associated with the hermetic docking of two spacecraft. The first successful experience of this kind was made by ours only in 1971 when launching the Soyuz-11 spacecraft to the Salyut-1 orbital station. And already in March 1969, the Americans on Apollo 9 performed the first hermetic docking and undocking in history and the transition from one space module to another without a spacewalk. The need to create a lock chamber in the Soviet LOK and the presence of a pilot in a spacesuit there sharply limited the useful volume and payload of the entire lunar complex. Therefore, only two people were planned for the expedition, and not three, as with the Americans.
Tests of individual elements of the flight to the moon were initially carried out within the framework of the Soyuz and Cosmos projects. On September 30, 1967, the first docking of the Kosmos-186 and -187 unmanned vehicles in orbit was performed. In January 1969, Vladimir Shatalov on the Soyuz-4, Boris Volynov, Alexei Eliseev and Yevgeny Khrunov on the Soyuz-5 made the first docking of manned vehicles and the transition from one to another through outer space. The development of undocking, braking, acceleration and docking of the LK in near-Earth orbit continued even after the decision to cancel the manned flight was made in the early 1970s.
The main obstacle to the lunar project was the difficulty in creating the H-1 launch vehicle.
Her preliminary design was signed by Korolev back in 1962, and the Chief Designer made a note on the sketch: “We dreamed about this back in 1956-57.” With the creation of a heavy launch vehicle, hopes were associated not only with a flight to the Moon, but also with long-distance interplanetary flights.
The design of the H-1 launch vehicle was a five-stage (!) initial weight of 2750 tons. According to the project, the first three stages were supposed to bring a load with a total weight of 96 tons to the flight path to the Moon, which included, in addition to the lunar ship, two stages for maneuvering near the Moon, descending to its surface, lifting from it and flying away to Earth. The weight of the lunar ship itself, which consisted of the orbital compartment and the lunar cabin, did not exceed 16 tons.
The N-1 rocket, the first test of which took place in January 1969 (after the first flyby of the moon by the Americans), was plagued from beginning to end by fatal failures caused by engine failure. Not a single launch of the H-1 was successful. After the crash on the fourth launch in November 1972 further work over H-1 were discontinued, although the causes of the accidents were identified and completely subject to elimination.
Back in 1966, Chelomey proposed an alternative project for a lunar expedition based on the creation of the UR700 launch vehicle (a further development of the UR500, that is, the Proton, which was never carried out). The flight pattern for this program resembled the original American project (which they later abandoned). It provided for a single-module lunar ship, without division into orbital and takeoff and landing compartments, with two astronauts on board. However, OKB-52 gave the green light only to the theoretical development of this project.
If it weren’t for the hasty political decision of the Soviet leadership, it can be argued that, despite all the technical problems, our cosmonauts would quite realistically be able to carry out the first flight around the moon in 1970-1971, and the first landing on the moon in 1973-1974. .
But at this time, after the successful flights of the Americans, the leaders of the CPSU cooled off towards the lunar program. This indicates a drastic change in their mentality. Is it possible to imagine that if the United States managed to get ahead of us in the development of the first satellite or the launch of the first cosmonaut, the Soviet space program would have been curtailed by another initial stage? Of course not! In the late 50s - early 60s. this would be impossible!
But in the 70s, the leaders of the CPSU had other priorities. The need to pay special attention to the military component served only as a pretext for curtailing the lunar program (especially since the beginning of the 70s is characterized by a détente of international tension). From now on, the prestige of Soviet cosmonautics was based only on constantly updated records of flight duration. In 1974, as a result of corporate intrigues, Mishin was fired from the post of head of OKB-1. He was replaced by Valentin Glushko, who not only stopped all work on the H-1, even theoretical ones, but also ordered the destruction of copies of this launch vehicle ready for testing.
The question posed in the title of this section is quite appropriate to supplement with another one: why weren't our astronauts on Mars? More precisely, near Mars.
The fact is that the H-1 project was calculated as a multi-purpose one. This launch vehicle (which was planned only as the first in a family of heavy carriers) was developed in the future not only for a lunar ship, but also for a “heavy interplanetary ship” (TMK). This project provided for the launch of spacecraft into a heliocentric orbit, which made it possible to fly several thousand kilometers from Mars and return to Earth.
