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Russian Rovers on the Moon
An Ignorant American writes "Perusing an Air & Space magazine the other day, I came across an article about Russian Moon Rovers during the space-race era. Thanks to my American science education, I had never heard of this feat. I asked around (friends and coworkers) and nobody else I've talked to has heard of them either. They were called 'lunokhod', and were the first of their kind. Unmanned, remotely operated rovers with basic instrumentation. Two were successfully landed on the Moon, each driving for many miles on the Moon's surface, returning tens of thousands of pictures. You can do a Google Search to start your education, or read what they have to say at Wikipedia on the subject (Wikipedia also has some external links.)"
In America we tend to forget that we are far from immune from 'evil socializing school.' I remember hearing about flying Russian dogs but never moon rovers. In fact, come to think of it I never knew we landed on the moon more than once until I saw Apollo 13.
It reminds us that our history books stilled talked about manifest destiny in grand terms until the mid 70s and how the genocide of indigenous peoples in our own country was conveniently brushed aside at the same time. Politicians here love to criticize Japanese teachings about WWII, but this is a good reminder that us Americans should temper our supposed superiority from time to time.
I went to American public schools.
I knew that Russians had put rovers on the moon.
School's job is not to tell you everything that's ever happened. School's job is to give you the tools you need to find things out. I got those tools. You did not. The fact that we both got an "American" education is irrelevant.
Quit blaming your ignorance on your teachers. Start paying more attention to what they had to work with.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
No disrespect to the soviet space pros, but I gotta call BS on 2 counts here:
1) On several occasions, launches were made LONG before ready, for political reasons, risking lives (not that this is a soviet only thing)
2) US failures were less publicized? We had rockets blowing up on LIVE TELEVISION, whilst the world found out about russian flights after splashdown 1/2 the time. The failures we only know about (until recently) because we found massive craters from exploded rockets.
The entire space race was an exercise in propaganda, anyway.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
While I might not have the educational system of the USA (in a general sense) in the greatest regard (relax, I don't hold my own in high regard) this apparent lack of knowledge is rather general. I remember Lunokhod very well but I was a) very interest in spacial exploration when I was a kid and b) most of the books I had were from the USSR (or from Novosti Press editions in Portugal).
The thing is, most of my classmates were not even interest in the whole subject, so for them Lunokhod or Appolo didn't meant anything. In the USA it's obvious that people have knowledge (or should have, it is after all a great thing to be prouf of) about their own space missions, but beyond that it's really down to curiosity and personal interest.
I would argue that most knowledge of this kind that people have is not directly derived from taking classes at school but it's a result of curiosity and self-reading. And perhaps rightly so.
The Russians beat the US a very large number of firsts in space. First satellite, first animals in space, first human in space, first safe landings from orbit, first spacewalk, first to the land a probe on Mars, first probe to Venus, first orbital station, first flight around the moon.
The whole notion that the US "won the space race" is an interesting bit of spin. The fact is that the USSR notched up a very large number of firsts and could equally argue that they won the race if the finishing line hadn't been arbitraly decided to be a manned mission to the moon (and you can bet that it wasn't the Russians who decided that that was the only feat which mattered).
The US won the cold war over the USSR, or more to the point, outlasted the USSR, because the USSR ran out of money. Ultimately the Soviet system was a poor means of running a country, so they lost their super power status... but that hardly means they lost the space race.
As Napolean said: history is a lie made up by the victors.
"...so rather than risking dnagerous human mission on the moon, they only sent robot, while astronauts stayed safely at home."
What's the point of exploring space if we don't go there? The Europeans (and unlucky Africans) that settled North and South America didn't send something to report back saying, "Oh, that's nice", they went there. The U.S., Canada, Mexico, and all of Central and South America as they are now is the result. Yes, negative ramifications abounded, but the collective we wouldn't be where we are today if it weren't for those circumstances. Humanity is stronger because we are spread out, and if we actually get the guts to try to go into space permanently we will be stronger still. I'd like to hope that all of the work we do isn't for nothing in the long haul. We're the most versatile living thing to come about in known history. Let's see what we can really do.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Am I the only one who thinks this isn't funny?
Are slashdotters the univited people that smell weird and rifle through your stuff at parties?
Behave on other sites.