One bit of rebuttal of some HB claims has long been that the Soviet program would have known. There is an article in the latest issue of Novosti Kosmonavtiki which fills in some details, apparently for the first time in a public forum - if I get the time and permissions, I could post a translation on my space-history site... Anyway, for readers of Russian, it's posted here.

Written by E. Molotov, the article describes the initiative to use the 32m dish near Simferopol (in the Crimea) for this purpose. The initial justification was that this would be the first realistic way to test their network of land- and ship-based stations for their own planned lunar missions. Illustrations include spectral scans locating the frequency of the Apollo signals, and a ratty-but-recognizable TV view of Earthrise. This last one is listed as being from one of the Apollo ships, which implies that more than one was followed in detail.

Oh sweet. Ngc3314, if you can come up with the necessary permissions to translate, I'd love to read it.

I knew I should have taken Russian rather than German in college. I could have used even rudimentary Russian hundreds of times in the last ten years. And how many times have I used German since then? Maybe twice. Well three if you count the old "spitzensparken" server room spoof.

__________________
And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Translated:

We "saw",
As Americans
Sat down on the Moon...
E.Molotov specially
For " News of astronautics "

Whether clause(article) of the participant of events of 30-years prescription of E.P.Molotova offered(suggested) to readers throws light on unknown pages of " lunar race " and finally closes a ridiculous question " there Were Americans on the Moon? "

Has passed more than 30 years since as the most expensive race between Soviet Union and the United States of America for superiority(championship) in landing the person to the Moon has been developed(unwrapped). Who has won this race of prestige - it is known. Many events have taken place for this time...

Process of competition was repeatedly described both American, and the Russian party(side). It is represented to us interesting to tell about one of it(him) of earlier not shined(covered) episodes.

Programs of preparation of landing of the person on the Moon in the USSR (flight УР-500 - Л-1, landing(planting) Н-1 - Л-3) and in the USA ("Apollo") were conducted in parallel, and superiority(championship) had powerful political value. The Soviet management(manual) paid the big attention to a state of affairs with realization of the lunar program both in Soviet Union, and in America. For the objective control over performance of the American program the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU D.F.Ustinov supervising the defensive industry of the country, at the end of 1967 has entrusted main designer РНИИ КП (at that time SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE - 885) M.S.Rjazanskomu to develop a special control radio engineering complex with which help it would be possible to accept signals from the American spacecrafts of the program "Apollo", making flight of the Moon and landing(planting) to its(her) surface.

M.S.Rjazansky at that time was responsible for creation of onboard and ground radio engineering control facilities by spacecrafts of the Soviet lunar program. Under his(its) management(manual) for management Soviet пилотируемыми and automatic spacecrafts for research of the Moon the Ground complex of management including two control centres by flight, six ground and three ship items(points) of the management, equipped with corresponding stations of tracking and located on territory of Soviet Union and in the certain points of World ocean has been created. However these means could not be used for reception of the information from the ships "Apollo" as they worked in the other frequency range with the signals having other structure. Therefore it was necessary to create the special control complex, capable to provide reception of the data from "Apollos". It was supposed to accept from the American spacecrafts not only telephone (voice) and telemetering, but also the television information.

Has been solved to include in a control complex aerial TNA-400 with diameter of a mirror 32 m which was placed in Crimea, near to Simferopol (fig. 1). She(it) was used as the reception aerial of a radio engineering complex "Saturn - МС" providing management by the Soviet automatic space vehicles for research of the Moon later: "Moon rovers", devices for delivery of a lunar ground to the Earth, and also lunar satellites.

For work in structure of a control complex aerial TNA-400 has been equipped малошумящим with the reception device working in a range of 13 sm (range S in which transmitters of lunar modules of the program "Apollo" worked). Besides in structure of a complex have come: the demodulator of a group signal transmitted on bearing(carrying) frequency and the signals transmitted on поднесущих frequencies, the equipment of allocation of the voice, telemetering and television information, and also the equipment of display and management of a complex (fig. 2).

The control complex created in short terms РНИИ КП in cooperation with the several industrial enterprises, was ready to reception of signals from spacecrafts of the program "Apollo" in November, 1968.

To trace the ships at their flight on orbits around of the Moon and at landing(planting) to its(her) surface, it was necessary to have the ballistic data of these orbits for calculation целеуказаний to the aerial. However such data were not published by Americans. Therefore the data on orbits of flight were calculated by ballistics on the basis of time of start and arrival to the Moon of the ships "Apollo" which informed by the American radio. On these data paid off целеуказания for prompting the aerial which were specified on signals accepted by a control complex from the lunar ships.

