Slashdot Mirror
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.)"
An interesting fact is that while the Lunokhod robots transmitted more than 20,000 TV pictures and more than 200 TV panoramas and also conducted more than 500 lunar soil tests, their actual purpose was to try and find US made robots and/or buildings(!) on the surface of the moon.
This was done under a program name of "Timofeev". Timofeev is just a common Russian last name and seems to have no special meaning (not referring to a lead scientist/government official, etc).
I wonder what else american public schools forgot to teach me...
I'm not going to try and defend the US Education system for it's lack of bias, but I doubt that you learned about any US Mars Rovers in school either - even if they were current events. We have yet to talk about the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in my school... it's a shame really. :/
I can't believe you've never heard of this (even if you are American). Ever wonder why so many of the features on the dark side of the moon have Russian names? It's the same with many features on Mars, too.
10 Bits= $.25
100 Bits= $.50
110 Bits= $.75
1000 Bits= 1 byte
If you go to Viet Nam, you'll find a lot of people who believe that:
1) The Soviets landed people on the moon;
2) The US moon landings were faked.
They learned it in school. I've even heard that from some of my in-laws there, and I'm far from sure I've convinced them it isn't true. Heck, some Americans even believe 2.
I remember the whispering propaganda of the 60's and 70's. "The soviets all use crapy electronics", "The soviets rockets all crash or explode", "The soviets are way behind the USA", etc. In reality, time has revealed that whatever their politics, the soviets showed great economy and resourcefullness (at a time many US rockets blew up, too but were less publicized) and succeded in many ways. That their information has been so overlooked rather underscores a propaganda war on the part of the USA (and make no mistake, since the day Kennedy launched the Space Program, there was a huge propaganda onslaught to make US look good, inspite of setbacks and disasters.)
I've never met an astronaut, but have met a cosmonaut, an intelligent and personable fellow, who was mercilessly grilled by a college professor on politics rather than the space programs.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The rovers were driven in real time, using a very low quality TV- no half-tones, one frame in several seconds. One day they drove Lunokhod-2 into a crater, and had troubles climbing out. The drivers decided to back off a little. Lunokhod-2 had no rear- view camera, and they collided with a rim of the crater. The solar battery was covered in dust, reducing it's output. They try to clean the battery by flipping it, but the dust wouldn't come out, and what would got on a heat radiator surface, which lead to overheating. The drivers got the rover out of the crater, but it didn't wake up after next lunar night. Source (in Russian): http://www.space.hobby.ru/projects/lunochod1.html
Go read who's real history?
Which author's/publisher's version do you accept as gospel? The one that says slavery? The one that says state's rights? They both have some truth in them.
I was taught in the public schools that Lincoln was trying to preserve the union. Abolishing slavery in the states in rebellion was a carefully considered wartime economic and political move that Jefferson Davis himself considered. Yes, it was hugely symbolic, but that doesn't mean it was *only* symbolic. The preservation of the union was the main thing as at that time in history England and France both had reasons for wanting us divided, weakened, and were really hoping for a divided union for obvious reasons.
I was also taught by my teachers that I would never learn everything in a few hours a day. That the teachers had enough time to cover only very monumental events and that it was the responsibility of ME AND MY PARENTS to make sure that I took the basic tools they gave us in school and go out in the world and read, question, and learn. And, to attempt to synthesize the various slanted historical perspectives before coming to my own conclusions.
Russian rovers! Bah! What monumental historical event should this displace in a curricula that can only cover a finite amount of material?
Stop blaming the system for everything they didn't teach you.
Thank a teacher that you've the wit to get in a flame war here on slashdot!
Here is an interesting tid-bit: to remotely drive the rovers, the russians selected people who did not have driver licences.
The idea was that they would not have driver's reflexes they would have to unlearn in order to drive a vehicle with a 1 second lag in response thanks to the Earth_Moon gap...