As the historic Apollo 11 mission was heading to the Moon, a bit of space drama was unfolding before the eyes of the world. Just three days before the launch of Apollo 11, the Soviet Union had launched a 5.7 metric ton robotic spacecraft called Luna 15 towards the Moon with only a vague announcement about its mission. Speculation swirled through the Western press and among space observers about the flight’s true intentions: Was it some last-minute Soviet space spectacular? Or maybe an attempt to spy on or even interfere with the American Apollo mission? It would be decades before it was confirmed that this was actually a lunar sample return attempt employing the new E-8-5 spacecraft launched in a last ditch effort to secure the first samples from the lunar surface before Apollo.
The New E-8 Lunar Spacecraft
The hardware that would be employed in the Soviet sample return missions can be traced back to the E-8 spacecraft family developed by the design bureau known as NPO Lavochkin. Run by Chief Designer Georgi Babakin until his death in 1971, NPO Lavochkin was given responsibility for the development and construction of unmanned lunar and planetary spacecraft in April 1965 so that OKB-1 (the ancestor of Russia’s RKK Energia, which previously had that task) could concentrate its resources on the development of the Soyuz spacecraft and the related hardware needed to send cosmonauts to the Moon in competition with Apollo. The design bureau’s very first successes included Luna 9, which became the first spacecraft to land a working payload on the Moon on February 3, 1966 (see “Luna 9: The First Lunar Landing”), and Luna 10, the first spacecraft to successfully enter orbit around the Moon two months later (see “Luna 10: The First Lunar Satellite”).
Originally the E-8 rover (later known as Lunokhod) was tasked with checking out the site for Soviet manned lunar landings. (NPO Lavochkin)
The E-8 program initially consisted of two components: The E-8 rover (which would eventually be known to the world as “Lunokhod”) and the E-8LS orbiter. Both versions of the E-8 used a standardized “correction and braking module” (known by the acronym “KT”) with a dry mass of about 1,100 kilograms which carried over 3,500 kilograms of hydrazine and nitric acid propellants internally and in four jettisonable outboard tanks. The KT carried all the consumables for its KTDU-417 main engine and attitude control thrusters. It also was equipped with an astro-orientation system and other sensors needed to support its payload in space. The rover would be brought to the surface from an intermediate lunar parking orbit by a version of the KT fitted with landing legs, a pair of ramps, and other equipment required for descent such as a radar altimeter. Originally, the mission of the rover was to perform an on-site survey of a proposed manned landing area to make sure it was safe. It would also carry a radio beacon to guide the Soviet’s manned lunar lander or “LK” (their version of the LM) towards a pinpoint landing. Later versions would be used to aid the cosmonaut’s exploration of the landing area.
Image of an E-8LS lunar orbiter. (NASA)
With only small areas of potential lunar landing sites imaged in 1966 by the E-6LF Luna 12 mission (see “Mapping the Moon: The Soviet Luna 11 & 12 Missions”), the E-8LS orbiter’s mission was to perform a more thorough orbital survey of proposed landing sites. Its variant of the KT was loaded with less propellant than the lander version but it carried more consumables, such as for attitude control, needed for its planned yearlong mission in lunar orbit. The orbiter’s primary payload was a modified E-8 rover instrument compartment, minus its wheels and other drivetrain components, equipped with high resolution cameras and other instruments to study the lunar surface and surrounding environment.
Origins of the Sample Return Mission
As 1968 unfolded, it was becoming increasingly apparent to Soviet officials that the Apollo program was going to land men on the Moon long before the Soviet equivalent would be ready to fly. Babakin and his team at NPO Lavochkin had a potential means of at least partially upstaging Apollo: an automated lunar sample return mission. As early as 1966, engineers at Lavochkin had been working on design studies for lunar sample return missions. These engineers ultimately arrived at a simple means of doing so using the E-8 hardware then under development. The standard E-8 KT was modified to carry an 800 kilogram payload consisting of a toroidal shaped instrument compartment used to support surface operations and an ascent stage which was to return a small lunar sample.
