Yesterday we listened to a talk by The Russian wherein he talked about the Russian Space Agency and its past, present, and future.

The Russians have great ideas on how space exploration should be undertaken: they basically design a spacecraft, make at least two and sometimes five, and then shoot them out into space. If one fails, they immediately shoot off another. When one of the early Venera (Venus) missions lost contact with the Earth a few days out, they fired off the next Venera immediately... like the day afterwards if not the day of the radio failure. (You'd have to, really, if you wanted to take advantange of the same launch window). Of course around half of the missions crash or get lost... pass by the moon instead of going into orbit, crash into Venus instead of landing on it, get crushed by the atmosphere, etc., but it doesn't matter because there are 12 more and spare parts besides! And if the space craft accidentally missed the intended planet, it doesn't become a failed impact mission, it becomes a successful flyby mission. GREAT SOVIET SUCCESS!

The Russian was involved in picking sites for the planned Soviet manned mission to the moon in the late 60s. They were racing against the US, but the US had a leg up: we'd put a lunar orbiter up and taken all kinds of pictures of the moon (it was the old days... they had a camera with film that took the picture, the machine developed the film, then scanned it, then sent it back to the earth... all pre-digital!) The US could look at these pictures and choose our landing sites so that we wouldn't land on huge boulders or on the side of any chasms. To send a manned mission to the moon without knowing what the landing ellipse looked like seemed like suicide.

Then one day some men showed up, some "delegates". They gave the scientists a bunch of photos. All the photos of the moon that they could desire! ...All of the American photos of the moon they could desire. Nobody asked where they'd gotten them from.
Here The Russian interjected: "You know, there are Russian spies everywhere."
He paused, looking around.
"Even here."

The rapidness at which the this space race progressed was astounding. Due perhaps to a popular American science-fiction book at the time, many scientists from both countries feared that the moon would be covered with a layer of dust so thick that anything that landed on it would sink into the dust and be lost. The Russians successfully landed Luna 9 on the moon and sent back the first pictures from its surface in 1966, and NASA's similar craft the Surveyor 1 landed successfully later in the same year. Think about that: 1966, scientists think that the moon is made of thick dust that swallows spacecraft alive, and they have no good evidence to disprove it.
1969: Man lands on the moon. Three years later. In the meantime there were SIX successful Russian missions and SEVEN successful US missions sending landers and surveyors to the moon.

Man, space science just ain't the way it used to be.

In the end, the Russians didn't beat us to the moon. One of the most important scientists on the project, the brilliant guy in charge (a rocket propulsion guy named Korolyov) required minor surgery part of the way through the project. Instead of having some random doctor do it, since he was a VIP in the Party they had the Minister of Health himself do the surgery. Unfortunately the Minister of Health doesn't do a lot of surgeries on a day-to-day basis. During the surgery the scientist's heart stopped beating. Normally they would easily restart his heart with paddles, but the paddles were "not available" and the scientist died. The leadership over the rocket building was fought over by several rival companies, including one where Nikita Khrushchev's son worked.

The set-back made it impossible for the Russians to realistically get a manned mission to the moon before the US. In order to avoid embarrassment, the leadership publically decided to change their focus to robotic exploration of the moon and sample return. Four days before Apollo 11 launched, the Russians launched the first sample return mission, so they could beat the Americans back from the moon with moon rocks in tow. Unfortunately this mission crashed. Apollo 11 on the other hand was a fantastic success, and the rest is history.

Even so, the Russians can claim a lot of successes at the moon. They were the first to fly by the moon (in reality they meant to hit it and missed) They were the first to crash into the moon, they were the first to take pictures of the far side of the moon, the first to have a successful soft landing on the moon's surface, and they had the first rovers on the moon, a mission (Lunakhod) with which The Russian was very involved. And after Apollo 11 the Russians did return successfully to the moon many times, bringing back several hundred grams of sample from various places on the lunar surface. For comparison, the USA brought back several hundred KILOgrams of moon sample from Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17.

Ironically, soon after the space race ended, scientists from the two countries reached a little agreement where they would trade and share all of their moon rocks so that everyone could have a better understanding of the evolution of the whole moon. Nobody stopped them because going to the moon wasn't even about science in the first place, so what's the harm? They even later used extra parts from Apollo to launch some joint Soviet/American space ventures later on.
Those nutty scientists, always collaborating with others, not caring if they are filthy communists, what are we going to do with them?

This is the e-mail signature of my PI:

David P. Summers
Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe
c/o NASA Ames Research Center
Mail Stop 239-4
Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000

How fucking badass is that? Fucking, CARL SAGAN CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE. That's so awesome. Carl Sagan. Oh, I loved every bit of star stuff in your body and your brain.
» ranor on 2007-03-30 09:47:08

Re:comment
Due to heightened security concerns, the badging process may take from ONE to THREE MONTHS to complete. This involves an extensive background check of the LAST SEVEN YEARS.

Luckily, I have no crimes on my record... that I know of. But hey, if wanting to have sex with the "Queen" of Denial was a crime, then lock me up and throw away the key. But when I get my permanent badge (and by permanent, I mean until my internship is over next year), I will be able to request visitor badges, so if you find yourself in the vicinity, we should definitely hang out, especially on Tuesdays, when my badge gets me 10% off at the gift shop. Which means discounted freeze-dried astronaut ice cream! Mmm, mmm, good.
» ranor on 2007-03-30 10:18:35

It depends.
Is there an active yeast infection right now?
» ranor on 2007-03-30 10:35:18

So, like...
I'd like to go back in time to when I slept in his room when he got sick. Okay, wait, maybe not because his mouth wouldn't taste very pleasant. Hmm...

...how about senior year of high school?
» ranor on 2007-03-30 10:49:56

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