[FPSPACE] Re: Could the Soviets have tried to FAKE a manned lunar landing mission?

[LARRY KLAES]

Yes, please note I was doing nothing more than speculating here to get the ball rolling and the mental gears grinding, as it were.  Had I any real evidence, I would gladly present it.  

I did meet with some Soviet rocket engineers who were visiting Boston on a tour of Soviet spacecraft in 1990 and asked them details on the manned lunar missions which were just being revealed.  One of my questions to them was about any actual cosmonauts launched on the N-1 rocket flights.  They all said no people were ever on board.  I know, big whoop, but hey I tried.  And I didn't have the heart to get persistent, seeing as they were all very nice and guests in our country.  Plus I did not want to ruin the opportunity to see such things as the actual sample return capsules from Lunas 16, 20, and 24.

We did exchange some American and Soviet space memorabilia (some books, patches, and brochures), plus I learned the proper way to say Thank You in Russian (I kept say Placebo - got a big laugh at least). 

The evidence I see is that while the Soviets did try really hard to put men on the Moon, they just never made it in time to bear the US; but those nagging gaps in the data just cannot be left alone.

Has anyone tried to just outright bribe an old Soviet space official, engineer, or scientist?  I am sure they would appreciate the money.  Crass, I know, but we've been beating around the bush so much, I think it is time to just get in there and find out.  I know, it's the direct American in me, not to mention the space enthusiast.

Larry

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Chris Jones<mailto:clj at panix.com> 
  To: LARRY KLAES<mailto:ljk4 at msn.com> 
  Cc: fpspace<mailto:fpspace at friends-partners.org> 
  Sent: Saturday, August 07, 2004 4:49 PM
  Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] Could the Soviets have tried to FAKE a manned lunar landing mission?


  LARRY KLAES wrote:
  > One more speculation (I'm starting to feel like one of those Kennedy 
  > Assassination Conspiracists) - what if the Soviets tried to FAKE a 
  > manned lunar landing before Apollo 11?

  Before we start speculating on this what if, let's see some evidence that
  they even tried to fake a manned lunar landing.  There is no such evidence,
  only speculation.
  >                                           Certainly they could have a 
  > robot ship land on the surface for anyone tracking the mission and play 
  > prerecorded voices, but everything else could be produced elsewhere.

  They could have TRIED.  Our best evidence is they most likely would have
  failed, witness the failure of Luna 15.  They had successfully landed two
  small landers using the Molniya launcher, but most of their attempts to
  this point had failed.  Our best evidence is that they never tried to do
  this.

  > The explosion of the N-1 ended that plan.

  What plan?  As far as we know, there was no such plan.

  > I just saw Capricorn One again, so my ideas may be colored (grin).  But 
  > it is an idea to consider at least.

  I've considered it as much as it deserves, which is not much, and rejected
  the idea for lack of any EVIDENCE.  Speculation and fictional movies are
  nothing like evidence.

  >                                     And certainly the Soviets were not 
  > above lying about space missions that failed in the past, either making 
  > things up or leaving out crucial details.

  Careful here.  I will agree that they were not above leaving out crucial
  details, almost always saying that what they announced a mission had done
  was exactly what it had been intended to do, and not talking about close
  calls (every mission ended at the designated time and place, having
  accomplished all of its objectives, something that was often doubted at the
  time and has been admitted in many cases to be false).  But they did
  acknowledge two fatal accidents, and there is no evidence that anyone ever
  flew into space whose flight was not announced WHILE IT WAS UNDERWAY.  As
  Jim Oberg said years ago, all this speculation and conspiracy theory
  requires us to believe that there were two parallel programs, one of which
  almost always returned its pilots safely, and one of which never did.  To be
  charitable, this is ridiculously farfetched.

  As for making things up, what examples do you have?  I can think of a couple
  of cases of some hyperbole (calling the Soyuz 4/5 complex a space station,
  and calling the twin Vostok missions rendezvouses), but those claims aren't
  really pushed these days and they are exaggerations, not fabrications.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/attachments/20040808/6e4b7c04/attachment.html