August 15th, 2012

I can’t bring anything new to this topic except the ability to analyze and the ability to see the situation from a certain angle. Perhaps you will find this worthy of your attention.

Background of the Moon Race

The first space satellite of the Earth, the first station to reach the surface of the Moon in September 1959, the first orbit around the Moon of the Luna-3 station in the spring of 1960 and the photographs it took of the reverse side, and finally, the first manned flight into space - all of these steps belonged to Soviet cosmonautics and occurred against the backdrop of a series of failures that plagued the American space program.

Falling behind in the space race dealt a severe blow to America's image as the undisputed world leader and undermined the carefully cultivated image of the socialist system as lacking evolutionary meaning and promise. Only a mega-breakthrough could correct the shaky authority.

That is why, soon after Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space, Kennedy’s famous speech, risky in terms of publicly assumed obligations, appeared, promising the nation that the American lunar expedition would land on the Moon before the end of the 60s.

“If we want to win the battle that is taking place around the world between the two systems, if we want to win the battle for the minds of people, then we cannot afford to allow the Soviet Union to take a leading position in space.”

“We must be leaders [in space exploration] because the eyes of the world are now looking into space, to the Moon and beyond, and we have vowed that we will not see an enemy flag of conquest on the Moon, there will be a banner of freedom and peace.”

Plot inconsistencies

When you begin to become more closely acquainted with the American lunar program, its results, the events that accompanied it and the events that followed later, there is a feeling of breaks in a number of storylines, which naturally gives rise to questions. Unlike, for example, the Soviet lunar program, which looks harmonious and logical, without such breaks.

To make the material clear, let's focus on three storylines:

• organizational and technological
• geopolitical
• detective-humorous.

The latter was generated solely by NASA’s approach to presenting evidence of its astronauts’ presence on the Moon.

Organizational and technological gaps

Let us list the points that can be attributed to breaks in the organizational and technological plots.

1. As part of the full-scale testing program for the Saturn-5 launch vehicle, only two unmanned test launches were performed. The second final test on April 4, 1968 was unsuccessful - the main part of its program in terms of preparing the flight to the Moon was failed. There was a premature shutdown of two of the five engines of the second stage, which did not allow the command module to be launched into orbit with a planned apogee of 517,000 km. Instead, using Apollo 6's own engines, the module was launched into orbit with an apogee of 22,235 km. As a result, it was not possible to check the quality of long-distance radio communications, to practice returning to Earth from the second cosmic speed, and most importantly, the reliability of the propulsion system of the Saturn-5 spacecraft remained unconfirmed. No more unmanned tests were carried out, the next flight immediately became the first manned flight around the Moon in December 1968 with a crew of three people, mind you - not turtles. The level of risk for manned flights is unacceptable. In principle, they don't do that. In Soviet cosmonautics, there was a rule: before a manned flight, two completely successful launches of an automatic analogue of the spacecraft must take place. And this rule was not only fulfilled, but also exceeded. Americans, in general, are also reasonable people.
2. Skipping the testing stage with an unmanned lunar landing and return of the lunar module to lunar orbit. A completely independent stage of full-scale testing of a complex unique apparatus, critical in terms of weight and strength characteristics, is mandatory for such a program. Instead, the Americans got away with undocking, maneuvering and docking the return module in lunar orbit - tests, which in themselves are a separate stage, testing the technology of docking and orbital maneuvering, without eliminating the need for an unmanned landing and lunar launch. Desperate guys.
3. The Americans never got the experience of landing ships on Earth from escape velocity because of the aforementioned problems with the final test launch of the Saturn 5, an experience that they quite wisely planned to get. A complex stage of the flight, requiring the same development as the landing and take-off of the lunar module from the surface of the Moon, as well as the stage of docking with the mother ship.
4. Lack of redundancy during the return phase of the lunar module. If during the first flight such an approach can still be explained by competition, then for subsequent mass and already “non-priority” flights such a disregard for safety is inexplicable and absolutely meaningless. As a comparison, we note that within the framework of the Soviet lunar program, to ensure the reliability of return, it was initially planned to use a backup lunar rover and a backup lunar module. The reserve module guaranteed return from the Moon in the event of a failure of the regular lunar ship, and the reserve lunar rover, equipped with a supply of oxygen, was intended to deliver the astronaut to the reserve module. The approach is quite reasonable, keeping the plot intact.
5. In 1970, at the height of the lunar program, the chief designer of the Saturn 5 rocket, Wernher von Braun, was relieved of his post as director of the Space Research Center. Marshall and was effectively removed from the leadership of missile development. A person was removed from the program who, being the coordinator of all parts of a huge complex project, was obliged to carry out operational duty at the MCC for the entire duration of each expedition in case of emergency situations, while remaining loyal to the program. In addition, from a moral point of view, the winner was robbed of the moment of universal recognition and the highest triumph in life among his comrades. Let us imagine, as an example, that S.P. Korolev in 1963 or in 1964 would be transferred to deputy minister.
6. The technological failure in the creation of launch vehicles and powerful rocket engines is the actual loss by the Americans of advanced technologies developed as part of the Saturn-5 project. The Soviet Union was able to repeat the American success in terms of creating a rocket with approximately the same payload capacity as the Saturn 5, only 20 years later in 1988 with Energia. Unfortunately, the program collapsed along with the Soviet Union. But the technologies remained: on the basis of the Energia RD-170 engine, the RD-171 engine was created, which is used for Zenit launch vehicles, and the RD-180 engine, which is supplied to the USA for heavy Atlas-5 launch vehicles. This is despite the fact that the technologies implemented in the F-1 engines for the Saturn-5 are more advanced than those implemented in the RD-170. With similar power, the F-1 engine is single-chamber, while the RD-170 is four-chamber. All other things being equal, the weight characteristics of single-chamber engines are better, and they are also more compact. However, the larger the combustion chamber, the more difficult it is to ensure stable combustion in it - this is an extremely difficult task. Soviet and then Russian engine designers were never able to create a single-chamber engine similar to the F-1. At the very least, it is surprising that the Americans, who have such advanced technology and have gone through the stage of its successful serial replication and use, have been ignoring it for many years and buying less advanced engines based on Soviet technology.

Summarizing the features of the organizational and technological plot of the American lunar program, we can say the following: a fantastic technological breakthrough, an inexplicable subsequent rollback from the achieved technological level, a fantastic, incomprehensible depth of preliminary engineering study of the problem, fantastic recklessness and fantastic luck. Since December 1968, the organizational and technological plot of the American lunar program has undergone a number of breaks from the “real” category to the “fantastic” category. Some of the generally accepted “rules of the game” in space programs were flagrantly violated without any consequences.

Breaks in the geopolitical plot

However, the main miracles happened in the geopolitical arena.

Beginning in 1969, the harmonious, clear and understandable geopolitical plot of the uncompromising confrontation between irreconcilable opponents breaks in an incomprehensible and radical way: America began to play along, as it were, with the Soviet Union, and this playing along continued for several years.
It all started with a gas pipeline to Germany (link):

“On the cold morning of February 1, 1970, at 12:02 a.m., glasses of champagne clinked in the conference room of the Kaiserhof Hotel Essen. German Economics Minister Professor Karl Schiller and Soviet Foreign Trade Minister Nikolai Patolichev signed an unprecedented agreement to begin supplies of natural gas from the USSR to West Germany.

But just about a year ago, when Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko unexpectedly proposed this project at a fair in Hanover, official Bonn then considered it another bluff of the Soviets.”

This is how direct participants in the process comment on the event.

Andreas Mayer-Landrut, German Ambassador to the USSR in the 80s:

“This deal was, of course, very important for the development of East-West relations. For the first time, Germany acted not as a “tail” of the Americans, but as an independent political player. US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger did not want the Germans to play a special role in the policy of rapprochement between the West and the East, he wanted to keep it under his control. But we are ahead of him with our Eastern policy.”

This comment is clearly intended for German mass consumption - so that the tail, which suffered a lot of humiliation after the 1st and 2nd world wars, thinks that it is wagging the dog.

Nikolai Komarov, first deputy minister of foreign trade in the 70s:

“There was no need to push through this idea, there were no political problems, everyone was interested, and the people at the top agreed quite quickly. There were no political problems."

What is noteworthy in this commentary is the remark about the absence of political problems at the top, while all previous attempts to build pipelines from the USSR to the West were decisively suppressed. For example, under the pretext that in the event of hostilities they could ensure the supply of fuel to the advancing Soviet army. Let us add that this is a time of fierce geopolitical confrontation against the backdrop of a striking event in the world liberal media cult - the Prague spring of 1968. and the indirect clash between the Soviet Union and America in the Vietnam War (1965-1973).

There were Soviet military advisers and specialists in North Vietnam who helped create an air defense system that virtually did not exist at the beginning of the war. The USSR also provided assistance with weapons and fuel. For the Americans, the result was catastrophic: during the war, according to various sources, from 3,500 to 5,000 US Air Force aircraft were shot down. In 1966, the Pentagon, with the approval of the US President and Congress, authorized commanders of carrier strike groups to destroy Soviet submarines detected within a hundred miles of the group. And this is in “peaceful” times. In 1968, the Soviet nuclear submarine K-10 in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam for 13 hours, unnoticed at a depth of fifty meters, followed under the bottom of the aircraft carrier Enterprise and practiced simulated attacks on it with torpedoes and cruise missiles, running the risk of destruction (or maybe Perhaps the Americans wisely decided not to notice it). Enterprise was the largest aircraft carrier in the US Navy and flew the most bombing missions against North Vietnam. Such is the American-Soviet friendship.

In September 1967 In Moscow, further agreements were signed on the USSR providing assistance to North Vietnam, and in 1968. The Soviet Union continued to supply free of charge aircraft, anti-aircraft missiles and anti-aircraft artillery weapons, small arms, ammunition and other military equipment.

In such a situation, completely unexpectedly for everyone, America blesses its “younger European brothers” for a deal extremely beneficial for the Soviet Union, overcoming the Vietnamese resentment, the trampling of Czech democracy and the instinctive panicky attitude of the Anglo-Saxons to strengthening infrastructure and trade ties between continental Western Europe and Russia, as undermining the foundations of their world domination. Compare the Soviet gas blitzkrieg with the colossal multi-year efforts of the Russian leadership to lay Streams, the purpose of which is to remove Russian exports from the control of America, which has the ability to manipulate vassal transit countries. And this is in the absence of direct geopolitical confrontation and indirect military conflict between the parties.

Practice does not know and does not tolerate such wonderful and kind breaks in geopolitical plots, such as what happened in 1968, especially on the part of the cruelest pragmatists who lead the global project. These kinds of events always have a hidden motive.

The first time information about the possibility of a gas contract was publicly announced by Andrei Gromyko six months before the Americans landed on the Moon. Naturally, the Germans, taught by the bitter experience of previous bans, were skeptical about it, realizing that decisions on the implementation of such projects are made overseas. However, completely unexpectedly for the Germans, the contract did not meet any resistance from the Americans; they did not seem to notice it.