Russian diagram showing the major components of the E-8-5 lunar sample return spacecraft. 1) Return capsule, 2) ascent stage instrument compartment, 3) propellant tanks, 4) KRD-61 engine, 5) KT instrument compartment, 6) KTDU-417 engine, 7) KT propellant tanks, 8) imaging telephotometers, 9) sampler drill and 10) sampler arm. Click on image to enlarge. (Nauka)
A simple 0.9-meter sampling arm sporting a 13.6-kilogram drill mechanism could be swung over an arc of 100° in front of the lander to a sampling site selected using stereo images provided by a pair of imaging telephotometers. Once the drill mechanism at the end of the arm secured a 38-centimeter core sample with a mass of a couple of hundred grams, the arm would swing up and place the sample inside the spherical, 50-centimeter return capsule with a mass of 35 kilograms. The entire spacecraft, known as the E-8-5, stood 3.96 meters tall and had a launch mass of about 5,700 kilograms – right at the performance limit of its Proton-D launch vehicle (see “The Largest Launch Vehicles Through History”).
A schematic showing how the sampler head (2) is moved by the arm (3) to transfer the sample from the surface to the return capsule (1). (Nauka)
While in theory the KT could deliver its payload anywhere on the Moon’s surface from its intermediate parking orbit, the E-8-5 designers had to sacrifice some flexibility in order to limit the ascent stage to a mass of 520 kilograms and maintain the tight development schedule. Dmitry Okhotsimsky, a pioneer of space ballistics at the Soviet’s Institute of Applied Mathematics, had discovered a set of trajectories from the lunar surface which allowed a returning spacecraft to follow a simple ballistic path without the need for a midcourse correction or the mass penalty of a complex guidance system. This simplest of return strategies only required the ascent stage’s guidance system to maintain a vertical ascent profile while its KRD-61 engine accelerated the returning spacecraft to a velocity of about 2,700 meters per second. When properly timed, the return capsule would literally fall straight towards the Earth with any initial aiming errors minimized by the focusing effects of Earth’s gravity. Since this approach resulted in a large error ellipse at the Earth, a radio beacon on the ascent stage as well as optical tracking during its approach would allow the landing site to be determined precisely enough to ensure ground recovery crews could locate the return capsule after landing.
This was one of the better images of the 560-kilometer Mare Crisium taken by the American Lunar Orbiter 4 (and processed using modern techniques). A band stretching from the left-of-center of the basin downward into the adjacent highlands was the region accessible to the E-8-5 sample return mission. (NASA/LPI)
Such a simple ballistic return from the near side of the Moon was only possible for landing sites in a narrow band centered just north of the lunar equator near 56° east longitude in the general area of Mare Crisium and the highlands to the south. The exact location of the ten-kilometer wide landing zone varied over time depending on the time of year, the Moon’s position in orbit, the extent of lunar librations, and the location of the intended recovery site. Fortunately, much of this area of the Moon was relatively safe for landing and was scientifically interesting as well.
The First E-8 Launches
The successful conclusion of the Apollo 8 mission on December 27, 1968 (see “Apollo 8: Where No One Has Gone Before”) and NASA’s aggressive test flight schedule to follow meant that the first Apollo lunar landing attempt could come in the summer of 1969. With no hope of beating the American manned landing, Soviet officials shifted focus to automated lunar missions in hopes of casting some shade on NASA’s accomplishments. With the preparation of E-8-5 hardware in its advanced stages, the Soviet Military-Industrial Commission (VPK) approved the launch of the first sample return missions on December 30, 1968. This was followed on January 8, 1969 by a decree by the Council of Ministers which, in part, authorized launches of the E-8 missions.
An E-8 rover shown being prepared for launch.
The new E-8 rover, No. 201, was the first piece of hardware ready for flight. The rover was targeted to land on the flat floor of the 61-kilometer Le Monnier crater on the eastern edge of Mare Serenitatis. This would be the first time a lunar lander would make its final descent from lunar orbit (instead of a direct descent from a trans-lunar trajectory) and the northern-most lunar landing attempt made to date. As part of its propaganda function, the rover carried a tape recording of the Soviet national anthem which would be played after landing. The E-8 No. 201 rover lifted off at 9:48:15 AM Moscow Time (06:48:15 GMT) on February 19, 1969 on Proton No. 239-01 from Site 81/24 in the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Soviet Kazakhstan. As the ascending rocket was reaching maximum dynamic pressure, the newly designed launch shroud protecting the payload failed 51 seconds after launch. The launch vehicle exploded two seconds later raining debris 15 kilometers downrange. The first E-8 mission had failed.
