Lost Soviet Moon Lander May Have Been Found (nytimes.com) 51
An anonymous reader shares a report: In 1966, a beach-ball-size robot bounced across the moon. Once it rolled to a stop, its four petal-like covers opened, exposing a camera that sent back the first picture taken on the surface of another world. This was Luna 9, the Soviet lander that was the earliest spacecraft to safely touchdown on the moon. While it paved the way toward interplanetary exploration, Luna 9's precise whereabouts have remained a mystery ever since.
That may soon change. Two research teams think they might have tracked down the long-lost remains of Luna 9. But there's a catch: The teams do not agree on the location. "One of them is wrong," said Anatoly Zak, a space journalist and author who runs RussianSpaceWeb.com and reported on the story last week. The dueling finds highlight a strange fact of the early moon race: The precise resting places of a number of spacecraft that crashed or landed on the moon in the run up to NASA's Apollo missions are lost to obscurity. A newer generation of spacecraft may at last resolve these mysteries.
Luna 9 launched to the moon on Jan. 31, 1966. While a number of spacecraft had crashed into the lunar surface at that stage of the moon race, it was among the earliest to try what rocket engineers call a soft landing. Its core unit, a spherical suite of scientific instruments, was about two feet across. That size makes it difficult to spot from orbit. "Luna 9 is a very, very small vehicle," said Mark Robinson, a geologist at the company Intuitive Machines, which has twice landed spacecraft on the moon.
That may soon change. Two research teams think they might have tracked down the long-lost remains of Luna 9. But there's a catch: The teams do not agree on the location. "One of them is wrong," said Anatoly Zak, a space journalist and author who runs RussianSpaceWeb.com and reported on the story last week. The dueling finds highlight a strange fact of the early moon race: The precise resting places of a number of spacecraft that crashed or landed on the moon in the run up to NASA's Apollo missions are lost to obscurity. A newer generation of spacecraft may at last resolve these mysteries.
Luna 9 launched to the moon on Jan. 31, 1966. While a number of spacecraft had crashed into the lunar surface at that stage of the moon race, it was among the earliest to try what rocket engineers call a soft landing. Its core unit, a spherical suite of scientific instruments, was about two feet across. That size makes it difficult to spot from orbit. "Luna 9 is a very, very small vehicle," said Mark Robinson, a geologist at the company Intuitive Machines, which has twice landed spacecraft on the moon.
One of them is wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
or both
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Two men say they're Jesus - ONE man must be wrong! [youtu.be]
Re:One of them is wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Two men say they're Jesus - ONE man must be wrong! [youtu.be]
The millions of people worldwide named Jesús would disagree, I think?
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I'll be sure to bring it to Mark Knopfler's attention the very next time I see him!
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Nobody F**ks with the Jesus [youtube.com]
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Re: One of them is wrong (Score:2)
At least, one of them is wrong.
Re: One of them is wrong (Score:3)
There is at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black.
At least one of them is wrong (Score:2)
or both
The correct statement should have been: "At least one of them is wrong,"
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The correct statement should have been: "At least one of them is wrong,"
That is logically equivalent to the original statement.
"You have 2 US coins in your pocket that equal thirty cents - one coin is not a nickel - what coins are in your pocket?"
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Did America ever have 20 cent pieces? Yes, in 1875. So options are a dime and 20 cent piece or a quarter and half dime, which stopped being minted in 1873.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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This option is so often overlooked, it's almost comical.
Same in most political debates. You are strongly pushed to take a side. The option "both sides are full of shit" is often ignored.
Re: One of them is wrong (Score:2)
Good old false dichotomy. Our little ape brains fall for it so easily.
If only the flat earthers were this easy. (Score:1)
A newer generation of spacecraft may at last resolve these mysteries.
Yes. And when we do find the evidence of former successful space missions to our moon by multiple countries (as if being able to telescope the lunar tracks from Earth isn't evidence enough), we can finally tell the conspiracy theorists still living on a lunar Hollywood set to shut the fuck up already.
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Most flatties don't dispute probes, they dispute humans went.
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Re: If only the flat earthers were this easy. (Score:2)
I keep it in my desk drawer when you're not looking.
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Most flatties don't dispute probes, they dispute humans went.
Depends on the degree to which The Flattie has drunk the Kool-Aid.