Any events from the category of “not to notice” are actually thoughtful, pre-prepared and made decisions, and belong to the category of geopolitical exchanges. Since one part of it lies on the surface, and the other is carefully camouflaged from us, let's try to reconstruct it.

By allowing something, the Americans certainly had to get something no less significant in return. Realizing that the chances of losing the lunar race were far from zero, the Americans could decide to insure themselves against an unacceptable development of events and begin to work on the option of an illusory landing on the Moon. The main risk of this scenario was that the Soviet Union had the technological capabilities to disavow the event. Therefore, the wise Americans decided to prepare an option for an exchange - about a year before the planned date of a real or illusory landing, it depends how it goes, through unofficial channels they hinted to the leadership of the Union that they would not object to an extremely profitable deal with a gas pipeline to Germany. Now, if the Soviet Union had doubts about the authenticity of the event, the Americans had at their disposal a serious bargaining item - a large and tasty carrot that could be taken away.

An additional prize that the Soviet Union negotiated for itself in the exchange process was an unprecedented release of pressure in the exhausting arms race.

May 26, 1972 American President Richard Nixon visited Moscow. The event was extraordinary in itself, since it was the first visit of an American President to the USSR since the end of World War II. Before this, only in June 1961. A short working meeting of the Soviet and American leaders Khrushchev and Kennedy took place on neutral territory in Vienna.

The visit resulted in the signing of an open-ended treaty on the limitation of missile defense systems. A delayed consequence of the visit was the conclusion of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty - SALT-1, which regulated the maximum number of stationary ICBM launchers and ballistic missile launchers on submarines. The agreement legally enshrined the principle equal security in the field of offensive strategic weapons. Let us note that the principle of “equal security” is unacceptable in Anglo-Saxon and then American geopolitics - for a player carrying out global geopolitical projects, following this principle is simply nonsense.

After Nixon visited the USSR, the only and last flight within the framework of the American lunar program was carried out, closing it in December 1972. Apparently, the visit fixed the final terms of the exchange, and the Americans finally managed to bring lunar soil, which we will return to a little later.

There is another option for reconstructing the part of the plot veiled from us with an exchange. Since in that strange period everything looked as if the Americans recognized the USSR as equal to themselves in strength and status, there is an opinion that the Soviet leadership outplayed the Americans then, that the Soviet Union seemed to have deceived everyone. Still, such a reconstruction option looks, at least, naive - the level of mastery of technologies for manipulating an opponent, the level of skill, resource availability and, finally, the traditions of the two sides in the conduct of the geopolitical game are incomparable.

Therefore, only the assumption that the USSR has implicit, weighty arguments for a geopolitical exchange can translate the miracle that happened into the category of reality. Those interested can try looking for others.

One small nuance can be added to what has been said. In 1967 China has already ostentatiously fallen out with the USSR since 1968. began to make active curtsies towards the United States. The American leadership has been slow to respond for several years, despite the consistently professed principle: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Only after a secret visit in July 1971. Kissinger to China, followed by Nixon's visit in 1972, which gave the green light to mutual cooperation. Its main condition was a guarantee from China of complete renunciation of cooperation with the Soviet bloc. Most likely, the American elite, realizing the unequivalence of the exchange with the USSR, decided to delay the beginning of rapprochement with China, so as not to irritate the Soviet leadership once again in a difficult situation and to ensure that the Chinese “gift” was taken beyond the scope of the ongoing bargaining, despite the danger of losing it (change the Chinese leader, his moods or the activation of the USSR).

The inconsistencies of the detective-humorous plot

As already mentioned, such a plot appeared solely due to NASA’s very peculiar attitude towards the issue of confirming the reality of landing American astronauts on the Moon. For NASA, it is beneficial and convenient to move the discussion into a similar plane. Indeed, the positions of the parties are indicated, then why frown seriously, let's have fun and laugh.
It is pointless to discuss perspective, scenery, light and shadow inconsistencies in photo and video materials - this is like playing as amateurs in a professional field, i.e. close to the giveaways. Any serve will be parried or pointedly missed with clown antics. Therefore, it’s better to limit ourselves to the same plot inconsistencies:

• traces of astronauts in lunar dust under the landed module
• circus with moon rocks.

The presence of traces of astronauts in the lunar dust under the module looks more than strange to someone who has read K.E. Tsiolkovsky (first picture). Those who are familiar with his works naturally think that, given the distance of the jet in the absence of an atmosphere, such a photograph is possible only after landing on the Moon with the engine turned off from a height of tens of meters. Otherwise, all the dust within a radius of many meters should have simply been blown away. After all, the thrust of the landing stage engines at the time of landing is about two and a half tons, and the speed of the jet stream relative to the module is 4700 m/sec (link). In this place of logical reasoning, legitimate fear for the life and health of the astronauts creeps in, it even takes your breath away. But familiarization with the transcript of negotiations with the command module relieves anxiety and allows you to breathe out calmly. In their audio communications, the astronauts wisely report the dust mass raised by the engine, which interferes with landing until the surface maneuvering is completed. So, well done - they didn’t turn off the engines after all. But before you have time to come to your senses, the insidious question of the origin of the dust under the lunar module comes up again.

The dust could not settle, since in the absence of an atmosphere it does not swirl, but scatters along parabolic trajectories or flies into space, since the first escape velocity for the Moon is only 1700 m/sec. It remains to admit the incredible - that one of Murphy’s laws, unknown to us, is in effect on the Moon, according to which particles of lunar dust have some unthinkable property of mutual attraction and, not wanting to fly apart, were mutually attracted and settled in the same place from where they were blown away. Then it is surprising that the pillows of the supports remained pristinely clean from the lunar dust that stubbornly settled in its rightful place, which is especially clearly visible in the second photo. It remains to put forward one more hypothesis in addition to the constantly evolving model of the world within the framework of Murphy’s laws: particles of lunar dust are fundamentally not deposited on physical objects of alien origin. One pleasant consequence immediately follows from this law: post-lunar quarantine is not needed, because it is meaningless, contact with the Moon does not seem to occur.

To follow up, we can put forward an alternative hypothesis: the particles of lunar dust have high intelligence, and they were simply interested in looking at aliens from other worlds, so they did not fly away. But they didn’t want to fly into the unknown on the supports of someone else’s ship. If this is so, then it is urgent to create the “Society of Lunar Soil Defenders”, the program goal of which should be to return smart lunar particles imprisoned on Earth back to the Moon. Fulfillment of this condition is the key to the success of the future Contact.

The main evidence of a successful manned flight to the Moon was to be large lunar rocks. Unlike lunar rubble (regolith), they could not be delivered to Earth by an automatic station. At that time, they could only be assembled by human hands.

The circus began with the stones. The Americans have classified all their stones.

It would seem that in the context of the ongoing persecution, present them, and all the questions of spiteful critics will disappear. But no, gentlemen are taken at their word. And from photographs.

“As reported by the Associated Press, Dutch experts analyzed the “moon rock” - an object officially presented through the State Department to the Prime Minister of the Netherlands Willem Dries by the then US Ambassador to the Netherlands William Middendorf during the “goodwill” visit to the country of astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin Aldrin after their completion of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.

The date of delivery of the precious gift is known - October 9, 1969. After the death of Mr. Driz, the most valuable relic, insured for $500 thousand, became an exhibit at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

And only now studies of the “moon stone” have shown that the gift from the United States, officially exhibited next to Rembrandt’s paintings, turned out to be a simple fake - a piece of petrified wood.

The Rijksmuseum staff plans to keep it in the museum in the future - however, naturally, in a different capacity.

William Middendorf, who is still alive, apparently became an unwitting accomplice in the embarrassment - the most precious relic, symbolizing both the technological power of the United States and the openness of its space program, was handed to him at the US State Department.”

Let us recall that the first automatic delivery of lunar soil (regolith) by the Soviet Luna-16 station took place on September 24, 1970, i.e. a year after the original American “gift” was given. The situation looks as if the Americans did not expect such a dirty trick from the Soviet lunar program they killed and imprudently donated the stone.

Again, the easiest way would be to minimize moral costs and remove suspicion of global fraud by offering a real stone instead of a fake gift. Think about how you would crawl away if you thought of giving your woman jewelry under the guise of a multi-carat diamond, and later the forgery came to light? But no, NASA's lunar program considers standard plot twists trivial and unworthy of itself. Americans choose their favorite path of indirect illusory arguments. A piano turned up in the bushes - the Indian lunar satellite Chandrayaan-1. It turned out that literally a few days after the embarrassment, the satellite on September 3, 2009. without any preliminary announcements accepted in such cases, completely unexpectedly for everyone, he photographed the traces of the American landing on the Moon (if you have trouble with jewelry, show the footage of a street photographer who accidentally photographed the moment when you entered a prestigious jewelry store). As they say, accidentally flying past:

“The Indian lunar probe Chandrayaan-1 photographed traces of the landing of the American spacecraft Apollo 15 on the Moon on Thursday,” the Times of India newspaper cited Prakash Chohan, a specialist at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

Images of the landing site and wheel tracks of the lunar vehicle were obtained by the HySI spectrometer installed on Chandrayaan, operating in a wide range of electromagnetic radiation.”(Link)

Apparently, in order to avoid surprises, the photographs were promised to be published in a few months, after they had been further processed. The result of a long pause was indistinct photographs in which arrows indicate darkening and are accompanied by inscriptions: the landing site of the lunar module, traces of the lunar rover.

However, it is pointless to find fault with the content of footage from the Indian satellite. To confirm the authenticity of the lunar program, photographs of the chains of traces left by the astronauts are needed, since there is no doubt that the American return module visited the Moon - NASA was still able to confirm the presence of regolith. The main question - whether the module was carrying astronauts or whether it landed on the moon in unmanned mode - remained open as usual.

To the above we can add the disappearance of the original footage of the moon landing in NASA archives.

“NASA has recreated footage of the man landing on the moon, reports the Associated Press. It is reported that the original tape of the landing was lost many years ago. The priceless footage was stored in NASA's film vault along with thousands of other films, NASA officials said. In the 1970s, the American aerospace agency experienced a shortage of film stock and periodically took some films from the archive, washed off the old image from them and prepared them for new shooting. As a result of a three-year search for the original, NASA experts came to the conclusion that, most likely, the film with the landing of man on the Moon suffered this fate.

NASA, together with a professional film restoration company, recreated the old film. For these purposes, they used original footage preserved in the US National Archives, the Australian Archives and the CBS Television Archives, as well as modern restoration tools.Experts say that the image quality on modern film is much better than it was on the original.”

Well, poverty has tormented NASA and now claims to the authenticity of one of the main materials are not accepted - it really is not authentic.

Thousands of magnetic films with original recordings of expedition materials have also been lost. NASA cannot yet even determine what materials are lost. Translated into the language of communications, this means that “exactly those materials that you currently need have been lost,” i.e. from the point of view of protection from suspicion - everything.

Each of the interested parties can only sympathize with each other and once again marvel at the originality of the plot.

Lunar soil

A small plot involving the exchange of lunar soil requires special attention.

