The Russians never duplicated Apollo 8

originally posted by: wildespace I honestly don't see what the fuss is all about concerning Apollo 8.

I think the basic problem SJ has with Apollo 8 is that is the elephant in the room that gets in the way of his elaborate theory that the whole manned moon programme was a hoax orchestrated by Richard Nixon.

The annoying thing from his point of view is that Apollo 8 took men beyond the Van Allen belts, around the moon 10 times and back home, using much the same equipment that took the rest of the Apollo missions to the moon, and yet it was launched a month before Nixon got into the White House. The mission plan was published several weeks before Nixon even won the 1968 election. So it can't have been Nixon's doing.

Apollo 8 is a thorn in his side and he wants to discredit it and scrub it from the history books.

Some more light reading:

www.ebay.co.uk... 958

www.astronautix.com...

epizodsspace.no-ip.org...

a reply to: Rob48

I think the basic problem SJ has with Apollo 8 is that is the elephant in the room that gets in the way of his elaborate theory that the whole manned moon programme was a hoax orchestrated by Richard Nixon.

A8 still fits very well in my larger theory. This thread was to be focussed on some back & forth discussion regarding our knowledge of why the Russians never copied A8. I understood all of your CIA talking points before you even posted them!

Apollo 8 is a thorn in his side and he wants to discredit it and scrub it from the history books.

No, quite the opposite. Von Braun's moon plan (1955) and the ESA/ROSCOSMOS moon plan (2006) are pretty much identical. I'd like the history books to show that a Saturn V or N-1 (CIA big rocket theory) is not necessary to demonstrate a manned lunar orbit mission... a landing is not required.

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

Then it wouldn't be a history book. It would be a Theoretical Rocket Engineering and Orbital Mechanics book.

History books are about what happened.

For "What If's" or "What Could Of Happened" you need to turn to theoretical papers that are published.

Still does not change the fact that the whole mission goal was to land (not just orbit) a person on the moon.

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter

A8 still fits very well in my larger theory. This thread was to be focussed on some back & forth discussion regarding our knowledge of why the Russians never copied A8. I understood all of your CIA talking points before you even posted them!

No, this thread was for you to continue to try and act as a gatekeeper for any debate involving Apollo and to ensure that it concentrates on your one true love. If it was intended as a genuine exploration of the subject, you would have acknowledged by now that the Soviets were, in fact, using the same approach as Apollo but their political decisions and design flaws meant that their program was delayed to the point where it became a futile exercise to beat the US to a manned lunar orbit and then landing. Instead, you've resorted to typical cheap propaganda techniques to try ands smear people you disagree with - hey, just like the CIA. Oh the irony.

No, quite the opposite. Von Braun's moon plan (1955) and the ESA/ROSCOSMOS moon plan (2006) are pretty much identical. I'd like the history books to show that a Saturn V or N-1 (CIA big rocket theory) is not necessary to demonstrate a manned lunar orbit mission... a landing is not required.

The hisotry books already show that there are alternatives approaches to getting to the moon. They are well documented from both sides of the iron curtain. Von Braun's original preferred approach was a single unstaged vehicle but he was persuaded otherwise. What they settled on was the most economical and practical approach. Trying to claim that the use of big rockets, staged or otherwise, is some sort of CIA plot is beyond stupid.

To summarise: Apollo 8 orbited the moon. The USSR would have liked to have beaten Apollo 8 to it, but didn't. The US and USSR could have used different approaches to get to the moon, but didn't.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Still does not change the fact that the whole mission goal was to land (not just orbit) a person on the moon.

Still does not change the fact that the Russians never duplicated Apollo 8 and no space agency (including the NASA) has been outside LEO in 42 years.

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Americans & Russians (and a few other nations) tested thousands of nuclear explosions. There is no reason to do it again once you have the first 6 explosions, right? But they keep repeating the experiments over and over again, thousands of times, tweaking the parameters, upgrading the yields, altering the landscape itself! But only the Americans have been outside low earth orbit.

The Russians eventually exploded the biggest bomb of all, the Tsar Bomba en.wikipedia.org...

The Russians kept pace in nukes, subs, missiles, and everything in space. But Russians they can't get out of low earth orbit? We know that Wernher von Braun and ESA/ROSCOSMOS have proposed missions for lunar orbits (no landings) that do not require one massive booster package. It requires the political will to do it. Even Phage supports that much of the idea.

