Exploration of the Moon: the first lunar rover and landing of man on the moon. The first flight to the moon - how it happened

July 20, 1969, 45 years ago, American ship Apollo 11 made the first ever landing on the Moon. This event intertwined engineering genius, international politics, His Majesty chance and the human factor.

Lunar acceleration

Let us say right away that we will not consider the “lunar conspiracy theory”, according to which the Americans falsified the stay of their astronauts on the Moon. No matter what crazy ideas its authors use. We will also not find out how humanoids met Neil Armstrong on the Moon. There is plenty of talk on this topic on specific sites. The reality associated with the first manned flight to the Moon is much more interesting and sometimes more fantastic.

Shortly before his tragic death, John Kennedy promised that a flight to the moon would take place before the end of the 60s. This was a very risky statement. Because in September 1961, when this was said, the American space program was in its infancy: NASA had only one suborbital, ballistic trajectory flight of the single-seat Gemeni spacecraft with a person on board.

The Apollo program actually began to be implemented in 1966, when the spacecraft of the same name was ready and the powerful Saturn 5 rocket appeared. The astronauts’ “communication” with the ship began with a tragedy. During ground training on Apollo 1 in January 1967, a fire occurred that cost the lives of Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee.

And the first preparatory manned flight, there were 4 in total, in which the command module was tested, took place in October 1968. That is, only 8 months before the historic flight of Apollo 11. During that period, American astronautics gained such a rapid pace of development as the Soviet one under S.P. Korolev.

However, the lunar module was not yet ready. It appeared only at the beginning of 1969. This module participated in the second manned flyby of the Moon. And on July 16, when the Apollo 11 launch took place, everything “grew together” and worked in the best possible way.

The President was pushed aside

Four crews took part in the Apollo program, which included the commander, the lunar module pilot and the command module pilot, who was not allowed to set foot on the surface of the night star. There was a cyclic change in crew participation in flights. After two “foreign” flights, the crew became backup, and the next time - the main one.

Neil Armstrong, who was the first to set foot on the moon, gained worldwide fame after his flight. However, this happened extremely by accident - after the cyclicity was broken by Frank Borman, whose crew was supposed to make the first landing on the Moon. After the Apollo 8 flight, Borman announced his retirement from the program. He explained this act by saying that he promised his wife and children not to fly into space anymore.

It must be said that in the astronaut corps there is no strict discipline in the military sense, when the order of the commander is an immutable law for the subordinate. Which is perfectly illustrated by the action of James McDivitt. In August 1968, NASA received information from the CIA that Soviet Union plans to make a manned flyby of the Moon at the end of the year. To be the first, the Americans launched Apollo 8 to the Moon on December 21 without a lunar module, which was not ready. McDivitt refused this flight, saying that he spent too much time and effort on mastering the control of the lunar module in order to “play political tricks.”

The team of astronauts was led by Donald Slayton, an independent man, fanatically devoted to work and had enormous authority. At the end of June 1969, the crews of Apollo 10 (Thomas Stafford, Eugene Cernan, John Young) and Apollo 11 (Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, Michael Collins) received an invitation from the White House to lunch with the President. But Slayton said that removing one day from the busy training schedule of the main and backup crews would lead to a postponement of the launch by at least a month. And he achieved the cancellation of this protocol event.

The President made a second attempt to shake the astronauts' hands just before liftoff. But that too was stopped. This time, the doctor of the astronaut squad, who said that Nixon could infect those launching to the Moon with some infectious disease.

The training was not only intense, but sometimes risky. To practice landing on the Moon, an aircraft made from aluminum tubes was created. This truly stupa had 3 main and 16 maneuverable engines. The vector of the main engines was directed so that 5/6 of the weight was compensated, simulating lunar gravity. During one of the training sessions, this stupa got out of control, and Armstrong had to eject at a height of 60 meters.

Is there a God on the Moon?

According to the established procedure at NASA, the first in open space It is not the ship’s commander who must leave, but the pilot—in this case, lunar module pilot Edwin Aldrin. However, the design of the module was such that Armstrong was located closer to the hatch. While training on the ground, Aldrin attempted to climb over the commander, but this maneuver resulted in minor damage to the cockpit.

But even before Armstrong, having set foot on the surface of the Moon, uttered the historical phrase “That’s one small step for a man, but one giant leap for all mankind,” a church sacrament took place in the lunar module. Edwin Aldrin, being an elder of the Presbyterian Church, conducted a short service, administering the sacrament of the sacrament. Armstrong, being an atheist, did not take part in this. The service was originally intended to be broadcast by radio. However, this idea was abandoned because NASA already had one lawsuit from militant atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair for reading the first chapter of the Book of Genesis to the whole country on Christmas Day from Apollo 8.

Starting the engine with a handy felt-tip pen

The program for the astronauts' stay on the Moon, lasting two and a half hours, had a plot developed on Earth. But he was not rigid, scheduled every minute. Since on Earth it was impossible to foresee everything that a person might encounter on the surface of the night star.

It was necessary to collect samples of lunar soil, install scientific instruments, produce video footage, and transmit a television report to Earth. There was also " free time“To look around and adapt to unusual conditions. And Armstrong, testing the possibility of high jumps in low gravity conditions, almost “roared.” Having pushed off fairly, he flew up almost a meter. And he felt himself being thrown onto his back. Which was fraught with damage to the life support system of the spacesuit. I had to show considerable effort and acrobatic elements to land on my feet.

Despite the low gravity, the astronauts' work in collecting soil required significant physical activity. They installed a pit and hit it with a hammer. If Aldrin's pulse did not rise above 105 beats per minute, then Armstrong experienced a jump to 160 beats. This happened when he was carrying containers filled with stones to the lunar module and began to climb the stairs to the hatch. And the load wasn’t that big: a total of 21.55 kilograms of lunar soil were delivered to Earth.

At the same time, the lunar pioneers littered the planet, throwing away used cameras, as well as backpacks and lunar boots before returning.

