Artificial satellites of the Earth: All about satellites. artificial earth satellite

In a broad sense, a companion is a fellow traveler or comrade, one who accompanies someone along the way. But not only humans have satellites. The planets also have their "fellow travelers". What are they? When was the first artificial satellite invented?

The emergence of satellites

In astronomy, the concept of "satellite" first appeared thanks to the scientist Johannes Kepler. He used it as early as 1611 in his Narratio de Iovis Satellitibus. In the usual sense, planetary satellites are cosmic bodies that revolve around the planets. They turn in their own orbit under the influence of the gravitational forces of their "senior companion".

natural satellites- these are bodies that appeared naturally, without human intervention. They can be formed from gas and dust, or from a fragment of a celestial body, captured by the forces of gravity of the planet. Falling under the influence of gravitational forces, they are transformed, for example, they are compressed and compacted, they acquire a spherical shape (not always), etc.

It is assumed that most of the modern satellites of the planets are their fragments that broke off as a result of a collision, or former asteroids. As a rule, they consist of ice and minerals, unlike planets, they do not have a metal core, they are dotted with craters and faults.

When a satellite is opened, it is assigned a number. Then the discoverer has the right to name it at his own discretion. Traditionally, their names are associated with mythology. Only in Uranus are they named after literary characters.

planetary satellites

Planets can have the most diverse number of "companions". The Earth has only one - the Moon, but Jupiter has 69 of them. Venus and Mercury have no satellites. Periodically there are statements about their discovery, but all of them are soon refuted.

Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, is considered the largest in the solar system. It consists of silicates and ice, and reaches a diameter of 5,268 kilometers. A complete revolution around Jupiter takes him 7 days and 3 hours.

Mars has two "fellow travelers" with the impressive names Deimos and Phobos, which Greek translated as "horror" and "fear". They have a shape close to a triaxial ellipsoid (the length of the semi-axes is not the same). Scientists say that the speed of Phobos is gradually decreasing, and he himself is approaching the planet. One day it will simply fall on Mars or collapse, forming a planetary ring.

Moon

The only natural earth satellite is the Moon. This is the closest and most studied by us celestial body outside the planet Earth. It has a core, lower, middle, upper mantles and bark. The Moon also has an atmosphere.

The crust of the satellite consists of regolith - residual soil from dust and stony fragments of meteorites. The surface of the Moon is covered with mountains, furrows, ridges, as well as seas (large lowlands covered with solidified lava). Its atmosphere is very rarefied, which is why the sky above it is always black and starry.

The motion of the Moon around the Earth is complex. It is influenced not only by the gravity of our planet, but also by its oblate shape, as well as the attraction of the Sun, which attracts the Moon more strongly. Its full circulation takes 27.3 days. Its orbit is in the plane of the ecliptic, while for most other satellites it is located in the equatorial zone.

The moon also rotates around its axis. However, this movement is synchronized so that it is always turned to the Earth by the same side. The same phenomenon is observed in Pluto with its satellite Charon.

artificial satellites

Artificial satellites are devices created by man and sent into orbit around the planet. Inside them are various devices necessary for research.

As a rule, they are unmanned and controlled from the ground. space stations. To launch them into space, special manned vehicles are used. Satellites are:

• research - for the study of space and celestial bodies;
• navigation - to determine the location of Earth objects, determine the speed and direction of the signal receiver (GPS, Glonas);
• communication satellites - transmit a radio signal between distant points on Earth;
• meteorological - receives data on the state of the atmosphere for weather forecasting.

The first artificial earth satellite was launched during the Cold War in 1957. It was sent from the USSR and was called "Sputnik-1". A year later, the United States released the Explorer 1. Only a few years later they were followed by Great Britain, Canada, Italy, France, Australia and many other countries.

A spacecraft that is put into orbit around the Earth and has completed at least one revolution around the Earth. [OST 45.124 2000] Communication service topics ... Technical Translator's Handbook

artificial earth satellite- The movement of an artificial Earth satellite in a geostationary orbit An artificial Earth satellite (AES) is an unmanned spacecraft revolving around the Earth in a geocentric orbit. To move in orbit ... ... Wikipedia

ARTIFICIAL EARTH SATELLITE- (AES) space. a spacecraft that is put into orbit around the Earth and completes at least one revolution around it. The world's first satellite was launched in the USSR on 4 October. Feb 1, 1957 1958 the first Amer. satellite. To launch a satellite into orbit using ... ... Big encyclopedic polytechnic dictionary

The first artificial earth satellite- The world's first artificial satellite of the Earth The editorial of Pravda, dedicated to the launch of the satellite Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite of the Earth, was launched into orbit in the USSR on October 4, 1957. The code designation of the satellite PS 1 (The Simplest Satellite 1). ... ... Wikipedia

The first Chinese artificial earth satellite "Dongfanghong-1"- On April 24, 1970, the first Chinese satellite Dongfanghong 1 (Dongfanghong 1, DFH 1) was launched into orbit by the carrier Changzheng 1 (Chang Zheng 1, CZ 1), launched from the Jiuquan Cosmodrome. The achievements of Chinese astronautics are associated with the scientist Qian ... ... Encyclopedia of newsmakers

The first artificial earth satellite- Day of the beginning of the space age of mankind (October 4, 1957); proclaimed by the International Federation of Astronautics in September 1967 (on this day the world's first artificial Earth satellite was successfully launched in the USSR) October 4, 1957 ... ... Encyclopedia of newsmakers

geostationary artificial earth satellite- an artificial satellite of the Earth, constantly located above a certain point on the earth's equator. It has a circular orbit, approximately 36,000 km away from the Earth's surface, and a period of revolution equal to a sidereal day (23 h 56 min 4 s); moving in... ... Encyclopedia of technology

FORECAST (artificial Earth satellite)- "PROGNOS", an artificial Earth satellite for studying solar activity, its influence on the Earth's magnetosphere, etc. In 1972 85, 10 "Prognoses" were launched in the USSR ... encyclopedic Dictionary

ELECTRON (artificial earth satellite)- "ELECTRON", an artificial satellite of the Earth, created in the USSR to study the radiation belts and the Earth's magnetic field. They were launched in pairs, one along a trajectory lying below and the other above the radiation belts. In 1964, 2 pairs of Electrons were launched ... encyclopedic Dictionary

PHOTON (artificial satellite of the Earth)- "PHOTON", a Russian artificial satellite of the Earth (launches since 1988) with equipment for obtaining semiconductor materials with improved properties and highly pure biologically active preparations under weightlessness, as well as studying ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Books

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• Flights into space, Elena Children's Publishing House. A fascinating story about astronautics. Little listeners will learn about milestones space exploration, about what is the first cosmic speed, how the rocket is arranged and what kind of engines it ...

We conducted an experiment: we asked our friends if they knew how many satellites the Earth has. Out of ten people, only one decided to clarify: “Which ones? Natural or artificial? The rest remembered that the Earth has a Moon satellite, and they heard about some others. To dispel doubts in this matter, Beautiful World I decided to tell you what satellites the Earth has and how they differ.

What is a satellite

A satellite is an object that revolves around another object in space along a specific trajectory. Depending on the origin, satellites are either natural or artificial.

The moon is a natural satellite of the earth

There are 2 most common theories about how natural satellites appear

The Moon is the only natural satellite of the Earth. Now this fact is generally recognized, but in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, astronomers constantly assumed that the Earth had other satellites.