Apollo 8 was not a moon landing mission. It was a manned lunar orbiting mission which ought to be a piece of cake by now. Last time? 42 years ago. The Russians, the Europeans, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Indians. That's the competition.

They all seem to be holding back from the moon for some reason. The propaganda value would be enormous and worth every penny/ruble/rupee spent on it. These are not nations that are ignorant of science, they are all great nations of science.

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

Still does not change the fact that the Russians never duplicated Apollo 8 and no space agency (including the NASA) has been outside LEO in 42 years.

True.

There is no reason to do it again once you have the first 6 explosions, right?

Sure there is. You can always make a more efficient weapon of mass destruction.

The Russians kept pace in nukes, subs, missiles, and everything in space. But Russians they can't get out of low earth orbit?

Sure they could, if they had a reason to.

Apollo 8 was not a moon landing mission.

Correct.

They all seem to be holding back from the moon for some reason. The propaganda value would be enormous and worth every penny/ruble/rupee spent on it.

www.universetoday.com...
www.space.com...
indiatoday.intoday.in...

What happened to the Soviet space program after Sergei Korolev died after his surgery in January of 1966. Kerim Kerimov comes in and he runs the whole deal from 1966-1991. That's a very long time for one guy to be running a space program. Fact is, we don't know a whole lot about the Soviet space program, neither do the Russians, they rely also on the revelations and paperwork released after Gorbechev opened the government for awhile. Kerimov wrote a book and it serves as one of the main narratives available. I haven't read it, I have only read the interviews with him that are available on line.

There were a lot of secrets in the Soviet space era. It is a huge opportunity for researchers. Even the Soviet public did not know who Kerimov was until 1987 or what his role was in the space race... his identity was held secret, he was kept out of pictures, he was a "secreted general". That's the guy who ran the Soviet space program.

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter
Yes.
And the US program was very open. Interesting contrast.
Thousands of images and documents. All readily available.

On the other side, the American side, there were 4 NASA administrators from 1966-1972. The first one of them, James Webb, quit NASA one month before the Apollo 8 mission. Webb said that the Russians were ahead in big boosters.


The last one of them, James Fletcher (1971-1977), was given the orders by Richard Nixon to keep America in low earth orbit with the Space Shuttle system. Fletcher accomplished his goal very well. When it comes to political willpower I guess Nixon really had big balls. Cue AC/DC

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: SayonaraJupiter
Yes.
And the US program was very open. Interesting contrast.
Thousands of images and documents. All readily available.

Speaking of documents. Do you know of any Russian documents that came out after glasnost that can confirm Apollo 8?

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

Do you know of any Russian documents that came out after glasnost that can confirm Apollo 8?

No.
Do you have any condemning the US "hoax?" Probably not, since the Soviets were perfectly capable of monitoring it and the other Apollo missions.

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: SayonaraJupiter
Yes.
And the US program was very open. Interesting contrast.
Thousands of images and documents. All readily available.

Speaking of documents. Do you know of any Russian documents that came out after glasnost that can confirm Apollo 8?

What sort of documents do you want? Russian newspapers back in 1968 confirmed the reality of the flight and even offered grudging congratulations, of sorts.

Here is what The Times (of London) said about the reports in Pravda at the time:


(The original article referred to is "О полете Аполлона-8" (On the flight of Apollo 8), Pravda, Dec 30 1968.)

Notice that part near the top of column 2? "He expressed the conviction that henceforth automatic unmanned vehicles would continue to play the leading role in scientific exploration of the moon and planets". And what do you know — he was quite right!

Documents released after glasnost? Well, OBM linked above to a summary of the diaries of Nikolay Kamanin, head of the Soviet cosmonaut corps: www.astronautix.com...

They were only published in the 1990s. Here is what he had to say after Apollo 8:


(sorry for the large print, this is a screenshot from my phone)

That is an extract from Genesis, Robert Zimmerman's book about Apollo 8. There is lots of well researched information in there: I suggest you give it a read.

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

We went to the Moon dude, deal with the fact!

Just because Russia could not repeat said feat at the time don't mean jack i'm afraid!

