by walfy » Sun Jun 06, 2010 5:41 am
Ten years ago a high-school exchange student from Russia lived with my family for 8 months. I was surprised that he did not believe that the U.S. sent people to land on the moon. It was not taught in his schools. Instead, he told me how they rigged it in a Hollywood-like studio. He was totally serious. So we can assume the Russians suppressed the story of the human moon landings by the U.S., lest their pride get more wounded.
Then this year I learned for the first time that the Russians successfully landed a frickin' rover on the moon, drove it around, all the way back in 1970! (Check out the maps –- they drove it a long way on the moon!) As I grew up in the 70's and 80's, I poured through all of my dad's science magazines, such as Astronomy, Scientific American, Science, etc. He read a lot more than me, devoured all of this info. No mention of a Soviet rover on the moon, by him or by the magazines. Also, in grade school and high-school, the human moon landings were thoroughly covered, but nary a peep on the Russian rover landing on the moon. All I remember is that they intended to land on the moon, developed the spacecrafts, but ended up only sending a few landers.
I was astounded when the first Pathfinder rover putted around on the surface of Mars a decade or so ago. I thought that was the first ever mission of a rover successfully driving around on the surface another world. So to learn that the Russians already did it around 30 years earlier was quite a shock.
Did the Russians suppress news of their successful moon rovers until recently? Or was the American hubris so great at the time that they didn't want to give the Soviets one iota of acknowledgment for their radical and highly successful rover mission on the lunar surface?
Ten years ago a high-school exchange student from Russia lived with my family for 8 months. I was surprised that he did not believe that the U.S. sent people to land on the moon. It was not taught in his schools. Instead, he told me how they rigged it in a Hollywood-like studio. He was totally serious. So we can assume the Russians suppressed the story of the human moon landings by the U.S., lest their pride get more wounded.
Then this year I learned for the first time that the Russians successfully landed a frickin' rover on the moon, drove it around, all the way back in 1970! (Check out the maps –- they drove it a long way on the moon!) As I grew up in the 70's and 80's, I poured through all of my dad's science magazines, such as Astronomy, Scientific American, Science, etc. He read a lot more than me, devoured all of this info. No mention of a Soviet rover on the moon, by him or by the magazines. Also, in grade school and high-school, the human moon landings were thoroughly covered, but nary a peep on the Russian rover landing on the moon. All I remember is that they intended to land on the moon, developed the spacecrafts, but ended up only sending a few landers.
I was astounded when the first Pathfinder rover putted around on the surface of Mars a decade or so ago. I thought that was the first ever mission of a rover successfully driving around on the surface another world. So to learn that the Russians already did it around 30 years earlier was quite a shock.
Did the Russians suppress news of their successful moon rovers until recently? Or was the American hubris so great at the time that they didn't want to give the Soviets one iota of acknowledgment for their radical and highly successful rover mission on the lunar surface?