[X] My Assistant

[MizarKey]

Thanks to Ustrax in this post , I've had a chance to see some of the Russian images I've never seen.

It looks like they had some problems with stitching or something. Note these two:

February 25 program 4 image 8Z


Larger

February 26 program 5 image 12Z


Larger

Same approx. area, one has a folded landscape on the left, the other has an old crater...right hand side appears to be the same though. I don't know if there's a way to find out where this area is to compare it to MOC images...

[Dio]

LO images with typical damages:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunar_or...g/iv_085_h3.jpg
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunar_or...g/iv_103_h1.jpg

(obviously there is alien base in the Moon)

>> Later on they had a few ships sailing the oceans to get better coverage.

There were about dozen of such ships well before Mars-71. But they were incapable to relay with intreplanetary probes. They were intended to support manned missions and lunar probes.

>> The paranoia of the soviet system or was that national pride might have
>> stopped them from building any one elsewhere

Though soviet system had a number of amusing features, it is unfounded to put to its "paranoia" that the things absolutly impossible at the moment were not done. Where the "soviet world-wide system of dishes" should be located? In Cuba and Ephiopia? May be it would be still better USA to sell a small piece of DSN time to Soviet Union? Such a good neighbour relations.

>> The alternative would have been one TV camera which back then was one electronic tube didnt have that
>> much resolution and gave one noisy image.

It should be mentioned that this was not conseqence of soviet inability to create decent videocon cameras for space use. There were such cameras (Kosmos-144, manned program etc). Though USA had stronger positions in this technology, they principially had the same choose. One can compare videosystems of nearly simultaneous Mariner-9 and Marses-71, 73.