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Post by Sticks on Sept 20, 2005 3:55:28 GMT -4
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Post by Jason Thompson on Sept 22, 2005 9:27:09 GMT -4
So what did we all think of episode 2?
I hadn't realised that von Braun, having been denied all his requests to develop a satellite launcher, and having seen the contract for the first US satelite specifically awarded to the Navy, was dragged in front of an enquiry and blamed for American failure after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik! What a bunch of gits!
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Post by colinr on Sept 22, 2005 10:36:19 GMT -4
Great Episode - I did know about the US holding back Von Braun's work - partly there was a feeling in the eisenhower administration that the devlopement of space craft , satellites etc would be seen as somehow provacative by the Russians
You've also got keep in mind the fact that after the 20+ million killed in russia during WWII, they felt they needed the security a credible nuclear deterrent could provide , and lacking the infractructure to deploy large fleets of bombers that the US had, they really had no option but to devlop large launch vehicles.
The irony being of course that the R-7's was a complete failure as an ICBM, with less than a dozen ever being deployed in that role , however the perceived threat was enough to convince the US and the rest of the world that they had a real capability , even when they didn't!
russian of course had the last laugh , with the R-7 family still in use to this day
Oh and i miust be a real child of the Space Race , since I was born less than 24 hours after the US Explorer 1 was launched!
At this rate I'll be retired by the time the US returns to the moon - but that's a whole diffrent topic!
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Post by Jason Thompson on Sept 22, 2005 12:18:57 GMT -4
I did know about the US holding back Von Braun's work
Yes, so did I. It was the unbelievable double standard of 'we'll keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't launch any satellites ahead of the Navy, then blame him when Russia gets in first' bit that got me.
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Post by Sticks on Sept 24, 2005 1:27:56 GMT -4
It was quite understandable that they would prefer that the US's first sattelite should have nothing to do with VB, given his record as being an officer in the SS. If they had got their first, the achievement could be seen as being tainted by someone, that many felt should have been called to account at Nuremberg.
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Post by Jason Thompson on Sept 25, 2005 16:24:25 GMT -4
It was quite understandable that they would prefer that the US's first sattelite should have nothing to do with VB, given his record as being an officer in the SS.
That's as maybe, but how do they then justify trying to hold him accountable when the US fails to put up a satellite ahead of the Russians when they specifically prevented him from doing just that?
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Post by PeterB on Sept 25, 2005 19:55:43 GMT -4
I haven't seen the series, and I don't know the background, but the idea of holding someone accountable for a problem when you ordered them to do that is as old as the hills. Better someone else's arse gets a boot than your own.
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Post by Jason Thompson on Sept 28, 2005 17:23:39 GMT -4
I've just watched part 3, and I'd have to say I was not as impressed as with the other parts. A lot was crammed in, and some rather significant bits were left out, IMO. The result was a bit jumbled, even for someone familiar with the story.
Firstly, the technical flaws. It appeared that some of the film inserts had been squashed into the widescreen format, which was especially noticeable during the film of Mercury Redstone launches. The missile looked altogether too stubby and fat. Less forgivable, however, was the use of altogether the wrong launch footage for the dog launches from the USSR. The dogs flew in Vostoks, but the launches were unmistakably Soyuz vehicles. This is the kind of error that blighted the Apollo 7 episode of From The Earth To The Moon, in which numerous shots of a Saturn V appeared when the rocket was supposed to be a Saturn IB. It smacks of the producers, in a series that is otherwise excellent in detail, just slipping in a few bits on the apparent assumption that no-one is going to know any better. Wrong! They go to all the trouble of making some great original FX os the launch vehicle and capsule, but then slip up. It's a shame. OK, there probably isn't much good footage of a Vostok launch to work with, but then why slip in some wrong footage?