Flights to the Moon were the result of the space race between two major powers - the United States and the Soviet Union. The first artificial satellite was Soviet, the first man in space was also Soviet. Of course, the Americans needed revenge, so preparations for launching a man to the Moon proceeded at a frantic pace - the honor of the nation was at stake. Moreover, the Soviet Union also did not lag behind - it was simultaneously preparing two lunar programs - the N1-L3 project envisaged landing a man on the Moon, and the UR500K-L1 project envisaged a manned flight in lunar orbit. By the way, this competition was the “golden age” of astronautics - then all space technologies developed very quickly and were made most important discoveries. Even now, many of the “deeds of the past” are not being resolved.

The American Apollo program began back in 1961, after Yuri Gagarin made his famous flight. The Americans announced that they would be the first on the Moon, and simply had to do it.

Their launch vehicles were designed by the German designer Wernher von Braun, who was taken out of Germany in 1945. It was he who created the first rockets long range- “V-2”, on the basis of which ballistic missiles and launch vehicles were later created.

In 1968, the Soviet Union began practicing a flight to the Moon. On September 15, Zond-5 was launched with two turtles on board. He successfully flew around the Moon and returned to Earth. Already on October 10, “Zond-6” was launched, on which piloting was practiced. It also flew successfully and crashed when attempting to land on land, rather than on water, as before. This forced the postponement of the flight of Zond 7, which could have carried an astronaut. The United States was seriously alarmed by these events and forced them to accelerate their flight program to the Moon.

Apollo 8 was originally intended to enter low-Earth orbit simply for testing purposes. But the flights of the Soviet Zonds changed all plans. While the Russians were dealing with the crashed Zond 6 and were planning the next flight only for 1969, and even then without astronauts, the Americans were in a frantic hurry to overtake them. This caused the launch of Apollo 8 to be postponed to December 21, 1968.

On the appointed day, at 7.51, the Saturn 5 launch vehicle carried the first astronauts to the Moon. These were F. Borman, J. Lovell and W. Anders, who made 10 orbits around the Moon and took detailed photographs of it. They did not have a lunar module to land on, and the flight itself was quite risky. The Saturn rockets were not sufficiently tested and reliable, and the lack of a lunar module deprived the astronauts of a spare engine and means of escape in case of an accident. But still, they were the first people to reach the Moon. After 6 days and 3 hours they returned to Earth.

This flight forced the Soviet Union to curtail the program for human flight to the Moon - for political reasons. Moreover, the explosion of the N1 rocket at the launch spoiled the matter. But we had very big plans for the Moon. A military base was being developed, which, of course, appeared everywhere as a peaceful one. There was a project for a lunar village, and four Lunokhods were just “lunar tractors” for moving on the surface. The American flight buried all these plans.

The first landing of a man on the Moon also belongs to the Americans. This was the Apollo 11 crew of three people - Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins. They descended to the lunar surface in the Eagle module on July 21, 1969. Neil Armstrong was the first to set foot on the moon. At this historical moment, he said words that spread throughout the world - “This is one small step for a person - and a giant leap for all mankind.” Behind them in live watched by millions of earthlings. A US flag and a memorial plaque were installed with the names of the fallen astronauts written on it. There were also the names of Gagarin and Komarov. In total, Armstrong spent 134 minutes on the Moon, after which the astronauts returned safely to Earth.

The Apollo 13 astronauts showed heroism. On the way to the Moon, they had an accident, which forced them to transfer to the lunar module. Of course, there was no question of landing - we would have stayed alive. Despite this, they flew around the Moon, took many pictures and successfully landed on Pacific Ocean.

In total, 12 people have walked on the Moon, all of them Americans. This was until the end of 1972. Then the Apollo program was canceled - it already cost 24 billion dollars. Since then, there has been no one else on the Moon. The Soviet Union sent many automatic stations. Some of them even landed, took soil samples and returned. In addition, two remote-controlled Lunokhods were sent, which examined the area in detail. One of them even wrote the words “March 8” and “24th Congress” with wheels in honor of the then 24th Congress of the CPSU. These were the whims of politicians.

Since those turbulent times, the development of astronautics has not been very active. Sometimes automatic stations start up, but all this is not the same... But modern technologies They allow you to do a lot - not only to fly to the Moon, but also much further. But it’s all about money, and although Russia still has a lot of developments, how not to lose what it has, because there are also many bottomless pockets of “beggar” politicians...

Is the flight to the moon a giant step for humanity or a worldwide hoax? Crimean scientist analyzes American flights to the Moon

According to NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency of the United States, supported by the American government, in 1969, humanity made a qualitative leap in its development: the Apollo 11 space expedition took place, during which astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin became the first earthlings who set foot on the surface of the Moon. According to NASA, in 1969 -1972. 12 astronauts visited the Moon during six Apollo missions. Another 15 visited lunar orbit.

Was there a flight to the moon?

The first doubts about the authenticity of the lunar expeditions were expressed even during the period of their implementation by some US citizens, including those who worked at NASA, who pointed out a number of oddities around the lunar project, as well as signs of forgery in films and photographic materials of the expeditions. In subsequent years, the number of arguments put forward by specialists in space technology, photography and filming cosmic radiation The number of people questioning or denying NASA's version was increasing. If in the first “post-lunar” years NASA sometimes responded to critics, then such statements were subsequently stopped. A NASA representative gave this “logical” explanation: the volume of criticism is so great that there is not enough time to respond to it. It is not surprising that the arguments of skeptics, presented in a huge number of newspaper and magazine articles, books and during television programs, and the response silence of NASA led to an increase in the number of skeptics who consider the Apollo project a scam. Thus, currently about a quarter of Americans do not believe in the reality of landing a man on the Moon. Let's look at some of the oddities that raise doubts about NASA's version.

Couldn't the moon rocket fly to the moon?

