[FPSPACE] Zond 8

[DSFPortree at aol.com]

David:

But the conclusions we can draw are limited. We know Mercury was on the right 
track - it flew long enough to prove itself. By the same token, we don't 
really know if Zond was on the right track. It didn't fly long enough to find out. 
Zond 9 might have flown successfully, as did Zond 7. Or it might have burned 
up. It's all conjecture. 

Thinking in terms of marketing - do you want to tell you customers that 
they're going to fly a Zond mission, and that that's OK, because, even though Zond 
had a poor record and was scrapped by the Soviets, it was improving? I mean, 
that doesn't truly convince, does it?

Better to leave Zond alone, since it's not terribly relevant anyway. The 
Russians don't intend to fly cosmonauts on a Zond. They intend to fly cosmonauts 
on a spacecraft derived from the great-grandchild of Zond's sibling - Zond's 
great-grandnephew, I guess it would be, though I always have trouble keeping 
those relationships straight.

David

David S. F. Portree
Science writer & historian
dsfportree at aol.com
Flagstaff Arizona USA

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