4 ms·

Excellent read! Never knew about this. Thanks for posting. When i read stuff like this, i wonder how much knowledge has been lost due to the Western Press' que

Excellent read! Never knew about this. Thanks for posting. When i read stuff like this, i wonder how much knowledge has been lost due to the Western Press' quest to undermine/badmouth/putdown/hide and label everything Soviet/Chinese/Communist as "bad" simply because they follow a different form of Ideology/Govt. Propaganda is insidious and destructive.

m0zg 7y ago
You're right and there's quite a bit that the US public doesn't know about Soviet space programs, but I'd like to point out that this cuts both ways. Growing up in the USSR in early 80's, well after the end of the moon landings, for some reason I thought Americans landed on the moon only once. It just wasn't talked about much, and it very much was a sore point for the Soviet space program even many years later. Turns out US astronauts landed on the moon six times with the longest stay exceeding 3 days, and rode an electric buggy on there. I only found that out much later. NASA rubbed it in pretty good. :-)
- varjag 7y ago
  Very much so. My uncle, a well educated and curious person had no idea Americans landed on the Moon. He learned that only around 1989 and was profoundly shocked. There was astronomy course in Soviet high school curriculum in 1980s but no mention of the landings in the textbook. And the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia article on Apollo 11 was probably one of the tersest in the whole publication :)
  - m0zg 7y ago
    Glad to see a confirmation I'm not imagining things. My memory of those times has faded considerably, but this is one of those things that shocked me so much that I remember it better than others.
  - gdy 7y ago
    Being born in the USSR, my memories are quite the opposite. Everyone new that Americans have landed on the moon. What's more, I've never heard about 'moon landing hoax' until the end of 90s.
    - varjag 7y ago
      Yes, moon landing hoax was not a thing. Soviet govt never tried to deny it, just to downplay. And no, "everyone" didn't know that. Space and tech nerds would know that for sure, but outside that it would be spotty: many would have heard of it, some didn't. Certainly not something they'd bring up 12th of April on TV.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  The UK got a decent amount of info about both programmes in the media. Being of the West there was more, and more detail about Nasa missions, but we didn't seem to lack awareness of Russian activities. Especially as they got so many of the firsts. I remember discussions comparing the Soyuz and Nasa lunar rovers as they were very different approaches. Same for the space stations, and obviously there was the Soyuz-Nasa mission where the two sides docked in orbit. How much we didn't get to know about I couldn't say!
  - m0zg 7y ago
    I feel like at least in the US very little is known about the Venera missions (and Venus landings, there were several; 2 of the motherships then also approached a comet using Venus' gravity assist), and Buran, which has flown and landed only once, but fully autonomously in 1986 (something we haven't seen until Boeing X-37 24 years later). The UK might have a more balanced view of events as a non-participant of the hotly contested space race. Hardly anyone in the US today knows about Gagarin (first man in space), not to mention Leonov (first spacewalk) or any of the other Soviet "firsts" besides Sputnik. Which, to me, is understandable, the Moon landings were such dramatic overkill that they loom large in the public consciousness and overshadow all the other "firsts", even now after five decades, and rightly so.
    - creato 7y ago
      > The UK might have a more balanced view of events as a non-participant of the hotly contested space race. Hardly anyone in the US today knows about Gagarin (first man in space), not to mention Leonov (first spacewalk) or any of the other Soviet "firsts". Hardly anyone in the US today knows of comparable US astronauts either.
    - twic 7y ago
      And in true British style, even fewer people in the UK know that the UK launched its own satellite on its own rocket!
- caf 7y ago
  It's not entirely uncommon for people in the West (at least, those born after the end of the Apollo program) to think there was only one landing, too. The Apollo 11 mission just looms so large in the history that it tends to shadow a lot of other things, even the rest of the Apollo program. '13 would be the next most well-known one, and that because of the Hollywood movie.
greglindahl 7y ago
I read about this in the Western press. Too bad you missed it at the time.
orbital-decay 7y ago
Little-known ≠ painted as bad. Language is a number one obstacle to the attention. (lack of PR being the second one in this particular case)
amaccuish 7y ago
Very true. We're finding this out with bacteriophages, popular in the SU, but virtually unheard of in the West, until it turns out they can solve a problem of our own making.
- truth_be_told 7y ago
  This sounded interesting and so i read-up a little on "Phage Therapy". From what i could gather, it didn't take off in the West because of its narrow applicability and hence consequent economics weren't profitable. What is its current status today? Do you have some detailed article, study, research etc. that you could point us to? Love to hear more about it.
  - superbug_slayer 7y ago
    Yes, all that and more is described in The Perfect Predator. ThePerfectPredator.com
dTal 7y ago
I think a more likely cause of the obscurity of Soviet technological achievment is the incredible, perverse level of secrecy surrounding everything they did, along with complete control of the media.