To implement the Apollo project, the Saturn 5 rocket was created in 1967, capable, according to NASA, of launching 135 tons of cargo into low-Earth orbit. None of the later ones have such power. space systems, including the Shuttle, a reusable system developed in the United States by the mid-80s and capable of placing 30 tons of payload into orbit around the Earth. Nevertheless, the active life of the Saturns turned out to be surprisingly short and was limited to participation in the lunar program. Maybe Saturns are much more expensive than Shuttles? Not at all, especially considering the well-established production of the former and the enormous expenditure of money and time on the development of the latter.

At comparable prices, launching an equal payload into space using the Shuttles turned out to be more expensive than using the Saturns.

Or maybe today there is no need to launch large payloads into space? There is such a need in particular when creating space stations. And there are a lot of interesting things on the Moon, for example, an isotope of helium, which is promising as a source of thermonuclear energy. But maybe the Saturn 5 is an unreliable rocket? On the contrary, if you accept NASA's version, it is extremely reliable. All of its manned launches were successful.

But the Shuttles turned out to be not so trouble-free, despite the fact that near-Earth flights, for which they were used, are an order of magnitude simpler in technical terms than flights to the Moon and back. The disasters that occurred with the Shuttles, which claimed the lives of 14 American astronauts, forced NASA management to abandon their further use. Having abandoned, for unknown reasons, the Saturns in 1973, and then the expensive and unreliable Shuttles, the United States was left, so to speak, with nothing. And today, Americans rent Russian Soyuz spacecraft for flights to the ISS. The same ones that were created in the USSR even before the flights to the Moon. NASA did not put forward any reasonable explanation for the “retirement” of its own rockets, unsurpassed in power and reliability. Skeptics give the following explanation for this strangeness: in reality, Saturn 5 was unable to launch into space even the minimum cargo required for lunar expeditions. In addition, the rocket was extremely unreliable. It could not participate in any flights to the Moon and was used only to simulate lunar launches. Therefore, after the early termination of the Apollo program, the production and use of Saturn rockets was stopped, and the remaining three rockets were sent to museums. At the same time, in 1972, the chief designer of the worthless Saturns, von Braun, stopped working at NASA.

Did the rocket engine fail?

The F1 rocket engine used on the Saturns had, according to NASA, a thrust of 600 tons. The most powerful rocket engine, the RD-180, used in our time and created in the USSR, has less thrust and has worse thrust/weight and thrust/size characteristics compared to the F1. The reliability of the F1 engine, like the Saturn 5 rocket, is the highest: not a single failure during all flights to the Moon and previous manned lunar and near-Earth flights! It would seem that F1 should have long life. And if it was modernized, then over the past 45 years after its creation it would have been possible to further increase its power and reliability. However, the best rocket engine of all time, the F1, died at the same time as the best rocket of all times - “Saturn”.

“Skeptics” among rocket specialists explain this oddity by the fact that the technical principles inherent in the design of the F1 were initially flawed, which did not make it possible to provide the thrust necessary for flights to the Moon. By the way, the failure of the lunar engine, which was still in the design stage, was predicted by the great Sergei Korolev. Skeptical experts believe that the real power of the F1 could only be enough to lift the half-empty body of the Saturn from the ground, underfilled with fuel, to simulate a lunar launch. The reliability of the weak F1, according to experts, was below average. That's why NASA wisely wrote it off and never used it again after the end of the lunar epic. But what kind of engines do Americans use today? powerful rockets"Atlas"? USA use rocket engines RD-180, purchased in Russia or manufactured in the USA using USSR-era technology received from Russia. When in the early 90s, in the ecstasy of unity with the world community on the basis of universal human values, Russia laid out to the Americans its scientific and technical secrets from the times of the “closed” USSR, they were shocked: the Russians, many years ago, were able to bring into reality what American rocket scientists had been unsuccessful in achieving fought for many years and abandoned it, considering it impracticable. For scientific and technical documentation on the RD-180 engine, the United States paid Russia 1 million in green pieces of paper - the current price of a three-room apartment in Moscow.

Oddities with lunar soil

According to NASA, lunar expeditions brought about 400 kg of lunar soil to Earth from different points on the Moon. Compared to 300 grams of regolith, a mixture of lunar dust and rubble, delivered by Soviet machines, the high scientific value of the American samples was determined by the fact that they belonged to the bedrock of the moon. It would seem that the United States should have distributed a significant portion of lunar rocks to the best laboratories in the world so that they could carry out an analysis and confirm: yes, this is soil from the Moon. However, the Americans showed surprising stinginess. Thus, USSR scientists were provided with 29 grams of rock, but not indigenous, but in the form of dust, which they are quite capable of delivering to Earth in small quantities unmanned vehicles. At the same time, in exchange, out of its 300 g of regolith, the USSR gave the United States one and a half grams more. To other scientists different countries They were even less lucky: they were given, as a rule, from half a gram to two grams of regolith, and with the condition of return. The results of studies of American samples published in the scientific press either refer to regoliths, or do not allow them to be identified as lunar, or lead to doubts. Thus, geochemists from the University of Tokyo established that the NASA lunar samples presented to them spent a gigantic period of time in the Earth’s atmosphere, which is almost impossible to explain if the samples were formed under lunar conditions. French researchers, studying the reflective characteristics of the American and Soviet samples, concluded that only the latter has light reflection characteristics corresponding to the albedo of the lunar surface. A comedic sensation, which for some reason did not get much attention from “free journalists,” was the recent report by Dutch scientists that a sample of lunar soil, solemnly presented by the US Ambassador to the Prime Minister of Holland in 1969, turned out to be a piece of petrified terrestrial wood. There were no comments from donors. But NASA decided to no longer provide lunar soil to researchers. The explanation is this: we should wait until more advanced research methods appear, and in the meantime preserve the lunar soil for future generations of scientists. NASA doesn't believe that future astronauts will be able to go to the Moon and bring back soil samples?