The first E-8 rover, No. 201, was targeted for a landing in the 61-kilometer Le Monnier crater shown here in this Lunar Orbiter 4 image processed using modern techniques. (NASA/LPI)
With the completion of a second rover still many months away, attention turned towards the E-8-5 sample return missions. By June of 1969, five spacecraft were being prepared for a series of launches. The first ready was E-8-5 No. 402. With a launch date set for June 14, 1969, its planned 11-day sample return mission would be completed three weeks ahead of the scheduled launch of Apollo 11 now set to attempt the first manned lunar landing after the successful completion of the Apollo 10 rehearsal on May 26 (see “Apollo 10: The Adventure of Charlie Brown & Snoopy”). The first E-8-5 lifted off at 7:00:47 Moscow Time (04:00:47 GMT) on June 14 atop of Proton No. 238-01. This time the new shroud did its job as did the first three stages of the Proton rocket. Unfortunately, The Blok-D escape stage failed to ignite to place itself and the E-8-5 payload into a temporary parking orbit. Instead, the hardware was destroyed during reentry over the Pacific Ocean ending another attempt to upstage Apollo.
Preparing the Last Shot
The last chance to upstage the Apollo program came in July. Thankfully, celestial mechanics dictated that the next E-8-5, No. 401, would liftoff on July 13 about 3½ days before the scheduled launch of Apollo 11. Assuming a nominal 11-day mission, the E-8-5 return capsule would parachute back to Soviet territory on July 24. The plan was for the return capsule to be carried in an armored car through the streets of Moscow on July 26 or 27 as part of triumphant parade through Red Square as the sample was delivered to the Vernadsky Institute where it would be placed on display for the world press to see before detailed analysis would begin. Unfortunately, for this mission to succeed in its propaganda function, the Apollo 11 mission would need to stumble. If the Apollo 11 mission proceeded exactly as scheduled, it would return to Earth four hours ahead of the E-8-5. In order to beat the Americans, the Apollo 11 launch would need to be delayed by at least a day. Otherwise, Apollo 11 would either have to fail its lunar landing attempt or to return to Earth as scheduled for the Soviets to secure a lunar sample before the Americans.
An E-8-5 sample return craft shown during pre-launch testing. (Roskosmos)
With the pressure on to succeed, the hardware for the next E-8-5 flight was carefully assembled and tested for launch. During a detailed check of the mass of the spacecraft, it was found that the ascent stage for spacecraft No. 401 had a mass of 513.3 kilograms instead of the allotted 512.0 kilograms. With the Proton No. 242-01 launch vehicle already modified to squeeze every gram of payload capacity out of it, the excess mass had to be shed from somewhere. In the end it was decided to delete one of a pair of redundant 1.28-kilogram radio transmitters from the lander leaving only its primary unit with no back up. With all preparations completed, the 5,667-kilogram E-8-5 No. 401 lifted off from Site 81/24 at 5:54:41 AM Moscow Time (02:54:41 GMT) on July 13. Following a successful powered ascent culminating with the initial burn of the Blok D escape stage, the stage and payload were in a 182 by 247 kilometer parking orbit with an inclination of 51.6°. After a short coast, the Blok D reignited successfully sending its payload towards the Moon breaking a streak of five successive Proton launch failures during the first half of 1969.
The Luna 15 Mission
Upon the successful launch of E-8-5 No. 401, the spacecraft was officially designated as “Luna 15”. According to official Soviet press statements, the mission of Luna 15 was to study circumlunar space, the Moon’s gravitational field and the chemical composition of the lunar surface while performing surface photography. No mention was made about the sample return objective as rumors about the true nature of the mission swirled through the world press.
Because of the mass of the E-8-5, Luna 15 followed a slower trajectory to the Moon with a transit time of 103 hours – about a day longer than earlier Soviet lunar missions. Tracking showed the need for a course correction which Luna 15 executed the day after launch. Of greater concern was telemetry showing increasing temperatures in the propellant tanks of the ascent stage with the genuine fear that they might fail. In a desperate move against the advice of the more conservative engineers on the team, the attitude of Luna 15 was altered so that the tanks were placed into the shadow of the spacecraft. The solution worked and a potential mission ending failure was averted.
A Russian diagram showing the E-8-5 mission profile: 1) Launch, 2) parking orbit, 3) translunar injection, 4) translunar trajectory, 5) trajectory correction maneuver, 6) lunar orbit injection, 7) lunar orbit, 8) maneuvers to final orbit, 9) descent, 10) ascent from lunar surface, 11) return trajectory and 12) separation of return capsule. Click on image to enlarge.