After their first flights, the Americans categorically refused to provide the USSR with samples of lunar soil, even as confirmation of the reality of their lunar mission, citing the fact that they had nothing to offer in exchange for the most valuable samples.

September 24, 1970 The automatic station Luna-16 returned to Earth with samples of lunar soil. This put NASA in a difficult position - further refusal seemed unmotivated. Finally, in January 1971. an exchange agreement is signed (why an agreement?), after which the exchange was postponed for another year and a half.

Apparently, NASA planned to be able to deliver soil samples in early 1971, which is what the agreement was signed on. But something went wrong with the delivery, and the Americans began to drag their feet with the most basic operation.

In July 1971 The USSR, in good faith, unilaterally transfers 3 g of soil from its 100 g to the United States, without receiving anything in return, although officially NASA already has 96 kg of lunar soil in its storerooms. The Americans continue to drag their feet for another nine months.

Finally, on April 13, 1972 an exchange of samples took place, which were delivered to earth by Luna 16 and Apollo 15, although eight months had already passed since the latter returned to Earth. Of its 173 kg of lunar rocks delivered by that time, NASA presented 29 g of regolith for exchange. Naturally, there was no talk of making sure they had moon rocks and then returning them.

If we consider the plot with the exchange of lunar soil from the standpoint of the reality of the American landing on the Moon, then for some unknown reason it is clearly torn. If we accept the event of the moon landing as illusory, then the plot with the soil becomes consistent and logical.

Why was this possible?

The development of events indicates that there are serious reasons to consider the final stage of the American lunar program, namely the landing of man on the Moon, as an illusory mega-project.
Such a step could have been prompted by real successes in the Soviet lunar program and the unpleasant consequences of a possible loss in the lunar race from the point of view of justifying its geopolitical leadership.

Kennedy's speech showed that the American elite perceived the lunar race as not a competition, but a battle, and promised to win this war without fail. And in war, as we know, all means are good, which made it permissible to use tactics to achieve an illusory victory in a “war” that cannot be lost.

Having a unique industry, having a highly qualified apparatus and extensive practice in creating virtual images, it is quite logical to use them in geopolitical battles, the success of which largely depends on the player’s ability to sculpt his virtual image in the eyes of the world and the enemy. Therefore, it was difficult to resist achieving a guaranteed win.

All confirmations and refutations of the lunar mission are indirect. Although, taken together, the refuting evidence looks depressing.

So far, the situation has been suspended both by the lack of direct evidence and the lack of direct refutations. And the abilities and capabilities of the American elite to control and put pressure on other people’s lunar programs preserve the current status quo.

For the first time, the North American Space Agency (NASA) has posted high-resolution photographs of the Apollo lunar program on the Internet. More than 9,000 high-resolution images, which have never been seen before by anyone except specialists, were recently posted on the photo hosting site Flickr for free use. According to NASA, this is only the first step towards popularizing photographic documents of the Apollo program, and other photographs will be made publicly available in the near future.

The Apollo program operated from 1961 to 1975. During this period, 11 manned expeditions were sent to the Earth’s natural satellite, of which 9 reached the Moon, 6 successfully landed on its surface, and one, due to an accident, was forced to fly around the Moon without landing and return home (the other 2 carried out preparatory tasks and landed on The moon was not provided). The cost of the thirteen-year program was $25 billion (139 billion in 2005 dollars), which is almost 10 times less (!) than the costs of the 9-year war in Iraq.

The six successful expeditions were Apollo 11, Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17. Apollo 13 almost suffered a tragedy due to an accident on board. It was decided to cancel the landing on the Moon, the crew was ordered to transfer from the service module to the landing module, and were emergency sent back to earth.

Especially for the readers of this blog, I posted all 9,000 photographs and made a selection of photographs from several expeditions of the Apollo lunar program.

02. Apollo 11 Expedition - July 20, 1969 First successful landing on the Moon| The lunar lander carrying Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin has undocked from the service module and is heading towards the surface of the Moon. The third crew member, Michael Collins, remained in the service module.

03. The first photo of the surface of the Moon after landing.

04. Unfortunately, this collection does not contain photographs of the exit of Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon. From the porthole, the staircase down which Armstrong was descending was not visible. His exit was recorded only by a television camera mounted on an external stand, through which a live broadcast was made to Earth. A few minutes later, Armstrong moved her to another location. All that Edwin Aldrin could photograph in those minutes was the American flag that Armstrong stuck into the lunar soil and a television camera standing in the distance.

05. If a photojournalist had been on the Moon at that time, Armstrong’s exit he filmed might have looked something like this. Here Armstrong filmed Aldrin's entrance. At this moment it was important not to slam the hatch behind us. There was no handle on the outside of the exit hatch. If the hatch had slammed shut, the astronauts would have been unable to enter the module and return to Earth.

06. As you know, the first words that Neil Armstrong uttered when he first stepped onto the lunar surface were: “One small step for man, but giant leap for mankind.”

07. Footprint of one of the astronauts in the lunar soil.

08. Few people know that the first object that the astronauts threw out of the open door was a bag of garbage (!). Very human, isn't it?

09. Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin walk on the moon. One poses, the other takes photographs.

10. Lunar workdays have begun. Edwin Aldrin installs a solar wind collector screen. It was a sheet of aluminum foil 30 cm wide and 140 cm long and was intended to trap helium, neon and argon ions.

12. Edwin Aldrin deploys a seismometer.

14. Soil samples are taken.

15. Edwin Aldrin poses next to the flag. This photograph has been the subject of heated debate for many years. Conspiracy theorists argued that the supposedly waving flag indicates that the filming was done not on the moon, but on the earth, and here the action of the wind fluttering the flag is evident. Fortunately, anyone can now go into the photo archive of this expedition and view all the photographs that were taken that day. The bend of the flag fabric is the same in all photographs, which eloquently demonstrates the absurdity of conspiracy theorists’ suspicions. When the wind moves the fabric of the flag, its shape will change every second and it is almost impossible to repeat it.

16. It is known that when preparing the first expedition to the Moon, engineers proceeded from the assumption that over the billions of years of the moon’s history, a layer of dust several feet thick had accumulated on its surface. Therefore, the “legs” of the landing module were made long, with the expectation that during landing they would drown in dust. To the surprise of NASA developers and engineers, the layer of dust on the Moon turned out to be no more than 3-5 cm. Does this indicate the young age of the Moon, and therefore the Earth? There's a lot to think about.

17. The astronauts spent 2.5 hours on the lunar surface. When they returned to the lander, they threw away a few more items that they no longer needed - portable life support packs (the same ones they carried with them), lunar outer boots and a camera (the tapes with the footage were, of course, saved ). This was necessary to minimize the take-off weight of the module.

18. Commemorative plaque: “At this place, people from planet Earth first set foot on the Moon in July 1969 AD. We come in peace on behalf of all mankind.” The lower block of the landing module, on the stand of which the sign was attached, remained on the Moon.

19. The road home. The Apollo 11 lunar lander, after taking off from the Moon, approaches the command module that was waiting for it in orbit.

20. Apollo 12 Expedition - November 19, 1969. Second moon landing| Earth rising over the Moon.

21. Another Earthrise. Continuous phrase: "Earthrise."

22. View of the lunar surface from the landing module window.

23. Night on Earth.

24. One of the main tasks of the Apollo 12 crew was to find the robotic Surveyor 3 spacecraft, which landed on the Moon 2.5 years earlier. The crew successfully completed this task and landed the lunar module 200 meters from the Surveyor. In the photo, crew commander Charles Conrad stands next to the Surveyor 3 spacecraft. The astronauts removed some parts from it and took it with them to earth. Scientists were interested in how these objects were affected by their long stay on the Moon. The Apollo 12 lander is in the background.

25. Apollo 15 Expedition - July 30, 1971. Fourth moon landing| This expedition was the first time a lunar vehicle was used.

26. Astronauts David Scott and James Irwin spent almost three days on the Moon. During this time, they made three trips to the surface with a total duration of 18.5 hours.

27. Wheel tracks of a lunar car. The astronauts traveled 28 kilometers on it.

28. One of the astronauts installs scientific equipment.

29. The lunar car was developed by Boeing engineers. The wheels are made of woven steel wire. The car ran on electric batteries and could reach speeds of up to 13 km/h, and even more. However, high speed was undesirable, since under the conditions of the Moon the lunar car weighed 6 times less than on earth, and at high speed it was tossed strongly on uneven surfaces.

30. Relatively weak gravity was the reason that when walking, a lot of lunar dust rose, which settled on clothes. Pay attention to the astronaut's feet, black with dust.

31. Apollo 16 Expedition - April 21, 1972. Fifth moon landing| Unlike previous landings, which were made on more or less flat surfaces, Apollo 16 landed in a mountainous area, on plateaus.

32. Morning jog?))

33. The astronauts have clearly gotten comfortable on the Moon. A lunar car parked near the landing module, scientific equipment, and a working astronaut. There is no longer that wariness and uncertainty that is visible in the photographs of Apollo 11.

34. One of the astronauts got the lens dirty.

35. A beautiful shot of the Earth suspended in space. We humans live somewhere on this planet. We are born, we die, we create something, we fight for some reason.... How petty and insignificant all this seems from afar, from space.

36. The surface of the Moon as the lunar module approaches.

37. Apollo 17 Expedition - December 11, 1972. Sixth and final moon landing| Thanks to the lunarmobile, astronauts were able to move several kilometers away from the landing module and descend to the bottom of huge craters.

38. During the next landing in the lunar vehicle, crew commander Eugene Cernan hooked the wing above one of the wheels with a hammer sticking out of his pocket and tore it off. If on Earth such a breakdown is not considered serious, then on the Moon everything is different. Due to the absence of a wing, dust rose during movement, which settled on the astronauts’ clothes and on the instruments of the lunar vehicle. The black color of the dust attracted heat and created the threat of overheating. The astronauts had to urgently look for a way out of the situation. They managed to attach the wing using duct tape.

39. Collection of soil samples. The astronaut's clothes are stained with lunar dust.

40. Lunomobile against the backdrop of one of the mountains.

41. Lunar relief.

42. Return of the last lunar expedition. Dawn on Earth.

43. Huge ocean spaces. Oh, if only part of these spaces were dry land.

44. Our dear blue ball.

46. ​​The relief surface of the Moon and the rising Earth.

48. The astronauts who visited the Moon were the only people who could look at the lunar craters without a telescope.

49. During the Apollo 17 expedition, the astronauts drilled 8 wells 2.5 meters deep. Explosives weighing from 50 grams to 2.5 kg were placed in the wells. After the astronauts left the Moon, on command from Earth, the explosives were detonated and scientists used instruments to measure the speed of propagation of seismic waves.

50. On his way home, astronaut Ronald Evans performs a routine inspection of his spacecraft.

52. Crew commander Eugene Cernan and astronaut Ronald Evans.

53. What kind of device is so unusual? Looks like someone's brain under glass.

54. Ronald Evans shaves on his way to Earth.

55. The Command and Service Module America awaits docking with the lunar module that last launched from the surface of the Moon. The flight of Apollo 17 became the longest manned flight to the Moon. A record number of lunar rock samples were brought to Earth. Records were set for the duration of astronaut stay on the lunar surface and in lunar orbit. Apollo 17 was the most productive and almost problem-free lunar expedition.