Hypothetical natural satellites of the Earth

Quasi-satellites

What to see interesting about space

There are a lot of materials about space now that you can simply admire, even if you do not understand anything in this area. If you like space, then Beautiful World recommends watching:

Google Moon. You can examine the surface of the moon and find where the expeditions landed: https://www.google.com/intl/ru/moon/

NASA Gallery. Especially cool photo section of the day: https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html

Instagram NASA. Here they publish short videos with rocket launches, amazing photos and videos from space: https://www.instagram.com/nasa/

Roscosmos Instagram. There are also photos and videos from space, especially many beautiful photos of the Earth: https://www.instagram.com/roscosmosofficial/

Roscosmos television studio. News, popular science programs and videos in Russian: http://www.tvroscosmos.ru/

P.S. The article is popular science and is intended for beginners. Therefore, we have written it in simple language, leaving out complex terminology.

With wishes for memorable moonlit nights,

Anastasia Gorbunova.

The article was written for the Beautiful World.

The star system of the Milky Way galaxy in which we live includes the Sun and 8 other planets revolving around it. First of all, scientists are interested in studying the planets closest to the Earth. However, the satellites of the planets are also very interesting. What is a satellite? What are their types? Why are they so interesting for science?

What is a satellite?

A satellite is a small body that rotates around the planet under the influence of gravity. We currently know 44 such celestial bodies.

Satellites are absent only from the first two planets of our star system, Venus and Mercury. The earth has one satellite (the moon). The "Red Planet" (Mars) has 2 celestial bodies accompanying it - Deimos and Phobos. The most major planet Our star system - Jupiter - has 16 satellites. Saturn has 17, Uranus has 5, and Neptune has 2.

Satellite types

All satellites are divided into 2 types - natural and artificial.

Artificial - celestial bodies created by people, which open up the possibility of observing and exploring the planet, as well as other astronomical objects. They are necessary for mapping, weather forecasting, radio broadcasting of signals. The largest man-made "fellow traveler" of the Earth - (ISS). Artificial satellites are not only around our planet. Over 10 such celestial bodies revolve around Venus and Mars.

What is a natural satellite? They are created by nature itself. Their origin has always aroused the genuine interest of scientists. There are several theories, but let's focus on the official versions.

Near each planet there is an accumulation of cosmic dust and gases. The planet attracts celestial bodies that fly close to it. As a result of this interaction, satellites are formed. There is also a theory according to which fragments are separated from cosmic bodies colliding with the planet, which subsequently acquire a spherical shape. According to this assumption, there is a fragment of our planet. This is also confirmed by the similarity of the terrestrial and lunar chemical compositions.

Satellite orbits

There are 3 types of orbits.

The polar is inclined to the equatorial plane of the planet at a right angle.

The trajectory of the inclined orbit is displaced with respect to the equatorial plane by an angle less than 90 0 .

The equatorial (also called geostationary) is located in the same plane, along its trajectory the celestial body moves at the speed of the planet's rotation around its axis.

Also, the orbits of satellites in their shape are divided into two basic types - circular and elliptical. In a circular orbit, a celestial body moves in one of the planes of the planet with a constant distance above the surface of the planet. If the satellite moves in an elliptical orbit, this distance changes within the period of one revolution.

Natural satellites of the planets of the solar system: interesting facts

Saturn's moon Titan has its own dense atmosphere. On its surface there are lakes, which include liquid hydrocarbon compounds.

Following the USSR and the United States, satellites were launched by France (1965), Australia (1967), Japan (1970), China (1970) and Great Britain (1971).

The implementation is based on international scientific and technical cooperation. For example, countries friendly to the USSR carried out satellite launches from Soviet cosmodromes. Some satellites manufactured in Canada, France, and Italy have been launched since 1962 using launch vehicles developed by the United States.

What is a cosmic body rotating in orbit around a particular planet. By origin, they are natural and artificial. Of particular interest to the world community is the natural satellites of the planets, because they are still fraught with many mysteries, and most of them are still waiting to be discovered. There are projects for their study of private, state and world significance. Artificial satellites make it possible to solve applied and scientific problems both on the scale of an individual planet and the entire outer space.

Intelligent project partner

We publish the transcript and video of the lecture,whichwithin the framework of the project "Public Lectures" Polit.ru read by Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University, Senior Researcher at the State Astronomical Institute named after V.I. P. K. Sternberg (GAISH MSU), laureate of the Enlightener award in 2012 Vladimir Georgievich Surdin.

Lecture text

Good evening friends! This is my second time in this audience, and again, for some reason, we are talking about astronautics, although I am an astronomer, but we are turning to this topic, apparently because we came to visit Polit.ru, and astronautics - one way or another - is connected with politics. Basically, the conversation will be about the Moon, although also about artificial satellites, but first of all - about the Moon, so let's decide right away: is the Moon a satellite or not?

"Earth's natural satellite" - that's what they usually say about it. Indeed, it is small, look: almost four moons in diameter would fit on our Earth. At first glance, it is insignificant in mass, in size, in its role in space, but in reality it is not.

Let's compare it not with our Earth, but with other planets. Moon, Mercury and dwarf planet Ceres is all on the same scale. As you can see, the Moon in size and mass significantly exceeds all dwarf planets and is not very different from one of the classical planets - Mercury.

So, if the Moon lived alone, regardless of the Earth, we would consider it a very interesting planet, since it is an independent body with its own history, evolution, and we were just very lucky that the Earth captured the Moon in its gravitational captivity, and now we we can be near a new cosmic body in three days of flight. This is a great success, and, in my opinion, all great amateur astronomers are mainly engaged in looking at the moon. Professionals came out through this passion for observing the moon, and then their interests went further. In this sense, we are also lucky with the Moon.

Astronomers have not always had the opportunity to look at the Moon through a telescope, but even without a telescope we still see on the Moon - and only on the Moon - some kind of "geography". This is how the Moon is visible to our naked eye; if he, of course, is normal or has good glasses. Some details of the lunar surface are visible, but on no other planet we see anything at all with our eyes, we don’t even notice disks, but here we see some kind of geography. Maps of the Moon were made before the invention of the telescope; this is the end of the 16th, the very beginning of the 17th century. There is no telescope yet, but maps are already being created, because the geography of the Moon is visible to the eye; Of course, not very detailed, but still. And in this sense, it showed the prospect that there are other planets in space, not some incorporeal points, but natural planets. Great luck that the moon has always been in front of us.

What do we see from Earth? With good binoculars or a telescope of average quality, even a home-made one, you can already see a lot on the Moon: craters, mountain ranges, and seas - we traditionally call them “seas”, but, of course, we understand and have always understood that there is no water there . However, these are seas, just solidified lava seas, where volcanic lava once splashed or at least flowed, and today it is just a flat surface.

Take a good telescope. This is how the moon is seen good conditions, as a rule - not urban, but somewhere on a mountain observatory in a good professional telescope. It is a great pleasure, I must say, to look at the Moon through a telescope and like this - piece by piece - to wander around it. All night you can explore it. Moreover, more than one night, because the solar illumination changes from night to night, shadows fall differently, you see some new details on the Moon, and you want to get closer to them, take a closer look.

We put the eyepiece with a high magnification, “approach” the Moon, but we begin to notice that the sharpness of the image is lost, we don’t have the same sharpness as in the previous picture, although we seem to be closer to the Moon.

This famous detail on the Moon it is called the “Straight Wall”, it is such a drop, a geological step, it is 600 meters high. We would not have seen it in this picture, if not for the side light. The shadow falls far enough - about two kilometers ahead - and highlights this structure for us. Let's try to get even closer to the moon.

We are approaching, that is, we are setting a larger increase. This is how the Moon is perceived when magnified by 800-1000 times. Sharpness is lost almost completely. We do not notice any other details, smaller ones, we just inflated the image. So, there is some limit when observing through a telescope.

This is how you would see the Moon if you really looked through a telescope - the picture would constantly “breathe”, change, because the air in front of the telescope boils and distorts, smears the picture. Never in any telescope from the surface of the Earth do we see details on the Moon smaller than one kilometer. But since we do not clearly see the Moon from the Earth, it means that we must fly there and examine it closely.