With Apollo 11, which was launched on schedule on July 16, just 82 hours behind Luna 15, the E-8-5 ignited its KTDU-417 main engine at 10:00 GMT on July 17 to enter an initial 100-kilometer orbit. After Luna 15 emerged from behind the Moon 20 minutes after orbit insertion, it was discovered that the lander was not in its intended orbit. A significant underburn with a delta-v of about 700 meters per second (instead of the planned 810 or so meters per second) left Luna 15 in a much higher 240 by 870 kilometer orbit with an inclination of 126°. As ground controllers worked to determine the orbit of Luna 15 and come up with a plan to get it into its proper orbit, concerns continued to mount that the Soviet mission might interfere with Apollo 11 in some way. NASA astronaut Frank Borman, who had just returned from a nine-day visit to the Soviet Union, made an appeal for more information. He was assured that there would be no interference with the Apollo 11 mission and the Soviet Academy of Sciences supplied orbit data.
At 13:00 GMT on July 18, Luna 15 made its first orbit adjustment during its tenth revolution to lower the orbit to 94 by 220 kilometers. The following day at about 13:08 GMT, Luna 15 made another trim maneuver to enter an 85 by 221 kilometer orbit. This maneuver also adjusted the longitude of the ascending node to set up Luna 15 to come down in its intending landing site in Mare Crisium. Apparently ground controllers were having more difficulty than expected with navigation due to the effects of the Moon’s lumpy gravitational field. There are also indications that Luna 15 was having attitude control issues as well. As ground controllers in the Soviet Union continued to track Luna 15 in its new orbit, Apollo 11 entered its initial 111 by 314 kilometer lunar orbit at 17:22 GMT. A subsequent planned maneuver 4⅓ hours later placed Apollo 11 into a more circular 101 by 122 kilometer orbit with an inclination of 178.8°.
The Landing Attempt
With the Apollo 11 mission still proceeding on schedule for a landing at 20:19 GMT on July 20, Soviet ground controllers commanded Luna 15 during its 39th revolution to perform another maneuver at 14:15 GMT lowering the orbit to 16 by 85 kilometers with an inclination of 127°. With the perilune of the orbit over the intended landing site, the plan was for Luna 15 to fire its KTDU-417 main engine at this low point to negate its orbital velocity and begin a freefall towards the lunar surface. When the onboard radar altimeter indicated an altitude of about 600 meters, the main engine would reignite to slow the 200 meter per second descent. The main engine would cut out at an altitude of 20 meters with vernier engines guiding the E-8-5 to a soft landing of just two meters per second six minutes after leaving orbit. For this method to work, the descent had to begin at an altitude of 16±3 kilometers. Any higher and the descent speed would be too high for the propulsion system to handle. Any lower and there was a risk of striking the side of a lunar mountain near perilune (a real concern given the uncertainties at the time about the shape of the Moon and the absolute heights of its surface topography).
This is an oblique view across the southern part of Mare Crisium taken during the Apollo 11 mission. The mountains which ring this flat basin are clearly seen in this view. Luna 15 crashed outside this view to the right. (NASA)
When Luna 15 made its first perilune pass over Mare Crisium, it turned on its landing radar to test the unit and the nature of the lunar surface below. Instead of the fairly flat topography which had been expected, the radar data suggested a very uneven surface. With the landing of Luna 15 scheduled for 19:00 GMT, there was not enough time left to get a second set of readings to clarify the situation. Instead, the painful decision was made to delay the landing by 18 hours to get more radar readings and fine tune the navigation. The Apollo 11 LM, Eagle, undocked from the CSM, Columbia, at 17:44 GMT and successfully landed on Mare Tranquilitatis at 20:19 GMT after some last minute difficulties. Barring some tragedy during the remainder of the Apollo 11 mission, Luna 15 had lost the race to get the first lunar samples back to Earth.
Russian diagram showing the final final approach of the E-8-5 for landing on the lunar surface. Click on image to enlarge. (Nauka)
During its 54th orbit of the Moon, Luna 15 jettisoned its nearly empty outboard propellant tanks and started its deorbit burn at 15:46 GMT on July 21. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had already completed their historic first moonwalk 10½ hours earlier and were preparing Eagle for liftoff in two hours. At 15:50 GMT, contact with Luna 15 was lost just four minutes into its expected six-minute descent with a radar altimeter reading of three kilometers. According to the team at England’s Jodrell Bank, which had been monitoring the Luna 15 mission, the spacecraft had crashed into the lunar surface at a speed of about 130 meters per second. The crash site was at 12° N, 60° E about 800 kilometers east of the Apollo 11 landing site.
