[FPSPACE] Ed C's theories...a little bit more

[Peter Pesavento]

I am going to amplify one item where I stated that the US intelligence community "FULLY EXPECTED" a manned lunar launch from the Soviet prior to Apollo 11...

In print form, this comes from Peter N. James, in his book "Soviet Conquest from Space"....and as readers of the Quest article serialization (especially Part 2 in May) know, I have actually been in direct contact with James, and so my perspective is going to be "a bit different" than those who will say that nothing of the kind was planned, nor in the offing....

Peter N. James (and I quote him in the text) did say that there were expectations of a manned Moon-related launch from the USSR prior to Apollo 11....whether the expectations were considered "100% certain" is presently unknown....he does mention that there was a debate among US intelligence analysts as to whether a crewed lunar flight was what should be expected, or not...and until someone proves otherwise, Peter N. James is a veracious source, and he is directly accessible....

Here is a question:  If the 5L mission was merely a rocket flight test and spacecraft test (to photograph potential lunar landing sites), couldn't it have been launched in August, September, October or November 1969?  Why was early July 1969 chosen?  (And the Soviets did know that Apollo 11 was going to do its manned lunar landing attempt in that month, well in advance of July 1969.)

Something to think about....
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/attachments/20040806/29721f3d/attachment.html