The development of the LSS of such a ship was carried out on Earth. Volunteer testers Manovtsev, Ulybyshev and Bozhko in 1967-1968. spent a whole year in a sealed chamber with an autonomous LSS. Similar experiments of much shorter duration began in the United States only in 1970. Subsequently, the many months spent by a number of Soviet crews on the Salyuts formed suspicions that the leadership of the USSR was preparing to carry out the "Martian program". Alas, it was only speculation. Such a program did not exist in reality. Work on the TMK was terminated at the same time as work on the H-1.
In principle, a manned flight around Mars with a return to Earth would have been quite realistic for the USSR already in the early to mid-1980s.
Of course, provided that all elements of the lunar program suitable for use in flight to Mars continued to develop and work on them did not stop in the 70s. The morale of such a flight would be comparable to the landing of the Americans on the moon, if not more. Alas, the later Soviet leadership once again missed a historic chance for a great country...
7. Is there a future for lunar expeditions?
This requires, first of all, a radical change in the mentality of modern civilization. Despite the occasional promises by the leaders of the United States or the leaders of our cosmonautics to organize a manned flight to Mars, it is clear that they are no longer perceived by society with such enthusiasm as 40-50 years ago the promises of the first flights into space and to the moon. George W. Bush announced the goal of returning Americans to the moon by 2020 and the subsequent flight to Mars. By that time, several presidents will already be replaced, and Bush, in case of non-fulfillment of his "destiny", as they say, bribes will be smooth.
Nowadays space research and the conquest of world spaces have decisively shifted from priorities to the periphery of public interest in literally all countries of the world.
This is clearly seen in the proportion of messages of this kind in the general media stream. If in Soviet times almost every citizen of the USSR knew whether our cosmonauts were now in orbit and who exactly, now only a small minority knows for sure whether they are in orbit. this moment astronauts aboard the International Space Station. However, most probably do not even know what it is.
Meanwhile, the effectiveness of manned flights for scientific research was proved by the same Apollo expeditions. During the three days of their stay on the Moon, two astronauts managed to do the volume of scientific work, which exceeded by orders of magnitude those that were carried out by both of our lunar rovers in 15 months! The Apollo program was important to scientific and technological progress. Many of her achievements were then used in the most various projects. Testing the latest equipment in the conditions of deep space flights is a completely unique opportunity, fraught with a sharp leap forward in all scientific and technical fields. The multibillion-dollar costs of the Apollo program eventually paid off and made a profit thanks to the introduction of new technologies.
However, despite the projects of long-term manned stations on the Moon that appear from time to time, the governments of the leading powers of the world, either individually or together, are in no hurry to fork out for such programs. The point here is not only in stinginess, but also in the lack of ambition. Extraterrestrial spaces have ceased to excite and attract people. Mankind clearly needs additional incentives to activate the cosmic vector of its development.
Special for the Centenary
July 3, 1969, Baikonur Cosmodrome. In the foreground is the Soviet lunar rocket N-1 (product No. 5L). In the background is a fitting rocket for testing ground launch systems (note that there is no emergency rescue system on the fitting rocket).
The closure of the Soviet manned program of flights to the moon occurred in June 1974, at the same time the entire cosmonaut detachment was disbanded. The following month, rockets ready for launch were cut into pieces. The destruction of the technological backlog led to a 15-year lag in the development of astronautics. What is to blame? Why did they stop trying to get to the moon?
It is often said that the industry of the USSR could not create a spacecraft for flying to the Moon, that there was no appropriate technological base. They also say that it was simply impossible to compete with the United States. But the main reason for the failure of the project, which cost 4 billion rubles at 1974 prices. rub., was the inability of various departments to agree among themselves and the personal aspirations of some leaders.
The US started the lunar program with the sole purpose of surpassing the USSR after the Russians launched the world's first satellite, took pictures of the far side of the moon, and launched the first man into space. Landing a man on the moon was the last chance. To achieve this goal, the best representatives of science were gathered, orders were given to the most suitable corporations in the absence of competition. The USSR usually followed this path.
The Soviet lunar program was just a response to the United States. The Moon itself was not of interest to the leaders of OKB-1 Korolev. But the United States challenged and the USSR accepted it. The N-1 missile project was a continuation of the existing project, which was developed as a delivery vehicle hydrogen bomb and the launch into orbit of large-sized complexes, many times larger than the later Soyuz, Salyut and Mir.
The implementation of the lunar program was not economically feasible. But the Central Committee of the CPSU did not refuse it. According to the Decree of the Government, issued in 1960, it was supposed to create a new rocket system for launching into orbit a heavy spacecraft weighing up to 60-80 tons, the creation of new rocket engines, control systems and space radio communications. In 1964, a new goal was set - a manned flight to the moon and landing on its surface before the Americans.