m0zg 7y ago

You're right and there's quite a bit that the US public doesn't know about Soviet space programs, but I'd like to point out that this cuts both ways. Growing up in the USSR in early 80's, well after the end of the moon landings, for some reason I thought Americans landed on the moon only once. It just wasn't talked about much, and it very much was a sore point for the Soviet space program even many years later. Turns out US astronauts landed on the moon six times with the longest stay exceeding 3 days, and rode an electric buggy on there. I only found that out much later. NASA rubbed it in pretty good. :-)

varjag 7y ago
Very much so. My uncle, a well educated and curious person had no idea Americans landed on the Moon. He learned that only around 1989 and was profoundly shocked. There was astronomy course in Soviet high school curriculum in 1980s but no mention of the landings in the textbook. And the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia article on Apollo 11 was probably one of the tersest in the whole publication :)
- m0zg 7y ago
  Glad to see a confirmation I'm not imagining things. My memory of those times has faded considerably, but this is one of those things that shocked me so much that I remember it better than others.
- gdy 7y ago
  Being born in the USSR, my memories are quite the opposite. Everyone new that Americans have landed on the moon. What's more, I've never heard about 'moon landing hoax' until the end of 90s.
  - varjag 7y ago
    Yes, moon landing hoax was not a thing. Soviet govt never tried to deny it, just to downplay. And no, "everyone" didn't know that. Space and tech nerds would know that for sure, but outside that it would be spotty: many would have heard of it, some didn't. Certainly not something they'd bring up 12th of April on TV.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
The UK got a decent amount of info about both programmes in the media. Being of the West there was more, and more detail about Nasa missions, but we didn't seem to lack awareness of Russian activities. Especially as they got so many of the firsts. I remember discussions comparing the Soyuz and Nasa lunar rovers as they were very different approaches. Same for the space stations, and obviously there was the Soyuz-Nasa mission where the two sides docked in orbit. How much we didn't get to know about I couldn't say!
- m0zg 7y ago
  I feel like at least in the US very little is known about the Venera missions (and Venus landings, there were several; 2 of the motherships then also approached a comet using Venus' gravity assist), and Buran, which has flown and landed only once, but fully autonomously in 1986 (something we haven't seen until Boeing X-37 24 years later). The UK might have a more balanced view of events as a non-participant of the hotly contested space race. Hardly anyone in the US today knows about Gagarin (first man in space), not to mention Leonov (first spacewalk) or any of the other Soviet "firsts" besides Sputnik. Which, to me, is understandable, the Moon landings were such dramatic overkill that they loom large in the public consciousness and overshadow all the other "firsts", even now after five decades, and rightly so.
  - creato 7y ago
    > The UK might have a more balanced view of events as a non-participant of the hotly contested space race. Hardly anyone in the US today knows about Gagarin (first man in space), not to mention Leonov (first spacewalk) or any of the other Soviet "firsts". Hardly anyone in the US today knows of comparable US astronauts either.
  - twic 7y ago
    And in true British style, even fewer people in the UK know that the UK launched its own satellite on its own rocket!
caf 7y ago
It's not entirely uncommon for people in the West (at least, those born after the end of the Apollo program) to think there was only one landing, too. The Apollo 11 mission just looms so large in the history that it tends to shadow a lot of other things, even the rest of the Apollo program. '13 would be the next most well-known one, and that because of the Hollywood movie.

greglindahl 7y ago

I read about this in the Western press. Too bad you missed it at the time.

orbital-decay 7y ago

Little-known ≠ painted as bad. Language is a number one obstacle to the attention. (lack of PR being the second one in this particular case)

amaccuish 7y ago

Very true. We're finding this out with bacteriophages, popular in the SU, but virtually unheard of in the West, until it turns out they can solve a problem of our own making.

truth_be_told 7y ago
This sounded interesting and so i read-up a little on "Phage Therapy". From what i could gather, it didn't take off in the West because of its narrow applicability and hence consequent economics weren't profitable. What is its current status today? Do you have some detailed article, study, research etc. that you could point us to? Love to hear more about it.
- superbug_slayer 7y ago
  Yes, all that and more is described in The Perfect Predator. ThePerfectPredator.com

dTal 7y ago

I think a more likely cause of the obscurity of Soviet technological achievment is the incredible, perverse level of secrecy surrounding everything they did, along with complete control of the media.