As engineers and scientists started investigating the causes of the disappointing failure of Luna 15, Soviet officials merely stated that the spacecraft had completed its research program and had reached the Moon in the preset area. There was no official mention of the actual mission and speculation about this flight would continue for the next couple of decades. Meanwhile, the Apollo 11 mission ended with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at 16:50 GMT on July 24. With the successful recovery of the crew and the 21.6 kilograms of lunar samples they had collected, the United States had won the race to the Moon.
A close-up view of the lunar rocks inside the first Apollo 11 sample return container as viewed at NASA’s Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston at 19:55 GMT on July 26, 1969. (NASA)
Follow Drew Ex Machina on Facebook.
Related Reading
“The Last Lunar Sample Return Mission”, Drew Ex Machina, August 18, 2016 [Post]
General References
Brian Harvey, Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration, Springer-Praxis, 2007
Wesley T. Huntress, Jr. and Mikhail Ya. Marov, Soviet Robots in the Solar System: Mission Technologies and Discoveries, Springer-Praxis, 2011
Nicholas L. Johnson, Handbook of Soviet Lunar and Planetary Exploration, Univelt, 1979
Asif A. Siddiqi, The Soviet Space Race with Apollo, University Press of Florida, 2003
Thank you kind Sir for your analysis of Luna 15 story.
A most informative piece that includes details I wasn’t aware of such at the destination of the first Lunokhod 201 in February 1969 (Le Monnier crater) and the details on the YE-8-5 sample return craft (402 and Luna 15) in June and July 1969.
From an outside perspective here in Australia, I’ve long been of the view that if the February 1969 Lunokhod 201 had of succeeded and still be operating by July/August 1969 and if the June 1969 Luna 402 sampler had of been successful in beating Apollo, then the Soviets could claim with fair veracity that they has beaten Apollo and made it look irrelevant, wasteful, dangerous and expensive.
They could rightfully point out that the Lunokhod by late July ’69 had covered more distance, taken more photographs and more experiments than Apollo 11.
Coupled with Luna 402, they’d have moon rock back on earth well before Apollo 11, thus making the “space race/moon race” a stalemate at worst and a Soviet victory at best as the results would speak for themselves!.
So Apollo would be seen internationally as an expensive folly and the butt of jokes, cartoons and lampoonery when they finally arrived and overshadowed by the Soviet successes.
Moreover, with the space station programme being considered, the Soviets could point to that as the logical path to manned spaceflight in which they were right from the success of the Salyut stations from 1971 and people would agree with them. too.
As the Ye-8 series continued well into the ’70’s, the result is a Soviet approach to space exploration that uses low cost robotic lunar and planetary exploration to “get the job done” and the manned space station programme demonstrating how human spaceflight should be done in a logical approach.
Granted, they did promote this argument, but if not for two Proton launch failures, then Apollo would still be seen as an expensive folly that came last in the race against a better thought out Soviet unmanned lunar programme.
I just thought an alternative perspective may put Apollo in context and just how close the U.S came to being seen as a Nixonian “hapless pitiful giant ” in space that for all the effort to land man on the moon, was rendered impotent and overshadowed by the Soviet efforts.
The jungles of Vietnam saw the U.S defeat as a double loss if the YE-8’s had of realised their potential.
I’d be fascinated to know if the Soviets ever selected manned landing sites for Leonov in the LK etc.
Thank you again for a most informative articles and many others on this site.
“They could rightfully point out that the Lunokhod by late July ’69 had covered more distance, taken more photographs and more experiments than Apollo 11…So Apollo would be seen internationally as an expensive folly and the butt of jokes, cartoons and lampoonery when they finally arrived and overshadowed by the Soviet successes.”
You’re really vastly overstating the capabilities of Lunokhod as it existed on Luna E-8 No.201, even if by some miracle it had landed and somehow lasted until July. (Even Lunokhod 2 only lasted four months, admittedly while driving 39 km). It was a simple rover, with extremely limited science capabilities. Even the later Lunokhods could hardly have matched the science return of Apollo 11’s EASAP surface experiment package, let alone returned the 47lbs of lunar samples brought back from the Sea of Tranquility.
