Post by Kiwi on Oct 6, 2005 22:53:26 GMT -4
sticks said:
Saw programme 4 last nightSomething 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?
You mean, "How come _I_ never heard of this before?"
We knew as much as could be known about Luna 15 here in New Zealand during the Apollo 11 mission -- it was one more thing that contributed to the excitement of the first moonlanding. It was mentioned on the radio and in newspapers and probably on TV too, but few of us had sets in 1969. All the books I've seen about Apollo 11 mention Luna 15.
Check out the newspapers of the time at your library -- they are bound to mention it. For instance, a newspaper supplement printed by The Dominion in Wellington, New Zealand, on the morning of Tuesday, 22 July 1969, less than 24 hours after the landing (NZST), says on page 3: "Government leaders and newspapers all over the world hailed their feat. One exception was Moscow, which is being secretive about the mission of its own unmanned Luna 15 vehicle still orbiting the Moon. The Soviet news agency Tass, in contrast to the mammoth coverage elsewhere, made only a brief mention of the American landing."
And on page 14 Dr Thomas Paine, Director of NASA, is quoted as saying: "It's significant, I think, that two days ago the Soviet Union, at our request, passed to us valuable orbital parameters for the Luna 15 mission in an unprecedented cooperative move, and I think this bodes well for the future of manned exploration of our sister planet."
The story is told in detail in "First on the Moon - A Voyage with Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Edwin E. Aldrin Jr", written with Gene Farmer and Dora Jane Hamblin, epilogue by Arthur C. Clark. Michael Joseph Ltd, London (1970):
Page 117-118
On July 13, a Sunday, at 5:55 A.M. Moscow time -- 10:55 P.M. Saturday, EDT, at Cape Kennedy, a little less than seventy-two hours before the launch of Apollo 11 -- the Soviet Union launched an unmanned moon rocket which was called Luna 15. This was three days after Frank Borman had returned to America following a week-long visit to the Soviet Union. When he arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport he found a message to telephone Washington. Everyone in NASA wanted to talk to him about his trip to Russia -- Monday morning. Borman said, "How about eight o'clock?"
He was still in Washington Saturday night when the news came through about Luna 15. Chris Kraft called Borman: "He said we're interested in what's going on. I asked, 'How interested are you? Is it an academic interest or do you have a concern?' He said, 'We're a little concerned.' So I went and talked to the people on the White House staff, Dr. [Henry] Kissinger and so on. They all said that if we were seriously concerned about safety, my God, we'll use the hot line. If it's just a concern about the potential, then call. So I just picked up the telephone and called the director of the Soviet Institute of Science, a man named [Dr Mstislav] Keldysh. But it was something like two o'clock in the morning in Moscow and I couldn't reach anyone. So I got in the airplane and flew back to Houston.
"Then, at six the next morning, they called my home number, and Sue was lying in bed complaining about the telephone ringing so early. She was spooked enough to conclude that telephone calls and telegrams at that hour undoubtedly meant trouble... Moscow, Missouri? Moscow, Texas? Then it dawned on her.
"The trouble was, they had our trajectory but we didn't have theirs. I talked to the guy who had been our interpreter, but a little more than that -- a very knowledgeable man. Then I talked to Keldysh's number two guy; he spoke English, and Keldysh did not speak English. They said they would give me their trajectory, and they stuck by their word. They said they would confirm, and they did."
They did indeed -- with two telegrams, one addressed to Borman in care of the White House, another addressed to his home in El Lago, Texas. The first telegram read: "Informing you that on July 19 at 1608 Moscow time the orbit of Luna 15 has been changed. Elements of corrected orbit preliminary constitute: to create a revolution two hours three minutes thirty Seconds... Luna 15 probe will remain in this orbit for one day. You will be kept informed of further changes." A second telegram arrived within a few hours: "Inform you that on July 17 at 1300 Moscow time the probe was placed in selenocentric orbit [roughly, an equatorial lunar orbit] with the following preliminary values... It is supposed in this orbit probe Luna 15 will remain for two days. In case of further change in the orbit of the probe you will receive additional information. The orbit of probe Luna 15 does not intersect the trajectory of Apollo 11 spacecraft announced by you in flight program."
Both telegrams were signed "Keldysh." Frank Borman had achieved some kind of breakthrough, but how much of a breakthrough? In the final analysis, he said, "'The results of breakthroughs are human achievements. If you ever want to get anything done I've found you have to cut through the mass of things. You can generate an awful lot of enemies along the line. I've got a few." But he had liked the Soviet cosmonauts -- as had other American astronauts like Jim McDivitt and Dave Scott, who had met their opposite numbers at Paris air shows. The Bormans brought back pictures of cosmonauts Gherman Titov and the late Yuri Gagarin. Someone remarked that Gagarin looked like James Dean. "Who's James Dean?" asked Frank Borman, and some embarrassed laughter followed.
HOUSTON (McCandless): Okay, from Jodrell Bank, England, via A.P. Britain's big Jodrell Bank radio telescope stopped receiving signals from the Soviet Union's unmanned moon shot at 5:49 EDT today. A spokesman said that it appeared the Luna 15 spaceship "has gone beyond the moon." Another quote: "We don't think it has landed."
Page 133 (Approximately GET 33:34)
HOUSTON (Duke): Latest on Luna 15. Tass reported this morning that the spacecraft was placed in orbit close to the lunar surface, and everything seems to be functioning normally on the vehicle. Sir Bernard Lovell said the craft appears to be in an orbit of about sixty-two nautical miles. Over.
COLLINS: Okay. Thank you, Charlie.
Page 305
...one mystery was about to be solved: the fate of the Soviets' Luna 15. At 8:47 in the morning of July 21, Houston time (ten hours later in Moscow), something unfortunate happened to Luna 15. It crashed onto the lunar surface. On July 22 the official Soviet news agency Tass announced: "On July 21, 1969, the program of research in the space near the moon, and of checking the new systems of the automatic station Luna 15, was completed. At 18 hours 47 minutes Moscow time on July 21, a retro-rocket was switched on and the station left the orbit and reached the moon's surface in the preset area." 7
Luna 15 had reached the moon's surface all right, but not under ideal circumstances. It was not manned. Suppose the Soviet equivalents of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had been aboard? Would the landing not have had a better chance of success? After all, if Armstrong and Aldrin had not been aboard Eagle, the lunar module of Apollo 11 would undoubtedly have met the same fate as Luna 15: it would have crashed, guided by a computer, in a lunar boulder field.
Page 433 (Chapter 12 notes)
7. The best estimate of Britain's Sir Bernard Lovell, F.R.S., is that Luna 15 crashed into the moon's Sea of Crises, about five hundred miles from where Armstrong and Aldrin landed in Eagle. The purpose of Luna 15 -- i.e., whether or not a "soft" or "hard" landing was intended, and whether or not there was a failure in telemetry, remains obscure.
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