Soviet Luna Missions Options

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

Check this out - a scale model of Luna 24 complete with actual lunar surface
samples attached to the base:

http://www.maxuta.biz/luna_24_soil/

It was a gift to some guy named Leonid Brezhnev for his 70th birthday in 1976.

I've encountered Soviet Moon samples for sale, usually in the $100,000 to $200,000 range. Caveat Emptor! That's a lot of money to spend for a grain of black rock, which may just be a pebble pried out of someone's shoe.

One thing I have spent some money on are the limited edition spacecraft pennants. Planetary and Lunar landers all had a pennant attached to them, and a few hundred of these would be made and distributed to top officials and engineers. They're hard to find, and generally go for about $1000 a piece.

[attachment=6035:attachment]

[tedstryk]

I've encountered Soviet Moon samples for sale, usually in the $100,000 to $200,000 range. Caveat Emptor! That's a lot of money to spend for a grain of black rock, which may just be a pebble pried out of someone's shoe.

One thing I have spent some money on are the limited edition spacecraft pennants. Planetary and Lunar landers all had a pennant attached to them, and a few hundred of these would be made and distributed to top officials and engineers. They're hard to find, and generally go for about $1000 a piece.

[attachment=6035:attachment]

I have a small collection of Soviet Pennants and stamps, some space, some not. Most I bought from streat vendors in the old East in the 1990s.

[PhilHorzempa]

I have looked through this thread and other Luna threads on UMSF, but have
not found any "official" explanation of what happened to the Sample-Return missions
that didn't return, i.e., Lunas 15, 18 and 23. I have heard the usual stories
about the end of each of these missions.

However, do we really KNOW what happened to Lunas 15, 18 and 23?

For example, we have all read that Luna 15 crashed while attempting to land in July 1969.
However, why did it crash? Was it hardware, software, terrain?

The same goes for Luna 18 and Luna 23. Did Luna 18 actually crash, and if so,
then why? Was it descending too rapidly?

As for Luna 23, the "official" explanation for its lack of return is that
the drill mechanism was damaged. Was this a cover story meant to hide some
engineering embarrassment such as an ascent engine that would not ignite?


Another Phil

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

I have looked through this thread and other Luna threads on UMSF, but have
not found any "official" explanation of what happened to the Sample-Return missions
that didn't return, i.e., Lunas 15, 18 and 23. I have heard the usual stories
about the end of each of these missions.

However, do we really KNOW what happened to Lunas 15, 18 and 23?

For example, we have all read that Luna 15 crashed while attempting to land in July 1969.
However, why did it crash? Was it hardware, software, terrain?

The same goes for Luna 18 and Luna 23. Did Luna 18 actually crash, and if so,
then why? Was it descending too rapidly?

As for Luna 23, the "official" explanation for its lack of return is that
the drill mechanism was damaged. Was this a cover story meant to hide some
engineering embarrassment such as an ascent engine that would not ignite?
Another Phil

There is a wealth of technical detail about many mission failures, written in the 1980s and 1990s, after conditions were more liberalized. I don't believe those accounts are dishonest.

I imagine what they really KNOW about Luna-15 is that the telemetry signal ended abruptly. Followed by some colorful words in the control room (and believe me, Russian is colorful).

[PhilHorzempa]

There is a wealth of technical detail about many mission failures, written in the 1980s and 1990s, after conditions were more liberalized. I don't believe those accounts are dishonest.

I imagine what they really KNOW about Luna-15 is that the telemetry signal ended abruptly. Followed by some colorful words in the control room (and believe me, Russian is colorful).

Sorry for taking so long for this reply. However, could you provide
information on where the "wealth of technical detail" has been published.
Spaceflight? JBIS? Russian books?


Another Phil

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

The wealth of information is in Russian. There are textbooks that describe how rocket and radio telemetry systems work in detail, there are biographies, collections of all of Korolev's memos, thousands of scientific journal papers about individual experiements -- some are translated in Cosmic Research but many are not, especially the earlier ones. I have two file cabinets filled with journal papers.

There is no royal road I guess. But if you can read Russian, start with Boris Chertok's four books. The first of them has been translated into English already, and the rest will be eventually. In English, I would absolutely recommend reading Asif Siddiqi's two volumes, but it is mostly about the manned space programs. There just isn't a good comprehensive work on Soviet unmanned probes in English or Russian. Basically taht's what I've been up to, for the Venus probes, writing a book.

The only thing you cannot find in writing is information about the very early MV, 2MV and 3MV experiments. I've relied mostly on interviews with the few remaining scientists for that, in particular Lebedinsky's young assistants.

I wouldn't bank on conspiracy theories and "cover stories" by the way. I see little evidence for that. The soviets often said nothing about a flight, but I know of no case where their scientists lied.

[Phil Stooke]

I have just made a polar pan of Luna 13's landing site - here it is:



North is at the top.

Phil

[tedstryk]

Cool...I did something similar with Luna-9 a while back. However, I never recentered it, so it has the same problems as the original pan. It helps to get a feel for the site, considering the way the tilt of the spacecraft effects the appearance of the panoramas.

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

Very cool. Can't wait to see your book, Phil.

[Phil Stooke]

Thanks. Book update: It's finished. The last entries were the SMART-1 impact and a comment on LCROSS targets. I'm getting a foreword written by - a well-known person - as the last thing to plug in. I am trying to nail down the last permissions to publish material - from Russia (Don will understand that). Some of my colleagues here on UMSF get a big thank-you in the acknowledgements. Then it's file formatting time, and off to the Publisher in November.

All this would be fine if I hadn't been asked to write something for the History of Cartography project as well! - in the same time frame. And you can't turn down a request like that.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Here's the Luna 9 counterpart. A rougher landscape. But you can see the pan covers about 2/3 of the horizon, and large (Taurus-Littrow scale) mountains are not visible. The point usually indicated as the landing point has to be wrong for that reason. The landing site must be further north, out on the mare surface.

Phil

[djellison]

"I'd like to thank the members of UMSF without whom this book would have been finished a good deal sooner"



Doug

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

I am trying to nail down the last permissions to publish material - from Russia (Don will understand that). Some of my colleagues here on UMSF get a big thank-you in the acknowledgements.
Phil

Yeah, scary stuff. There is a hidden wealth of photographic history in Russia, and trying to find it and get permission ot use it is unbelievably hard.

What software are you using for editing the book? I'm doing final layout myself, so I checked out demo versions of the major contenders. In particular, I was concerned about the visual quality of text justification and hyphenation.

1. Quark Express - Very nice and easy to use. Just expensive and not what I'm used to.
2. Adobe InDesign - Incomprehensibe interface. I couldn't even figure out how to start a new document.
3. Word 2003 - Familiar and rock-solid stable(unlike older versions of Word!).
4. Open Office - Did exactly the same typography as Word. Holy reverse engineering, Batman!

I ended up using Word 2003. Discovering the Wordperfect text-justification compatability mode was key. Word's native typography settings are a little ragged when columns get narrower, but in Wordperfect mode it seems just as good as QE or ID.

Of course I violate all the rules about how you are suppose to write a book. I've just typed the book in as final camera-ready layout, adding photos and everything as I go. Why? Because its more fun that way.

[Phil Stooke]

Don - just Word. Cambridge does all the page setup, I provide unformatted text and 400 separate image files!

Phil

[Ian R]

Phil,

Is there any chance you would consider authoring a book on small Solar System bodies at some point in the future? From Phobos and Deimos, to the co-orbital moons of Saturn, I'm sure it would be a fascinating read!

Ian.