The L-1 lunar project became the cause of a fierce struggle between the design bureaus of Korolev and Chelomey. The existing Proton launch vehicle could theoretically make a manned flight around the Moon, but the memories of the participants in the events indicate that Korolev refused to put astronauts on a poisonous rocket. The fact is that heptyl served as fuel for the Proton, and nitric acid served as an oxidizer. In Kazakhstan, many poisonings were recorded among local residents who used the first stages of the Protons in their household. Official information claimed that the use of the Proton was abandoned due to too high overloads that the astronauts could not withstand.
A difficult test for the project was the conflict between Korolev and Glushko, as a result of which the latter abandoned the development of an engine for a rocket. The work was transferred to the Kuznetsov design bureau.
It was planned that two astronauts would participate in the lunar project, and only one would descend to the surface of the moon, while the second was supposed to remain in orbit. A.A. was supposed to be the first person to walk on the moon. Leonov, Yu.A. was supposed to act as an understudy. Gagarin. The N-1 launch vehicle was designed to deliver the Soyuz spacecraft with a manned lunar module into the lunar orbit.
So why didn't it happen? One of the reasons was austerity. Four H-1 launches were unsuccessful due to the first stage for which no testbed was built. Since all the first stage engines were tested separately, it was impossible to determine the cause of the stage failure.
When it became known that the Americans were about to go to the moon, Leonov was eager to fly, but they did not let him in, which saved his life. H-1 launched on February 21, 1969 without a crew, six months before the launch of Apollo 11. The rocket exploded shortly after the start of the flight. The second attempt was made on July 3, 1969. The rocket exploded right on the launch pad, almost completely destroying the launch complex. Even then it became clear that we would not be the first to get to the moon.
Korolev and Gagarin pass away. These two deaths were tantamount to the death of Russian astronautics. And it's not that there were no other talented designers and trained cosmonauts. Korolev and Gagarin were well received in the Kremlin, their opinion was listened to. Korolev not only argued with anyone, regardless of rank, he knew how to present his project in such a way that the military advocated the need for its implementation. The first satellite was a beacon for ballistic missiles. He also convinced the military that the construction of a base on the moon would allow the whole world to be held at gunpoint. He kept silent about the practically unbearable cost of the project for the country. The military seized on the idea. In addition, the N-1 rocket could launch stations weighing over 100 tons into orbit, such as the Zvezda station, which was conceived for military purposes.
Korolev knew how to use the needs and desires of the military for his own purposes, knocking out funds for the implementation of his projects. For Korolev himself, the flight to the Moon was only the first step towards a flight to Mars.
The change of leadership in the design office did not bring anything good. Funding decreased significantly, the test bench was not built. The launch complex was restored, but the next attempts to launch the rocket were not successful due to the same reason for the failure of the first stage. And the Americans have already accepted congratulations on the successful landing on the moon. The Soviet lunar program was curtailed, Mars was also forgotten.
However, another attempt was made. The hopes of the domestic cosmonautics were associated with the Energia rocket. The tests were successful. But the rocket was buried under the collapsed roof of the assembly and test building at Baikonur. This put the final end to Russia's plans. The United States has become a leader in space exploration. There is no point in trying to compete with them by spending hundreds of billions on flights.
Russia's leadership in space is a thing of the past due to the curtailment of the lunar program and a change in leadership in astronautics. Today's undisputed leader is the United States. But if the country's leadership had not forgotten Tsiolkovsky's words that he who conquered space would own the world, the situation could have turned out differently.
Who can become the leader tomorrow? Most likely China. Its space program is quite fantastic, the moon landing project should be completed with the construction of a lunar base by 2021. Many do not believe in the feasibility of this project, but China has already proved that it is capable of very unexpected things, at least the super-fast growth of its economy speaks of this.
Photo of the secret lunar program of the USSR
These photographic materials are one of the remaining evidence to date that the USSR also tried to land a man on the moon - obviously, after they could not, or, more precisely, did not have time to do it, they forgot about the program.
However, fortunately, little disappears forever and without a trace. The images we can see show one of the laboratories of the Moscow Aviation Institute, as well as aerospace equipment, including a spacecraft and a lunar lander.
The history of the Moon Race is well known to many contemporaries: before US President John F. Kennedy initiated the launch of the Apollo program, the Soviet Union was noticeably ahead of the United States in matters of lunar exploration. In particular, in 1959 the Luna-2 automatic interplanetary station was delivered to the surface of the Moon, and in 1966 a Soviet satellite entered its orbit.