So, instead of publicly inviting the world's leading laboratories to conduct using the latest methods comprehensive study of hundreds of kilograms of lunar soil samples and widely publish the results, the study of samples is taboo. Strange, isn't it? Skeptics have the following explanation: the United States does not have genuine stones, because they have never been to the Moon, and subterfuges are invented to stop further revelations.

Where did the original lunar filming go?

Without responding to numerous accusations of falsification, NASA nevertheless sometimes reacts to them by silently removing ridiculous pictures or individual fragments from its websites, or even simply correcting details in photographs. Thus, noticed by skeptics in one of the NASA photographs, the distinct letter “C” on the “moon” stone, which is used to mark props in the American film world, suddenly disappeared from the photograph. The photo, in which the shadows of objects intersected, which is impossible in sunlight, was simply cropped. And so on. Let us dwell only on some of the oddities associated with the “lunar movie”.

Probably everyone saw on TV the exit from the lunar module to the surface of the Moon by astronaut N. Armstrong, who uttered the legendary phrase about “a small step for man and a giant step for all mankind,” and drew attention to the extremely low quality of the image, which made it difficult to see a certain figure , going down the stairs. NASA explained: these frames were taken on Earth from a monitor screen in Houston, and the poor quality was because the image was broadcast from the Moon. However, for some reason they were in no hurry to show magnetic tapes with high-quality images directly filmed on the Moon. With each new lunar expedition, the situation repeated itself: NASA did not show the original lunar photographs. To answer perplexed questions - why aren’t they showing high-quality footage? — NASA replied that everything has its time, a special storage facility is being built for the originals of priceless video recordings, after which copies will be made from them and shown general public. Years passed. And now, 37 years later, NASA announced that the original recordings of man's first step on the lunar surface were lost, along with the recordings of all other lunar expeditions. The trail of 700 boxes containing more than 10,000 magnetic tapes was lost before 1975, according to NASA. So, it turns out that why high-quality video recordings were not shown - they seemed to disappear into thin air! Well, it happens. It is a pity, however, that it was the recordings made on the Moon and during the flights there and back that were lost, while for some reason the much less valuable terrestrial recordings of the astronauts’ training, their rest, being with their families, ceremonial launches to the Moon, and even more were perfectly preserved. ceremonial meetings upon return. In 2006, NASA created a special commission to search for the missing films. Since then there has been silence. They're probably still looking. Strange, isn't it? Skeptics explain it this way: the film is dynamic, so it is almost impossible without computer technology to pass off filming made on Earth as lunar. Such technologies did not exist during the Apollo era. And photographs are static; it is much more difficult to detect deception from them. This is why, skeptics say, NASA “lost” the “lunar films” but saved high-quality “lunar photographs.” By the way, in the years since the lunar epic, NASA has repeatedly reported about the loss of lunar soil. It seems that the moment is not far off, say skeptics, when NASA will announce that everything has been stolen, so it is impossible to conduct further research on the moon rocks. Just as it is impossible to see the missing original recordings of people on the Moon.

Why is there no independent verification?

Modern technology makes it possible to photograph objects located on it with a resolution of about 0.5 meters from near-Earth orbit from a height of several hundred kilometers from the surface of the planet. When photographing the lunar surface from lunar orbit, the absence of an atmosphere not only improves visibility, but also allows for much higher resolution by reducing the orbital altitude to tens of kilometers. This makes it possible to receive from lunar probes not only a clear image of the Apollo landing modules remaining on the Moon, which are about five meters in size, but also the lunar vehicles left there by lunar expeditions and even traces of astronauts in the lunar dust. In the last decade, several countries have successfully launched lunar probes that have repeatedly flown over NASA's stated landing areas.

Information from Cnews.ru from May 5, 2005: “The European Space Agency ESA unexpectedly stopped publishing images of the Moon obtained by the SMART-1 research probe. The agency previously said that one of the most important elements of the probe's scientific program is the "inspection" of the Apollo lunar landing sites, as well as other American and Soviet vehicles. This would put an end to the bitter debate and accusations that NASA is lying....

At the same time, it is known that the device continues to actively function... The program for searching for Apollo landing sites is not mentioned at all, despite the fact that this was previously directly stated by the leading scientific specialist of the ESA research program, Bernard Foing... Moreover just now it has become clear that research vehicles, even from Mars orbit, are capable of successfully finding long-lost landing vehicles on the surface, the landing sites of which were only approximately known to scientists. These devices are much smaller in size than the Apollo fragments that were supposed to remain on the Moon, and Martian winds and sandstorms significantly complicate the task."

During the Kagui lunar probe mission, which ended in the summer of 2009, Japanese facilities mass media They were lively discussing the issue of Apollo. However, hopes of finally receiving independent confirmation of the historical achievement of the United States did not materialize. “Kaguya” was able to film even the previously inaccessible bottom of a lunar crater, saw water on the Moon, and many other interesting things. However, although he flew hundreds of times over the American landing sites, for some reason he did not provide any information about what he saw.

But the Indian Chandrayaan probe seems to have been lucky

Message from Gazeta.ru dated 09/05/09: “Leading researcher Prakash Shauhan reported that the probe photographed an image of the landing site of the American Apollo 15 spacecraft.” While studying the disturbance on the lunar surface, Chandrayaan-1 discovered traces of Apollo 15 being on the Moon... However, Shauhan added that Chandrayaan-1 has a camera whose resolution is not enough to distinguish the traces astronauts, noting that such pictures could be taken by the American LRO apparatus.”

The “disturbance on the lunar surface” looks like a tiny whitish speck in the photo from the probe and for some reason is interpreted as the landing stage of the lunar module. “Tracks of the lunar rover” look like a thin, barely noticeable squiggle.

For many years, NASA did not respond to proposals to film the Apollo landing sites and thereby confirm its lunar theory. And finally, 40 years later, NASA presented space images from the LRO probe of the five Apollo lunar landing sites. Alas, the quality of these photographs turned out to be no better than those of the Indians. Therefore, skeptics, and not only them, exclaim to NASA: damn it! You managed to transmit beautiful photographs from Mars, from the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. But where are the normal photos from the Moon, which is hundreds of times closer to us?