More to the point, Luna E-8 would return no video, no photos of Soviet cosmonauts triumphantly planting the Soviet flag on the Moon to half a billion people, on live TV.
No, had Luna 8 succeeded it would have been a minor but notable victory for Soviet space science, but nothing like the electrifying moment, let alone scientific return, that Apollo 11 delivered.
Au Contraire Richard M,
Lunokhod 1 for example lasted for some ten months on the lunar surface, so you’re biassing your reply with the shorter lived Lunokhod 2 by your selective example in attempting to trivialising the Lunokhods. compared to your obvious “triumphalism” of Apollo which is your real intent.
Further, how would a YE-8/Lunokhod 201 in February 1969 land “by some miracle”.
Can you substantiate that low probability?.
Of course you can’t, as your whole intent is to eliminate any argument that even questions your Apollo triumphalism.
So a July operating Lunokhod in truth would be quite feasible, as the Soviets would be mindful that Apollo was coming and they’d be sure to keep it running for as long as possible so that together with a successful Luna 402 sample return in June 1969, they could argue by the time Apollo finally arrived, they that had already bought back samples from the moon and they still were operating a rover covering more distance than Apollo 11 and still operating after Apollo 11 departed!.
One can imagine the lampooning cartoons of a Lunokhod waving to Apollo 11 as they arrived and departed in many of the worlds’ press at the time!.
As an amateur cartoonist myself, I certainly would as Apollo would be fair game!.
As for the “science” of Apollo 11, hardly anything important apart from rocks bought back in truth.
There were no fundamental discoveries from a solar wind experiment, laser reflector or seismic results that one would call first order science!.
Granted, the Lunokhods were similar, with Astronomy experiments etc on the rover, but the real results were images and distance travelled, similar to Apollo 11.
Even today, hardly anyone knows about the perfunctory science experiements done on the mood by Apollo or anyone else as the operations and samples bought back are what count.
Was Apollo 11 “an electrifying moment”, hardly and only for a few devotees for a short time.
Then the Vietnam funk set in, energy crisis, failed U.s wars and here we are 50 years later with some trying to fetishise an exercise in cold war political theatre which is what Apollo really was!.
The Soviets if not for two launch failures came very close indeed to rendering Apollo as a pointless folly, especially after it was abandoned a few years later as even NASA knew that the whole engineering was geared toward short term glory seeking and baulky by design as Apollo 13 proved and Apollo 16 nearly did!.
Hello Andrew,
1. If I have any Apollo triumphalism, it is of a very qualified kind. Apollo was a stupendous achievement of engineering, management, and political will at a time when available technology made it only barely possible, and at tremendous risk. I think it is possible to take a certain pride in it as Americans and even as humans, and that humans will continue to do so for centuries to come. And that doesn’t detract from the very considerable Soviet space achievements of 1957-69, which also call for some admiration and respect.
I also think, however, that Apollo was something of a disaster for human spaceflight by establishing an unsustainable model for exploration, and which even inhibited economic exploitation of space. It is not called the “Apollo Cargo Cult” for nothing. It is part of the reason we have not been back, let alone to stay, for the last 47 years.
But I sense your objection to Apollo seems to be deeper and more fundamental, though its exact contours remain unclear to me.
2. I chose the Lunakhod 2 time frame over L1 not to load the dice, but because it seemed the more reasonable expectation given the state of Soviet tech at the time. This is not to say 10 months was *impossible* – just on the optimistic side. And the truth is, 4 months of rover life in 1969 would be an admirable success.
3. “One can imagine the lampooning cartoons of a Lunokhod waving to Apollo 11 as they arrived and departed in many of the worlds’ press at the time!” I really can’t, at least as anything that would catch any mainstream popularity or sentiment. We *know* the reaction Apollo 11 received worldwide, because it actually *happened*. Half a billion people tuned in for the landing and first steps, and that’s a staggering thing, given TV access at the time. To see human beings doing something is always going to be far more relatable and exciting than seeing a machine do it; that is simple human nature. And we know this simply from observing the measurable reactions to various feats of space exploration over the past 62 years. Half a billion people were not going to tune in for camera images from a robotic rover, even if the Soviets had released them live (which they never did).