Like the Americans, Soviet scientists developed a multi-step approach to the task at hand. They also had two separate modules for orbiting and landing.
While the Apollo 11 crew included three members, the entire burden of the Soviet lunar program had to lie on the shoulders of one cosmonaut - thus, the weight of the equipment was significantly reduced. In addition, there were other differences that made the Soviet apparatus lighter. First of all, these include the relative simplicity of the design, the use of the same engine for landing and takeoff, as well as the lack of a direct connection between the orbital and lunar module. This meant that the astronaut would need to go into space to move into the lander before landing and, later, to climb back into the orbiter after returning from the moon. After that, the lunar module was disconnected, and the spacecraft went to Earth without it.
The main reason that prevented the Soviet side from landing a man on the moon was the failures with launch vehicles. Despite the fact that the first two test launches were successful, the rocket crashed during the third. In the fourth test, conducted in 1971, a test spacecraft returned to Earth along an incorrect trajectory, hitting Australian airspace, as a result of which an international scandal could arise: Soviet diplomats allegedly had to convince Australians that the object falling on them was a test spacecraft. Kosmos-434 module, not a nuclear warhead.
After several failures, the program became too expensive, and after the Americans presented the world with documentary evidence of the success of the Apollo 11 mission, it completely lost its meaning. As a result, space equipment has become something of a museum piece.
Space exploration in the middle of the last century was of paramount importance for world powers, because it directly testified to their strength and power. The priority of developments in the space industry was not only not hidden from citizens, but, on the contrary, was emphasized in every possible way, instilling a sense of respect and pride for their country.
Despite the desire of many countries to take part in this difficult and interesting case, the main serious struggle unfolded between the two superpowers - the Soviet Union and the United States of America.
The first victories in the space race were for the USSR
The series of successes of the Soviet cosmonautics became an open challenge to the United States, forcing America to speed up work in the field of space exploration and find a way to beat its main competitor - the USSR.
- the first artificial satellite of the earth - the Soviet Sputnik-1 (October 4, 1957) of the USSR;
- the first space flights of animals - the astronaut dog Laika, the first animal put into Earth orbit! (1954 - November 3, 1957) USSR;
- the first manned flight into space - Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (April 12, 1961).
And yet, the competition for space continued!
First people on the moon
Today, almost everyone knows that America managed to seize the initiative in the space race by launching its astronauts on. The first manned spacecraft to successfully land on the moon back in 1969 was the American spacecraft Apollo 11, with a crew of astronauts on board - Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin.
Many of you remember the photo of Armstrong proudly planting the US flag on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969. The American government triumphed that it had managed to overtake the Soviet pioneers of space in the conquest of the moon. But history is full of conjectures and assumptions, and some facts haunt critics and scientific minds so far. To this day, the question is being discussed that the American ship, in all likelihood, reached the moon, took it, but did the astronauts actually descend on its surface? There is a whole caste of skeptics and critics who do not believe in the landing of Americans on the moon, however, let's leave this skepticism on their conscience.
However, for the first time the Soviet spacecraft "Luna-2" reached the Moon on September 13, 1959, that is, the Soviet spacecraft ended up on the Moon 10 years before the landing of American cosmonauts on the Earth's satellite. And therefore, it is especially insulting that few people know about the role of Soviet designers, physicists, and cosmonauts in the exploration of the Moon.
But the work was done enormously, and the results were achieved much earlier than Armstrong's victorious march. The pennant of the USSR was delivered to the surface of the moon a decade earlier than a human foot set foot on its surface. September 13, 1959 space station Luna 2 reached the planet it was named after. The world's first spacecraft to reach the Moon (space station Luna-2) landed on the surface of the Moon in the area of the Sea of Rains near the craters Aristillus, Archimedes and Autolycus.
A completely logical question arises: if the Luna-2 station reached the Earth’s satellite, then there should have been Luna-1 too? There was, but its launch, performed a little earlier, turned out to be not so successful and, flying past the Moon ... But even with this outcome, very significant scientific results were obtained during the flight of the Luna-1 station:
- Using ion traps and particle counters, the first direct measurements of solar wind parameters were made.
- The Earth's outer radiation belt was recorded for the first time using an onboard magnetometer.
- It was established that the Moon has no significant magnetic field.
- AMS "Luna-1" became the first spacecraft in the world to reach the second space velocity.