Skeptics explain the oddities with checking the Apollo landing sites as follows. The devoted allies of the United States - Europe and Japan - having not found any traces of Americans on the Moon, did not disgrace their senior partner by exposing them. NASA's examination of itself for cosmic deception cannot be taken seriously. And for what kind of sins the Hindus took upon themselves - only God knows. It should be noted that they left themselves an escape route, mentioning some kind of “disturbance of the lunar surface.” When the lunar deception is revealed, the Hindus will be able to disown: they say they interpreted the “outrage” incorrectly. Skeptics note that reports of photographs from Chandrayaan and LRO appeared a week after the scandal in the Netherlands with the “moon rock”, which turned out to be a petrified piece of wood.

Decades after the US lunar triumph American experts came to the conclusion that flying to the moon was very dangerous, if not impossible. Thus, experts from the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology believe that the quality and reliability of information about the surface of the Moon is outrageous and inferior even to the available data on the surface of Mars, which does not allow landing on the Moon with a sufficient level of safety. But forty years ago there were even fewer such maps, yet the Apollos, according to NASA, landed on the Moon many times without any problems. How did they do it? There is nothing to be surprised here, skeptics believe, because no one has ever landed on the Moon.

Is landing on the moon still impossible today?

The head of NASA's meteoroid environment office said that the actual number of meteorites falling on the Moon is four times higher than the number that was predicted computer models, developed earlier. But these models were created on the basis of observations and measurements carried out by the Apollo crews! Why did they turn out to be so wrong? Because, skeptics believe, no one has made any observations of meteorites on the Moon for the reason that no one has ever been to the Moon.

Several years ago, the United States set out to return to the Moon. However, problems arose. “NASA considers it necessary to carry out missions that fly around the Moon without landing on it and return the landing compartment to Earth to study the features of re-entry into the atmosphere at such high speeds- at present they are “not entirely clear to NASA” (Space News message dated January 31, 2007). Well, well! Once upon a time everything was clear and presented no difficulties; nine expeditions returned from the Moon or from lunar orbit without a hitch. And after 40 years, it became unclear how to land astronauts returning from the Moon to Earth?

“Bush's lunar program encountered an unexpected obstacle: its creators forgot about the X-ray radiation from the Sun. Suddenly it turned out that it is simply impossible to move on the Moon without heavy radiation “umbrellas”. (“Astronomy, Aviation and Space”, 01/24/07, Wed, 09.27, Moscow time). It turns out that scientists from the Laboratory of Lunar and Interplanetary Research in Arizona have found that the likelihood of cancer for astronauts on the Moon is very high, moreover, staying on the Moon in a spacesuit with the Sun active can be fatal. How so? After all, 27 Americans spent a total of hundreds of hours on the Moon, in its vicinity, on the way to the Moon and back, but none of them suffered from radiation, despite the fact that powerful flares on the Sun occurred more than once during lunar expeditions. The health of some astronauts is enviable. Thus, 72-year-old Edwin Aldrin punched the famous TV presenter when he invited the astronaut to swear on the Bible that he flew to the moon. They refrained from fighting, but the other five astronauts, to whom the TV presenter approached with the same proposal, also refused to swear.

“The 2011 budget draft prepared by the Barack Obama administration essentially closes the Constellation space program by returning the United States to the Moon. So, George W. Bush's much-publicized program is being phased out." Russian newspaper" - federal issue No. 5100 (21). Here you go! Instead of using the already proven, proven, extremely reliable Saturn lunar rocket and the Apollo capsule, for some reason they spent about nine billion dollars on creating a new Ares lunar rocket and a new Orion crew capsule. After which they realized that today flights to the Moon are impossible in the same way as 40 years ago?

Was there a “moon conspiracy” between the USA and the USSR?

Supporters of NASA's lunar version ask the skeptics the key question: if the lunar epic is a grandiose hoax of the United States, then why was it not exposed by the USSR, which participated in the lunar race of the last century and was the leader in it, and, moreover, was in a state of “ cold war"with the USA?
And why are some of the glorious Soviet cosmonauts defending the NASA version if it is false?

Skeptics answer: there was a conspiracy between the leadership of the USSR and the leadership of the United States. Without a guarantee of non-disclosure on the part of the USSR, the United States simply could not commit a scam. The USSR “sold” the Moon to the USA. According to skeptics, a number of events, including strange ones, are connected with this conspiracy.

1) 1967-69 - the beginning of the policy of détente. In 1972, President Nixon, who arrived in Moscow, signed or planned to sign 12 agreements between the USA and the USSR, extremely beneficial for the Soviet Union.

2) Agreements on missile defense and strategic weapons removed a considerable part of the burden of the arms race from the USSR.

3) The embargo on the supply of Soviet oil and gas to Western Europe, currency flowed into the USSR.

4) Supplies of large volumes of American feed grain to the USSR began at prices lower than world prices, which allowed the USSR to significantly increase the production of meat and dairy products and caused discontent in the United States itself, as it led to rising food prices.

5) Chemical plants were built at the expense of the United States in exchange for their finished products. USSR received modern enterprises without investing a penny.

6) The USSR’s refusal in 1970 to prepare a manned flight around the Moon on a Proton rocket with spaceship"Union".

Skeptics explain this refusal by the fact that if the flyby had taken place, the USSR would have had to answer the question: did the Soviet cosmonauts see the American landing sites on the Moon? The USSR could not limit itself to the silence provided for by the conspiracy. He would have to either withdraw from the conspiracy, or take the path of outright lies, confirming the American version.

7) In 1970, a Soviet ship caught an empty model of the Apollo capsule being lowered to Earth in the Atlantic. There is a photo of the layout on the Internet taken by a Hungarian journalist. The USSR quietly transferred a mock-up of the capsule to the United States, which, according to skeptics, serves as direct confirmation of the existence of collusion.

