50 years of the first moon shots

50 years ago, the issue of the lunar soil problem was resolved. The solid surface of the moon or covered with a thick layer of dust? Can a spaceship and an astronaut withstand lunar soil or will they fall into the depths of the dust layer?
For many years this question has given rise to hypotheses and scientific debates. It is difficult for us to understand the admiration of our ancestors for this first landing - we always knew that the moon is solid, and the far side of the moon can be easily found on the Internet. Similarly, it will be difficult for our descendants to understand what delights us today.

It will take some twenty years, and they will fly into space on union vouchers, people will reach the nearest planets - the Moon, Mars, Venus ... Perhaps we will not survive - the children will survive. But no one will ever repeat what was done by us. We were the first - and will remain them for centuries! And it's so hard to be the first ...

film "Taming the Fire" I

propose a little plunge into the beginning of the cosmic age. For the sake of completeness, it is necessary to recall that, unlike the modern Roskosmos, in the press officials did not talk about their plans. And perhaps right in his comment 22sobaki

It seems that from there the Soviet style came from not reporting space launches until their completion:

By the time of the stratospheric program, the approach to reporting on events, which is also characteristic of the initial stage of the development of cosmonautics, is leaving. After all, work so large-scale for its time as the creation of stratospheric balloons “USSR-2”, “USSR-3” and “Osoaviahim-2” was managed to be hidden in exactly the same way as many years later the lunar program of the USSR. And the beginning of this secrecy was laid by a document issued in January 1934 after the catastrophe of the stratospheric balloon “Osoaviahim-1”, which read: “To prohibit publishing any data on flights to the stratosphere in TASS and our press, as well as on the stratosphere itself until permission SNK "

Whether it is true or not, it remains a fact that the Soviet successes were unexpected but pleasant surprise for the citizens of the USSR, and unpleasant news rarely came to the press. In the article Lessons from space accidents: the hard road to soft landing of the E-6 program, lozga talks about 12 launches starting in 1963, of which only one reached the surface of the moon on the evening of February 3, 1966.

And on the morning of February 4, the device began transmitting the first panorama to Simferopol. Immediately the first recording of the Korolev panorama was sent to the Tu-104 in Moscow. And the device itself, on command from the ground, continued to transmit several more panoramas until the chemical current sources were used up. Due to the fact that the pictures were taken at different times of the lunar day, shadows of stones and craters of different sizes were drawn in the panoramas, and due to the slight displacement of the camera, sterocouples were obtained.

Panoramas were taken not only in Crimea, but also in Britain at the Jodrell Bank Observatory by Bernard Lavelle, where he used the world's largest radio telescope for reception. Until that moment, he had excellent mutually beneficial relations with the USSR - the USSR used his observations to independently confirm that the USSR did launch ships to the Moon, Mars, Venus, and Lavel bathed in the glory of glory, giving interviews, comments on the Reds space program. The USSR was so interested in him and his radio telescope that he was invited to the USSR in 1963, where he was shown the Crimean Observatory, and, especially for him, the declassified, long-range space communications complex “Pluto”, presented as a purely civilian scientific complex.

Three years later, Lavelle, as usual, he watched and reported in the media about the space activity of the Reds. And the whole world, except for the Soviet citizens themselves, watched the attempt to land the apparatus. This time, the apparatus did not stop crashed, but continued transmitting and the whole world, again without the majority of Soviet citizens, found out about the new achievement of the Reds. This would have ended, but the signal was recognized at the observatory, finding it very similar to facsimile transmission. The newspaper Daily Express borrowed a fax machine and actually received pictures, as it later turned out, with distorted proportions. For decency, Lavel tried to ask permission for publication in the USSR and decided that “silence is a sign of consent”, he published it.

In the USSR the next morning there was a scandal. And relations with Lavelle were spoiled, he, in turn, began to tell that the KGB tried to erase his memory during his visit to the USSR. The next lunar apparatus was specially chosen for the time of image transmission, when the Moon had not yet ascended in London, and after sunrise the transmitter switched frequency ranges - it took hours for Lavel to replace a different band irradiator, and in Simferopol the antenna switched to another band instantly.

This story is well described, and for those who want to read it in a new way, I recommend an article about Moon-9 by a good foreign author Andrew LePage. And by the way, as an example of an “unexpected event”, one can cite the circulation of the 1966 Children's Encyclopedia. In her volume was pasted on the moon-9 insert "at the last moment."


I propose to feel the moment itself with the help of the popular science film “Moon” of 1965 by the famous director Pavel Klushantsev. The film consists of two parts - popular science and science fiction.
The master of special effects created a picture of the future exploration of the moon by humanity. But first, he talks about modern knowledge about the moon, what theories about the moon exist and what astronauts can expect on the surface. Just watch the film, as if it is now only 1965 and you still do not know anything about the surface of the moon.

Unfortunately for the fate of the film, he lost political relevance with the landing of Americans on the moon after 4 years and disappeared from the box office.
After the introduction, describing the Moon and basic information about its geology, based on observations from the Earth, from 9:35 in the film the problem of lunar soil is raised - problem No. 1 for future expeditions.

The film is shot by real astronomers studying the moon by various methods, and each of them acquaints the audience with the results of their scientific observations.

What is interesting about this episode for the history of astronautics? In 1963, starting to launch the E-6, S.P. Korolev was already thinking further - about moon rovers (E-8) and further to the lunar bases .

Illustration from the book " Infinity Beckoned: Adventuring Through the Inner Solar System, 1969-1989 ", page 129.
Soon he found those who could solve the problem of extraterrestrial transport - VNII-100. According to the recollections of engineers, looking for the answer to the question about the lunar soil, they were precisely these astronomers, leading Soviet experts in the study of the moon. They had to travel to Pulkovo, Kharkov, Gorky. According to their recollections, only V.S.Troitsky, a radio astronomer, firmly and confidently said that the Moon was solid and not covered with a layer of dust. This made it possible to discard the exotic types of movers and proceed to the choice between wheels and tracks.

The frame of the “Artificial Moon” installation , on which he conducted research on the Moon and planets, is still visible in the Crimea in the Karadag Nature Reserve as a monument to “it is so difficult to be the first ...”.


In 1967, the chassis was completely finished, and the Lavochkin NGO began to assemble the Lunokhod on it, which unfortunately did not fly on February 19, 1969.