Venus!
If you grew up under the influence of what I call the plastic curtain (which is to say the overlying power of the U.S.) vs. the iron curtain (yes, those damn Russkies and their little Trabant driving satellite-country henchmen), you were never really fully aware of what those damn commies were doing in their space program. It was essentially ignored by the "free world," with everyone praying that the same damn commies wouldn't set foot on the luna firma first.
In fact, before I show you the goodies this post is actually about, I'll ask you some space questions to show how little you know about what has to be the most technologically dangerous, thrilling and ambitious period of human history to this point (answers at the bottom).
1. What is the first spacecraft to soft land on the moon?
2. Name the first spacecraft to touch Venus, and the year.
3. Name the first spaceflight fatality.
4. Name the first robotic mission to the moon to automatically return rocks back to the earth.
5. What was the first man made object to hit the moon?
6. Who is the first woman in space?
Okay, enough torture. The original data from the Soviets 1975 Venera-9 project have been reprocessed using modern computational techniques to give these stunning images. They also provide a good lesson to all geeks everywhere: don't ever toss your original data if they're incomplete. Especially in these days of mass storage being so cheap.
Answers:
1. The Soviets invented the idea of two different ways to get to any planetary object. One was to essentially just create a meteorite (not really the right term since it's not aimed at the Earth) and chuck it at a planet -- the scientific equivalent of throwing a rock at a school bus (and every bit as fun). The other was to "soft land," sending probes out to planets with the intention of sending information back. The Soviet Luna 9 soft-landed on the moon in 1966.
2. The Soviet Venus 3 in 1966 using the famous rock-at-bus technique. Those damn commies, they were always chucking junk at planets.
3. The Soviets did all their space landings in Siberia (on the hard surface of the Earth). Nice big spot where if you were off by a few hundred kilometers, it was no big deal if you killed a few dozen yaks on the way in. The problem is your parachutes have to work pretty well, and if they don't, you take the Big Bounce. This is what happened to Vladimir Komarov in 1967. A nice write-up of that event, and American propaganda surrounding it, can be found here.
4. Bet you didn't know that you didn't actually have to put humans in harm's way to get rocks back, did ya? The Soviet Luna 16 was fully automatic (although today we'd insist on using the term robotic because it sounds so much cooler). This mission and another brought back a total of about 5 oz of moon rock. (Side trivium: it's a felony to own moon rock in the U.S. since, if it's not meteoritic, it has to have been stolen from NASA and its inherent value would almost certainly be worth more than $1,000. That's right, it's grand theft from the Feds.)
5. The Soviets proved they could chuck a rock at the moon and hit it in 1959 with Luna 2, making damn sure that the object that did it was emblazoned with a Soviet coat of arms. (Luna 1 was the first man-made object to orbit the sun earlier that same year.) Those commies. Gotta hate 'em.
6. In 1963, the Soviets, those damn commies known for keeping down the rights of the individual (and therefore all of humanity), put Valentia Tereshkova in space 16 months after the imperialist Americans have John Glenn orbit. It would be 20 years before the Americans put their first woman, Sally Ride, in space; and another three years before those same imperialists become the first to blow up a female school teacher in space (on board the very same shuttle that carried Ride).
In fact, before I show you the goodies this post is actually about, I'll ask you some space questions to show how little you know about what has to be the most technologically dangerous, thrilling and ambitious period of human history to this point (answers at the bottom).
1. What is the first spacecraft to soft land on the moon?
2. Name the first spacecraft to touch Venus, and the year.
3. Name the first spaceflight fatality.
4. Name the first robotic mission to the moon to automatically return rocks back to the earth.
5. What was the first man made object to hit the moon?
6. Who is the first woman in space?
Okay, enough torture. The original data from the Soviets 1975 Venera-9 project have been reprocessed using modern computational techniques to give these stunning images. They also provide a good lesson to all geeks everywhere: don't ever toss your original data if they're incomplete. Especially in these days of mass storage being so cheap.
Answers:
1. The Soviets invented the idea of two different ways to get to any planetary object. One was to essentially just create a meteorite (not really the right term since it's not aimed at the Earth) and chuck it at a planet -- the scientific equivalent of throwing a rock at a school bus (and every bit as fun). The other was to "soft land," sending probes out to planets with the intention of sending information back. The Soviet Luna 9 soft-landed on the moon in 1966.
2. The Soviet Venus 3 in 1966 using the famous rock-at-bus technique. Those damn commies, they were always chucking junk at planets.
3. The Soviets did all their space landings in Siberia (on the hard surface of the Earth). Nice big spot where if you were off by a few hundred kilometers, it was no big deal if you killed a few dozen yaks on the way in. The problem is your parachutes have to work pretty well, and if they don't, you take the Big Bounce. This is what happened to Vladimir Komarov in 1967. A nice write-up of that event, and American propaganda surrounding it, can be found here.
4. Bet you didn't know that you didn't actually have to put humans in harm's way to get rocks back, did ya? The Soviet Luna 16 was fully automatic (although today we'd insist on using the term robotic because it sounds so much cooler). This mission and another brought back a total of about 5 oz of moon rock. (Side trivium: it's a felony to own moon rock in the U.S. since, if it's not meteoritic, it has to have been stolen from NASA and its inherent value would almost certainly be worth more than $1,000. That's right, it's grand theft from the Feds.)
5. The Soviets proved they could chuck a rock at the moon and hit it in 1959 with Luna 2, making damn sure that the object that did it was emblazoned with a Soviet coat of arms. (Luna 1 was the first man-made object to orbit the sun earlier that same year.) Those commies. Gotta hate 'em.
6. In 1963, the Soviets, those damn commies known for keeping down the rights of the individual (and therefore all of humanity), put Valentia Tereshkova in space 16 months after the imperialist Americans have John Glenn orbit. It would be 20 years before the Americans put their first woman, Sally Ride, in space; and another three years before those same imperialists become the first to blow up a female school teacher in space (on board the very same shuttle that carried Ride).
posted by b1-66er at 05:57
2 Comments:
Very informative. I had no idea almost an hour's worth of images from Venus had been received. I recall learning in school they only got one or two images of Venus from that mission.
Interestingly enough, the event that stands out for me when I think of the Soviet space missions is the poor stray dog Laika, the first creature to orbit the Earth. Never mind that we sent animals (monkeys and chimps) into space too.
The History Channel had a great program on a few months ago that detailed what was going on in Russia while the US was feverishly trying to beat the USSR to the moon in the 1960's. My dad was an aerospace engineer at Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin)in Denver during this time, and we always got to watch the latest rocket launch on TV, over breakfast (which was an occasion in itself, since the TV was rarely on at our house). It has been fascinating to learn about what was going on in the USSR while we were eating Frosted Flakes and watching grainy, flickering, black-and-white images on the TV in our living room...
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