Cosmonautics began, as is usually written about it, in 1957, when our first satellite flew. In fact, it started earlier. The first handicraft ballistic missile V-2 - broke out of the atmosphere in the late forties, even in the middle, when the Germans Wernher von Braun and his colleagues were conducting the first experiments with rockets. But these rockets were used only for combat purposes, for bombing, they did not carry any scientific load, but the rocket was created, the spacewalk took place.

After the war, these missiles went to the winners - to us and the Americans. And practical astronautics - domestic and American - began from that very moment. We first learned from the Germans, and then we ourselves and the Americans continued to develop astronautics. But here's what's interesting - before the moment it was actually born in our countries, journalists tried to get ahead of the process.

I recently came across the covers of this magazine “Knowledge is Power”, it was once read by many. Magazine 1954. Journalists tried to look 20 years ahead and see the world of the future as it would be reflected in the pages of this magazine, and they wrote on the cover "1974". And you guessed it: it was in the early 1970s that people actually flew to the moon. The journalists of “Knowledge is Power” in 1954 gave a very accurate forecast. In my opinion, this was the first and almost the last time in the history of Russian journalism when a forecast was given with an accuracy of almost a year: people will be on the Moon in the early 1970s. No Kennedy has yet spoken of anything, and the journalists have guessed what it will be; even satellites have not yet flown in space. Well, of course, the rocket, in the view of journalists, was so sharp-nosed, like a jet plane, because jet aircraft were then last word technology. Of course, it makes no sense to fly to the Moon in such rockets.

At the same time, in those same years, there were engineers who looked at this problem even deeper. Here little known name- Ari Sternfeld, a Polish Jew, worked in Europe, in France. And when the Germans occupied Europe, he moved to the Soviet Union, received asylum, but did not receive trust, and since he was not allowed to real secret cosmonaut developments, he worked at home. He very accurately saw the future of astronautics. Look, what an awkward contraption flies to the moon. But indeed, this is exactly how the flights to the Moon took place, by no means on sharp-nosed rockets, because in open space, in a vacuum, there is no need for streamlining. And, of course, no one has ever launched such flying lunar rovers, but it is possible that they will appear soon. So people definitely saw the future of astronautics.

Well, formally, she was born on October 4, 1957 - our first satellite, you know that. But here's what was somewhat unexpected: at the end of 1957, the first piece of terrestrial matter was in orbit around the Earth, just over a year passed - and already the first apparatus was sent to the moon.

And technically, this task is much more difficult: not the first, but the second cosmic speed must be developed, and this speed is one and a half times greater, twice as much energy - in general, much more difficult. However, they sent it. In those years, they did not know how to control the flight of spacecraft, in fact they were fired from the Earth and then watched how they fly along a ballistic trajectory, whether they hit or not, well - like a ball thrown by a basketball player into the ring: throw it - and see if it hits it or not .

Our first apparatus did not hit the Moon - the Americans did not hit the first either - it flew not far from the Moon, by the way, it had a device - a magnetometer, it proved that the Moon does not have a magnetic field, then it was important. Having flown past the Moon, the device went into orbit around the Sun and began to move approximately in the orbit of the Earth - it became a satellite of the Sun. It is interesting how precisely the ideologists of those years worked: they immediately renamed it - from the "Moon" it became the "First Artificial Planet Dream", as if it had been conceived: they say, we wanted to launch the planet. Anyway, it was an interesting technical experiment.

But now our second lunar lander hit the moon. In those days say: "He fell into the Sea of ​​Rains." In fact, to be precise, he fell into the Swamp of Rot, well, that's the terminology of astronomers. We all call dark spots on the Moon, on other planets, some wet types of names: ocean, sea, swamp. Well, here he ended up in the Swamp of Rotting, which was immediately renamed - it became Lunnik Bay. This is a historic flight, the first time we touched another planet with our mechanical arm. Well - how touched? Of course, it crashed into the surface at a high speed - 2 kilometers per second - and ceased to exist, but I wanted to leave something, I wanted to convey something historical to the Moon. What did they bring?

But first, look at how people in those years learned about these technical achievements? It's curious - stamps. Ordinary postage stamps, which were glued to the envelope, each of us glued them almost every day. It was the most widely distributed printed matter, look how accurately the orbit of the moon is shown, the moment of launch, where the moon was when the rocket took off from the earth, where it ended up when the rocket approached it. That is, this popular science micro-product in a huge number of copies immediately fell into the hands of the inhabitants of the country, and immediately everyone understood that this was a great technical success.

But what did he bring to the moon? It was necessary somehow to save at least something, to leave some kind of memorial sign on the moon. This sign was the coat of arms Soviet Union. This is such a plate, there really is the coat of arms of the USSR. Balls were collected from these plates. Why was it designed in the form of a ball? It was a nice technical move to solve the problem of how to save. The fact is that this ball is actually a bomb, a small grenade, there are explosives. When the device flew up to the moon, this thing exploded. For what?

It would seem that you are already crashing into the Moon at great speed, why even blow it up ... In fact, there was a beautiful idea. At the time of the explosion, some of these plates were directed towards the Moon and crashed into it with even greater speed, and, of course, evaporated, but other plates oriented away from the Moon were slowed down by this explosion and hit the Moon at a lower speed, so there is hope that they have been preserved.

Calculations show that they have been preserved, so there are probably several dozen of these historical coats of arms on the Moon now, and this is probably a great value for collectors, for museums. It makes sense to look for them in the Swamp of Rotting, maybe you can find them.

The most interesting, of course, was the third lunar, in my opinion, this is generally a fantastic thing. The Americans in those years were our only rivals in astronautics, but they did not even think about such an experiment, and we did it, and unexpectedly for everyone. This is a photograph of the far side of the moon. The same 1959 year, fantastic, 2 years have passed since the launch of the first artificial satellite, and have already flown around the moon to photograph its reverse side. Why do I consider this the most outstanding experiment in the entire history of astronautics? Because we can see a lot, almost everything with a telescope: telescopes are getting better and better, we can see further and further. The only thing we can't see in principle is the other side of the moon. Whatever telescope there is on Earth, we cannot look at the other side. So, it was necessary to fly there.

And so he flew. Flew around the moon, oriented, photographed. How did he photograph her? There were no electronic cameras then. He photographed it on film, an ordinary old celluloid film. Then it was, of course, a modern film. Showed it there. By the way, the physical size of this device is slightly smaller than it is now on the screen: about a meter, such a barrel.

There he showed it, fixed it, if anyone remembers the meaning of these processes. And, flying back past the Earth, he transmitted by radio, line by line, these frames were read, transmitted them to Earth in the radio range. Of course the map is terrible. But still, for the first time we saw the far side of the moon. My colleagues here at the Sternberg Institute deciphered it and represented the far side of the moon.

And again the brand became a propagandist of our space achievements. It was immediately reflected: how he flew, how he shot.

And the next stamp showed what he took off - the first map of the far side of the moon. And now you see the most noticeable spot ... In general, there are few seas, there are no large ones at all, but there are small ones. The Sea of ​​Moscow appeared, although there was no such tradition in astronomy - to name something on the surface of other planets after cities. But we were the authors of this discovery and had the right to do so. So there is the Sea of ​​Moscow on the Moon. But the beautiful name is "Sea of ​​​​Dreams", the crater "Tsiolkovsky". And here is the ridge "Soviet". In these, frankly, low-quality photographs, something like a mountain range resembled - and now they called it the “Soviet Range”. Years passed, they took better pictures, they made sure that there was no ridge there, and the Soviet ridge disappeared from the maps of the Moon, and then the Soviet Union also disappeared; just some kind of mysticism with this lunar map.

The far side of the Moon is still a mystery, there has never been a man or an automaton there, and in fact it is unexplored, but we see that it is very different from the visible side facing the Earth. The reason for this difference is not yet clear.

This is what the far side of the moon looks like, these are already good modern pictures. For some reason, there are no large lava seas on it, and there never were - a mystery.

