Moon Race
Luna 15 was a Soviet probe designed to collect lunar soil and return it to Earth and study circumlunar space and the lunar gravitational field, which could have given the Soviets more Moon glory. The mission along with Apollo 11 played an important role in the culmination of the Space Race. Luna 15 was launched 3 days before Apollo 11 and reached lunar orbit before Apollo 11. During descent, a malfunction caused Luna 15 to crash on the Mare Crisium of the Moon, just after Armstrong and Aldrin completed their moon walk.
The parallel missions of Luna 15 and Apollo 11 were the climax of the Space Race that underlay the space programs of both the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s. The simultaneous missions became one of the first instances of Soviet/American space cooperation as the USSR released Luna 15's flight plan to ensure it would not collide with Apollo 11, though its exact mission was unknown. The Jodrell Bank radio telescope was later discovered to have recorded transmissions from Luna 15 during its descent and this was published in July 2009 as to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11.
Read more about this topic: Apollo 11
Famous quotes containing the words moon and/or race:
“The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves,
The full round moon and the star-laden sky,
And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,
Had hid away earth’s old and weary cry.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The Jew is neither a newcomer nor an alien in this country or on this continent; his Americanism is as original and ancient as that of any race or people with the exception of the American Indian and other aborigines. He came in the caravels of Columbus, and he knocked at the gates of New Amsterdam only thirty-five years after the Pilgrim Fathers stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock.”
—Oscar Solomon Straus (1850–1926)