The launch participants were awarded the Lenin Prize, the people did not know their heroes by name, but the common cause - the honor of the country - was a priority.
The US landed the first people on the moon
What about the USA? The flight of Yuri Gagarin into space was a serious blow to America, and in order not to remain forever in the shadow of the Russians, the goal was set - and although the Americans lost the race to land the first spacecraft on the moon, they had a chance to be the first to land cosmonauts on the Earth's satellite ! Work on the improvement of the spacecraft, space suits and necessary equipment went by leaps and bounds, the US government attracted the entire intellectual and technical potential of the country, and, without stint, spent billions of dollars on development. All NASA resources were mobilized and thrown into the furnace of science for a great cause.
The step of an American citizen to the moon is the only way to get out of the shadows, to equal the Soviet Union in this race. It is possible that America would not have been able to realize its ambitious plans, but at that time there was a change in the party leader in the USSR, and the leading designers, Korolev and Chelomey, could not come to a common opinion. Korolev, being an innovator by nature, tended to use latest developments engines, and his colleague stood up for the old, but proven Proton. Thus, the initiative was lost and the first to officially set foot on the surface of the moon were American astronauts.
Did the USSR give up in the lunar race?
Despite the fact that Soviet cosmonauts never managed to land on the moon in the 20th century, the USSR did not give up in the race to explore the moon. So already in 1970, the automatic interplanetary station "Luna-17" carried on its board the world's first, unparalleled, planetary rover capable of fully operating under the conditions of a different gravity of the moon. It was named "Lunokhod-1" and was intended to study the surface, properties and composition of the soil, radioactive and X-ray radiation of the Moon. Work on it was carried out at the Khimki Machine-Building Plant. S.A. Lavochkin, led by Babakin Nikolai Grigorievich. The sketch was ready in 1966, and the whole project documentation was completed by the end of the following year.
"Lunokhod-1" was delivered to the surface of the Earth's satellite in November 1970. The control center was located in Simferopol, in the Space Communications Center and included the control panel of the crew commander, the driver of the lunar rover, the antenna operator, the navigator, and the operational information processing room. The main problem was the time delay of the signal, which prevented full control. Lunokhod worked there for almost a year, until September 14, on that day the last successful communication session took place.
Lunokhod did a great job of studying the planet entrusted to it, having worked much longer than planned. A huge number of photographs, lunar panoramas, were transmitted to Earth. Years later, in 2012, the International Astronomical Union gave names to all twelve craters encountered on the path of Lunokhod-1 - they received male names.
By the way, in 1993 Lunokhod-1 was put up for auction by Sotheby's, the declared price was five thousand dollars. Bidding ended for a much higher amount - sixty-eight and a half thousand US dollars, the son of one of the American astronauts became the buyer. It is characteristic that the precious lot rests on the territory of the Moon; in 2013, it was discovered in images taken by the American orbital probe.
Summing up, it can be noted that the first people to land on the moon (1969) were the Americans, here is a list of US astronauts who landed: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin , John Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt. Neil Armstrong lived a long life and died on August 25, 2012 at the age of 82, retaining the title of the first man to walk on the moon...
But the first spacecraft that conquered the moon (1959) were Soviet, here the championship undoubtedly belongs to Soviet Union and Russian designers and engineers.
Until 1972, people managed to land on the moon 6 times, but since then (12/07/1972 - the Apollo-17 company) there have been no more landings!
Really, in almost 50 years, people have not invented equipment that would be able to fly to the Moon (384 thousand km) in 8-10 hours and ensure the existence of people there for at least 30-60 days?
* For example, the flight speed of NASA's New Horizons automatic interplanetary station, launched as part of the New Frontiers program, is 56,000 km / h.
So why did the moon landings stop? Let's face the facts:
1. The moon is a good launch pad
The moon is a good launch pad for spacecraft, the force of gravity on the moon is 1.662 m/s. (4 times less than on the ground).
Those. any spacecraft from the Moon can be sent to Mars and it will fly not in 240 days, as from the Earth, but given the acceleration rate, in 30 (1 month).
2 Lunar Soil Samples Are Very Expensive
During 6 expeditions (lunar landings), the astronauts spent a total of 300 hours on the Moon and took 382 samples of lunar rocks. After samples of the lunar soil were brought and sent to a special storage, a significant part of these rocks disappeared.
The official version - they are kidnapped. Therefore, the appearance of stolen soil samples at auctions and black markets is inevitable. However, today only samples brought by the Soviet Luna stations appear on the black markets (for 3 expeditions they delivered only 0.33 kg of lunar soil to Earth).