The next stage of flights to the Moon is an artificial satellite of the Moon. The first was also our Soviet Luna-10. Why was it important to launch a satellite? When it flies and you follow its movement, you understand how the gravitational field of the Moon works. And it turned out that it is very complicated, much more complicated than the earthly one. The terrestrial field is very flat, but the lunar field is so bumpy. There are areas in the lunar crust with a high concentration, density of matter, we call them mascons from the English mass concentration. And they attract more strongly than the surrounding areas, so the satellite flies in a wavy orbit and sometimes dives quite deep to the surface, attracted by the mascons, and in this sense it was important to understand how future astronauts should behave there in this lunar gravitational field.

Here is our first satellite, then the Americans found out this matter even more precisely. The first Soviet satellite of the Moon also had an ideological load. There was a music box that played the Internationale. The fact is that when he went into orbit around the moon, the next congress of the CPSU, the 23rd, opened. And at the moment of opening there was an announcement: "Now our messenger will greet us from the orbit of the Moon." I was watching TV at the time. All six thousand people in the Palace of Congresses stood up and listened to the International beeping one note at a time. In general, everything was done with an ideological load correctly.

During these years - the mid-1960s - the Americans began to catch up with us and get ahead of us. Kennedy said, "We must be first on the moon," and a very serious technical race began. Their devices were the first to fly up to the surface of the moon and transmitted it appearance. This is a series of Ranger vehicles, they just crashed into the Moon, without braking, at a speed of 2 kilometers per second, but before that they transmitted what they see with a television camera; the last frames were from a height of several hundred meters. And it was already possible to even see small pebbles on the surface of the moon, it was interesting. Not all of them succeeded, of course. They had such a lander, it crashed, it didn't work, but they took pictures.

The next step was to land on the moon. And here too - who before? Previously, Soviet engineers succeeded, mainly due to the number of attempts. About a dozen of our spacecraft crashed on the moon, but one still landed softly. It was not easy to organize a soft landing in the absence of on-board computers. There were no compact computers then, and everything was decided by mechanical tricks. Here is the lander, it is small, a little more than half a meter in size. A bubble was inflated around him, six meters in diameter, a ball like that, and he jumped in this ball, hitting the moon, and stopped. Then the ball deflated, opened up - and an egg-shaped structure rolled out of it.

Her heaviness was at the bottom, so she oriented herself like a roly-poly, her petals opened, she began to work. And for the first time we saw the surface of the moon as a person standing on it would see it. This real photo the lunar surface, and an image of the lander is stuck on top of it. First there was Luna-9, then Luna-13. It was great, it just shocked everyone that, at last, exploration of the lunar surface with the hands of an automaton began.

But the Americans quickly overtook us and overtook us. They put advanced robots of the "Surveyor" series there. This, of course, was an essential step: he is jet-powered, on his feet. Turning on the engine, he could jump, change his place. A mechanical hand scraped the ground, there was a TV camera, and most importantly, solar panels. We had accumulators, our devices did not work for long, but this one, eating sunlight, worked for quite a long time and carried out detailed studies. It was finally proved that the Moon is ready to receive astronauts.

Why were there doubts about this? Some qualified astronomers believed that the Moon was covered with a thick layer of dust, and anyone who tried to land there would simply drown in it. Indeed, one could think so, because the Moon is constantly processed by micrometeorites, the soil is loosened, a layer of dust could accumulate over billions of years, but, fortunately, it did not turn out to be thick. By the way, none of you asked me: who photographed this robot? He didn't photograph himself. Where did his real picture on the moon come from? Be patient - I'll tell you!

Let's skip some stages and finish with the robots. As you know, we did not succeed in launching people to the moon, but with robots we explored it quite well. Here are two lunar rovers that we successfully landed on the surface of the moon. We left the landing platforms and drove several tens of kilometers, exploring it as best we could. Although in themselves all lunar rovers are very interesting, powerful machines, they are about the size of a car, weighing almost 900 kilograms, but there were almost no scientific instruments on them. There was a small soil analyzer, the electronics of those years simply did not allow otherwise. Look: three television cameras, each of them weighs more than 10 kg - this is the level of electronics of those years. Today our TV camera weighs 2-3 grams, cell phone there are several of them. Things were a little more complicated back then.

Until recently, I was proud, and continue to be proud of our lunar rover, because it surpassed the planetary rovers that were created after it. Here is our lunar rover, and I specially drew it on the same scale next to the American rover - until recently, they were inferior both in mass and in size. Last year, the last Curiosity rover landed on Mars, and it is slightly larger in mass than our lunar rover, weighing 900 kilograms on Earth. So the lunar rover as a platform for scientific research still very promising. Modern scientific equipment could be put on it, it could still work on the Moon, maybe someday this will be realized.

The last thing we did successfully was to bring soil samples from the Moon in automatic execution. These are the drilling machines that landed on the Moon, drilled the soil, lifted it, packed it into the return vehicle, a small, very tiny rocket was launched from the Moon. And the ball flew to the Earth on a parachute and brought about 100-120 grams of lunar soil. All this in automatic mode, and it turned out in those years, although the electronics were weak, but somehow the engineers worked miracles without it.

Race. Of course, the race was not between automata, but between human flights. In those years, this was perceived as the main achievement in astronautics - human flight. Automata - this, in general, was considered something of a minor nature. Human hands, human eyes were important. Today, of course, this is no longer the case: today automatons see better people. But then it was like that. We didn’t focus on the race, I don’t remember that in those years they wrote that we were competing with the Americans. Everything was clear in the Soviet Union: we were the first in space, there were no competitors. But the Americans believed that they could get ahead of us - and they did. To do this, it was necessary to create a powerful rocket.

It is clear that manned flight to the moon and back requires a very powerful rocket; both we and the Americans tried to do it. They succeeded. The Saturn-5 rocket was made according to the ideas of the same Wernher von Braun, who was the father of experimental astronautics. Of course, he was not the only one who created it, but he was the ideologist of this work. And the rocket turned out to be extremely successful: none of its launches ended in disaster. As far as I know, there has never been such a thing in the history of astronautics. None new rocket Didn't fly the first time if I'm not mistaken...

Question from the floor: How many launches were there?

Surdin: You see, in this configuration, in the lunar one, there were about 12 launches, there were other configurations, without the second stage, sometimes even without the first ... Well, different. But everything was perfect. The fact is that the Americans had a large experimental base, they were able to throw a lot of money on Earth and work out all the thin places - and then launch it, being sure that it would fly.

We had a slightly different approach, our rockets were made like this: we do, we do, we do, we launch, we launch, they crash, they crash, we find out why - in the end we bring it to mind. When you make a large series of missiles for the military, this is probably a normal approach; when you make a unique missile, this is not a normal approach, but we had no other way.

Here is our competitor - the N-1 rocket, it was made by the Korolev design bureau, it is also gigantic, like Saturn-5, next to it they would be just like twin brothers. Look, these are people, do you see the scale of this case? It’s fantastic, of course, that in a country devastated by the war they managed to do something like that ... It didn’t fly, well, there wasn’t enough money, strength, and so on for everything, but it was created.

On the technical side, these missiles were arranged differently. The mass is the same - 3 thousand tons, the height is the same - 110 meters, but the Americans managed to create powerful engines.

These first stage engines are so powerful that only 5 of them can push the rocket up. We did not have such powerful ones, and we were forced to put 30 pieces on the first stage, relatively low-power ones.

Here is Wernher von Braun, already at the end of his life, his famous F-1 engines, which just ensured the success of the Saturn-5 rocket.

Question from the floor: What about the causes of the explosion of the N-1 rocket?

Surdin: There were many reasons, but first of all, as far as I understand the situation, this was the inability to control a large number of engines in a coordinated manner, then there were not yet good enough electronics to be able to coordinate the operation of such a complex, 5 engines are easier to control than 30.