8) In 1974, despite the objections of specialists and leaders of the space industry, the leadership of the USSR curtailed the Soviet lunar program and the development of the N1 lunar rocket. The explanation is the same as in paragraph 6): as a result of the conspiracy, flights to the Moon for the USSR were, in fact, ordered.

9) In 1975, flights to the Moon and Soviet automatic stations were stopped. Since then, neither the USSR nor present-day Russia have approached the Moon.

Skeptics conclude: Russia, as the successor of the USSR, is fulfilling its obligations under the “lunar conspiracy” of the late 60s of the last century.

10) In 1975, the Helsinki Treaty was concluded, which affirmed the inviolability of borders in Europe after the war. He removed all possible claims against the USSR regarding the “occupation” Western Ukraine, Bessarabia, East Prussia, Baltic states.

The first and only joint orbital flight "Soyuz-Apollo", which took place in the same 1975, was needed by the United States, according to skeptics, as an indirect confirmation on the part of the USSR of the US space victory.

Some skeptics suggest that the United States had serious compromising evidence against the leadership of the USSR, which contributed to the conspiracy. If we accept this assumption, then, in my opinion, something connecting the dissolute daughter of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Galina Brezhneva, a lover of diamonds, wine, men and “ beautiful life", with American intelligence. Such a connection could be the result of a provocation by American intelligence services. The publication of compromising evidence threatened the USSR with an unprecedented international scandal. In the face of his threat, taking into account US proposals that were also beneficial for the USSR, including the policy of détente, the USSR leadership agreed to a conspiracy.

Regarding the defense of the NASA version by some Soviet cosmonauts, skeptics suggest considering the following:

1) The astronauts limit themselves to the statement that “the Americans were on the Moon,” but do not try to refute the specific arguments of the skeptics. By the way, in view of the obvious forgery of “lunar film materials,” in particular, American flags fluttering in the lunar wind on the atmosphere-less Moon, the cosmonauts are forced to admit that these materials were “filmed” on Earth.

2) Cosmonauts are military people. They swore an oath to keep state secrets known to them. And the collusion between the USSR and the USA is still protected as the greatest secret by both the USA and Russia.

3) Astronauts are people too, there are also selfish individuals among them, not all of them could resist the temptation to support NASA’s lies, not without benefit. One of former cosmonauts, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, who has visited the USA many times and is friends with American astronauts, now the deputy director of a large bank and one of the richest people in Russia, even expressed his admiration for the oligarch Abramovich, who managed to make a multi-billion dollar fortune out of thin air.

4) Among Russian cosmonauts there are cautious skeptics who do not show off their skepticism for the reason stated in paragraph 2.

Crew

Apollo 11 crew

• Commander - Neil Armstrong (left)
• Command Module Pilot - Michael Collins (center)
• Lunar Module Pilot - Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. (right)

General information

Apollo 11 flight emblem

The ship included a command module (sample 107) and a lunar module (sample LM-5). The astronauts chose the call sign “Columbia” for the command module, and “Eagle” for the lunar module. The weight of the ship is 43.9 tons. “Columbia” is the name of the statue on the Congress building in Washington and the ship in which Jules Verne’s heroes flew to the moon. The flight emblem is an eagle above the surface of the Moon, holding an olive branch in its talons. A Saturn-5 rocket (sample AS-506) was used for launch. The purpose of the flight was formulated as follows: “To land on the Moon and return to Earth”

Flight objectives

They envisaged landing on the Moon in the western part of the Sea of ​​Tranquility (Tranquility Base), collecting samples of lunar soil, photographing on the surface of the Moon, installing scientific instruments on the Moon, and conducting television sessions from the ship and from the surface of the Moon.

Pre-launch preparation and start

Six days before settlement date launch, a leak was discovered in one of the compressed helium cylinders placed in the oxidizer tank of the first stage of the launch vehicle. Two technicians climbed into the tank and, tightening the nut on the tank, eliminated the leak. Further, pre-launch preparations proceeded without incident and even more smoothly than all previous manned Apollo spacecraft.

At the Launch Control Center, honorary guests included former US President Johnson, Vice President Agnew and German rocketry pioneer 75-year-old Hermann Oberth. About a million people watched the launch at the cosmodrome and in the surrounding areas, and the television broadcast of the launch was watched by approximately one billion people in various countries around the world.

The Apollo 11 spacecraft launched on July 16 at 13:32 GMT, 724 ms later than the estimated time.

The engines of all three stages of the launch vehicle worked in accordance with the design program, the ship was launched into a geocentric orbit close to the design one.

Second launch and flight to the Moon

After the last stage of the launch vehicle with the spacecraft entered the initial geocentric orbit, the crew checked the onboard systems for about two hours.

The engine of the last stage of the launch vehicle was turned on to transfer the ship to the flight path to the Moon at 2 hours 44 minutes 22 seconds of flight time and worked for 347 seconds.

At 3 hours 26 minutes of flight time, the maneuver to rebuild the compartments began, which was completed on the first attempt in seven minutes.

At 4 hours 30 minutes of flight time, the ship (command and lunar module) separated from the last stage of the launch vehicle, moved away from it to a safe distance and began an independent flight to the Moon.

On command from the Earth, the fuel components were drained from the last stage of the launch vehicle, as a result of which the stage subsequently, under the influence of lunar gravity, entered a heliocentric orbit, where it remains to this day.

During the television session, which began approximately 55 hours into the flight, Armstrong and Aldrin moved into the lunar module for the first check of on-board systems.

Moon landing

The spacecraft reached lunar orbit approximately 76 hours after launch. After this, Armstrong and Aldrin began preparing to undocking the lunar module for landing on the lunar surface.

