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Post by tedward on Aug 8, 2008 19:23:37 GMT -4
Interesting. I must read up some more on the Russian exploration of the moon. Could do with some worthwhile pointers in the book department. Ones to go for and avoid and all that.
I prefer the written to the web.
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Post by Ginnie on Aug 8, 2008 22:03:08 GMT -4
Same here. Although I have many books, they are for the most part generalising topics - astronomy, space etc. I'd love to find a really good illustrated book on the history of satellites. I do have a great book, "The Encyclopedia of Space" but it is from 1969. Actually, I want to start a thread with quotes from the book to see if some of the information is outdated.
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Post by Count Zero on Aug 9, 2008 1:51:14 GMT -4
I'd suspect that the like of Zond 5 and 6 both took film beyond the VA Belts. In fact (for Zond 6) "Zond 6 flew around the moon on November 14, 1968, at a minimum distance of 2420 km. Photographs of the lunar near side and far side were obtained with panchromatic film. Each photo was 5 in by 7 in (127.0 by 177.8 mm). Some of the views allowed for stereo pictures. The photos were taken from distances of approximately 11,000 km and 3300 km." From this site: Zond 6 crashed and only a few frames were recovered. Zond 7 brought back some really lovely color photos:
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Post by Data Cable on Aug 9, 2008 3:26:28 GMT -4
Zond 7 brought back some really lovely color photos: Depicting, of course, a red moon. <snerk>
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Post by PhantomWolf on Aug 9, 2008 6:31:43 GMT -4
I knew this, but it still took pictures and film beyond the VA Belts, even if the Soviets did screw up the landing.
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Post by gwiz on Aug 9, 2008 10:17:33 GMT -4
If the argument is that film would be rendered useless by the radiation (which I assume is the point being made) then the film need not be brought back to Earth to demonstrate the argument false. Satellites have taken film through the Van Allen Radiation belts, taken photos with it, developed it, scanned the transparencies, and transmitted the images back to Earth. This has adequately shown that film can survive passage through the radiation belts. The NASA Lunar Orbiter probes were best known for using this technique, which provided high-resolution mapping of the Apollo landing sites. However, it was also the technique of choice rather than TV for the Russians for most of their early deep-space missions, starting with the Luna 3 mission in 1959 which gave the first pictures of the far side of the moon. They were still using it for their series of Mars probes in 1973.
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
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Post by Bob B. on Aug 9, 2008 10:45:11 GMT -4
I forgot about Zond when I brought up this point. I was thinking about Lunar Orbiter and Luna, though I didn't realize the Soviets were still using the technique as late as 1973 on their Mars probes (thanks, gwiz).
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Post by gwiz on Aug 9, 2008 10:57:59 GMT -4
Interesting. I must read up some more on the Russian exploration of the moon. Could do with some worthwhile pointers in the book department. Ones to go for and avoid and all that. Personally, I'd recommend this one. If you want the details of how and why the Russian manned lunar effort failed, try finding a copy of this. If you can't get hard copy, it's available in two large downloads from the NASA history page.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Aug 9, 2008 15:20:20 GMT -4
It is a very good idea to read up on the Soviet missions and attempts, not just because they are fun to learn about for space enthusiasts, but in general people know less about the Soviet missions than they do the US ones, this gives the Hucksters carte blance to say that the Soviets did "X" or couldn't do "Y" without much challenge. If you know the Soviet missions as well as you know the US ones, you can quickly show than no only were there valid reasons, but you can show that the Soviets and US obtained similar results with their photographs and other data from the moon.
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Post by grmcdorman on Aug 9, 2008 17:33:59 GMT -4
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Post by Ginnie on Aug 9, 2008 18:35:23 GMT -4
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Post by gwiz on Aug 10, 2008 5:57:46 GMT -4
Presumably the book of the TV series, which was OK as the first dramatisation of the events, the human stories of Korolev and Von Braun, but you don't expect a TV series to be that accurate on technical detail.
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Post by tedward on Aug 10, 2008 7:55:24 GMT -4
gwiz, thanks. Will be adding to my list with amazon.
Great link for the Russian images.
ETA I have found the NASA history to be very useful. I had heard about "chariots for apollo" (?) but couldn't find it until I looked there.
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Post by Count Zero on Aug 10, 2008 12:19:01 GMT -4
Chariots of Apollo is great. One of the things that struck me while reading it was the enthusiasm of the people involved. They would never have condoned or participated in a hoax!
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Post by PhantomWolf on Aug 10, 2008 16:44:46 GMT -4
Most if the NASA books from that era can be found online on their site
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