I found links to the following website at another discussion board.

http://www.astronautix.com/articles/theghoax.htm

PHANTOMS OF SPACE - part 1
PHANTOMS OF SPACE - part 2

I’ve skimmed some, and before I spend oodles of time reading the details,
has this been covered here? Where? Thank You.

If not ToSeeked/ToSought/ToFound, is any of this stuff credible?

I'm no expert, heaven knows, but I don't think it's terribly credible. remember, at that point in time, the Soviets were actually trying to do safe launches, unlike their previous ones. besides, I don't think a Soviet moon program could still be covered up this far from the collapse of the Soviet Union. I could be wrong--Jay's better at this than I--but I don't buy it.

oh, and welcome to the board.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I'm not sure if I'm understanding the question correctly, but if I am, there was most certainly a Soviet lunar landing programme.

Although it was denied at the time, details of it are now available. Alexi Leonov was in training to be one of the (if not the first) cosmonauts to conduct a lunar landing.

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"For ignorance to reign, all it takes is for knowledgable people to say nothing"

Lonewulf

I actually had two questions.

The first(a two parter) of course was if the subject covered at the site was ever discussed here and if so where.

And if not, is there any credibility in the ideas presened.

Now, I admit, I only skimmed about 80% of three "pages" and only read in greater detail, a "page" and a half, at which point I decided, maybe, due to the voluminous amount of material, I'd be wasting my time. So I came here to see if this subject was covered.

What I gathered from my reading, was that the USSR may have had secret manned missions, that partially succeeded in that they put a man on the moon first, but failed to bring him/them back safely. Not entirely sure if this is exactly what the site was claiming, I may have stopped reading too soon. I was hoping to get a response(from someone that had previous familiarity with the site) before going back and reading everything.

The "Moon Landing Hoax" to which the title of the article refers was the Soviet claim that they did not have a manned lunar program, nor were they trying to beat the Americans there.

(Actually, Cronkite never said the money was wasted. He was - and is - one of the most vocal advocates of manned space exploration. He did, however, swallow the "Soviets weren't in the Moon Race" story.)

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"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." St. Exupery

Primarily as an exercise for myself and anyone else that might be interested...

To further clarify what I was looking for:
How credible are James Oberg and Astronautix?
As it turns out, I found many posts here quoting and linking to the Astronautix website. Seems to be quite reputable.

And Oberg's book, Uncovering Soviet Disasters; 1988; Random House
would probably be a good read, and a good deal for less than $10, but I'd rather like to get:
I must admit I was looking for something that wasn’t really there:
And apparently found it. Not!

So I went back and reread all three pages.
Now I get it. Once it became apparent that the US would make it to the moon before them, the USSR denied ever having a moon landing program.
Thanks Count Zero.

In my searching I came across an older post that did cover possible cosmonauts reaching the moon

Graham2001 posted a link to Phantom Cosmonauts in Chemist’s post, Vladimir Ilyushin first in space? way back in 2002, where Phantom Cosmonauts are discussed in greater detail.

I picked up at least 3 new(to me anyway), cool websites.
Thanks for the help and patience.

Oberg is definitely a trustworthy resource. Astronautix is generally a good resource but is not always correct.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Astronautix is a bit more up to date. Red Star In Orbit shows its age, and Philip Clark, Charles Vick, Mr. Harford, Dennis Newkirk and Asif Siddiqi are also good Soviet experts, as is Anatoly Zak over at:
www.russianspaceweb.com

Mark Wade debunked the idea that Proton ever launched a spaceplane: Kosmos 881 and 882 were TKSferry capsules launched in a dual test one atop the other. Since--like the Gemini MOL--the hatch was through the heat shield, the retros on the capsule were on a stem that also served as the escape tower. TKS was modified and launched without such a built in capsule and became a Mir add-on.

The closest the USSR got to the moon was a rump Soyuz that was sent on Circumlunar missions--the Zond series--also said to be responsible for a UFO sighting.

Hypothetically speaking, could the USSR possibly had a secret moon mission? I would think the US would have been watching, and listening, close enough to detect a mission this big.

[nitpick]Since none of the Zond series to achieve Lunar Orbit were ever manned (8 did have biological samples,) if you are going to say they got the closest you are wrong. Under the critria you seem to be using, the Luna series got closer since they actually landed and one even had a remote controlled rover which explored the surface. If you use Manned missions as the standard, then Soyuz is the closet they got, and that never got out of LEO.[/nitpick]

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Highly unlikely. The size of the rocket would have make it very noticable. The US knew about the N-1 (The Soviet version of the Saturn-V) and knew about the accidents it had, even photographing the launch complex before and after the third launch failure and explosion, noting the results of the destruction. Without an operational N-1, there is no way the Soviets could have launched a suitable manned vehicle to get to the moon and also it has been shown that their lander was not completed even in 1973 when the final cancellation of their program occured. That and that there would have been no way to hide the radio signals from the the US or anyone else, there is just no evidence for a manned Soviet Moon landing, secret or not.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Asif Siddiqi did wonderful work in going through newly-open archives in the early 1990s and sorting out the history of Soviet lunar efforts, and a lot more of their history. His book Challenge to Apollo will probably set the standard in this field for years. Amazingly, it is available as a mammoth PDF file linked from the NTRS database. The Soviet lunar effort(s) had a rich and politically, as well as technically, complex history. You could make a case that NASA "won the race" by applying rather socialist principles to managing their program. But everyone with an interest in the question ought to read the book.

That is a great link! I think that book was republished in two volumes.

That latter bit is what I meant--the manned capability. Their Proton could put a good sized Lander on the moon--put a rump Soyuz around it--but not do both.

Delta IV 'heavy' can do no better. And unlike Proton--has no engine out at all. Thus Griffin's SDV/HLLV mandate as supported by AF man Lance Lord.

The US knew about the N-1 (The Soviet version of the Saturn-V) and knew about the accidents it had,

Though, interestingly, they did completely miss the first launch attempt. American written books that discuss the N-1 written prior to the collapse of the USSR only describe three N-1 test launches, and state that the first was the N1-5L disaster that blew up the pad completely. In fact this was the second launch attempt, but the earlier N1-3L launch gets no mention at all.

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"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views." The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Face of Evil.

The intel was confusing.

For starters, Nosityal Odin (N-Odin or N-1) was mistakenly called "G-1" in the states. Some have also confused the big N-1 pad blast with the smaller hypergolic that killed Nedelin--and there are some who thought that one of the Energiyas blew up but this was not the case.

That I know of--Energiya flew only twice--and the Polyus malfunctioned all on its own, after sucessfully orbited by Energiya--pOlyus pushed itself down.

All these incidents get merged into one event in the minds of many.

Do you know the Russian language
??
http://forums.airbase.ru/index.php?showforum=45
Some of these guys think Russia and the USA never went to the Moon

babelfish version of the forum in English

Russians are too bright to believe that. . That would be like doubting sputnik.

Considering the Russian propaganda machine at the time, if they had a cosmonaut land on the moon and were unable to bring him back I'd think they'd claim to have a colony on the moon rather than hide it.

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