The same (Russian) samples are sold at "mad" prices at large auctions.
* For example, in November 2018, fragments of lunar soil were sold at Sotheby’s in New York for $855,000 (see photo below). Source: auction site (sothebys.com).
If someone brought from the Moon or simply threw into the black market soil samples brought after the Americans landed on the moon, then the cost of lunar rocks would fall tenfold.
Where is the stolen huge mass of super-expensive, but every year risking a fall in the price of lunar materials?
3. We are being watched from the moon
Words that Neil Alden Armstrong (the first American to land on the moon) accidentally said over an unencrypted channel from the moon:
There are big objects here, sir! Huge! Oh, God! .. There are other spaceships here! They are on the other side of the crater! They are on the moon and watching us!
4. We are not shown the real moon.
Satellites take pictures of the moon, and the pictures appear on the web. However, a lot of pictures are missing.
Imagine that you photograph a person from 4 sides, and give him a photo from only three. This is exactly what is happening now with the moon. The states that own the satellites show the inhabitants of the Earth images of only a certain side of the moon.
But even from these (passed to the people) pictures, you can see something.
5. There are buildings on the moon
The Chinese government inadvertently revealed some secrets, namely: it showed that there are buildings on the moon.
More than once, photos with objects on the surface of the moon have surfaced on the network, which, well, could not get there from space.
6 The Moon Landings Are Fake
There are quite a lot of materials on the net that indicate that the pictures of the moon landings are falsified. No one questions the fact that people were on the moon, but the photos that got into the people are implausible. For example, this (there is no shadow on the circled object, the shadow behind it looks like a not very high-quality photomontage):
It is naive to believe that for billions of years of existence of the World we (people) are alone in it. Of course not: there are other civilizations. But why do we know nothing about them, while the governments (chosen by us) are aware of all this?
What do you think of the moon landings?
P.S. In 2019, a Chinese probe landed on the far side of the Moon. Read about it.
We will talk about who and how many times made a trip to the moon, what it is like there and whether there are prospects for such “flights”. And about whether these flights were at all ...
The moon plays a very important role in the existence of our planet, the sun, of course, cannot be overshadowed by it, but without the moon it is not a fact that our Earth would be alive at all.
A few words about the moon.
Despite the debate about what the Moon is - a satellite of the Earth or an independent planet, it is now believed that it is a satellite of the Earth.
The moon is a natural satellite of the earth. The closest satellite of the planet to the Sun, since the planets closest to the Sun, Mercury and Venus, have no satellites. The second brightest object in the earth's sky after the Sun and the fifth largest natural satellite of a planet in the solar system. The average distance between the centers of the Earth and the Moon is 384,467 km (0.00257 AU, ~ 30 Earth diameters).
The Moon is the only astronomical object outside the Earth that has been visited by man."
One of the most common versions of the origin of the Moon is that it is the fragments of the celestial body Theia and the earth's mantle that collided with the Earth. “As a result, most of the matter of the impacted object and part of the matter of the earth's mantle were ejected into near-Earth orbit. The proto-Moon gathered from these fragments and began to orbit with a radius of about 60,000 km (now ~ 384 thousand km). As a result of the impact, the Earth received a sharp increase in the speed of rotation (one revolution in 5 hours) and a noticeable tilt of the axis of rotation.
The moon is full of craters. The main hypotheses of their origin are volcanic and meteorite. Craters are given the names of great scientists, celebrities.
They began to study the Moon even before our era, for example, Hipparchus studied its movement. Closer to the 20th century, earthlings approached the issue of mastering the mysterious satellite of the Earth more thoroughly, but it was still far from flying into space. In 1902, the first science fiction film in the history of cinema, A Trip to the Moon, was released in France (it can be viewed at the link at the bottom of the article, duration 12 minutes). People, then still at a naive level, predicted a flight to the moon, fantasized how it could be.
The Russians were the first to explore the expanses of the Moon with their own eyes. In 1959, the Luna stations (1-2-3) went to the Moon.
"September 14, 1959 at 00:02:24, the Luna-2 station for the first time in the world reached the surface of the Moon in the region of the Sea of Rains near the craters Aristillus, Archimedes and Autolycus."
In the same 59th year, the Luna-3 station "obtained" the first photo of the far side of the Moon, flying over a surface invisible from Earth.
"Luna-24" in 1976 brought soil from the surface of the Moon to Earth for important research.