Seriously SJ? I've been reading your posts for a while now and while it pains me to say this you don't strike me as an idiot. You're clearly someone with an agenda, I don't mean in trying to prove the Apollo program is fake - you're obviously trying to do that - but you go beyond common sense and intellect to do so sometimes. I can see you're trying to appeal to the more vulnerable people, but I don't think you're one of them. I have to admit, I almost enjoy reading your posts in general because they give a refreshing opportunity to explore less obvious avenues and are far beyond the usual drivel, sometimes... But this, the way it's gone on?

I don't know if your motivation is religion like Bart's apparantly is, money somehow maybe... I don't think you're a troll unless you actually have too much money because you actually carry out some research even if I disagree strongly with your interpretation.

But really, this is ridiculous for going on so long. Everyone has said it, but you keep pretending you don't see it. Rise above this man!

This wasn't a race where 'everyone is a winner'. You don't carry on until you finish.. There were losers, and it wasn't the taking part that counts. You keep banging on about why the Russians didn't replicate Apollo 8 and orbit the Moon - why would they dude? Why?
More to the point in line with your thread, why would they abandon their manned mission equipment and develop a whole new tech just to replicate a minor part of the whole deal? Why???
Seriously, what a waste of money! For what? There was is no second place for this, not then anyway and even now it's not worth as much unless the developments include improved shielding for long term habitation of space. The main thing I'm excited about is *sigh* the conspiracy theories of how the Chinese, etc are 'in on it' with the US to support their Moon landing. And the predictable "The US aren't exposing the Chinese's fakery because then they would have to expose their own" - pondering the question if it is all going to be fake - why don't the Chinese 'go' now...

And then you compare against the development of nuclear weapons? WEAPONS? You of all people should understand that weapons are more desirable that who can piss up the wall the highest. Because to a lot of politicians that's what it was about I'm sure. But at the same time, the same as now, valuable scientific work was and is being done. Huge technological developments are made. There are countless people who worked at all levels on these missions for the right reasons.
Me, I gave up with this crap because I can't deal with jumping through hoops all of the time just to try and do the right thing. But luckily, there are amazing, brilliant people out there who will suffer all of that just to accomplish their dreams and our dreams as a race..

Jeez, sorry that sounds lame and a bit sickening - but frankly it is actually true. Some people make the mistake of looking at organisations as a one headed beast - they are not. They are made up of many different people with many different individual, personal, agendas - and regardless of how many people are trying to use it in a negative way there are countless others using it in a positive way. I am always suspicious of people, but frankly - most people are actually good.

a reply to: Rob48

What sort of documents do you want? Russian newspapers back in 1968 confirmed the reality of the flight and even offered grudging congratulations, of sorts.

I was thinking that there could be some Soviet era government documents, from Dec 1968, that would serve as the basis for your conclusions. You provided one newspaper article written by a westerner "Edmund Stevens" and a Kamanin diary entry published in the 1990's.

Edmund Stevens said that Dr Petrov "without saying it in so many words" and "seemed to imply".... it looks like this "Edmund Stevens" fellow is actually bending the rules of journalism a bit, don't you? Perhaps YOU should review that paragraph and tell us what is reliable information in that paragraph.

Go back to a paragraph #5,

"The next logical stage in lunar exploration... was... automatic vehicles."

"Perhaps with tongue in cheek, he declared that Apollo 8 had all the more courage..." tongue in cheek

Dr. Petrov said "the first major step" was Zond 5 and Zond 6 and the article says that "the Americans had skipped this intermediate stage."

Can we really believe that the Edmund Stevens piece was entirely accurate?

From an evidence perspective, the Edmund Stevens piece does contain a lot of possible heresay. Are you sure that you want to enter it into the evidence? Is it a good piece of evidence that you can stand on?? tongue in cheek???

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

I was thinking that there could be some Soviet era government documents, from Dec 1968, that would serve as the basis for your conclusions. You provided one newspaper article written by a westerner "Edmund Stevens" and a Kamanin diary entry published in the 1990's.

What "government documents" do you expect? An official piece of headed Kremlin notepaper saying "Da! Apollo 8 is real deal!"?

The head of the Soviet cosmonaut corps wrote daily diary entries at that time. It is not "a Kamanin diary entry", as you seem to think. The entire diaries were published in four volumes but have not been translated into English as far as I know.

They are available online here: militera.lib.ru...

