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Russia's first lunar mission in 47 years smashes into the moon in failure

20 points by gnicholas 3y ago

seeknotfind 3y ago
Can anyone explain why they would be spending money on this now? I thought they were at war.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  My completely uninformed guess is that this project was in the works for years, and it's not simple to postpone. For example, they would have mapped out where the moon was going to be, what its rotation would look like, how they were going to approach, etc. Perhaps this is easy to re-calculate for another year, but when you're dealing with narrow tolerances for error, maybe there's a heavy bias to just stick to the plan? They probably were also hoping for a PR win, which obviously backfired in this case.
  - baybal2 3y ago
    Exactly the opposite, the project was pulled from the mothballs very recently. It's very likelly it was initiated as part of the same PR excercise, of which the war itself was part of.
    - gnicholas 3y ago
      Interesting! Link?
- icegreentea2 3y ago
  Russia is working a balancing act their messaging of the urgency of the war. Suffice to say, Russia has not gone into 100% total war footing (either economically, or in terms of human resources). Continuing to have "normal stuff" like space missions provides a sense of normalcy (especially to the groups who haven't been subject to conscription yet), which is presumably useful for stability.
- pvaldes 3y ago
  Sometimes rulers need desperately a win to show Space race also is a test for making better weapons.
avmich 3y ago
For Russia Luna-25 mission is actually a step ahead. Both Mars-96 and Fobos-Grunt - missions launched after USSR dissolution - ended up in Pacific. Luna-25 at least successfully got itself to an orbit around the Moon. Of course this mission took years to prepare, and it's much better to launch probes to the Moon than shells to Kharkiv. At least failure of Luna-25 gives less to brag about for propagandists.
phplovesong 3y ago
My local bookie actually only gave 4:1 odds for success. I really lolled when i saw the news.

20 points by gnicholas 3y ago

seeknotfind 3y ago

Can anyone explain why they would be spending money on this now? I thought they were at war.

gnicholas 3y ago
My completely uninformed guess is that this project was in the works for years, and it's not simple to postpone. For example, they would have mapped out where the moon was going to be, what its rotation would look like, how they were going to approach, etc. Perhaps this is easy to re-calculate for another year, but when you're dealing with narrow tolerances for error, maybe there's a heavy bias to just stick to the plan? They probably were also hoping for a PR win, which obviously backfired in this case.
- baybal2 3y ago
  Exactly the opposite, the project was pulled from the mothballs very recently. It's very likelly it was initiated as part of the same PR excercise, of which the war itself was part of.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    Interesting! Link?
icegreentea2 3y ago
Russia is working a balancing act their messaging of the urgency of the war. Suffice to say, Russia has not gone into 100% total war footing (either economically, or in terms of human resources). Continuing to have "normal stuff" like space missions provides a sense of normalcy (especially to the groups who haven't been subject to conscription yet), which is presumably useful for stability.
pvaldes 3y ago
Sometimes rulers need desperately a win to show Space race also is a test for making better weapons.

avmich 3y ago

For Russia Luna-25 mission is actually a step ahead. Both Mars-96 and Fobos-Grunt - missions launched after USSR dissolution - ended up in Pacific. Luna-25 at least successfully got itself to an orbit around the Moon. Of course this mission took years to prepare, and it's much better to launch probes to the Moon than shells to Kharkiv. At least failure of Luna-25 gives less to brag about for propagandists.

phplovesong 3y ago

My local bookie actually only gave 4:1 odds for success. I really lolled when i saw the news.