Later, we managed to create a rocket of the same caliber, this is the Energiya rocket. It was already at the end of Soviet power and after the end of the "moon race", so this rocket had no sense for lunar flights, although it was about the same in power as Saturn-5.

Saturn rockets launched from Cape Canaveral, then it was Cape Kennedy, in Florida, this is the Atlantic coast, they all fly there and still, when they fly away towards the Atlantic, the first steps fall into the water. The rocket assembly was carried out vertically in a large assembly building, ...

42 He took her to the launch site, to the launch pad, from here the rocket took off.

I have already said that all systems have been tested many times, including the astronaut rescue system. Such systems are on all rockets that transport people - on ours, on American ones. The cockpit is right here - on the nose of the rocket, and above it there is still a small solid-state rocket, which, in which case, if the launch fails, it rips off the cockpit with people and carries it away. There were tests, but in reality this system was not used by the Americans, but we used it: on our Soyuz it saved the lives of two cosmonauts, so this is an important system.

July 1969 - the first flight ... I jump over some episodes, after all, we are not only talking about technology today, but in general about this area of ​​​​research. There were preliminary flights around the Earth, around the Moon, and finally a flight to the Moon, July 69 - the first attempt to land on the surface of the Moon.

In general, astronautics is an amazing direction in technology, incomparable to anything. Look, this thing - 3 thousand tons, one hundred meters tall, is filled with absolutely cold explosive fuel, minus 250 degrees - liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and here a plasma torch hits much larger than the rocket itself, here it is almost 3 thousand degrees, here this is a neighborhood that does not always end ... you know, the Americans killed the Shuttle precisely because the fuel tanks burned out. All in all, a fantastic building.

When people talk about flights to the moon, they always think of Jules Verne, and I can't help but think of him too. Look, his novel From the Cannon to the Moon, this is one of the illustrations taken from the novel, a projectile in which they were shot there from a cannon. And this is real spaceship"Apollo", which flew to the moon. The dimensions are the same, the shape is the same, the weight is almost the same, the crew - here 3 people flew to the moon, and in Jules Verne's novel, three people also flew, but they also had a dog with them, and real astronauts did not took the dog.

The return to Earth also took place according to Jules Verne - both in the novel and in reality, the apparatus, returning, fell into Pacific Ocean, and almost in the same place. How Jules Verne guessed all this, one can only marvel.

This is how the Apollo ship looks like - here is the cockpit, the scale is observed, they barely fit there, there is very little free space. Next is a compartment with equipment for the flight, fuel tanks, an engine ... And this is a ship for landing on the moon. The Apollo ship itself cannot land, it flies to the moon, goes into orbit and waits for the astronauts. They land on this unit on the Moon, work there, sleep, eat, rest in this cabin, then, leaving the lower part on the Moon - it is no longer needed - they take off from the Moon in this upper cabin, dock with the main ship and on they are already returning to Earth. This is how the flight was organized. By the way, the first idea of ​​such a shuttle for landing and taking off from the Moon belongs to our engineer Kondratyuk, he developed it even before the war, and the Americans knew about it, read his books, and this idea was embodied by them.

Question from the floor: They don’t sit there in the fetal position, as in our Soviet ones?

Surdin: Almost in the same position, well, a little freer ... Soyuz is an even tighter ship, where you need to press your knees to your chin, here, in Apollo, there is still a little more space, after all, they fly to the moon for 3 days . But not much freer, almost the same pose. This pose is chosen not so much because of space savings, it is simply the most rational when overloading. I once sat alone in the cockpit of the Soyuz, it was cramped for me alone, and there sometimes three people fly in spacesuits.

Question from the floor: The Americans launched their Saturn, and then in orbit they did a re-docking of the module, turned it over, this is technically, in my opinion, a very complicated thing for the late 60s. How and why did they do it?

Surdin: Why - this is understandable: the astronauts' cabin must be on top of the rocket, otherwise you will not pull it off with the rescue system. Therefore, without options, the astronauts' cabin is always at the top. And everything else is under it. But the flight to the Moon must take place in such a way that they can pass at the Moon into this landing compartment, and they can only pass through this throat. So the Apollo spacecraft had to undock from the last stage of the rocket, turn around, fly up to it with its nose again and pull out this unit that was sitting under it during the launch from the Earth. Otherwise it was impossible to solve the problem, and that's what they did. Dockings in orbit around the Earth were already mastered then, they mastered them - on purpose, they launched an imitation of a lunar ship, a rocket, then they learned to dock with this lunar ship in Earth orbit without flying to the Moon, they learned - and flew.

Lunar ship - you see, these are two rockets: one rocket for landing, the other for taking off from the moon, here are engines and fuel, and here are engines and fuel, there is very little space, people are standing there.

Here is the cockpit of the lunar apparatus, the commander's seat, the co-pilot's seat, there is nothing to sit on, look: ...

Armstrong is standing at the control panel, the only thing to help him is rubber suspenders, they pull him by the spacesuit to the ceiling in order to somehow control him so that he does not hang out there. In general, there is nowhere to sit, you can only stand.

But still, you need to rest. So they flew to the moon, a day or two, to sleep somehow, you need to rest there. The first crews got out of this situation like this: one sat down at the feet, the other sat on the engine casing, here is the engine for taking off from the moon, and so they tried to sleep while sitting. They weren't allowed to take off their suit because there was a fear that a small meteorite would pierce the plating, the plating was very thin, aluminum, and then the air would quickly escape. In general, it was almost impossible to sleep there, in such a position, and even without taking off the spacesuits, in a helmet, the first crew did not sleep. But then the problem was solved.

Here, you see, hammocks were invented for them, one is pulled like this, the other is perpendicular, sleeping bags are on them. The next crews spent 2-3 days on the Moon, they were more comfortable. They were allowed to take off their helmets, after all, a helmet can be quickly put on, but a spacesuit is not.

At that time, lunar ships were also being created in our country. The N-1 rocket itself, but it was also necessary to make a ship for a flight to the moon. Here is our lunar ship, you will recognize it, this is our beloved Soyuz, on which all our cosmonauts have been flying for several decades. In fact, this is a lunar ship, it was created for flights around the moon and landing on the moon. Since our N-1 rocket was a little weaker than the American Saturn-5, we could not send three people to the Moon, we could only send two. Two people had to fly to the moon, and then it was necessary to land on the moon on something.

Were different variants domestic lunar module, settled on this. Since two fly up to the moon, and one must remain guarding the ship flying around the moon, only one person could land on the moon. This one and the first was supposed to be Leonov, and for the rest of his life he is sad that he did not manage to land. Although we did not make a rocket, our lunar ship turned out to be successful, it was tested, it flew around the Earth.

Of course, it is a little adventurous: the Americans had two engines - one for landing, the other for taking off from the moon.

And on our lunar module there was one - both for landing and for takeoff. It was very dangerous to run it for the second time. But there was no other option.

If we and the Americans were side by side on the Moon, then these two vehicles would look like this side by side. American Lunnik and our Lunnik. There are two people in the cabin, we have one, and in general this one is somehow more massive, more serious, ours is easier. If there was a rocket, they would probably send this ship to the moon.

This one was chosen as the first crew to land on the Moon. They are all three experienced astronauts, let's say Grissom has been in space many times. In general, the coolest crew at that time. But they were out of luck. They were still on Earth, during training, being in the cabin of the Apollo, they died. The fact is that in order to simplify the air regeneration system, the Americans chose the simplest option - pure oxygen. That is, the cabin was filled at low pressure - three times less than the earth - with pure oxygen. But we know that everything burns in oxygen.

And there was just a spark, and they burned to the ground in 40-45 seconds, the hatch was very awkwardly arranged, it did not open right away. burned in pure oxygen. After that, there was a break in the American program for a year, they improved the ship, and this crew actually turned out to be the first on the Moon: ...