Because in truth the entire Space Race was primarily about what you call “cold war political theatre.” This was as true for the Soviets as it was for the United States. When Gagarin went up, it was as pure passenger (the capsule was fully automated), with no science return to speak of; the same was true of Valentina Tereshkova. But the Soviets trumpeted these achievements loudly, even though they were fairly modest technical achievements, with no science return.
Apollo 11 was of course theatre of its own; if you want science, you are not going to build an architecture that can only put a man (Soviet LK lander) or couple of men (Apollo LM) on the Moon for a mere day (three days on the J class upgrade), and only several hours of surface EVA. Even so, Apollo 11 did work in some significant science into what was otherwise a test flight and PR exercise. More to the point, NASA did manage to work some much more serious science into the J Class missions (Apollo 15, 16 and 17), each one of which alone generated more science return than all robotic exploration of the Moon to that time, American or Soviet, and that’s not a point anyone can dispute. No rover of that era was going to find a Genesis Rock, let alone bring it back to Earth for close examination. (It is worth noting that Apollo 17 surface EVA’s traveled more ground in three days than the NASA Curiosity rover has done to date over eight years on Mars.)
So even if the Soviets had managed a success with Luna 204 a few weeks before Apollo 11, it is simply hard to see how it would have stolen much of Apollo 11’s thunder, even if the Soviets had not been ham-handedly secretive about publicizing the whole thing, as was their custom. It would be a worthy technical feat, but pretty poor stuff as what you yourself rightly term “cold war political theatre.” The Soviets wanted to be sure a mission was success before doing so, after all; failures were hidden as much as possible. Say what you want about NASA, but they conducted every single mission in the full glare of media coverage, with nowhere to hide if a mission failed or a crew died.
Good Day Richard M,
Contrary to your speculation, I have no objection to Apollo per se, as long as one acknowledges it for what it really was; very risky cold war political theatre undertaken as a rushed programme to achieve a series of nationalistic and international goals with little beyond that.
Granted, the Soviets were playing the same game too!.
Many wax lyrically about Apollo and the perceived achievement, but in truth it was a dead end technology (as demonstrated by the early 1970’s when Nixon ordered the shuttle system), with no real application for the future and each flight a ticking time bomb leading to a terrible failure, loss of life and national prestige loss, hence the latter Apollo’s 18-20 were cancelled partly to cost factors and rapidly fading public interest, but mostly the tacit acknowledgement that eventually a crew would be lost which would be politically unacceptable then and now for such a high value show piece with concomitant adverse effects for U.S prestige and mood.
Historically with public sentiment of the era already quite jaded as a result of Vietnam etc, an Apollo loss may even have been the end of NASA.
Thus although an impressive engineering and management feat, its important not to fetishise the programme as some do.
The Soviets may well have performed a circumlunar flight with Leonov and Makarov before Apollo 8 and if successful its doubtful whether Apollo 8 would have flown to the moon, but the Luna’s 201 and 402 had a fair prospect of success as Luna’s 16 and 17 actually did just a year later or so.
Those successes I suggest would have stolen much of Apollo’s thunder.
Thank you for your points.
Hello Andrew,
All the weaknesses that apply to SLS/Orion certainly apply to Apollo/Saturn as well, but I think it’s not really fair to call it “dead end technology” by the standards of the 1970’s – yes, very expensive to operate, being fully expendable and being operated by the government. But in fact a Saturn flight really was not more expensive than a Shuttle flight, as it turned out (the Shuttle, for all its amazing engineering, was an utter failure in reducing launch costs); and the Shuttle did manage to kill 14 astronauts in flight, which is 14 more than Apollo did. The fact that good old Soyuz is still operating today (while Shuttle is not) says something about the value of an old but tried architecture, even if I’d rather be flying Crew Dragons, Starliners, or Dream Chasers.
I *do* agree with you that it *is* true that a major reason why the Moon missions were halted was a real concern for safety – that, indeed, had we kept flying lunar missions, we probably would have lost a crew before long. This was Bob Gilruth’s fear in particular. On the other hand, though, there is no reason we couldn’t have stopped going to the Moon but kept the Saturn/Apollo architecture, suitably adapted, for a Low Earth Orbit program, focused presumably on Skylab successor stations. That would have removed the risks associated with lunar surface missions, while still leaving you with an architecture that a least had a legitimate Launch Abort System (and none of the drawbacks of being a sidemounted vehicle), unlike the Shuttle. And unlike Shuttle, its development and infrastructure would already have been paid for.