List of US astronauts who have walked on the Moon (12 in total)
Charles ("Pete") Conrad, Alan Bean - 1969 (Apollo 12)
Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell - 1971 (Apollo 14)
David Scott, James Irvine 1971 (Apollo 15)
John Young, Charles Duke - 1972 (Apollo 16)
Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt - 1972 (Apollo 17)
Apollo 11
So, in 1969, the American astronaut Neil Alden Armstrong managed to step on the moon with his feet, albeit in a spacesuit. On July 20, 1969, Armstrong accomplished what mankind has been preparing for centuries, millennia, saying: "This is one small step for a person, but a giant leap for all mankind."
20 minutes later, when Armstrong was already walking peacefully through the craters of the moon, Buzz Aldrin (an American aeronautical engineer, retired US Air Force colonel and NASA astronaut) joined the first person to violate the peace of the moon. This is the second person to walk on the moon.
These two astronauts were part of the Apollo 11 crew.
Apollo 11 (Eng. Apollo 11) is a manned spacecraft of the Apollo series, during the flight of which on July 16-24, 1969, the inhabitants of the Earth for the first time in history landed on the surface of another celestial body - the Moon.
Then the exit to the surface of the Moon of Armstrong and his partner Buzz Aldrin lasted as much as 2 hours 31 minutes 40 seconds.
“On July 20, 1969, at 20:17:39 UTC, crew commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Edwin Aldrin landed the ship's lunar module in the southwestern region of the Sea of Tranquility. They remained on the surface of the Moon for 21 hours 36 minutes and 21 seconds. All this time, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins was waiting for them in lunar orbit. The astronauts made one exit to the lunar surface, which lasted 2 hours 31 minutes 40 seconds. The first person to walk on the moon was Neil Armstrong. This happened on July 21 at 02:56:15 UTC. Aldrin joined him 15 minutes later.
The astronauts planted a US flag at the landing site, placed a set of scientific instruments and collected 21.55 kg of lunar soil samples, which were delivered to Earth. After the flight, the crew members and lunar rock samples underwent strict quarantine, which did not reveal any lunar microorganisms.
The successful completion of the Apollo 11 flight program meant the achievement of the national goal set by US President John F. Kennedy in May 1961 - to land on the moon before the end of the decade, and marked the victory of the United States in the lunar race with the USSR.
A lot of materials are devoted to the first steps of people on the Moon: “It happened at 109 hours 24 minutes 20 seconds of flight time, or at 02 hours 56 minutes 15 seconds UTC on July 21, 1969. Still holding on to the ladder with his hand, Armstrong put it on the ground and right leg, after which he reported on his first impressions. According to him, small particles of soil were like powder, which can be easily tossed up toe. They stuck in thin layers to the soles and sides of the moonboots like crushed charcoal.
Feet sank into it quite a bit, no more than 0.3 cm. But Armstrong could see his footprints on the surface. The astronaut reported that moving on the Moon is not difficult at all, in fact it is even easier than during simulations of 1/6 of the earth's gravity on Earth.
Pictured are the Apollo 11 astronauts during the moon landing.
"Apollo 12"
The Apollo 12 spacecraft, which launched on November 14, 1969 and landed on the moon - the second face-to-face meeting of a man with the lunar surface, the ship returned to Earth on November 24, 1969. Charles ("Pete") Conrad and Alan Bean are the second astronauts to visit the moon with their own eyes.
Pictured are the Apollo 12 astronauts during the moon landing.
"Apollo 14"
The launch of the ship, whose mission was the third visit to the moon, was made on January 31, 1971. Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell were the third to visit the moon. The astronauts made two trips to the moon, during which they collected several dozen soil samples, a total of 23 kg of samples, brought "moon" trees, seeds that were luggage on the moon and then planted in the forests of America.
Pictured are the Apollo 14 astronauts during the moon landing.
"Apollo 15"
Apollo 15 (eng. Apollo 15) is the ninth manned spacecraft in the framework of the Apollo program, the fourth landing of people on the moon. Crew commander David Scott and lunar module pilot James Irwin spent almost three days on the moon (just under 67 hours).
The total duration of the three exits to the lunar surface was 18 hours and 30 minutes. On the Moon, the crew used the lunar car for the first time, driving it for a total of 27.9 km. 77 kilograms of lunar soil samples were collected and then delivered to Earth. After the flight, experts called the samples delivered by this expedition "the richest catch" of the entire program, and the Apollo 15 mission - "one of the most brilliant from a scientific point of view."