Armstrong and Aldrin went to the surface, and Collins was the pilot of the main unit, who did not land on the Moon, but waited for them in orbit.

This is how astronauts landed on the moon. By the way, they stumbled on the same thing that Leonov once stumbled on. I already mentioned him, Leonov is the man who first went into outer space. After he got out of the Voskhod ship, he could not quickly return back, because in the vacuum his spacesuit swelled up, and Leonov no longer entered the hatch.

It was only thanks to his remarkable physical strength that he squeezed himself into this hatch and was able to return. The Americans stumbled on the same thing, when in lunar conditions, and there is also a vacuum, in a spacesuit, and even with a life support pack, an astronaut tried to crawl into this square hatch, and crawl through there, kneeling and moving backwards. He didn't pass. It's good that there was a second crew member inside the cabin, he helped him. In general, passed.

The lunar ship is quite large, and it has a solid cargo compartment in the lower part - the trunk. The Americans carried scientific equipment there, in the first flights there was not much of it, but then more and more it became from time to time, the cargo became heavier, that is, they no longer took too much fuel. We learned to manage with a small amount, to sit down quickly.

The first flight of Apollo 11 was simple - sit down, stomp and fly away. Prove you've been to the moon. Therefore, they did not have a large scientific program. There was such a sheet for collecting cosmic particles of the solar wind, ...

... there was a very important device - they left it on the moon - a seismograph; almost every expedition brought its own seismograph to the Moon, these seismographs worked there for several years, recorded moonquakes, and now we more or less know the structure of the lunar interior.

65 And there was another very important device, each expedition brought it to the moon, it was a reflector of laser light.

In fact, it is a set of a large number of glass prisms, which are made in such a way that no matter where a ray of light falls on them, it is reflected in the same direction from which it came. This is necessary so that we from the Earth can produce laser ranging of the Moon, which astronomers have been doing for 40 years.

Here is a telescope, a laser beam shoots at the Moon, light falls ... On our moon rovers, by the way, there were also such ones, a little less than American ones. They are still working there: what will happen to them!? The laser beam is reflected, comes back, the telescope fixes it. Light travels back and forth for three seconds, and today we measure the distance to the Moon with an accuracy of one centimeter by the time of travel - fantastic! This is very interesting for the study of the Moon, and for the study of the Earth, and for the study of how the Moon moves relative to the Earth, and, perhaps, even a gravitational wave detector can be created on this principle.

Here is perhaps the most famous of the photographs of the first expedition, they had one camera for two, Armstrong wore it on himself, on his chest, so mostly in the photographs of Aldrin, you see, his name is written on his spacesuit, because the faces are something not visible, a protective shield is pulled over the face, reflecting light. But thanks to this shield, we see a lot.

First, Armstrong himself is standing with a camera, the lunar module, the Moon, all the instruments are visible. And a few years ago, one of the amateurs, enthusiasts of astronautics, a young American guy, saw this blue dot, it turned out that this is reflected by the Earth. By the way, it seemed incredible to me - such a luck of this picture - and I checked, calculated the angles, indeed - the Earth is reflected!

The suit is a rather heavy thing; on Earth it would be simply impossible to walk in it. You see - a life support system, a transmitter, all kinds of batteries and so on, but on the Moon the gravity is 6 times less than on Earth, so it's quite easy to walk in such a spacesuit; however, although easy, but inconvenient! The fact is that your spacesuit is inflated from the inside, and there is emptiness on the outside, and, for example, to squeeze a hand in a glove, you need great male strength. The glove is almost inflated like a car tube. And when you work a lot, it takes a lot of effort. I read reports - by the end of the second day of work in a spacesuit, the astronauts were bleeding from under their nails. It was very difficult. The gloves are the most annoying part of the suit.

Cameras - why did they have one for two? Cameras in those years were very clumsy and large. They fastened it on the chest, look at this picture: a huge contraption, not like the current ones! And it was also necessary to change cassettes in these gloves - sometimes with color, then with black and white film - to focus, set the aperture, if anyone remembers what it is. There was no automation, the apparatus was good, the Hasselblad; in general, the camera was quite difficult to work with.

What else can be noted here? Well, for example, here it is - on the sleeve of the spacesuit. What do you think it is? This is a cheat sheet, a small notebook, the plastic pages of which could be flipped over. For what? There the whole program of work was written down. In order not to waste time, do everything that is planned on the machine. Well, the clock is there, and everything you need.

This is what the spacesuit actually looks like. Those white hoodies that we see in the pictures are just from the sun's rays, from dust. But in reality, the spacesuit - here it is, it bends rather badly, it has completely metal parts, on the legs, and only on the joints it, in general, somehow bends, but it performs its functions. True, not always. For example, there was a drinking system, tubes from which you could suck water and orange juice, and so, once the system splashed orange juice so that it flooded the entire dome, and a person had to work for several hours all in orange juice, not very pleasant, probably, because there is nothing to wipe. But still managed. There were no problems with the spacesuits, not a single spacesuit has ever let me down.

And the third member of the crew at that time was flying around the moon, he was here in the cabin, and here he had some kind of scientific equipment, he was conducting experiments and taking photographs. After the flights of the Apollos, beautiful photographs of the far side of the moon appeared.

Here, by the way, is our favorite Tsiolkovsky crater, and it is very nice photos- you can see a lot of things on them.

For example, on the Moon they found such valleys, but in fact - channels along which something once flowed. What flowed and when it flowed is incomprehensible, well, maybe the lava flowed ... This depression, you can see from the shadow, the crater and the depression, you see how the shadow falls.

Question from the floor: Why is the crater round?

Surdin: Blow up any thing on Earth - you get a round funnel. From meteorite impacts, yes.

Question from the floor: Do meteorites fall tangentially?

Surdin: They fall at different angles and explode on impact. You actually get a point source of energy. But the question is good. There are several elliptical craters: apparently, the impact was so tangential that it nevertheless threw the substance forward. There are several such craters, but they are few. But mostly round craters are obtained at different angles of incidence. Bombs also fall at different angles to the ground, and the craters from them are round. This is a point source of energy.

As you can see, the tracks in the dust are not deep, there were no problems. In any case, the astronauts did not drown there. Although there were problems with dust. You can even see them in this picture. Look, the lower part of the legs is dark, you will see in the rest of the photos, the dust turned out to be very sticky on the Moon, it is electrified by the sun's rays and ultraviolet, it sticks to everything and behaves rather nasty. Returning to their apparatus in spacesuits, the astronauts brought lunar dust there, and then sneezed and coughed from it. Do you see dusty feet? But the layer is small - 10-15 centimeters maximum.

It was easy to move around, carrying weights was relatively easy. Here comes a man, carrying two instruments at the ends of the crossbar. But still, you can't walk long distances. Therefore, in the following expeditions, Apollo 14, 15, 16 and 17, there were already vehicles, they no longer walked on foot.

Here is the second expedition, its episode - "Apollo 12". For the first time, a man met on an alien planet with his robot, who had previously flown here. Here is the answer to the question: who photographed the "Surveyor"? Here's who took the photo. They landed next to the robot, which flew there a few years earlier, there is a crater, they walked around and met the device there. For what? To see how he feels after a few years on the moon. They removed some details from it, brought them to Earth, and it became clear how different materials behave in lunar conditions.

Well, Apollo 14 has already received a wheelbarrow - this is a cart on wheels, and they could already carry instruments and collected soil samples on it. True, they say that it was not very convenient to roll this wheelbarrow, and they later abandoned it.

Well, here you see how, leaving their spacecraft, the astronauts leave traces of the wheelbarrow and their feet.

Just in case, emergency communications could be arranged between the suits. If the life support system of one of them failed, the suits could be connected, and one's satchel could provide breathing for two. But of course this is an emergency. It wouldn't be long enough. They carried this hose with them, but they never used it - the suits did not disappoint.

