Forty years ago today — July 13, 1969 — three days before the U.S. launched Apollo-11, the Soviet Union launched the Luna-15 probe on a Proton-K rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. According to aerospaceweb.org,
Luna 15 began its journey on 13 July 1969 as a last-minute attempt to regain national pride in the face of the pending Apollo landing. Luna 15 was a fairly sophisticated craft designed to land on the surface of the Moon and collect soil samples to be launched back to Earth. It was hoped that the soil could be returned prior to Apollo 11’s splashdown making the Soviets the first to bring lunar material back to Earth. Though the probe was successfully launched and made its way into lunar orbit, bad luck again struck the Soviet lunar program. Luna 15 had completed 52 orbits of the Moon when it attempted to make a soft landing on the surface. Unfortunately, the final retrorocket burn failed and the probe crashed in the Sea of Crises on 21 July 1969, just one day after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their historic walk on the Moon.
In contemporary space-related news, we saw the movie MOON yesterday at the Galaxy Cinema here in Cary. It was, as we’d been led to believe, impressive in its production quality — so much that at times it was easy to forget it was an independent film. The issues with the lunar setting (e.g., noise where there shouldn’t be any, the inconsistent treatment of gravity) and the lunar infrastructure and equipment (e.g., no alarm on the secret door, vehicles sturdy enough to withstand rocks landing on them) would only be problematic for geeks. (Yes, I qualify on that score.) It had a few plot holes as well, but all in all was a worthy effort and an enjoyable ninety-seven minutes.
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