Pictured are the Apollo 15 astronauts during the moon landing.
"Apollo 16"
The tenth manned flight of the Apollo program, the fifth time brought people to the moon, date - April 16-27, 1972, the flight lasted just over 10 days.
“First landing in a mountainous area, on a plateau near the Descartes crater. It was the second, after Apollo 15, J-mission (eng. J-mission) with an emphasis on scientific research. The astronauts (like the crew of the previous expedition) had at their disposal a lunar vehicle, Lunar Rover No. 2.
Pictured are the Apollo 16 astronauts during the moon landing.
"Apollo 17"
This was the final flight of the Apollo program, the sixth and last landing of people on the moon, the third scientific mission - December 7, 1972 - December 19, 1972.
The astronauts made three exits from the ship with a total duration of 22 hours 3 minutes 57 seconds. 110.5 kg of lunar rock samples were collected and brought to Earth.
Pictured are the Apollo 17 astronauts during the moon landing.
In a little over three years, the Americans made 6 landings on the moon, 12 people set foot on the lunar surface.
The latest missions were especially productive in scientific terms: soil samples were obtained, including those with a deep sample using drilling tools, the astronauts “driving” around the Moon with a special rover, made several exits in one flight, walked, left various objects as a souvenir, perhaps for foreign nations.
However, flights to the Moon ended abruptly in 1972, since then only artificial vehicles have touched the surface of the Earth's satellite. Why there are no attempts to fly to the moon now is not clear, because astronautics has reached much greater heights than in the 1970s.
Retreat. The expression “lunar race” mentioned earlier in the quotations is a paramount action that can be translated to a philosophical and political level.
Do you think the Earth is just a planet, with some sections of houses, forests, where people fuss, wanting to win a bigger piece for themselves? And the Moon is an abstract mysterious halo that illuminates our Earth at night and about flights, which you can dream of when you want the unrealizable? Everything in this world (and not only in this, and not only in this Universe is possible), that the Earth, that the Moon are objects of self-affirmation of states, and this is above all.
People have been so permeated by base instincts - the lust for power, greed, vanity, and so on. That is why in the race, who will fly first to the Moon, who will produce more oil on Earth, who will build the coolest skyscraper - everyone is participating frantically, in reality only a couple of states. Two states fought in the lunar race, two special states - the USA and the USSR.
There is another side to this race - nothing comes closer to progress than rivalry, conflict, the desire for self-affirmation. And it is not known where we would be with the exploration of the Moon, if it were not for the hurt pride of states. But progress in this case goes over the heads ... corpses .. and gives an example to all mankind how to achieve their goals.
What did we get with going into space? Scientists will note many scientific achievements obtained thanks to the flight of man into space and to the moon, achievements insanely necessary for the development of both heavenly and earthly expanses. But I think there is one very important achievement, in addition to the material one - we have become less afraid of the unknown. After all, people have lived for centuries in non-existence about the fact that there is Space and this round plate, illuminating the night. People know not only the number of planets in our Galaxy, but also photos of celestial bodies were taken, soil samples were taken, artificial satellites fly around the Earth, etc. The world has advanced, but it was more important for the states not to reduce the fear of the size and filling of the Universe, but who would be the first to put a flag on the moon.
Yes, by the way, there is an opinion that the landing of people during the Apollo expeditions is a falsification.
"Lunar conspiracy" is a conspiracy theory, the central idea of which is the assertion that during the "moon race" during the American space program "Apollo" (1969-1972), there were no landings on the moon, and photographs, filming and other documentary materials of lunar expeditions were rigged by the US government.
If there were no flights to the Moon (in the links under the article there are videos with documentaries about how we could be deceived, subtleties, details, technology), then why did America need all this? The point is understandable - America wanted to be ahead by any means ... And then so many material resources were put into the Apollo program that it was a shame to let the whole world down and not fly to the moon. The whole masquerade was carefully thought out, played well, all those involved signed non-disclosure documents ...
If indeed the Americans were not on the moon, then everything is ahead, and there are plenty of prospects.
Then the 1902 film A Trip to the Moon is right: going to the moon is a big fantasy for the world. We fantasized like a hundred years ago, and today ... It's just that the Americans played a little more believable than the French.
We are still used to thinking that there was a man on the moon. In fact, nothing much will change for most of us if we find out the truth that whether a person has set foot on the moon or not. Therefore, you can believe in any truth.
Do you think there was a man on the moon or not?