The last three flights were with this electric car: small, quite comfortable, two seats, batteries, cameras, navigation system. And on it they could already travel tens of kilometers on the Moon.

They took a parade photo before the flight. Pay attention to the large wings - it's clear why they are needed - so that moon dust does not fly.

Just before takeoff, astronauts and their electric car are already being tested in full uniform.

It is curious that it is collapsible - before the flight it is folded, in the form of such a large suitcase it turns out and is pressed against the board, against the side surface of the lunar ship. And then unfolds on the moon.

It's easy on the Moon, and there you can even jump in this heavy spacesuit. You see, this is Tom Young jumping, here his legs come off 55-60 centimeters upwards from the lunar surface. This is the maximum that you can afford in such a heavy suit.

I know some people get suspicious when they look at these pictures. It's clear what I mean, right? The flag flutters on the moon - yeah, a Hollywood shoot. I have two slides in store for this, let's take a look. The flag flutters, the astronaut is standing here. And here is the next frame, look: the astronaut is standing there, saluting, saluting the flag, but for some reason the flag does not flutter. Now some will say: "It's good that the Americans faked the footage!" - but in fact, all the talk about a fake, eggs are not worth a damn. People were on the moon, people worked there, and there was no point in wasting money on a fake when you could fly to the real moon.

The lunar mobile did a good job, never failed, but once there was a story with it that taught the astronauts something. About her - a little later.

The last landings were in areas with complex geography, in mountainous areas. Of course, the first Apollos - 11, 12, 14 - landed in flat places, and then, having already mastered this technique, they began to send them to the mountainous area, where it is much more interesting for geologists to study the Moon. Here, let's say, this riverbed-like valley (when you are already standing on the surface of the moon), Hadley Valley, it looks like this. They have been there too.

And they also found themselves in mountainous regions.

There are three electric vehicles left on the moon today. With them back to Earth, of course, no one took them. They are in full readiness - fly in, charge the batteries and you can use them.

95 The only time there was a problem with the lunar mobile. Look: this wing is long, it goes down far, but this one, you see, is short, something is clearly missing here. And it’s not enough because the wing broke off: when they were taking it off the ship and laying out the electric car, they hit it with a wing, and a piece broke off. They tried to drive without it, but the dust was thrown so hard on the astronauts, on the equipment, that they were told from Earth that an electric car could not be used. But the calculation was just that he would help the astronauts travel on the moon.

96 And so they did not sleep all night - and they came up with: they tore off the cover from the logbook, pasted it with tape, screwed it to the rest of the wing with some kind of clamp, and thus drove 35 kilometers. At the very end of the path, she just fell off when we literally drove back. So they fulfilled their mission. Since then, the instructions for astronauts have a point: when you go to the moon, do not forget the tape. He helped them out a lot. I wonder who put him in the ship at all and for what purpose - it was necessary to reward this person.

97 The last expedition was the most interesting. The tasks went on increasing: both complexity, and severity, and the mass of samples brought from the Moon. In the last expedition - "Apollo 17" - the first and in last time Geologist Schmitt visited the moon. Before that, pilots flew. Naturally, they are good with technology, but the geologist has finally begun to walk and collect what geologists need.

98 In general, the scientific gathering was organized very competently. Samples were collected documented. That is, a pole was put up so that you could see how the sunlight falls at the time of collection, a light mark for white balance (now this is all done in the machine, then it was impossible). It was almost impossible to lift a stone in such a spacesuit (look, equipment here, equipment there), bend down - it was almost impossible. Therefore, the stones were lifted with a special grip - a scoop. Then it was necessary to put it without looking with your hand in this little bag, in a bag, and so on. Everyone did this - and enough rich scientific material was brought from the Moon. It is still being studied.

99 The most interesting stone was this one. Schmitt found it. This is a rock, a piece was chipped off from it - and it turned out that this is the oldest sample that fell into the hands of geologists. It is over four billion years old.

For those who are interested in flying to the moon, I strongly advise you to go to NASA sites. There, every step, every second is documented for each flight - in photographs, in negotiations, in transcripts of negotiations, everything is laid out in detail and you can just, as it were, make their wonderful flights with these people.

100 And that's why I'm showing this frame. Journalists, of course, are not very good at science, but pulling out some fried things is yes. For example, this frame became very popular because of this. When the pictures were re-photographed many times, they ended up in the newspapers with too much contrast. In this picture, it seems that something sharp-nosed or the edge of some kind of flying saucer is sticking out from behind the mountain. There was a lot of speculation about this, that, they say, the astronauts did not notice the flying saucer base there, which was watching them, and so on and so forth.

101 When we read all this here in the Soviet press, I just went (we have a collection of good copies of these pictures), took another slide, taken in a different light - well, you can see the slope of the mountain there, the second mountain, the third, the fourth in different ways illuminated by the sun. It's just that the dark place merges with the sky. And it didn't take much to expose it all. But no one somehow tried to expose, on the contrary, they supported these ducks.

102 I really like this shot, which shows the loneliness of people on the moon. Two people on the whole planet. And in general, we would have one Leonov walking on the moon, one! But they are two, but also a small company. No chance for help. It was not possible to send any rescue expedition there, everything was limited - air and water supplies. Absolutely everything is painted step by step. And it's certainly great that not a single person died on the moon, everyone returned. Well, there were troubles, you know, Apollo 13 didn't make it to the moon, but they came back alive anyway. More precisely, he flew to the Moon, circled it and returned to Earth without landing.

103 So the expedition ends. They take off in this, as they call it, flying wardrobe (two people are standing there - and that's it, there is no more room). And the rocket engine is working behind the wall. Docked with the ship, returned to Earth.

104 Returned as usual, flying into the atmosphere. Well, as the astronauts always return, only with greater speed.

Then parachutes and fall into the Pacific Ocean. There they are picked up - the aircraft carrier is already on duty at the proposed landing site.

They are helped to get out - you see, in a cage they are lifted into a helicopter and taken aboard an aircraft carrier.

The first expeditions, returning from the moon, did not immediately fall into the arms of relatives. The fact is that there was no certainty that the moon was completely sterile. There was a very small chance, but still it remained, that there are lunar microorganisms on the Moon, and that we can bring them to Earth. Therefore, when the astronauts returned, they were right there, here, Apollo 11, right there in the helicopter, they were dressed in biological protection suits - and straight into the camera.

And they quarantined in this chamber for three weeks to make sure that they would not bring anything from the Moon to Earth. You see, Nixon - the president of those years - greets them, and they are sitting - Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin - locked in this cell.

Here they are in this cage.

There, of course, it is comfortable, better than it was in the Apollo spacecraft, but not by much.

And they were taken around the states and everyone welcomed them in this bank, but after Apollo 12 it became clear that the Moon was lifeless, and that astronauts could be released without quarantine.

Here are all the moon landing sites: these are American, and the red ones are ours. Ours are machine guns, American ones are machine guns and people. As you can see, more or less the entire visible part, the visible hemisphere of the Moon - well, not mastered, of course, but at least preliminary studied. No one has been on the other side yet.

After the end of the American and our programs, somewhere after 1973, there were many plans for further exploration of the Moon, but these plans were not implemented.

There were even fantastic plans - cities on the moon! But it didn't work out.

Why did the Americans stop their program? They had two ships ready. And these ships - yes, they were, but I think that a large number of so small technical problems, which were still in every Apollo - they told the engineers that sooner or later there would be a serious problem. And while everything is going well, we must stop here, so as not to stumble seriously and not lose people in space. And, in my opinion, they achieved both a public result and a resonance around the world, and did not seriously stumble anywhere - so everything was calculated correctly. The remaining ships were used - "Skylab" flew, this is a station, in fact, "Apollo" in orbit around the Earth. So they used expensive equipment.