56. More than 40 years have passed since the last time man walked on the moon. Will people return to the moon again? And is there any point in flying to the Moon again if it is now known for certain that there is nothing valuable there?

57. The Apollo lunar program is completed. The last look at the mountain range on the surface of the Moon, which rises above the Earth every night and illuminates our fields with its white light, is reflected as a light path in our seas, and shines through our windows while we sleep.

Photos: NASA

A photo archive of all 9,000 photographs in full resolution can be found on photo hosting

USA LUNAR PROGRAM

The history of our lunar program N1-L3 must be compared with the American Saturn-Apollo program. Subsequently, the American program began to be called, like the lunar ship, simply “Apollo”. A comparison of the technology and organization of work on the lunar programs in the USA and the USSR allows us to pay tribute to the efforts of the two great powers in implementing one of the greatest engineering projects of the 20th century.

So, briefly what happened in the USA.

Between 1957 and 1959, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) was involved in the development of long-range ballistic missiles. The agency included the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, which was a center for practical rocket development. One of the leaders of the Arsenal was Wernher von Braun, who united a team of German specialists brought to the USA from Germany in 1945. In 1945, 127 prisoners of war German specialists from Peenemünde began working in Huntsville under the leadership of von Braun. In 1955, having received American citizenship, 765 German specialists were already working in the United States. Most of them were invited to work in the United States from West Germany voluntarily on a contract basis.

The first Soviet satellites shocked the United States and forced Americans to question whether they were truly leaders in human development. Soviet satellites indirectly contributed to strengthening the authority of German specialists in America. Von Braun convinced the American military leadership that it was possible to surpass the level of the Soviet Union only by developing much more powerful launch vehicles than the one that launched the first Soviet satellites and the first lunar vehicles.

Back in December 1957, AVMA proposed a heavy rocket project, the first stage of which used a bunch of engines with a total thrust at the Earth of 680 tf (let me remind you that the R-7 had a bunch of five engines with a thrust of 400 tf).

In August 1958, inspired by the resounding success of our third satellite, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency agreed to fund the development of the Saturn heavy launch vehicle project. Subsequently, the name “Saturn” with various digital and letter indices was assigned to media of different power and configuration. All of them were built according to a common program with a single ultimate goal - the creation of a heavy launch vehicle that would leapfrog the achievements of the Soviet Union.

Rocketdyne received an order to develop the N-1 (H-1) engine for a heavy rocket in September 1958, when the American lag became obvious. To speed up the work, it was decided to make a relatively simple engine, achieving, first of all, high reliability, and not record specific indicators. The N-1 engine was created in record time. On October 27, 1961, the first launch of the Saturn-1 rocket took place with a combination of eight N-1 engines with a thrust of 85 tf each.

The initial proposals for the creation of heavy rockets in the United States did not find support for the implementation of a peaceful lunar program.

The commander of US strategic air forces, General Power, in 1958, supporting appropriations for space programs, said: “Whoever first establishes his place in outer space will be its master. And we simply cannot afford to lose the competition for dominance in outer space.”

Other US military leaders also spoke out quite openly, declaring that whoever owns space will own the Earth. Despite President Eisenhower's apparent reluctance to support the hysterical hype about the "Russian threat" from space, there was growing public demand for action to overtake the USSR. Congressmen and senators demanded decisive action, trying to prove that the United States was in danger of complete destruction by the USSR.

Under these conditions, one should be surprised at the firmness of Eisenhower, who insisted on the formulation that outer space should under no circumstances be used for military purposes.

On July 29, 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Policy Act, authored by Senator L. Johnson. The resolution determined the main programs and structure of space research management. The resolution was called the National Aeronautics and Space Act. A professional military man, General Eisenhower clearly defined the civilian focus of work in space. The “act” stated that space research should be developed “in the name of peace for the benefit of all mankind.” Subsequently, these words were engraved on a metal plate that was left on the Moon by the Apollo 11 crew.

The main event was the transformation of the National Aviation Advisory Committee (NACA) into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This allowed the US government to create a new powerful government organization in a short time. Subsequent events also showed that crucial to the success of the lunar program was the appointment of Wernher von Braun as director of the design and testing complex in Huntsville and the assignment of responsibility for the development of heavy launch vehicles to him.

In November 1959, the American administration transferred the Redstone Arsenal to NASA. It is being transformed into the Space Flight Center. J. Marshall. Wernher von Braun is appointed technical director of the center. For von Braun personally, this was an event of great significance. He, who had tarnished himself in the eyes of American democratic society by belonging to Hitler's National Socialist Party, was given high confidence. Finally, he had the opportunity to realize the dream of human interplanetary flight, which had been discussed back in Peenemünde! Only for talking about interplanetary flights, distracting from work on the V-2, Wernher von Braun and Helmut Gröttrup were briefly arrested by the Gestapo in 1942.

The continuing successes of the Soviet cosmonautics did not give the Americans any respite for a calm organizational restructuring and gradual staffing. Research organizations from NACA, the Army, and the Navy were hastily transferred to NASA. As of December 1962, the number of this state organization was 25,667 people, of which 9,240 people were certified scientists and engineers.

Directly subordinate to NASA were five research centers, five flight test centers, a jet propulsion laboratory, large test complexes and specialized production facilities, as well as several new centers, transferred from the military department.

A government center for the development of manned spacecraft with a crew was being created in Houston, Texas. Here was the main headquarters for the development and launch of the Gemini spacecraft and future Apollo spacecraft.

The management of NASA was carried out by a group of three people appointed by the President of the United States. These three performed, in our minds, the roles of general designer and general director of the entire NASA. NASA was tasked by the US administration to achieve superiority over the USSR in all the most important areas of space use in the coming years. Organizations that merged into NASA received the right to attract other government organizations, universities and private industrial corporations.

During the war, President Roosevelt created a powerful government organization to develop atomic weapons. This experience was now used by the young President Kennedy, who strengthened NASA in every possible way and controlled its work to fulfill the national task of overtaking the USSR at all costs.

American politicians and historians have made no secret of the fact that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was created in response to the challenge posed by Soviet satellites. Unfortunately, neither we, the Soviet rocket scientists, nor the top political leadership of the Soviet Union appreciated the decisive importance of the organizational measures carried out in those years by the American administration.

The main task for the entire cooperation united by NASA was to carry out a nationwide program to land an expedition to the Moon by the end of the sixties. The costs of solving this problem already in the first years of activity amounted to three-quarters of NASA's entire budget.

On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy, in his message to Congress and the American people, said: “Now is the time to take a big step, the time for a greater new America, the time for American science to take a leading role in the space advances that may hold the key to our future on Earth... I believe this nation will commit itself to achieving the great goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth within this decade."

Soon Keldysh came to Korolev at OKB-1 to discuss our adequate program. He said that Khrushchev asked him how serious President Kennedy's statement about landing a man on the moon was.

“I answered Nikita Sergeevich,” said Keldysh, “that the task is technically feasible, but will require very large funds. They must be found through other programs. Nikita Sergeevich was clearly concerned and said that we would return to this issue in the near future.

At that time, we were the undisputed leaders in world astronautics. However, in the lunar program, the United States was ahead of us by immediately declaring it national: “Every American must contribute to the successful implementation of this flight.” Space dollars began to penetrate almost every area of ​​the American economy. Thus, preparations for the moon landing came under the control of the entire American society.

In 1941, Hitler gave von Braun the top secret national task of creating the V-2 ballistic missile, a secret “weapon of retaliation” for the mass destruction of the British.

In 1961, President Kennedy, openly before the whole world, entrusted the same von Braun with the national task of creating the world's most powerful launch vehicle for a manned flight to the Moon.

Von Braun proposed using already well-developed components for the liquid-propellant rocket engine - oxygen and kerosene - in the first stage of the new multi-stage rocket, and in the second and third stages - a new pair - oxygen and hydrogen. Two factors are noteworthy: firstly, the absence of proposals to use high-boiling components (such as nitrogen tetroxide and dimethylhydrazine) for the new heavy rocket, despite the fact that at that time the Titan-2 heavy intercontinental rocket was being created using such high-boiling components; and, secondly, the use of hydrogen is proposed for the next stages immediately, and not in the future. Von Braun, proposing the use of hydrogen as a fuel, appreciated the prophetic ideas of Tsiolkovsky and Oberth. In addition, for one of the variants of the Atlas rocket, the second stage “Centaur” with a liquid-propellant rocket engine running on oxygen and hydrogen was already being developed. The Centaur was subsequently successfully used by the Americans as the third stage of the Titan-3 rocket.

The RL-10 hydrogen engine for the Centaur, developed by Pratt and Whitney, had a thrust of only 6.8 tf. But it was the world's first liquid-propellant rocket engine with a specific thrust of 420 units, a record at that time. In 1985, the encyclopedia “Cosmonautics” was published, the chief editor of which was Academician Glushko. In this publication, Glushko pays tribute to hydrogen rocket engines and the work of Americans.

In the article “Liquid Rocket Engine” it is written: “With an equal launch mass of the launch vehicle, they (oxygen-hydrogen liquid-propellant rocket engines) are capable of delivering three times more payload into low-Earth orbit than oxygen-kerosene liquid-propellant rocket engines.”

However, it is known that at the beginning of his work on the development of liquid-propellant rocket engines, Glushko had a negative attitude towards the idea of ​​​​using liquid hydrogen as a fuel. In the book “Rockets, their design and application” Glushko provides a comparative assessment of rocket fuels for the case of movement in outer space, using the Tsiolkovsky formula. At the conclusion of the calculations, the analysis of which is not my task, a 27-year-old RNII engineer wrote in 1935: “Thus, a rocket with hydrogen fuel will have a higher speed than a rocket of the same weight with gasoline only if the weight fuel will exceed the rest of the rocket’s weight by more than 430 times... From here we see that the idea of ​​​​using liquid hydrogen as fuel should be discarded.”

Glushko realized the mistake of his youth no later than 1958, judging by the fact that he endorsed a decree that, among other measures, also provided for the development of a liquid-propellant rocket engine using hydrogen. Unfortunately, in the practical development of hydrogen liquid-propellant rocket engines, the USSR lagged behind the United States at the very beginning of the lunar race. This time lag grew and ultimately turned out to be one of the factors that determined the significant advantage of the American lunar program.

Glushko’s negative attitude towards oxygen-hydrogen pair as fuel for liquid-propellant rocket engines was one of the reasons for sharp criticism from Korolev and especially Mishin. Among rocket fuels, oxygen-hydrogen pair is in second place in efficiency after fluorine-hydrogen fuel. Particular indignation was caused by the message that Glushko was creating a special branch on the shores of the Gulf of Finland for testing fluorine engines. “He can poison Leningrad with his fluoride,” Mishin raged.

