In 1968, Russia's unmanned rocket Zond-5 became the first to travel around the moon and return back to earth unscathed. Russia was the first to have a manned spacecraft orbit the earth, Vostok, several years prior. Russia had already showed the world that it was the first to have an unmanned spacecraft, the Lunar IX, softly land on the moon, and now it showed the world that it could even have an unmanned spacecraft circle the moon and return, with Zond-5.
Why didn't Russia then send up a man on one of its spacecrafts to the moon?
It would have seemed simple enough. I'll get to this later.
1969 - Again, Russia had another first: The first docking of manned spacecraft (Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5), and crew transfer from one spacecraft to the other through open space.
1969 - Still another first for Russia occurred: The first formation flying of three manned spacecraft, Soyuz-6, Souyz-7 and Soyuz-8, during which they maneuvered relatively close to each other, with ground facilities providing simultaneous support for the three spacecraft.
Meanwhile, in America, the end of the decade was approaching. The late-President John F. Kennedy's dream was becoming just that: a dream. Violence gripped America, with the war in Viet Nam and racial riots across America's cities. America's leaders were desperately looking for "heroes"--some people to keep the public's minds off of the problems at home. America was looking for something to distract Americans from the failing policies. America's leaders wanted to show the world that its insane policies were a match to the highly educated Russians and their orderly society. While America's wars at home and abroad were causing much turmoil, America desperately needed some "pride"--anything for which to be
proud.
Russians had wanted to go to the moon. However, there were many concerns
with safety. The Van Allen Belts released a deadly radiation that could easily fry a person to death. Plus, the moon is 250,000 miles away--quite a distance. While I'm not familiar with how fast the rockets were, traveling at 1,200 miles per hour, it would be approximately a 20-day journey each way, provided there were no problems. Even at 2-3 times that speed, it would still be a difficult journey. The amount of fuel required would be staggering, with the added weight of people, food, air, supplies, etc. Yet somehow, these rockets managed to go much, much faster in a zero atmosphere with nothing with which to propel? Perhaps, the speed is possible, yet one cannot deny the deadly radiation rays out in space known as the Van Allen Belts.
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