Luna 9 launched 1966

Close-up image of the moon's surface after landing.

Luna 9, launched January 31, 1966 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, was an unmanned Soviet lunar probe, which became the first spacecraft to accomplish a soft landing on another planetary body, besides Earth.  Earlier probes had contacted the lunar surface, but without much success.

Sergei Korolev (remember him?) oversaw the design and development of Luna 9, but died about 2 weeks prior to its launch.  It landed on February 3 in the Ocean of Storms, west of craters Reiner and Marius, and began transmitting data about 5 minutes after touchdown.

Soviet authorities did not release pictures from Luna 9, but scientists in England, also monitoring the craft, realized the signal format being used was identical ot the Radiofax system, used internationally by newspapers for transmitting pictures.  The images were decoded and published world-wide.

Contact was lost February 6.

Sergei Korolev, father of the Soviet space program, born 1907

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, born January 12, 1907 in Russia, was responsible for developing Sputnik 1 and sending Laika and the first human (Yuri Gagarin) in space.  He was arrested in 1938 on a false charge and spent almost 6 years in a Soviet prison.  Against all odds, he actually survived and was recognized for his skills in rocket design.

He directed the Soviet space program and stunned the world when Sputnik 1 was successfully launched in 1957.

Korolev died unexpectedly in 1966 and the Soviet dream of putting a man on the moon died with him.

Book review - "Red Moon Rising" by Matthew Brzezinski

Years ago, I read James Oberg’s awesome book, Red Star in Orbit, which chronicled the Soviet Union’s space program and its competition against the United States’ newly formed NASA, up to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program.  Brzezinski’s work, Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age, reads as a prequel to Oberg’s but from the political side of the situation.

After WWII, the Soviet Union struggled to get back on its feet after the devastation and consumption of its resources.  However, in the United States, life could not have been better.  The economy was booming.  WWII hero Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House and the US had a large arsenal of missiles ready for military purposes if the need should arise.

The Soviet Union had only a handful.  Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary, wanted to close that gap.  He was not interested in space.  He just did not want to appear vulnerable and defenseless if the Americans were to launch missiles at them.

Sergei Korolev managed to get Khrushchev to consider putting a satellite in orbit, one that could carry warheads into space where they could be launched to anywhere on the globe with impunity.  With Khrushchev’s blessing, the Chief Designer (as Korolev is referred to in Brzezinski’s work) proceeds to accomplish what no one had done before.  Successfully put an artificial satellite in orbit around the world.

Brzezinski follows Korolev’s journey through set-backs, financial difficulties, disasters, rivalries and mounting pressure from all sides.

I found it humorous that Korolev and Khrushchev did not immediately understand the impact of what they had done.  Not until the whole world reacted with awe at Earth’s new artificial satellite.

Brzezinski did stumble in the epilogue.  He states that when the Chief Designer died in January 1966, “Russia’s moon dreams died with Sergei Pavlovich Korolev”.  As any student of history will recall, during the 1960’s, the space race between the US and the USSR rose to fever pitch and ran hot and heavy from Yuri Gagarin’s 1962 orbital flight until Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon in 1969.

Despite this, the book is an important read for anyone interested in space history.