Here is the section for 1968: militera.lib.ru...

Translations of a couple of relevant entries. Written, let me remind you, by the man in charge of the Soviet cosmonauts, the man who recruited and trained Gagarin, Titov and Leonov:

December 27
Just ... ( 19:15 ) to my dacha call from the Gagarin Center and reported that Apollo 8 made ​​a safe landing in the Pacific Ocean near Christmas Island .
So true : three American astronauts - Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders - the first of the men circled the moon and returned to Earth . USA won a historic victory in the cosmos - the flight will take its rightful place next to Gagarin's flight . All of America watched on television for the splashdown of Apollo 8 in the ocean . When the 6 -ton spacecraft entered the dense layers of the atmosphere, with the radio command center in Houston ( Texas ) interrupted, there were three tense minutes to wait before the voice of Lovell : "We are really in good condition , although flying , like a fireball ! "

December 28
Before the Apollo 8 flight Americans never returned their ships from the area of the Moon to the Earth , and that's also the first manned mission to the moon , they beat us . This once again confirms the leading role of a spacecraft within the implementation of such experiments. Yes, machines can be hundreds of times more perfect person, but they will never completely replace it . A person can not be a slave to "smart" machines , he must always remain their master.

By and large, our designers seem to be right in their quest to create a fully automated manned spacecraft. It is possible that in the future when the entire planet falls to communism , people will fly into space on such ships. But nowadays you can not forget about the bitter struggle between two opposing ideologies. After our first success in space, we proudly stated : "Socialism - the best launching pad for space flight! " So it was, and I would like to so continue. But our great leaders have forgotten the huge influence of space flight (especially such as flying our first Vostok and the American Apollo 8) on the minds of millions of people and underestimated the possibility of "decaying capitalism", which, as shown by recent developments in space, is capable of much more.

December 31
Vershinin was yesterday at a meeting of the defence industry, where everyone understood the same "topical" issue : "How to respond to he Americans? " For a successful flight of three American astronauts to the Moon, our leaders decided to respond ... with an unmanned lunar flight. They cannot grasp a most simple idea : an automatic flight is not a response to a manned mission to Apollo 8 ... Only landing men on the moon and a successful return to Earth would be a fitting response triumph Apollo 8. But we are not prepared for the expedition to the moon. At best, we will be ready for it in 2-3 years.

Originally posted by SayonaraJupiter
Can we really believe that the Edmund Stevens piece was entirely accurate?

Well, if you are so keen to do the research, then you can track down the original Pravda article and read it yourself.

I have given you the title, author and date.

The online archive of Pravda is available in many libraries and universities. I don't know where you live but if it is near a big city then you should be able to find somewhere to access it. It will be in Russian, of course, but an online translator ought to give a passable version of the text.

And it's not like it's only the Times correspondent giving his version. Lots of reports about the Russian reaction appeared in the western media.

Here is one to start you off.

Plus, of course, the fact that Frank Borman was invited to Star City in 1969, where he met with Kamanin and several cosmonauts, ought to clue you in to the fact that the Russians knew this was genuine!


Edit: OK, I have signed up for preview access to the archive. Here is the preview of the English version of the Petrov article in Pravda. I am not going to shell out the $7.95 for the whole thing, but if you want to then you know where to go. The registration link is here: dlib.eastview.com...

Author: B. Petrov

ON THE FLIGHT OF APOLLO 8. (By Academician B. Petrov. Pravda, Dec. 30, p. 4. 1,300 words)

The flight of the American spaceship Apollo 8 with three cosmonauts aboard has come to a successful conclusion. In these days Soviet people, like the people of all countries, followed with great attention the voyage of the piloted craft carrying F. Borman, J. Lovell and W. Anders as it flew around the moon and landed in the Pacific Ocean after a six-day space journey. ...

The tasks of the exploration of outer space are solved both with the aid of automatic means — artificial satellites and spacecraft such as probes and automatic stations — and with the aid of piloted spaceships. The solution of a great many scientific tasks can be entrusted to automatic devices. After all, the possibilities of modern automatic installations are extremely great and are growing year by year. This judgment can be made solely on the basis of the results of the very difficult experiment that was carried out by Soviet scientists in launching the automatic station Venera-4, which, after flying more than 350,000,000 km., made a smooth descent through the atmosphere of Venus and transmitted to earth many new data about this mysterious planet. There are also tasks in the conquest of outer space in which the participation of man is necessary and justified. However, manned flight through outer space is in itself a great achievement of our time.