Now the narrative structure: The section that dealt with Gagarin's flight was very badly constructed. No description of the capsule explaining the two sections was given, which I thought rather obscured the whole section with the service module not detaching from the capsule. One minute the whole capsule flies, the next there are two bits connected by a cable. Surely a quick shot of the separation and the cable burning through would not have stretched the budget too much? Also, I found the retrofire rather odd, since they decided to show the capsule changing direction and moving backwards as a result of the firing. OK, that's what you would see if you were orbiting next to it, but it is rather misleading. Why not just show it slowing down?
And for some reason they did not bother naming the Mercury astronauts, although they showed an awful lot of the cosmonauts.
And they underestimated their audience as well. For the third time, they felt it necessary to explain that Glushko denounced Korolev. By episode 3 we had heard that twice already. Anyone tuning in having not seen the first two episodes doesn't need to know, as surely it is enough to show them having a strained relationship.
All in all a bit of a mess I thought. Drama documentaries have to strike a balance between documentary and drama, and personally I often feel they should go for one or the other. I think the whole thing could have been dramatised quite well, without the constant narration.
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Post by bazbear on Sept 28, 2005 22:14:54 GMT -4
is it connected with the film studio 20th Century Fox? Yes it is, they are both owned by Aussie biz' mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
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Post by gwiz on Sept 29, 2005 9:39:43 GMT -4
In episode 3, was that film of the Nedelin disaster the real thing?
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Post by Sticks on Oct 6, 2005 1:07:05 GMT -4
Saw programme 4 last night Something new, I had never heard of was that the Russians tried to send a probe to the moon at the same time as Apollo 11. It crashed in the Sea of Chaos What was the name of that Russian probe again? What was the probe meant to do Was it ever spotted by the US whilst it was on the moon Was there ever any danger it would have collided with elements of Apollo 11, if it had would that have been interpreted as a hostile act? How come we never heard of this before Apart from that, what I wondered is had Korolev lived, would the USSR have beaten the US to the moon?
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Post by LunarOrbit on Oct 6, 2005 1:26:35 GMT -4
I remember hearing about that before... I am pretty sure they informed the US about it and ensured that it wouldn't affect Apollo 11 at all. I don't remember exactly what the probe was designed to do, but I think it was intended to retrieve lunar samples and return them to Earth. It was basically an attempt to steal NASA's thunder a bit.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Oct 6, 2005 1:30:44 GMT -4
From The Encyclopedia Astronautica: 13 July 1969 Luna 15 Spacecraft: Luna Ye-8-5. Mass: 5,600 kg. Launch Site: Baikonur . Launch Vehicle: Proton 8K82K / 11S824. Unmanned soil return mission launched coincident with Apollo 11 mission in last ditch attempt to return lunar soil to earth before United States. After completing 86 communications sessions and 52 orbits of the Moon at various inclinations and altitudes, crashed on the moon on 20 July in an attempted landing. Altitude data used in programming inaccurate or guidance system unable to cope with effect of lunar mascons. Officially: Testing of on-board systems of the automatic station and further scientific investigation of the moon and circumlunar space. Parameters are for lunar orbit.
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Post by ajv on Oct 6, 2005 1:41:27 GMT -4
There's info on Jodrell Bank's tracking of Luna 15 here. The BBC Planets DVD [amazon] has some interviews with the Soviet scientists who were involved and they talk about their disappointment at the loss of the probe and their mixed emotions about the Apollo landing. There is also an interview with a Jodrell Bank scientist about their tracking efforts.
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Post by Jason Thompson on Oct 6, 2005 7:31:51 GMT -4
had Korolev lived, would the USSR have beaten the US to the moon?
To a circumlunar flight, quite possibly. They had a suitable vehicle available. In the book Two Sides Of The Moon, Alexei Leonov I think mentions that Zond could be manned, and they could certainly have launched a man or two around the Moon, just as they had sent biological samples before. Mishin was unconvinced of its readiness to be manned. Korolev probably would have pressed ahead.
For the manned landing, NASA would almost certainly still have won. The N1 was simply not ready, and the funds had not been allocated that would allow proper testing. It is unlikely that, even if Korolev had lived, the problems with the N1 could have been ironed out before Apollo 11.
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