Many believe the earth is a dome-covered plane. They call the dome "The Firmament" and argue no craft can penetrate it, ergo nothing has been to the moon.
Other morons believe rockets don't function in the vacuum of space because they have nothing to "push against." If you spray a garden hose against your hand you feel your hand being pushed away, so they argue that means
Apollo Landing site with footprints (Score:1, Informative)
And when we do find the evidence of former successful space missions to our moon
The USA, Russia, China, India, and Japan have photos of Apollo landing sites. Some of the photos show footprints.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/s... [pbs.org]
Re: Apollo Landing site with footprints (Score:3)
Clearly it's the lizard people that faked the footprints.
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as if being able to telescope the lunar tracks from Earth isn't evidence enough
We can't do that. The largest telescopes on Earth have a mirror diameter of 8 m, which gives a diffraction limit of something like 50 meters per pixel.
We have photos of the landing sites from lunar orbiters like LRO (50 cm/px) and Chandrayaan-2 (down to 25 cm/px).
Alamy suckers (Score:2, Interesting)
TFA's headline photo claims to be "a model of the Russian Luna 9 space vehicle on view at the Space Pavilion of the U.S.S.R. Exhibition of Economic Achievements in Moscow in 1966." Really? Just look at the scale of the "beachball-sized" sphere compared to the people around it.
It's actually Yuri Gagarin's 1957 Vostok capsule sitting on top of a last stage R-7 Semyorka. See also, https://yuriesfera.net/documen... [yuriesfera.net]
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What did you expect from the New York Times ... good reporting?
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What did you expect from the New York Times ... good reporting?
Isn’t that a felony now?
Re: Alamy suckers (Score:2)
WaPo seems to think so after Trump's call to Bezos.
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Little-known fact: In the post-Stalin USSR, because of poor nutrition - your average Soviet adult was only about 30cm tall.
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There aren't any people in the photo, unless you mean the ones way the hell in the background. If so, google "perspective."
Wikipedia has pictures of several other models, including one in Paris:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The capsule is covered by the landing bag that cushions it from the only relatively soft landing.
Vostok looks different, including in your link, but here's another:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Stanliyev Kubrekov (Score:3)
One of the best directors in the Soviet era.
Alternate non-paywalled article (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Alternate non-paywalled article (Score:2)
This is a much better article
Soviets had some nice "firsts" (Score:5, Interesting)
Notable firsts include but are not limited to:
1) First orbiting satellite.
2) First photo of far-side of the moon
3) First animal in orbit (poor Laika)
4) First human in orbit
5) First space-walk
6) First photo from surface of moon
7) First probe to return data from surface of Mars (short-lived)
8) First automated sample return from moon
9) First photo from surface of another planet (Venus)
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First 7 year old to die of cirrhosis.
LOL
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NASA still has lots of "firsts" . Unfortunately they all relate to DEI now.
Until NASA's critics come anywhere remotely close to catching up to what NASA achieved in 1969, their nitpicking is not very compelling to me.
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First MAGA ejected into space.
Re:Soviets had some nice "firsts" (Score:5, Funny)
We need 3 ark space-ships. One for the MAGAs, one for the wokes, and the rest of us will be along shortly.
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IMHO, the greatest Soviet achievement in space was the Venera program, which managed to gather and transmit data from the harshest rocky environment in the Solar System by a large margin.
Venera 9 - Took the first photo on the surface of a planet other than earth, in 1975. It survived on the surface for 53 minutes. Amazing.
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IMHO, the greatest Soviet achievement in space was the Venera program, which managed to gather and transmit data from the harshest rocky environment in the Solar System by a large margin.
And it inspired a two-part episode of "The Six Million Dollar Man"... Death Probe [fandom.com]
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First animals back alive from orbit.
First woman in space.
First space station, and in fact all the early space stations.
Many firsts for long duration missions in space.
Their moon rocket design has proven to be the right track in the long term, having multiple small engines similar to Starship. They just didn't have the funding or the political will to make it work.
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Actually, the 2nd successful space station was Skylab. The 2 or 3 follow up missions after Salyut 1 failed in various ways and were never crewed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Beach ball sized robot? (Score:5, Funny)
Then we all know exactly what it looked like!
https://sideline.b-cdn.net/wp-... [b-cdn.net]