To be fair, it must be said that, having become the general designer of NPO Energia, during the development of the Energia-Buran rocket and space complex, Glushko came to the decision to create a second stage on an oxygen-hydrogen engine.

Using the example of the use of hydrogen for engines of heavy carriers, it can be shown that the governments of neither the USA nor the USSR defined such issues. This was entirely the responsibility of development managers.

In 1960, NASA management approved three accelerated stages of the Saturn program:

"Saturn C-1" is a two-stage rocket with the first launch in 1961, the second stage runs on hydrogen;

Saturn C-2 - a three-stage rocket launched in 1963;

"Saturn S-3" is a five-stage advanced rocket.

For all three options, a single first stage was designed with a liquid-propellant rocket engine running on oxygen-kerosene fuel. For the second and third stages, J-2 oxygen-hydrogen engines with a thrust of 90.7 tf were ordered from Rocketdyne. For the fourth and fifth stages, Pratt & Whitney ordered LR-115 engines with a thrust of 9 tf or the already mentioned “Centaur” with a thrust of up to 7 tf.

After discussions and experiments, three types of Saturn-type launch vehicles finally went into development, production and flight testing:

"Saturn-1", intended for experimental flights with the aim of testing models of the Apollo spacecraft in satellite orbit. This two-stage rocket with a launch mass of 500 tons launched a payload of up to 10.2 tons into satellite orbit;

Saturn 1B, developed as a modification of Saturn 1. It was intended for manned orbital flights to test the Apollo modules and rendezvous and docking operations. The launch weight of Saturn 1B was 600 tons, and the payload weight was 18 tons. The second stage of the Saturn 1B using oxygen and hydrogen was tested with the goal of using its analogue as the third stage of the next final modification of the Saturns;

Saturn 5 is the final version of the three-stage launch vehicle for the lunar expedition, replacing the five-stage Saturn C-3.

Returning once again to the problem of hydrogen engines, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the J-2 rocket engine began to be developed by Rocketdyne under a contract with NASA in September 1960. At the end of 1962, this high-altitude, powerful hydrogen engine was already undergoing fire bench tests, developing a thrust corresponding to 90 tf in vacuum.

The company founded in Voronezh by Kosberg managed to surpass these achievements of the Rocketdyne company in terms of the parameters of the oxygen-hydrogen liquid rocket engine. Chief designer Alexander Konopatov created in 1980 for the second stage of the Energia rocket the RD-0120 liquid-propellant rocket engine with a vacuum thrust of 200 tf and a specific impulse of 440 units. But this happened 25 years later!

The Americans also envisaged the prospects of using a rocket engine instead of a liquid rocket engine in the second or third stage of a nuclear engine. Work on this engine in the program coded “Rover”, unlike work on the liquid-propellant rocket engine, was strictly classified even for employees of the Center named after. J. Marshall.

According to NASA's plans, it was proposed to carry out Saturn launches, gradually complicating the program in such a way that in 1963 - 1964 we would have a fully developed heavy carrier.

In July 1961, a special committee on launch vehicles was created in the United States. The committee included leaders from NASA, the Department of Defense, the Air Force and several corporations. The committee proposed to develop the Saturn C-3 launch vehicle in a three-stage version. Significantly new was the committee’s decision to develop the F-1 liquid-propellant rocket engine by Rocketdyne with a thrust of 680 t for the first stage.

According to calculations, Saturn C-3 was capable of carrying 45-50 tons into orbit and only 13.5 tons to the Moon. This was not enough, and NASA, encouraged by the position of the President, boldly expands the scope of work on the lunar program.

Two powerful NASA research teams - the Manned Vehicle Center in Houston (later the Johnson Space Center) and the NASA Center. J. Marshall, who developed the carriers, offered different options for the expedition.

Houston engineers proposed the simplest direct flight option: three astronauts in a spacecraft would launch to the Moon using a very powerful rocket and fly the shortest route. According to this scheme, the spacecraft must have enough fuel reserves to make a direct landing, then take off and return to Earth without any intermediate dockings.

According to calculations, the “direct” option required 23 tons of starting mass on the lunar surface to return to Earth. To obtain such a launch mass on the Moon, it was necessary to launch 180 tons into orbit and 68 tons onto the trajectory to the Moon. Such a mass could be carried in one launch by the Nova launch vehicle, the project of which was considered at the Center. J. Marshall. According to preliminary calculations, this monster had a launch mass of over 6,000 tons. The creation of such a rocket, according to optimists, went far beyond 1970 and was rejected by the committee.

Center named after J. Marshall, where German specialists worked, initially proposed a two-launch near-Earth orbital version. An unmanned booster rocket stage is being launched into Earth orbit. In Earth orbit, it was supposed to dock with the third manned stage, which had the supply of hydrogen necessary for acceleration to the Moon. In Earth orbit, oxygen from the booster rocket is pumped into the empty third-stage oxidizer tank, and such an oxygen-hydrogen rocket accelerates the spacecraft toward the Moon. Then there may be two options: a direct landing on the Moon or a preliminary entry into orbit of an artificial lunar satellite (ALS). The second option was proposed by Yuri Kondratyuk and independently by Hermann Oberth in the twenties.

Engineers at the center in Houston proposed a natural development of the idea of ​​​​the pioneers of rocket technology, which consisted in the fact that the spacecraft was proposed from two modules: a command module and a lunar cabin - a “moon taxi”.

The spacecraft, consisting of two modules, was named Apollo. With the help of the engines of the third stage of the launch vehicle and the command module, it was launched into orbit of an artificial satellite of the Moon. Two astronauts must transfer from the command module to the lunar cabin, which then separates from the command module and lands on the Moon. The third astronaut remains in the command module in ISL orbit. After completing a mission on the Moon, the lunar cabin with the astronauts takes off, docks with the vehicle waiting in orbit, the “moon taxi” separates and falls to the Moon, and the orbital module with the three astronauts returns to Earth.

This lunar-orbital option was more carefully worked out and supported by NASA’s third scientific center, which had not previously participated in the disputes. Langley.

Each of the options proposed the use of at least two launch vehicles of the three-stage Saturn-5C type with a launch weight of 2,500 tons for each lunar expedition.

Each Saturn 5C was valued at $120 million. This seemed expensive, and two-launch options were not supported. The most realistic turned out to be a single-launch lunar-orbital option proposed by Jack S. Howbolt, an engineer at the Center. Langley. The most tempting thing in this option was the use of only one carrier of the Saturn-5C type (later simply Saturn-5), while increasing the launch mass to 2900 tons. This option made it possible to increase the weight of Apollo by 5 tons. The unrealistic Nova project was finally buried.

While disputes, research and calculations were going on, the Center named after. J. Marshall began flight testing of Saturn 1 in October 1961.

A total of nine Saturn 1s have been launched since October 1961, most with actual hydrogen second stages.

NASA, meanwhile, has created another committee to study US needs for large space launch vehicles over the next decade.

This committee confirmed that the previously proposed direct option using the Nova rocket was unrealistic, and again recommended a two-launch Earth orbit option with a direct landing on the Moon using the Saturn V. Fierce debate over alternatives continued despite the committee's decision.

Only on July 5, 1962, NASA made an official decision: the lunar-orbital single-launch option was declared the only safe and economical way to reach the Moon before 1970. Preliminary calculations showed that Saturn 5 could launch 120 tons into low-Earth orbit and deliver 45 tons into lunar orbit. Howbolt's group triumphed - their ideas captured the minds of NASA officials. Joint work between the centers began to connect the Saturn-1 projects with proposals for the Saturn-5 and the lunar orbital option. The second, hydrogen, stage of Saturn 1 was made the third stage of Saturn 5.

However, even scientific advisers close to Kennedy were not yet sure of the optimality of the proposed scheme.

On September 11, 1962, a month before the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy visited the Center. J. Marshall. He was accompanied by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Secretary of Defense McNamara, the British Secretary of Defense, leading scientists, scientific advisers and NASA executives. In front of a large number of officials and journalists, Kennedy listened to von Braun's explanations about the new large liquid-propellant rocket, the Saturn V, and the flight plan to the Moon. Von Braun supported the single-launch option proposed by the Center. Langley.

However, the final decision on a single-launch option was made only in 1963, when fire tests of engines and launches of Saturn-1 gave confidence in a sufficient margin of energy reliability and encouraging data were obtained on the mass characteristics of the Apollo spacecraft. By this time, a large backlog of experimental work, calculations when choosing various flight patterns, ultimately brought three centers - them. Langley, im. J. Marshall in Huntsville and Houston - to a single concept.

For a manned flight to the Moon, the three-stage Saturn 5 launch vehicle was finally chosen.

The launch mass of the entire system - the rocket together with the Apollo spacecraft - reached 2900 tons. The first stage of the Saturn 5 rocket was equipped with five F-1 engines, each with a thrust of 695 tf, running on liquid oxygen and kerosene. Thus, the total thrust of the Earth was almost 3500 tf. The second stage was equipped with five J-2 engines, each of which developed a thrust of 102-104 tf in a vacuum - a total thrust of about 520 tf. These engines ran on liquid oxygen and hydrogen. The J-2 third-stage engine was a multiple-start engine that, like the second-stage engine, ran on hydrogen and developed a thrust of 92-104 tf. During the first launch, the third stage was intended to launch Apollo into satellite orbit. The mass of the payload launched into a circular orbit by an artificial satellite with an altitude of 185 kilometers and an inclination of 28.5 degrees was 139 tons. Then, during the second launch, the payload was accelerated to the speed necessary to fly to the Moon along a given trajectory. The mass accelerated towards the Moon reached 65 tons. Thus, Saturn 5 accelerated to the Moon almost the same mass of payload, which was previously supposed to be launched by the Nova rocket.

I run the risk of boring readers with an abundance of numbers. But without paying attention to them, it will be difficult to imagine exactly where and why we lost to the Americans.

Reliability and safety were very stringent requirements at all stages of the American lunar program. The principle of ensuring reliability through careful ground testing was adopted, so that in flight only that testing could be carried out that, with the current level of technology, could not be carried out on Earth.

High reliability was achieved thanks to the creation of a powerful experimental base for ground testing of each rocket stage and all modules of the lunar ship. Ground testing greatly facilitates measurements, increases their accuracy, and allows for thorough examination after testing. The principle of maximum ground testing was also dictated by the very high costs of flight testing. The Americans set the task of minimizing development flight tests.

Our savings in surface mining costs confirmed the old adage that the miser pays twice. The Americans did not skimp on ground development and carried it out on an unprecedented scale.

Numerous stands were created for fire testing not only single engines, but all full-size rocket stages. Each production engine routinely underwent fire tests before flight at least three times: two times before delivery and the third time as part of the corresponding rocket stage.