It was only in the mid-1990s that flights to the Moon resumed, but now these are only automatic machines. American, European, Japanese, Indian, Chinese satellites flew around the moon. In addition to ours, it seems that everyone flew.

The Japanese brought wonderful shots from there, transmitted, it was possible to turn on the Japanese television channel - and in live watch how they fly.

Well, there are many different devices, we will not dwell on them.

The most advanced - this one, it still flies - is the American "lunar reconnaissance aircraft". It has great optics...

…modern maps of the moon were made. He re-photographed the entire moon, including the landing sites.

Here is the landing site of Apollo 11 - historical. We remember that they were not far away here. This is the map that the astronauts themselves drew when they returned. They did not move far from the landing site, but once Armstrong ran 60 meters away (here is his path) and photographed such a panorama: here is his shadow, a ship and a small crater. And these days, already, in 2009, the lower landing part of the ship and this crater, where Armstrong stood next to him, were photographed from orbit.

Apollo 12… Remember, I showed you this shot of how they went to their robot? Here is the place. Here they sat down, the robot is here, they passed here and met with him. Pay attention - the paths trodden by the feet of the astronauts - here they are visible. Well, what will happen to them: there, on the moon, little has changed.

"Apollo 14". Remember this shot: they walked there with the cart - here is the landing site, and here is the path left from the cart, scientific instruments were placed here.

Today, the Moon is being explored intensively: the previous few years have been dedicated to the search for water on the Moon. The fact is that a base can be organized only if at least something is found on the Moon, so to speak, “our own”, not imported. Well, there is water. Found it very interesting.

The last stage of the carrier rocket flies up to the moon, on it is a research apparatus. They undock, the stage crashes into South Pole Moons, ...

… to this crater. This is interesting because at the pole the sun's rays go almost along the surface, and the crater is deep, and sunlight never hits the bottom of this crater. That's why it's always cold there. The rocket hit this area, an explosion occurred, matter was ejected (here on a large scale) from under the lunar surface, and the research apparatus flew after the rocket and hit this cloud - and found water vapor there. So there is confidence that at the poles the water is permafrost, of course, there is water ice. Or maybe there are in other places - indirect indications of this have been received.

If we or the Americans were going to fly to the moon today, what would we fly on? No one will make Saturn-5 rockets anymore - this is the past. And the Shuttle - well, he couldn’t fly far at all. Today it is also decommissioned. The Americans a few years ago started a new line of missiles - Ares.

One was made - this relatively small rocket, it was tested, flew without people. This rocket is ready. And the other two, these, more heavy ones, did not begin to do. In the States, financial problems have been postponed for now.

The new lunar lander practically reproduces the old Apollo. A little more massive, a little more space. There are no longer three people, but five or six astronauts will fit. Well, of course, an advanced thing.

For example... I can't show you: the quality of this projector does not allow some slides to be shown.

This ship, unlike the Apollo, has solar panels. Apollo flew, roughly speaking, on batteries. He brought a supply of electricity with him. There were fuel cells, but still with them. And this one will already be able to feed on sunlight and will be able to wait without pilots in orbit around the moon while people go down, work and return to it. In this sense, it is, of course, a modern device.

What can we have from the moon? So far, the most useful thing seen on the Moon is the light isotope of helium, helium-3. Thermonuclear energy is born on Earth. If it is born and begins to function, then helium-3 is an excellent fuel for thermonuclear reactors. It doesn't exist on Earth. It exists on the Moon, and according to calculations, there should be a lot of it - in the upper layer of the soil. But first you need to create a thermonuclear reactor, and then look for helium-3 on the moon, it seems to me.

It seems to me that the flights of people to the Moon will resume, and soon enough, because in terms of money they are not much more expensive than flights around the Earth. And we already know how many tourists flew to the ISS for their own money, at their own expense. I think there are people who want to go to the moon for a little more money. This is not necessary for scientific research, but for such super-extreme tourism, the Moon will probably become more and more attractive. It seems to me that the first people to return to the moon will still be tourists. Because it is better for scientists to make 10 or 20 lunar rovers than one person to visit the moon.

And for these manned expeditions, a lot has already been invented: we know how to make lunar dwellings, we know how to make lunar transport. There is only a request ahead, there will be money - this business will be realized, there would only be a desire. Well, for scientists, of course, it would be very interesting to send something to the far side of the Moon and deal with it, install a new seismograph, drill the Moon, no one has yet picked it more than two meters. That is, there are a lot of scientific tasks, and people, probably, someday will also be on the moon. Thank you.

Lecture discussion

Boris Dolgin: Thanks a lot. We have a small block of questions and answers.

Vladimir Surdin: You can, I will immediately tell you one unpleasant thing: the fact is that I will now need to go to the TV studio, the car has already arrived. You may have heard that today a not very pleasant asteroid was discovered, which in 2032 could hit the Earth, and it is big, it is very big. Well, please comment on it. Four hundred meters. The chance is very small that it will reach the Earth someday, but it is among the most dangerous. Therefore, you will excuse me, I will have to run away from here in 5-7 minutes.

Question from the floor: I have a question just about the last sentence - that the Moon was not picked deeper than 2 meters. Why? It's so interesting.

Vladimir Surdin: We did what we could so far, drilled it 2 meters, we used a machine gun, and the Americans with a hand drill: we didn’t have the strength to drill deeper.

Question from the floor: Hello, I have this question: the Moon is outside the Earth's magnetic field, and it does not have its own field. How was radiation protection carried out on the Apollo?

Vladimir Surdin: None. Today there is no way to protect astronauts from radiation, moreover, they flew during the years of rather high solar activity, they were just wildly lucky that there were no strong solar flares on those days when they flew there. There were weak ones, and, in general, there was radiation. When you fly out of the Earth's magnetic field, the radiation flux is approximately doubled. So it wasn't safe.

Question from the floor: Why, in the 60s and 70s, no one seriously considered the idea of ​​assembling a lunar spacecraft in orbit by small launches? The idea is widespread in science fiction, when a ship for a flight to the Moon or beyond is assembled in orbit by several launches of Proton caliber rockets.

Vladimir Surdin: In the sense - not with one rocket, not with one launch?

Question from the floor: Yes, nevertheless, both ours and the Americans took the seemingly difficult path.

Vladimir Surdin: Apparently, then it seemed to the engineers that this was the only chance. It was probably not possible to launch several Protons in a row without accidents, it seems to me. And then, how many Protons should be launched instead of one H-1? Pieces six. No, It is Immpossible.

Question from the floor: When they analyzed the soil on the Moon, did they find out how similar it is to the earth? And how much older or younger is the Moon than the Earth according to these estimates?

Vladimir Surdin: The age is about the same, 4.5 billion years, it’s just that ancient rocks are better preserved on the surface of the Moon than on Earth, we have a circulation of matter here, there is practically none on the Moon. The rocks are very reminiscent of the earth's mantle; although there are subtle differences, but, in general, this is the earth's mantle. Both density and mineralogical composition.

Question from the floor: That is, the moon can be used to study the earth's mantle?

Vladimir Surdin: No, in order to study the earth's mantle, of course, it is not worth flying to the moon, but this speaks in favor of one of the hypotheses of the origin of the moon - that the lunar substance was once significantly enriched from the earth's mantle. This is the most advanced idea now that a body of the caliber of Mars crashed into the Earth, approximately, so to speak, ripped off the Earth upper layer, just the mantle, it went into orbit around the Earth, the Moon was formed from it, so this is largely a common substance - our mantle and the Moon as a whole. The moon has almost no core, it is small, small.

Question from the floor: Can you please tell me why the ships did not land on the far side of the moon?

Vladimir Surdin: Communication - it was impossible to maintain. Relay satellites? No, what are you, it was just not enough to launch them. Should have first visible side Moon sort out.