The exploration of the moon was also begun by automatic stations. The first Soviet automatic stations conducted a number of investigations in near-lunar space and photographed the hidden side of the moon; then the more detailed study of both near-lunar space and the moon itself began. After this the American Ranger station obtained many detailed photographs of the lunar surface. The next major step was the soft landing on the moon by the automatic station Luna-9 ...

Happy now?

a reply to: AgentSmith

Let me tell you the real deal. I love history. I'm sure you do, too.

A lot of people in this ATS thread are just like me and you... We scout the used book and every crummy dusty antique store within a wide driving distance, we buy up the old issue of Life magazine from eBay and we build up libraries dedicated to our subjects of interests.... my interests are Nixon, Hughes & Apollo.

It's always nice to have a big university in your area because it means the types of books you find at Value Village are a step above what you might find in a rural American second-hand shop. Have you looked at OBMonkey's stuff yet? He is doing what I am doing... just going out and getting the source materials and doing the hard work of research. I don't agree with him most of the time but I can totally respect his efforts... because I have literally done the exact same thing myself.

I have a big stack of Howard Hughes movies on dvd. I have literally spent hours on my knees looking through boxes of Life magazines and Look magazines (and old Playboys!) in antique stores. In fact, I own a pristine copy of Maj. General J.B. Medaris, U.S. Army, RET. titled "COUNTDOWN for DECISION"


I think it's really important to have the real source material on hand. And I think a lot of people reading this can respect that. I know that Jarrah White goes to great lengths to acquire his source material.... But let's go back to the subject at hand here, that is Apollo 8.

What happened in this thread? I don't know really to be absolutely honest. I thought I was giving an open invitation to a historical discussion about Apollo 8. However, some people (not naming names) seem to have a very concrete version of history and want to express that over and over again. And that becomes a problem when the jack hammer of history comes along... breaking up all that pristine concrete (i.e. the official history of Apollo).

Have you ever handled a jack hammer, AgentSmith? Doesn't it feel good to break up that concrete and prepare the foundation for something new?

Why don't you throw in your two cents on the topic of Webb's Giant...? What are your thoughts on that? Here is James Webb, the NASA administrator who nurtured the Saturn/Apollo program all the way up to October 1968 ... when he suddenly quits NASA ... a little over a month before Apollo 8.

There is a similar transfer of authority in the Soviet space program when Koralev dies in January 1966 and is succeeded by Kerim Kerimov, who headed the Soviet space program, as a secret general, for 25 years.

Whenever I am reviewing the history I like to consider all sources, I am not stuck on any specific source of information like NASA Defenders are. They are dedicated to defending NASA. That's fine by me. However, they don't own the narratives. This thread is a very good proof of that much. Do you consider yourself a Defender or a Reviewer?

This thread is actually a good example of why we should not have a dedicated history forum on ATS. It's because some people believe history is concrete while some others are still dedicated to using jack hammers on a nice piece of concrete.

Where do you stand on history, AgentSmith? Is it concrete to you? Did you ever put your hand in cement when you were a kid? Did you ever go back to check what happened to your hand print over time?

I have done it and it makes you think very differently about history. All kinds of history. Maybe I am just a retarded and self deluded Apollo Hoax Believer, a troll, or whatever the latest epithet is. At least, I am pursuing history, not just sitting on the shore of the stream commenting on it from wikipedia or google.

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

Maybe I am just a retarded and self deluded Apollo Hoax Believer, a troll, or whatever the latest epithet is.

I don't think you're retarded.

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

This thread is actually a good example of why we should not have a dedicated history forum on ATS. It's because some people believe history is concrete while some others are still dedicated to using jack hammers on a nice piece of concrete.

I'm all for delving into history and examining new evidence. I would have thought the links I provided above show that.

I have learnt lots about the Apollo programme through debating it on here. (Most recently: I had no idea that Frank Borman visited the Russian cosmonaut base after his Apollo 8 flight but before the first moon landings.)

But none of the things I have learnt make me think Apollo was a hoax. Instead they give new insight and new angles on why things happened the way they did, and why the Russians couldn't and didn't respond.