The command and lunar modules were undocked approximately one hundred hours after launch. In principle, it was possible to use automatic programs right up to the moment of landing, but Armstrong, even before the flight, decided that at an altitude of about one hundred meters above the lunar surface he would switch to a semi-automatic landing control program, explaining his decision with the following phrase: “Automation does not know how to select landing sites " According to this program, the automation regulates the vertical component of the module's speed, changing the thrust of the landing engine according to radio altimeter signals, while the astronaut controls the axial position of the cabin, and, accordingly, the horizontal component of the speed. In fact, Armstrong switched to manual mode descent control much earlier, since the on-board computer was overloaded, and the emergency signal was on all the time, unnerving the crew, despite the assurances of the ground operator that the signal could be ignored (later the operator, who decided despite the emergency signals, not to refuse to land to the Moon, received a special award from NASA).

Post-flight analysis showed that the computer overload was caused by the fact that, in addition to landing control, which required 90% of the computer's power, it was assigned to control the radar, which ensured a rendezvous with the command module in orbit, which required another 14% of the power. For subsequent flights of lunar expeditions under the Apollo program, the computer logic was changed.

The need to switch to a semi-automatic control program also arose because automatic program led the lunar module to land in a crater with a diameter of about 180 meters, filled with stones. Armstrong decided to fly over the crater, fearing that the lunar module would flip over during landing.

The lunar module landed in the Sea of ​​Tranquility on July 20 at 20 hours 17 minutes 42 seconds GMT. At the moment of landing, Armstrong transmitted: “Houston, this is Tranquility Base. "Eagle" sat down." Charles Duke of Houston responded: “Got you, Calm.” You landed on the moon. We're all blue in the face here. Now we are breathing again. Thanks a lot!"

Stay on the Moon

The astronauts performed operations simulating a launch from the Moon and made sure that the onboard systems were in working order. Even during the selenocentric orbit, the astronauts asked permission to abandon the planned rest period; after landing, the medical director of the flight gave such permission, considering that nervous tension, apparently, would still prevent the astronauts from falling asleep before going to the Moon.

An external onboard camera mounted on the lunar module provided a live broadcast of Armstrong's exit onto the lunar surface. Armstrong descended to the lunar surface on July 21, 1969 at 02:56:20 GMT. Having descended to the surface of the Moon, he uttered the following phrase:

Man's first step on the moon

Aldrin soon reached the lunar surface about fifteen minutes after Armstrong. Aldrin tried various methods fast movement on the surface of the Moon. The astronauts found normal walking to be the most appropriate. The astronauts walked on the surface, collected a number of samples of lunar soil and installed a television camera. Then the astronauts planted the flag of the United States of America (before the flight, the US Congress rejected NASA’s proposal to install the UN flag on the Moon instead of the national one), held a two-minute communication session with President Nixon, carried out additional soil sampling, and installed scientific instruments on the surface of the Moon (a seismometer and a laser radiation reflector) . Aldrin had great difficulty leveling the seismometer using a level. Ultimately, the astronaut leveled it “by eye” and the seismometer was photographed so that specialists on Earth could determine the position of the device on the ground from the photograph. Some delay was also caused by the fact that one of the two panels solar panels The seismometer did not automatically deploy and had to be deployed manually.

Aldrin at the seismometer. The lunar module, a US flag with a wire frame to prevent sagging, and a camera on a tripod are visible in the background.

After installing the instruments, the astronauts collected additional soil samples (the total weight of the samples delivered to Earth was 24.9 kg with a maximum allowable weight of 59 kg) and returned to the lunar module.

With a lifespan of an autonomous life support system of about four hours, Aldrin spent just over one and a half hours on the lunar surface, Armstrong - about two hours and ten minutes.

After returning to the lunar cabin, the astronauts put no longer needed items into a bag, depressurized the cabin and threw the bag onto the surface of the Moon. A television camera operating on the surface of the Moon showed this process and was turned off soon after.

After checking the on-board systems and eating, the astronauts slept for about seven hours (Aldrin curled up on the cabin floor, Armstrong in a hammock suspended above the main engine casing of the lunar take-off stage).

Launch from the Moon and return to Earth

After another meal by the astronauts, at the one hundred and twenty-fifth hour of the flight, the take-off stage of the lunar module took off from the Moon.

The total duration of stay of the lunar module on the surface of the Moon: 21 hours 36 minutes.

On the landing stage of the lunar module remaining on the surface of the Moon, there is a sign with a map of the Earth’s hemispheres engraved on it and the words “Here people from planet Earth first set foot on the Moon. July 1969 new era. We come in peace on behalf of all Mankind." Engraved below these words are the signatures of all three Apollo 11 astronauts and President Nixon.

Memorial plaque on the landing stage of the Apollo 11 lunar module

After the take-off stage of the lunar module entered a selenocentric orbit, it was docked with the command module at the 128th hour of the expedition. The crew of the lunar module took the samples collected on the Moon and moved to the command module, the take-off stage of the lunar cabin was undocked, and the command module started on its way back to Earth. Only one course correction was required during the entire return flight. It was necessary due to poor meteorological conditions in the originally planned landing area. The new landing area was located approximately four hundred kilometers northeast of the originally planned one. The separation of the command module compartments occurred at the one hundred and ninety-fifth hour of the flight. In order for the crew compartment to reach the new area, the controlled descent program was modified using lift-to-drag ratio.

The crew compartment splashed down in the Pacific Ocean approximately twenty kilometers from the aircraft carrier Hornet (CV-12) 195 hours 15 minutes 21 seconds from the start of the expedition at the point with coordinates 13.5 , 169.25 13°30′ N. w. 169°15′ E. d. /  13.5° N. w. 169.25° E. d.(G).

On the water, the crew compartment was initially installed in a non-design position (bottom up), but after a few minutes it was turned over to the design position using inflatable float cylinders.

