[FPSPACE] Thirtieth anniversary of Luna 16 launch - images?

[Larry Klaes]

On September 12, 1970, the Soviet Union launched Luna 16
to Earth's moon in what would become the first successful
return of lunar regolith by an automated probe: 101 grams 
from the Sea of Fertility.  

The USA had done this twice in 1969 with Apollo 11 and 12, 
but they had two sets of those comparatively fragile wetware 
beings aboard the landers to accomplish this task.  And their 
only attempt in 1970 went on to become a major motion picture 
directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks 25 years later.

The Soviets were able to accomplish this goal with robots two 
more times, in 1972 with Luna 20 and 1976 with Luna 24.  

Some items of note and questions:  

Luna 16 made the first night landing on Luna, some sixty hours 
after sun "set".  Since it is claimed that Luna 16 returned 
excellent images from the lunar surface (but were not shown 
outside of the USSR), how were they able to show the landing 
site?  Floodlights?  Or did the base that remained on Luna 
last long enough to make it through fourteen Earth days of the 
freezing lunar night to the next sun "rise" for enough light 
to take images?

Has anyone seen these images since and are they available anywhere?


Perhaps someday we can get samples back from the lunar farside 
for comparison, to say nothing of establishing a human presence 
there again, this time permanently.  Then on to Mars, the rest
of the Sol System, and eventually the Milky Way galaxy.  We'll
get to the rest of the galaxies and maybe all those other 
universes after that, if they do exist.


Some handy-dandy URLs on the subject of Luna 16:

http://www.friends-partners.org/~mwade/project/luna.htm

http://hea.iki.rssi.ru/~svr/Moon/Luna16.html

http://www.zarya.freeserve.co.uk/Diaries/Luna/Luna16.htm

http://www.users.wineasy.se/svengrahn/histind/Luna1524/Lun1524.htm

http://www.appliedspace.com/mission/past_sample_missions.htm

http://www.terra.es/personal/heimdall/eng/luna-16.htm

http://it-student.hivolda.no/prosjekt/v99/erobringa_av_manen/luna16.htm

http://www.seds.org/ftp/info/newsletters/ejasa/jasa9601.txt

http://www3.airnet.ne.jp/masaakix/apollo/d_luna/luna-16/lu-lu16.htm

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/database/www-nmc?70-072A

http://www.ussr-airspace.com/Site/z_Mil/Product/m_s_Luna-16_mod

http://www.sadcom.com/pins/space/machines/luna_16.htm

http://vsm.host.ru/e_luna.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/planets/luna16.shtml

http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/greatest_70s_991230.html

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4214/ch12-8.html


Two other space probe anniversaries of note this week:

September 9 - 25th Anniversary (1975), Viking 2 Launch 
(Mars Lander/Orbiter).  Second truly successful robot
lander on Mars (after Mars 3 and Viking 1).

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-425/cover.htm

http://www-pdsimage.jpl.nasa.gov/PDS/public/vikingl/

http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/online.bks/mars/chap13.htm

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4212/on-mars.html


September 11 - 15th Anniversary (1985), ICE, Comet Giacobini-
Zinner Encounter (formerly the ISEE 3 solar probe).  First space 
probe to flyby a comet, beating the USSR Vega 1 and 2 missions
to the punch with comet Halley in early 1986. 

http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/missions/isee3.html

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/comets/ice.html

http://buspace.bu.edu/BUSPACE/ISEE/isee_frames.html