Thus, the engines, which were disposable according to the flight program, were actually reusable. It must be borne in mind that in order to obtain reliability, both we and the Americans had two main categories of tests: those that are carried out on a single prototype of the product (or on a small number of samples) to demonstrate how reliably the design will perform its functions in all flight conditions, including determining the actual service life of the product; and those tests that are carried out on each flight model to ensure that they are free from accidental manufacturing defects or errors in production technology. The first category of tests includes development tests at the design stage. These are the so-called design and development development tests (in American terminology, qualification) tests carried out on test samples. Here the Americans and I, testing single engines, acted more or less identically. In the second category, which relates to acceptance tests of engines, rocket stages and a number of other products, we were able to catch up with the Americans in terms of methodology only 20 years later when creating the Energia rocket.

The enormous depth and breadth of testing, which defied any shortcuts for the sake of deadlines, was the main factor leading to the highest degree of reliability of the Saturn V rocket and the Apollo spacecraft.

Shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy, at one of our regular meetings on the lunar work schedule, Korolev announced information that, according to him, our senior political leadership had. Allegedly, the new President Lyndon Johnson does not intend to support the lunar program at the pace and scope that NASA proposed. Johnson is inclined to spend more on combat intercontinental missiles and save on space.

Our hopes for a reduction in space programs were not realized. The new US President Lyndon Johnson addressed Congress, reporting on the work in the field of aviation and astronautics carried out in the United States in 1963. This message said: “1963 was the year of our further successes in the exploration of outer space. It was also the year of a thorough review of our space program from a national security perspective, resulting in a widely endorsed course to achieve and maintain our future superiority in space exploration...

Achieving success in space exploration is essential for our nation if we are to maintain our leadership in technological development and effectively contribute to world peace. However, to achieve this task it will be necessary to expend significant material resources.”

Even Johnson admitted that the United States lagged behind the USSR “as a result of the relatively late start of work and the lack of enthusiasm in space exploration at first.” He noted: “During this period, our main rival has not stood still and in fact continued to lead in some areas... However, our remarkable successes in the development of large rockets and complex spacecraft are convincing evidence that the United States is on the path to new advances in exploration. space and eliminate any backlog in this area... If we have set ourselves the goal of achieving and maintaining primacy, then we cannot weaken our efforts and reduce our enthusiasm.”

In listing the achievements of 1963, Johnson found it necessary to mention: “... successfully launched the Centaur rocket, the first rocket with high-energy fuel, successfully completed one of a series of tests of the first stage of the Saturn rocket with a thrust of 680,000 kgf - the largest of the first tested so far launch vehicle stages. At the end of 1963, the United States developed more powerful missiles than those currently available in the USSR.”

Moving directly to the lunar program, Johnson noted that in 1963, nine models of the Apollo spacecraft had already been manufactured, the ship's propulsion systems were being developed, numerous test benches were being developed, and the rescue system was being tested in case of an explosion at the launch.

A detailed report on the work on the Saturn rockets confirmed the fragmentary information we had about the successful implementation of this program. In particular, it was said that the J-2 hydrogen engine, intended for the second stage of the Saturn 5 launch vehicle, successfully passed factory tests, and the first deliveries of these engines began. All doubts about the choice of the type of rocket for the lunar expedition were finally cleared: “Currently, the most powerful launch vehicle Saturn 5, designed to deliver two people to the surface of the Moon, is under development.”

Next, members of Congress were told in detail about the design and parameters of Saturn 5, the flight plan to the Moon, the progress of production of test stands, launch facilities and the development of means of transporting the giant rocket.

A comparison of the state of work on the lunar program “with us and with them” by the beginning of 1964 shows that we were at least two years behind on the project as a whole. As for engines, oxygen-kerosene engines with a thrust of about 600 tf and powerful oxygen-hydrogen rocket engines were not developed at all at that time.

Information that came to us through open channels during 1964 showed that work on the lunar program did not prevent the Americans from creating combat missiles. More detailed information was provided by our foreign intelligence. The scope of the work to build new assembly shops for Saturn 5 and Apollo, test stands, launch complexes at Cape Canaveral (later Kennedy Center), launch and flight control centers impressed us greatly.

Voskresensky openly expressed the most pessimistic thoughts about this information to me after several difficult conversations with Korolev, and then with Tyulin and Keldysh. He sought to persuade them to more forcefully demand increased funds, first of all, to create a stand for fire tests of the full-size first stage of the future rocket. He did not receive support from Korolev. Voskresensky told me: “If we ignore the American experience and continue to build a rocket in the hope that maybe it will fly not the first time, but the second time, then we are all screwed. We tested the R-7 to its full potential at the stand in Zagorsk, and even then it only flew on the fourth try. If Sergei continues this kind of gambling, I’m leaving it.” Voskresensky's pessimism could also be explained by the sharp deterioration in his health. However, the tester's intuition, which was inherent in him and more than once surprised his friends, turned out to be prophetic.

In 1965, the “Americans,” as Korolev usually said, already had proven reusable engines for all stages of the Saturn 5 and proceeded to their serial production. This was critical to the reliability of the launch vehicle.

Manufacturing the actual design of the Saturn 5 launch vehicle alone was beyond the power of even the most powerful US aviation corporations. Therefore, the design development and production of the launch vehicle was distributed among leading aviation corporations. The first stage was manufactured by Boeing, the second by North American Rockwell, the third by McDonnell-Douglas, the instrument compartment and its contents were manufactured by IBM, the world's largest company of electronic computers. In the instrument compartment there was a gyro-stabilized three-degree platform, which served as a carrier of the coordinate system, providing control of the spatial position of the rocket and (using a digital computer) navigation measurements.

The launch complex was located at the Cape Canaveral Space Center. An impressive rocket assembly building was built there. This structural steel frame building, still in use today, is 160 meters high, 160 meters wide and 220 meters long. Next to the assembly building, five kilometers from the launch site, there is a four-story launch control center, which, in addition to all the necessary services, also has a cafeteria and even a gallery for visitors and honored guests.

The launch was made from the launch pad. But this starting table was not the same as ours. It housed computers for testing, computing equipment for the fueling system, air conditioning and ventilation systems, and water supply systems. In preparation for the launch, movable service towers 114 meters high with two high-speed elevators were used.

The rocket was transported from the assembly building to the launch position in a vertical position by a tracked transporter, which had its own diesel generator sets.

The launch control center had a control room that could accommodate more than 100 people behind electronic screens.

All subcontractors were presented with the most stringent requirements for reliability and safety, which covered all stages of the program from the design stage to launching the spacecraft on its flight path to the Moon.

The first development flights of the Apollo lunar spacecraft began in an unmanned version. On the Saturn-1 and Saturn-1B launch vehicles, experimental Apollo samples were tested in unmanned mode. For these purposes, from May 1964 to January 1968, five Saturn 1 and three Saturn 1B launch vehicles were launched. Two uncrewed Apollo launches using Saturn V rockets took place on November 9, 1967 and April 4, 1968. The first launch of the Saturn 5 launch vehicle with the unmanned Apollo 4 spacecraft was carried out on November 9, 1967, and the ship was accelerated towards the Earth at a speed of more than 11 kilometers per second from an altitude of 18,317 kilometers! This completed the stage of unmanned testing of the launch vehicle and ship,

Launches of spacecraft with crew began much later than envisaged in the original plan. On January 27, 1967, during ground training, a fire broke out in the Apollo flight deck. The tragedy of the situation was aggravated by the fact that neither the crew nor the ground personnel were able to quickly open the escape hatch. Three astronauts were burned alive or suffocated. The cause of the fire turned out to be the atmosphere of pure oxygen, which was used in the Apollo life system. In oxygen, as the fire department experts explained to us, everything burns, even metal. Therefore, a spark in electrical equipment, which is harmless in a normal atmosphere, was sufficient. Fire safety modifications to Apollo took 20 months!

Starting with the Vostoks, our manned spacecraft used a filling that was no different in composition from the normal atmosphere. Nevertheless, after what happened in America, we launched research in relation to the Soyuz and L3, which ended with the development of standards for materials and structures that ensure fire safety.

The first manned flight was carried out by the crew in the command and service module of Apollo 7, launched into orbit by the Saturn 5 satellite in October 1968. The spacecraft, without a lunar cabin, was thoroughly tested during its eleven-day flight.

In December 1968, Saturn 5 put Apollo 8 on its flight path to the Moon. This was the world's first crewed spacecraft flight to the Moon. The navigation and control system on the Earth-Moon route, orbit around the Moon, the Moon-Earth route, the entry of the command module with the crew into the Earth's atmosphere at the second escape velocity, and the accuracy of splashdown in the ocean were tested.

In March 1969, on Apollo 9, the lunar cabin and command and service module were tested together in satellite orbit. Methods for controlling the entire assembled space lunar complex, communication between the ships and the Earth, rendezvous and docking were tested. The Americans performed a very risky experiment. Two astronauts in the lunar cabin undocked from the service module, moved away from it, and then tested the rendezvous and docking systems. If these systems failed, the two astronauts in the lunar cabin were doomed. But everything went well.

It seemed that everything was now ready for landing on the Moon. But lunar descent, takeoff, and rendezvous navigation in orbit around the Moon remained untested. The Americans use another complete Saturn complex - Apollo. On Apollo 10, a “dress rehearsal” was held in May 1969, during which all stages and operations were tested, except for the landing on the lunar surface itself.

In a series of flights, step by step, the volume of procedures tested in real conditions was gradually increased, leading to the possibility of a reliable lunar landing. Over the course of seven months, four manned flights were carried out using the Saturn 5 carrier, which made it possible to test all the equipment, eliminate detected deficiencies, train all ground personnel, and instill confidence in the crew who were entrusted with the accomplishment of the great task.

By the summer of 1969, everything had been tested in flights, with the exception of the actual landing and operations on the surface of the Moon. The Apollo 11 team focused its time and attention on these remaining tasks. On July 16, 1969, N. Armstrong, M. Collins and E. Aldrin launched on Apollo 11 to forever go down in the history of astronautics. Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21 hours, 36 minutes, 21 seconds on the moon.

In July 1969, all of America celebrated, just as the Soviet Union did in April 1961.

Following the first lunar expedition, America sent six more! Only one of the seven lunar expeditions was unsuccessful. The Apollo 13 expedition, as a result of an accident on the Earth-Moon route, was forced to abandon the landing on the Moon and return to Earth. This accident flight inspired our engineering admiration to a greater extent than the successful landings on the Moon. Formally, it was a failure. But it demonstrated reliability and safety margins that our project did not possess at that time.

Why? To find the answer, let's go back to the Soviet Union.

author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

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On October 11, 1968, the first American three-seat manned spacecraft, Apollo 7, was launched into orbit by the Saturn 1B rocket. The crew included astronauts: Walter Schirra (ship commander), Don Eisele and Walter Cunningham. During the flight, which lasted 10.7 days (163 orbits), the spacecraft without a lunar cabin was thoroughly tested. On October 22, 1968, the ship landed safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

On December 21, 1968, the Saturn V launch vehicle launched Apollo 8 with astronauts Frank Borman (ship commander), James Lovell and William Anders onto the flight path to the Moon. This was the world's first crewed spacecraft flight to the Moon. On December 24, the ship was launched into the orbit of an artificial satellite of the Moon, made 10 revolutions on it, after which it launched towards Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on December 27, 1968. During the flight, the navigation and control system on the Earth-Moon path, orbit around the Moon, the Moon-Earth path, the entry of the command module with the crew into the Earth's atmosphere at the second escape velocity, and the accuracy of splashdown in the ocean were tested. The astronauts conducted lunar photography and navigation experiments, as well as a television session.