In short, I think you’re being somewhat unfair to the Apollo architecture, which turned out to be more robust than the mindset which led to it, and could have been used for lower risk mission profiles.
I think that if the Soviets had pulled off a Zond circumlunar flight in 1968, as they actually came close to doing, that would *absolutely* have stolen most of Apollo 8’s thunder – that’s human beings, not robots! But the NASA leadership was consistent all along down the years in insisting that they would not have altered their manifest no matter what the Russians did. Apollo 8 had to fly because they had no chance of achieving Kennedy’s goal in time if they didn’t. The delays in the Lunar Module meant they had to make up the time with a mission that could achieve other objectives on their checklist. They would still want to land on the Moon, even if the Soviets had stolen some of their thunder.
Good Day Richard M,
I agree with your point vis a’ vis the relative cost of Apollo vs STS with the shuttle system such a monumental “stuff up”, only politics kept it going as long as it did as by the mid 1980’s it was clear to all that the cost and scheduling goals would never be achieved as well as the inherent unreliability of the system, so I share your point on the Saturn 5 system in terms of being equally “cost effective”(if that term applies to such expensive machines) as the STS.
By comparison with Soyuz, personally I’d fly it any day compared to the Apollo, STS or the newer commercial proposals as Soyuz works and the design philosophy is logical with high reliability as well as being a more exciting ride than the more comfortable alternatives (equally I’d prefer to drive a McLaren P1 “Widowmaker” compared to say a luxury performance Bentley Continental, but thats just personal preference).
That said, the fact is that Apollo technology was discarded as due to then cost and goal criteria, I and others would argue it was a dead end with no application for anything other than some vague putative large space station designs based on Skylab and a cluster of Skylabs docked together , akin to the completed Mir station as you imply and which I’m familiar with.
So yes, apart from then perceived costs and reliability concerns, it was wise to cancel Apollo’s 18-20 as a crew would likely have been lost on one of those flights, so I disagree about my being “unfair” about the reliability of the Apollo system as you yourself cite the concerns by Gilruth which I’m also familiar with as well as others.
Was Apollo more reliable than Shuttle, I’d argue no and the cancellation of Apollo’s 18-20 and any prospect of a lunar base tends to re-enforce that inherent unreliability especially when Apollo 13 and 16 are considered.
With Shuttle approved and no part of Apollo in the design, I’d argue that Apollo served its purpose and then was discarded as it was due to having no future. QED!.
In the issue of a manned Zond vis Apollo 8, I understand Apollo 8 was originally an earth orbital mission, but was rapidly changed months earlier to address rising concerns by Soviet Zond flights which so easily could have bested Apollo in many ways with a manned circumlunar flight.
That said I agree, that the landing schedule would have continued as that was the main aim, however I argue that if a manned Zond had of occurred and if Luna’s 201 and 402 had of been successful (which both versions of the YE-8 demonstrated well in 1970), then these two Luna’s, I argue would have reduced the standing of Apollo by quite a degree as I described earlier with an ongoing rover and soil samples back in Moscow and showed to the worlds press, which would raise questions in the minds of many as to just what was the point of Apollo when the Soviets got there first and returned moon samples before people set foot there.
These questions of space race victory would be re-enforced if a manned Zond had of got there first too!.
I read that you disagree with my argument, but certainly for people outside of the U.S (as I am), people on the moon is all very well, but then when the counter arguments were considered (assuming a successful manned Zond, Lunokhod 201 and Luna 402 (especially the latter)), one can’t help wonder just what was really achieved apart from exaggerated political theatre and worse was abandoned just a few years later entirely as the “Age of Aquarius” seemed to have drowned entirely!.
Finally, for the science of Apollo 11, I disagree as to its importance as Lunokhod 1 and one presumes Luna 201 had more instruments such as X ray and cosmic ray astronomy as well as a laser reflector and a soil testing device.
By my count that’s more than what Apollo 11 had although later Apollo’s did more on the surface, the near obsession with volcanism by NASA was overshadowed years later when Luna 24 returned evidence of water in the regolith (0.1% as I recall in 2012), which had we known of that in the late 1970’s would have overshadowed all of the Apollo science and rocks quantity as the qualitative result from Luna 24 was far more profound.
If the world’s press had of learn’t of Luna 24’s finding in 1978/79, then the questions of the dubious worth of Apollo would be even more stark!
Thank you for your arguments and discussion.