Such approach to calculation целеуказаний has allowed to accept reliably enough signals from "Apollos". The problem(task) of search of signals was facilitated by that the diagram of an orientation of the aerial covered practically half of disk of the Moon.

Tracking was conducted behind spacecrafts of expeditions(dispatches) "Apollo - 8", "Apollo - 10", "Apollo - 11" and "Apollo - 12" from December, 1968 till November, 1969.
From all these ships telephone conversations of astronauts with the Earth and the telemetering information on a condition of onboard systems were accepted with high quality. The accepted television signal had poor quality because of an insufficient level of an energy potential of a radioline on the basis of the 32-meter aerial.

It is necessary to note, that the American network of tracking and management provided practically round-the-clock communication(connection) with spacecrafts "Apollo" while the Soviet control complex could accept signals only in that part of the visibility range which on time coincided with a visibility range of the Madrid station of tracking.

Lunar expedition(dispatch) under F.Bormana's management(manual) on a spacecraft "Apollo - 8" in December, 1968 has carried out the first пилотируемый flight to the Moon, has made 10 coils around of it(her) and, having come back to the Earth with the second space speed, has made soft landing(planting) at ocean.

This flight has formed the basis for a stop of works on the first stage of Soviet program Л-1 though all technics(technical equipment) and crews to пилотируемому to flight of the Moon by then were ready.

Flight of crew "Apollo - 11" with an output(exit) on a surface of the Moon on July, 20, 1969. N.Armstronga and E.Oldrina has finally stopped competition on landing the person to the Moon.

On fig. 3 photos of spectra of the signals accepted by control station from spacecrafts "Apollo", made with the screen of the videocontrol device are submitted.

On fig. 4 the image of rising of the Earth above the lunar horizon, accepted on a telechannel from one of the ships "Apollo" is shown.

As is known, after that Soviet Union has directed the efforts to research of the Moon by automatic space vehicles therefore impressing results have been received.

In summary we shall note, that data on creation and functioning of the Soviet special control radio engineering complex were not published earlier.

<TO RETURN

Thanks for the translation! =D> =D> =D>

One minor question:
Why were the astronaut's names rendered in the feminine form?
(for those who don't know, Russian distinguishes between men & women's names with an "a" or a "ya" on the end. Thus, Yuri Gagarin's sister would be Gagarina, Titov's wife would be Titova, and Svetlana Savitskaya's father would be Savitskiy)

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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

That's it, I knew we should have nuked those russkies when we had the chance. Calling our national heros girly men, for shame.

__________________
You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

That looks like a Babelfish product (and one I rather expect the BA to edit, since Babelfishing a copyrighted commercial magazine article is no different from reposting it in the first place, and why, everyone will note, I was concerned about permissions). Most of the uses of proper names are in the possessive form, but since the digital dictionary doesn't know them, it doesn't do a back construction to the original form. Singular, masculline nouns generally form the possessive (genitive) by appending a. (I find the most interesting of these declensions to be the feminine plural, which subtracts the ending vowel,; come to think of it, neuter plural does that as well, as in Respublik ending USSR, and Gosudarstv, ending its temporary successor the Commonwealth of Indepdenent States.

Here's the paragraphs from the original article. It does use the feminine version of the names:

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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

Sorry I am a little short on references here. But I recall reading sometime ago the Russians actually had a probe in orbit arounf the Moon when Apollo 11 arrived.

If I recall correctly there was even a small amount of concern the two might have a meeting in the night so to speak.

I am not sure if it was because there was so much transparency in the American Space program, but Soviet space history fascinates the hell out of me

MG

Yes, Luna 15.

__________________
"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

"Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful." - Ian Faith

That's not very nice.

First of all, calling Russians "Russkies" by itself is offensive.

[-X [-(

SiriMurthy, I'm pretty sure that jt-3d was ripping on those sad folk who would say something like that... and actually mean it, bankshot from a more overt poke at the quirky translation.

__________________
And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Really!? Isn't it just an anglicized version of what they call themselves?

I once heard Alexei Leonov state on a program that they could have beaten Apollo 8 to the moon if they wanted to.So obviously the Russians knew.They knew something that Bart Sibrel doesn't.

__________________
"There are things known and there are things unknown and in between are the Doors."Jim Morrison.

No, they are masculine names which happen to be in possessive case -- "Moon expedition under Borman's management" and "Armstrong's and Aldrin's excursion onto Moon's surface". I changed the word order to make it sound less stilted in English.

__________________
Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

Ah. Thanks. It's been more than 20 since I took russian (and I was a lousy student).

__________________
"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