During the flight of Apollo 9, which took place from March 3-13, 1969, the lunar module and the command and service module were tested together in orbit of an artificial Earth satellite. Methods for controlling the entire assembled space lunar complex, communication between the ships and the Earth, rendezvous and docking were tested. The two astronauts in the lunar module undocked from the command module, moved away from it, and then tested the rendezvous and docking systems.

During the flight of the Apollo 10 spacecraft, which took place on May 18-26, 1969, all stages and operations of the lunar program were tested, except for the landing on the lunar surface. The lunar module descended to a height of 15 kilometers above the surface of the Moon.

The moon is not a bad place. Definitely worth a short visit.
Neil Armstrong

Almost half a century has passed since the Apollo flights, but the debate about whether Americans were on the Moon does not subside, but is becoming increasingly fierce. The piquancy of the situation is that supporters of the “moon conspiracy” theory are trying to challenge not real historical events, but their own, vague and error-ridden idea of ​​them.

Lunar epic

First the facts. On May 25, 1961, six weeks after Yuri Gagarin's triumphant flight, President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech to the Senate and House of Representatives in which he promised that an American would land on the moon before the end of the decade. Having suffered defeat at the first stage of the space “race,” the United States set out not only to catch up, but also to overtake the Soviet Union.

The main reason for the lag at that time was that the Americans underestimated the importance of heavy ballistic missiles. Like their Soviet colleagues, American specialists studied the experience of German engineers who built the A-4 (V-2) missiles during the war, but did not give these projects serious development, believing that in a global war long-range bombers would be sufficient. Of course, Wernher von Braun's team, taken from Germany, continued to create ballistic missiles in the interests of the army, but they were unsuitable for space flights. When the Redstone rocket, the successor to the German A-4, was modified to launch the first American spacecraft, Mercury, it could only lift it to suborbital altitude.

Nevertheless, resources were found in the United States, so American designers quickly created the necessary “line” of launch vehicles: from Titan-2, which launched the two-seat Gemini maneuvering spacecraft into orbit, to Saturn 5, capable of sending the three-seat Apollo spacecraft "to the Moon.

Redstone
Saturn-1B
Saturn-5
Titan-2

Of course, before sending expeditions, a colossal amount of work was required. Spacecraft of the Lunar Orbiter series carried out detailed mapping of the nearest celestial body - with their help it was possible to identify and study suitable landing sites. The Surveyor series vehicles made soft landings on the Moon and transmitted beautiful images of the surrounding area.

The Lunar Orbiter spacecraft carefully mapped the Moon, determining future landing sites for astronauts.

Surveyor spacecraft studied the Moon directly on its surface; parts of the Surveyor-3 apparatus were picked up and delivered to Earth by the crew of Apollo 12

At the same time, the Gemini program developed. After unmanned launches, Gemini 3 launched on March 23, 1965, maneuvering by changing the speed and inclination of its orbit, which was an unprecedented achievement at that time. Soon Gemini 4 flew, on which Edward White made the first spacewalk for Americans. The ship operated in orbit for four days, testing attitude control systems for the Apollo program. Gemini 5, which launched on August 21, 1965, tested electrochemical generators and a docking radar. In addition, the crew set a record for the duration of stay in space - almost eight days (Soviet cosmonauts managed to beat it only in June 1970). By the way, during the Gemini 5 flight, Americans for the first time encountered the negative consequences of weightlessness - a weakening of the musculoskeletal system. Therefore, measures have been developed to prevent such effects: a special diet, drug therapy and a series of physical exercises.

In December 1965, Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 approached each other, simulating a docking. Moreover, the crew of the second ship spent more than thirteen days in orbit (that is, the full time of the lunar expedition), proving that the measures taken to maintain physical fitness are quite effective during such a long flight. The docking procedure was practiced on the ships Gemini 8, Gemini 9 and Gemini 10 (by the way, the commander of Gemini 8 was Neil Armstrong). On Gemini 11 in September 1966, they tested the possibility of an emergency launch from the Moon, as well as a flight through the Earth's radiation belts (the ship rose to a record altitude of 1369 km). On Gemini 12, astronauts tested a series of manipulations in outer space.

During the flight of the Gemini 12 spacecraft, astronaut Buzz Aldrin proved the possibility of complex manipulations in outer space

At the same time, the designers were preparing the “intermediate” two-stage Saturn 1 rocket for testing. During its first launch on October 27, 1961, it surpassed the Vostok rocket in thrust, on which Soviet cosmonauts flew. It was assumed that the same rocket would launch the first Apollo 1 spacecraft into space, but on January 27, 1967, there was a fire at the launch complex in which the crew of the ship died, and many plans had to be revised.

In November 1967, testing of the huge three-stage Saturn 5 rocket began. During its first flight, it lifted into orbit the Apollo 4 command and service module with a mock-up of the lunar module. In January 1968, the Apollo 5 lunar module was tested in orbit, and the unmanned Apollo 6 went there in April. The last launch almost ended in disaster due to a failure of the second stage, but the rocket pulled out the ship, demonstrating good survivability.

On October 11, 1968, the Saturn 1B rocket launched the command and service module of the Apollo 7 spacecraft with its crew into orbit. For ten days, the astronauts tested the ship, conducting complex maneuvers. Theoretically, Apollo was ready for the expedition, but the lunar module was still “raw.” And then a mission was invented that was not initially planned at all - a flight around the Moon.

The flight of Apollo 8 was not planned by NASA: it was an improvisation, but was carried out brilliantly, securing another historical priority for American astronautics

On December 21, 1968, the Apollo 8 spacecraft, without a lunar module, but with a crew of three astronauts, set off for a neighboring celestial body. The flight went relatively smoothly, but before the historic landing on the Moon, two more launches were needed: the Apollo 9 crew worked out the procedure for docking and undocking the ship modules in low-Earth orbit, then the Apollo 10 crew did the same, but this time near the Moon . On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin stepped on the surface of the Moon, thereby proclaiming US leadership in space exploration.

The crew of Apollo 10 conducted a “dress rehearsal”, performing all the operations necessary for landing on the Moon, but without landing itself

The Apollo 11 lunar module, named Eagle, is landing

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's lunar walk was broadcast through the Parkes Observatory radio telescope in Australia; the original recordings of the historical event were also preserved and recently discovered

This was followed by new successful missions: Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16, Apollo 17. As a result, twelve astronauts visited the Moon, conducted terrain reconnaissance, installed scientific equipment, collected soil samples, and tested rovers. Only the crew of Apollo 13 was unlucky: on the way to the Moon, a liquid oxygen tank exploded, and NASA specialists had to work hard to return the astronauts to Earth.

Falsification theory

On the Luna-1 spacecraft, devices were installed to create an artificial sodium comet

It would seem that the reality of expeditions to the Moon should not have been in doubt. NASA regularly published press releases and newsletters, specialists and astronauts gave numerous interviews, many countries and the global scientific community participated in technical support, tens of thousands of people watched the takeoffs of huge rockets, and millions watched live television broadcasts from space. Lunar soil was brought to Earth, which many selenologists were able to study. International scientific conferences were held to understand the data that came from instruments left on the Moon.

But even during that eventful time, people appeared who questioned the facts of the astronaut landing on the Moon. Skepticism towards space achievements appeared back in 1959, and the likely reason for this was the policy of secrecy pursued by the Soviet Union: for decades it even hid the location of its cosmodrome!

Therefore, when Soviet scientists announced that they had launched the Luna-1 research apparatus, some Western experts spoke out in the spirit that the communists were simply fooling the world community. Experts anticipated the questions and placed a device on Luna 1 for evaporating sodium, with the help of which an artificial comet was created, whose brightness was equal to the sixth magnitude.

Conspiracy theorists even dispute the reality of Yuri Gagarin's flight

Claims arose later: for example, some Western journalists doubted the reality of Yuri Gagarin’s flight, because the Soviet Union refused to provide any documentary evidence. There was no camera on board the Vostok ship; the appearance of the ship itself and the launch vehicle remained classified.

But the US authorities never expressed doubts about the authenticity of what happened: even during the flight of the first satellites, the National Security Agency (NSA) deployed two surveillance stations in Alaska and Hawaii and installed radio equipment there capable of intercepting telemetry that came from Soviet devices. During Gagarin's flight, the stations were able to receive a television signal with an image of the astronaut, transmitted by an on-board camera. Within an hour, printouts of selected footage from the broadcast were in the hands of government officials, and President John F. Kennedy congratulated the Soviet people on their outstanding achievement.

Soviet military specialists working at Scientific Measuring Point No. 10 (NIP-10), located in the village of Shkolnoye near Simferopol, intercepted data coming from the Apollo spacecraft throughout the flights to the Moon and back.

Soviet intelligence did the same. At the NIP-10 station, located in the village of Shkolnoye (Simferopol, Crimea), a set of equipment was assembled that made it possible to intercept all information from the Apollo missions, including live television broadcasts from the Moon. The head of the interception project, Alexey Mikhailovich Gorin, gave the author of this article an exclusive interview, in which, in particular, he said: “For guidance and control of a very narrow beam, a standard drive system in azimuth and elevation was used. Based on information about the location (Cape Canaveral) and launch time, the flight trajectory of the spacecraft was calculated in all areas.

It should be noted that during about three days of flight, only occasionally did the beam pointing deviate from the calculated trajectory, which was easily corrected manually. We started with Apollo 10, which made a test flight around the Moon without landing. This was followed by flights with the Apollo landings from the 11th to the 15th... They took fairly clear images of the spacecraft on the Moon, the exit of both astronauts from it and the journey across the surface of the Moon. Video from the Moon, speech and telemetry were recorded on appropriate tape recorders and transmitted to Moscow for processing and translations.”

In addition to intercepting data, Soviet intelligence also collected any information on the Saturn-Apollo program, as it could be used for the USSR's own lunar plans. For example, intelligence officers monitored missile launches from the Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, when preparations began for the joint flight of the Soyuz-19 and Apollo CSM-111 spacecraft (ASTP mission), which took place in July 1975, Soviet specialists were allowed to access official information on the ship and rocket. And, as is known, no complaints were made against the American side.

The Americans themselves had complaints. In 1970, that is, even before the completion of the lunar program, a brochure by a certain James Craney was published, “Has Man Landed on the Moon?” (Did man land on the Moon?). The public ignored the brochure, although it was perhaps the first to formulate the main thesis of the “conspiracy theory”: an expedition to the nearest celestial body is technically impossible.

Technical writer Bill Kaysing can rightfully be called the founder of the “moon conspiracy” theory.

