Upstream | July 08, 2009 | 8 comments

Audio suggests Soviets attempted to land on moon before U.S.

source: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/luna-audio/

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InformedTexan
The United States wasn’t the only country hoping to land on the moon in July 1969 — the Soviets were trying to beat us to the punch by landing the unmanned spacecraft Luna 15 while Apollo 11 was still in orbit around the moon. Now, thanks to the discovery of previously unheard recordings from 1969, you can listen to the unfolding drama.

Astronomers from the University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics unearthed these forgotten audio files while researching materials for the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. The recordings come from the control room of the Jodrell Bank Observatory, where astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell and colleagues were listening to transmissions from the moon on the Lovell radio telescope.

The newly released recordings chronicle events from July 19 through July 21, 1969, with Lovell narrating as events unfold. The first two minutes of the recording reveal that the Luna 15 had dramatically changed its orbit. After the U.S. astronauts landed on the lunar surface on July 20, Luna 15 altered its course to get closer to the Apollo 11 landing site.

But the real excitement begins on July 21, when Lovell reports on “a rumor from a well-informed source in Moscow that this Luna is going to land this evening” — and return to the Soviet Union with lunar rock samples.

The Soviets never got close to that ambitious goal. At 15:50 on July 21st, the astronomers listened as the Luna 15 crashed into the moon’s surface. In the final moments before the spacecraft hits the Moon, voices from the control room say, “It’s landing” and “It’s going down much too fast!”

As the tape ends, one observer sums it up: “I say, this has really been drama of the highest order.”
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8 comments // Audio suggests Soviets attempted to land on moon before U.S.

  • liviu
  • capolia
    • 0
      capolia  

    • what a waste of time, money, ppl, dogs and monkeys is this space malarky!!! We dont even know how this planet works or what is at the bottom of our oceans? Marianna Trench, peurto rico trench connection?! There could be worm holes on earth never mind tryin to find ones in space!

    • 2 years ago
  • Psythor
  • IanFish
  • drewsuf721
    • 0
      drewsuf721  

    • I don't get the drama...

      The Russians beat us to the landing by ten years with the Luna 2 on Sept. 14th 1959.

      The Luna 15 which crashed the day after our moonwalk did not have any cosmonauts aboard. We were the nation with enough cojones and smarts to get men there and back.

      They got the first man made device there, we got the first men there.

    • 2 years ago
  • outtheinside
  • bkurtz21
    • 0
      bkurtz21  
    • drewsuf721:

      Yeah exactly.... like cool go send your stupid little robot to the moon fuck it we're gonna actually GO THERE! Can you say you've been to the moon course not but maybe your patriot grandfather did and that shit is NUTS

    • 2 years ago
  • crob80227
    • 0
      crob80227  
    • drewsuf721:

      Yeah, seems cheap. Would they really have "beaten" us to the moon by landing a unmanned craft there 2 hours before we landed actual human beings? I can't imagine anyone giving a shit about a stupid Russian probe after actual humans landed.

      They could say "We Won!" all they wanted but the live television pictures of Americans playing golf on the moon would tell a tale worth a thousand words.

    • 2 years ago
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