Three light divers were dropped from the helicopter, who brought the pontoon under the crew compartment and brought two inflatable boats into readiness. One of the divers in a biological protection suit opened the hatch of the crew compartment, handed over three similar suits to the crew and closed the hatch again. The astronauts put on their spacesuits and 35 minutes after splashdown, they transferred to the inflatable boat. The diver treated the astronauts' spacesuits and the outer surface of the compartment with an inorganic iodine compound. The crew was lifted aboard a helicopter and taken to the aircraft carrier 63 minutes after splashdown. The astronauts went straight from the helicopter to a quarantine van, where a doctor and a technician were waiting for them.

President Nixon speaks to the Apollo 11 crew in a quarantine van

President Nixon, NASA Director Thomas Paine, and astronaut Frank Borman arrived on the aircraft carrier to meet the astronauts. Nixon addressed the astronauts in the quarantine van with a brief welcoming speech.

There was no answer to this question for many years. But the study of our planet’s satellite was carried out quite successfully. More than one expedition has landed on the surface of the Moon. What happened? Why did two states suddenly stop all development in this direction, closing the projects and suffering heavy losses?

Or maybe everything is fiction?

Has anyone been to the Earth's satellite? And if so, why did countries stop going to the moon? As the Americans stated, the first expedition was sent in 1969, or more precisely, on July 20. Neil Armstrong led the team of astronauts. At that time, the Americans were simply jubilant. After all, they were the first to set foot on the surface of the Moon. But many doubted it.

Numerous photographs and recordings of conversations between expedition representatives and the Earth became the reason for the skeptics' disputes. However, at that time it was quite difficult to fake any photographs. Not to mention the equipment and laser reflectors that were left on the surface of the Moon for its further study. Some suggest that the equipment was delivered by an unmanned module.

It is almost impossible to prove that someone has or has not visited the surface of the Earth’s satellite. In addition, many documents still remain classified.

Closure of lunar programs

So, why did work stop? This happened three years after the first landing on the surface of a small planet. All developments in this area were completed already in 1972. Since then, there has been no information that a person was able to land on nearby cosmic bodies. As a result, there was a feeling that scientists had abruptly switched their attention to something else, while closing all programs related to

As a result of this turn, people simply flew around our planet for 40 years and controlled all events. But during this time, science and technology have stepped far forward. Many interesting and at the same time amazing devices and devices were created. It is for this reason that questions arise: why did all countries stop flying to the Moon and what caused the closure of all lunar projects?

Political situation

This is the first reason why flights to the Moon were stopped. It should not be forgotten that at that time between the two large states There was a race to be the first to go into space. The decisive event in this battle was the use nuclear reactions. The possibilities that came with such a discovery were not only exciting, but also terrifying. Moreover, there was no clear leader in this race. Both the USSR and America paid a lot of attention to space flights. The Soviet Union is the first state to send a man into space. If the USSR achieved such an opportunity, then why did the flights to the Moon fail? Why did they stop before they even started?

America was challenged. In turn, NASA has made a lot of efforts to make a retaliatory move. The sensational flights to the Moon are not just an achievement. This is an attempt to show your superiority over the whole world. Maybe this was the reason for closing the program. After all, other states did not have enough funds to go further than America in their developments. So is it worth the state spending its efforts and resources further?

Economy of countries

Of course, there is another reason why flights to the Moon have been stopped - the economies of countries. States have allocated a lot for the development of spacecraft, as well as for their launch. financial resources. If the surface of the Earth's satellite could be divided, then its territories would become a tasty morsel for many wealthy people.

However, after some time, an agreement was created according to which absolutely everything celestial bodies are the heritage of humanity. Any should have been carried out only for the benefit of all countries. It follows that allocating large amounts of financial resources to space exploration programs simply will not be beneficial. And the state that allocated the money simply will not be able to develop. In the end special meaning there is simply no need to spend a lot of money. After all, you can take advantage of the achievements of other countries.

Production areas

Not so long ago, it was more expedient to re-equip any enterprise to meet the needs of the state. Now it is simply impossible to produce missiles with certain parameters simply because there is nowhere to do this. In any case, repurposing an enterprise is a rather complex process.

The problem in this case is not only financial side question. The reason lies in the lack of the required number of trained specialists. The generation that worked on lunar program, has long since retired. As for new employees, they are not yet so experienced. They do not have all the knowledge in this area. But flights to the Moon do not forgive mistakes. Their price, as a rule, is the lives of astronauts. It is for this reason that it is better not to fly to the Moon. And why they stopped is not difficult to guess.

Extraterrestrial civilizations

In addition to the above reasons, there is another, more fantastic one. Many speculate that astronauts encountered an alien life form on the Moon. Of course, not everyone can accept such a truth. It is for this reason that many documents and photographs obtained during the expeditions were classified and for a long time were not made public. However, guesses somehow still leaked to the masses. In addition, it is difficult to explain the abrupt cessation of all flights to the Moon. And her dark side has not yet been explored, and humanity can only guess what is hidden there.

There is an assumption that the astronauts received a kind of warning that they should not visit the Moon. It is for this reason that scientists have worked hard to study the surface of the small planet.

What scared the astronauts?

Not long ago it became known that the last Apollo expedition was accompanied by several aircraft, which were clearly not created on Earth. This fact was kept secret for a long time. However, during the flight, some radio amateurs were able to pick up conversations between the crew and the base. As a result, it became known about strange phenomena occurring on the Moon.

During the expedition, strange craters filled with boulders were discovered on the surface of the satellite, which could move without any help. In addition, near the landing site, the astronauts discovered a vehicle that also had extraterrestrial origin. Some buildings and pits with smooth edges, and next to them are monoliths with the same shapes. This suggests that someone simply cut them out. However, even modern technologies do not allow this.

In conclusion

In fact, more than 500 anomalies have been discovered on the Moon and unexplained phenomena. To study all this, it was created separate group scientists. Many photographs have been taken that confirm that strange flying objects and independently moving objects do exist. Almost any document can be found in the NASA archives. But this is only possible if its exact number is known. So it turns out that the documents and photographs have been declassified, but it is not possible to see them. Maybe extraterrestrial civilization is the reason why flights to the Moon have been stopped?