The topic began to gain popularity a little later, after the release of Bill Kaysing’s self-published book “We Never Went to the Moon” (1976), which outlined the now “traditional” arguments in favor of the conspiracy theory. For example, the author seriously argued that all deaths of participants in the Saturn-Apollo program were associated with the elimination of unwanted witnesses. It must be said that Kaysing is the only author of books on this topic who was directly related to the space program: from 1956 to 1963, he worked as a technical writer at the Rocketdyne company, which was designing the super-powerful F-1 engine for the rocket. Saturn-5".

However, after being fired “of his own free will,” Kaysing became a beggar, grabbed any job, and probably did not have warm feelings for his previous employers. In the book, which was reprinted in 1981 and 2002, he argued that the Saturn V rocket was a "technical fake" and could never send astronauts on interplanetary flight, so in reality the Apollos flew around the Earth, and the television broadcast was carried out using unmanned vehicles.

Ralph Rene made a name for himself by accusing the US government of faking flights to the moon and organizing the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001

At first, they also did not pay attention to Bill Kaysing’s creation. His fame was brought to him by the American conspiracy theorist Ralph Rene, who posed as a scientist, physicist, inventor, engineer and science journalist, but in reality did not graduate from a single higher educational institution. Like his predecessors, Rene published the book “How NASA Showed America the Moon” (NASA Mooned America!, 1992) at his own expense, but at the same time he could already refer to other people’s “research”, that is, he looked not like a loner, but like a skeptic in searching for truth.

Probably, the book, the lion's share of which is devoted to the analysis of certain photographs taken by astronauts, would also have gone unnoticed if the era of television shows had not come, when it became fashionable to invite all kinds of freaks and outcasts to the studio. Ralph Rene managed to make the most of the sudden interest of the public, fortunately he had a well-spoken tongue and did not hesitate to make absurd accusations (for example, he claimed that NASA deliberately damaged his computer and destroyed important files). His book was reprinted many times, each time increasing in volume.

Among the documentaries dedicated to the “lunar conspiracy” theory, there are outright hoaxes: for example, the pseudo-documentary French film “The Dark Side of the Moon” (Opération lune, 2002)

The topic itself also begged for film adaptation, and soon films appeared with claims to be documentaries: “Was it just a paper Moon?” (Was It Only a Paper Moon?, 1997), “What Happened on the Moon?” (What Happened on the Moon?, 2000), “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon” (2001), “Astronauts Gone Wild: An Investigation into the Authenticity of the Moon Landing” Investigation Into the Authenticity of the Moon Landings, 2004) and the like. By the way, the author of the last two films, film director Bart Sibrel, twice pestered Buzz Aldrin with aggressive demands to admit to deception and was eventually punched in the face by an elderly astronaut. Video footage of this incident can be found on YouTube. The police, by the way, refused to open a case against Aldrin. Apparently, she thought the video was faked.

In the 1970s, NASA tried to cooperate with the authors of the “lunar conspiracy” theory and even issued a press release that addressed Bill Kaysing’s claims. However, it soon became clear that they did not want dialogue, but were happy to use any mention of their fabrications for self-PR: for example, Kaysing sued astronaut Jim Lovell in 1996 for calling him a “fool” in one of his interviews.

However, what else can you call the people who believed in the authenticity of the film “The Dark Side of the Moon” (Opération lune, 2002), where the famous director Stanley Kubrick was directly accused of filming all the astronaut landings on the Moon in the Hollywood pavilion? Even in the film itself there are indications that it is a fiction in the mockumentary genre, but this did not stop conspiracy theorists from accepting the version with a bang and quoting it even after the creators of the hoax openly admitted to hooliganism. By the way, another “evidence” of the same degree of reliability recently appeared: this time an interview with a man similar to Stanley Kubrick surfaced, where he allegedly took responsibility for falsifying materials from lunar missions. The new fake was quickly exposed - it was done too clumsily.

Cover-up operation

In 2007, science journalist and popularizer Richard Hoagland co-authored with Michael Bara the book “Dark Mission. Secret History of NASA" (Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA), which immediately became a bestseller. In this weighty volume, Hoagland summarized his research on the “cover-up operation” - it is allegedly carried out by US government agencies, hiding from the world community the fact of contact with a more advanced civilization that has mastered the solar system long before humanity.

Within the framework of the new theory, the “lunar conspiracy” is considered as a product of the activities of NASA itself, which deliberately provokes an illiterate discussion of the falsification of the lunar landings so that qualified researchers disdain to study this topic for fear of being branded “marginal”. Hoagland deftly fit all modern conspiracy theories into his theory, from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to “flying saucers” and the Martian “Sphinx.” For his vigorous activity in exposing the “cover-up operation,” the journalist was even awarded the Ig Nobel Prize, which he received in October 1997.

Believers and non-believers

Supporters of the “moon conspiracy” theory, or, more simply, “anti-Apollo” people, are very fond of accusing their opponents of illiteracy, ignorance, or even blind faith. A strange move, considering that it is the “anti-Apollo” people who believe in a theory that is not supported by any significant evidence. There is a golden rule in science and law: an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence. An attempt to accuse space agencies and the global scientific community of falsifying materials of great importance to our understanding of the Universe must be accompanied by something more significant than a couple of self-published books published by an aggrieved writer and a narcissistic pseudo-scientist.

All hours of film footage from the lunar expeditions of the Apollo spacecraft have long been digitized and are available for study.

If we imagine for a moment that in the United States there was a secret parallel space program using unmanned vehicles, then we need to explain where all the participants in this program went: the designers of the “parallel” equipment, its testers and operators, as well as the filmmakers who prepared kilometers of films of the lunar missions. We are talking about thousands (or even tens of thousands) of people who needed to be involved in the “lunar conspiracy.” Where are they and where are their confessions? Let's say they all, including foreigners, swore an oath of silence. But there must remain piles of documents, contracts and orders with contractors, corresponding structures and testing grounds. However, apart from quibbles about some public NASA materials, which are indeed often retouched or presented in a deliberately simplified interpretation, there is nothing. Nothing at all.

However, “anti-Apollo” people never think about such “little things” and persistently (often in an aggressive form) demand more and more evidence from the opposite side. The paradox is that if they, asking “tricky” questions, tried to find answers to them themselves, it would not be difficult. Let's look at the most typical claims.

During the preparation and implementation of the joint flight of the Soyuz and Apollo spacecraft, Soviet specialists were allowed to access official information of the American space program

For example, “anti-Apollo” people ask: why was the Saturn-Apollo program interrupted and its technology lost and cannot be used today? The answer is obvious to anyone who has even a basic understanding of what was happening in the early 1970s. It was then that one of the most powerful political and economic crises in US history occurred: the dollar lost its gold content and was devalued twice; the protracted war in Vietnam was draining resources; youth were swept by the anti-war movement; Richard Nixon was on the verge of impeachment in connection with the Watergate scandal.

At the same time, the total costs of the Saturn-Apollo program amounted to 24 billion dollars (in terms of current prices we can talk about 100 billion), and each new launch cost 300 million (1.3 billion in modern prices) - it is clear that further funding became prohibitive for the shrinking American budget. The Soviet Union experienced something similar in the late 1980s, which led to the inglorious closure of the Energia-Buran program, the technologies of which were also largely lost.

In 2013, an expedition led by Jeff Bezos, the founder of the Internet company Amazon, recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean fragments of one of the F-1 engines of the Saturn 5 rocket that delivered Apollo 11 into orbit.

However, despite the problems, the Americans tried to squeeze a little more out of the lunar program: the Saturn 5 rocket launched the heavy orbital station Skylab (three expeditions visited it in 1973–1974), and a joint Soviet-American flight took place. Soyuz-Apollo (ASTP). In addition, the Space Shuttle program, which replaced the Apollos, used the Saturn launch facilities, and some technological solutions obtained during their operation are used today in the design of the promising American SLS launch vehicle.

Working box with moon rocks in the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility storage

Another popular question: where did the lunar soil brought by astronauts go? Why isn't it being studied? Answer: it has not gone anywhere, but is stored where it was planned - in the two-story Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility building, which was built in Houston, Texas. Applications for soil studies should also be submitted there, but only organizations that have the necessary equipment can receive them. Every year a special commission reviews applications and approves from forty to fifty of them; On average, up to 400 samples are sent out. In addition, 98 samples with a total weight of 12.46 kg are exhibited in museums around the world, and dozens of scientific publications have been published on each of them.

Images of the landing sites of Apollo 11, Apollo 12 and Apollo 17, taken by the main optical camera of LRO: the lunar modules, scientific equipment and “paths” left by the astronauts are clearly visible

Another question in the same vein: why is there no independent evidence of visiting the Moon? Answer: they are. If we discard the Soviet evidence, which is still far from complete, and the excellent space films of the lunar landing sites, which were made by the American LRO apparatus and which “anti-Apollo” people also consider “fake”, then the materials presented by the Indians (the Chandrayaan-1 apparatus) are quite sufficient for analysis ), the Japanese (Kaguya) and the Chinese (Chang'e-2): all three agencies have officially confirmed that they have discovered traces left by the Apollo spacecraft.

"Moon deception" in Russia

By the end of the 1990s, the “moon conspiracy” theory came to Russia, where it gained ardent supporters. Its wide popularity is obviously facilitated by the sad fact that very few historical books on the American space program are published in Russian, so an inexperienced reader may get the impression that there is nothing to study there.

The most ardent and talkative adherent of the theory was Yuri Mukhin, a former engineer-inventor and publicist with radical pro-Stalinist beliefs, noted for historical revisionism. In particular, he published the book “The Corrupt Wench of Genetics,” in which he refutes the achievements of genetics in order to prove that repressions against domestic representatives of this science were justified. Mukhin's style is repulsive with its deliberate rudeness, and he builds his conclusions on the basis of rather primitive distortions.

TV cameraman Yuri Elkhov, who participated in the filming of such famous children's films as “The Adventures of Pinocchio” (1975) and “About Little Red Riding Hood” (1977), undertook to analyze the film footage taken by the astronauts and came to the conclusion that they were fabricated. True, for testing he used his own studio and equipment, which has nothing in common with NASA equipment of the late 1960s. Based on the results of the “investigation,” Elkhov wrote the book “Fake Moon,” which was never published due to lack of funds.

Perhaps the most competent of the Russian “anti-Apollo activists” remains Alexander Popov, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, a specialist in lasers. In 2009, he published the book “Americans on the Moon - a great breakthrough or a space scam?”, in which he presents almost all the arguments of the “conspiracy” theory, supplementing them with his own interpretations. For many years he has been running a special website dedicated to the topic, and has now agreed that not only the Apollo flights, but also the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft were falsified. Thus, Popov claims that the Americans made their first flight into orbit only in April 1981 - on the Columbia shuttle. Apparently, the respected physicist does not understand that without extensive previous experience, it is simply impossible to launch such a complex reusable aerospace system as the Space Shuttle the first time.

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The list of questions and answers can be continued indefinitely, but this makes no sense: the views of the “anti-Apollo” are not based on real facts that can be interpreted in one way or another, but on illiterate ideas about them. Unfortunately, ignorance is persistent, and not even Buzz Aldrin's hook can change the situation. We can only hope for time and new flights to the Moon, which will inevitably put everything in its place.