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EARLY LUNAR ACTIVITIES OF THE USA, AND AN AMERICAN

VIEW OF THE EARLY SOVIET LUNAR PROGRAM

James D. Burke,
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
13 January 2000

ABSTRACT
This paper summarizes the starting phase of American robotic lunar
programs. It includes comments on the then-prevailing political situation
within the United States, and it also touches on the effects of competition
between the US and the USSR in the immediate aftermath of Sputnik. It is
appropriate now to look back at those times, especially as some of the
relevant data in both countries, previously secret, have now been
declassified and released for public use. Though the early lunar missions
yielded only limited scientific information, they did set both nations'
programs on a path toward later great advances in our understanding of the
Moon.

I. INTRODUCTION
By about 1950 it was evident to many people that launching Earth satellites
would soon be technically possible, and that then the next logical step
would be robotic missions to the Moon. The intellectual foundations had
been laid by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Hermann Oberth, and Robert Goddard.
Scientific incentives for exploring the Moon had been manifest for
centuries, and the human aspects had been explored by serious science-
fiction writers including Johannes Kepler, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C.
Clarke, Isaac Asimov and many others. Thus when, in the mid-fifties, it was
decided in both the US and the USSR to launch scientific satellites as part
of the International Geophysical Year, the stage was set for planners to
begin thinking about lunar missions.

II. THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT
After the launch of Sputnik on 4 October 1957, there was a great release of
pent-up energy among space enthusiasts in the United States. Suddenly it
was possible to offer proposals for space missions that had been only
dreams until then. At the same time, however, long-standing disputes among
agencies jockeying for position (conspicuously the US Army, Navy and Air
Force) came to include arguments over which organization would dominate
American efforts to sail on the great new ocean of space. Everybody knew
that this peaceful, idealistic venture would have to be based on military
technology, but there was a strong desire to keep the program's public
posture a civilian one. Thus the Vanguard satellite project was chosen
instead of the Army/JPL/Von Braun team's competing proposal for the project
that did ultimately launch Explorer I, the first US satellite.
Meanwhile the US Air Force, looking ahead to a possible role not only in
near-Earth orbit but also for lunar missions, sponsored publication of a
great photographic atlas of the lunar near side, prepared by Gerard P.
Kuiper and colleagues at the University of Arizona.
Sorting out these various efforts took some time. The contests were not
settled by the Space Act of 1958 that established NASA, because regardless
of how the program was organized it would still have to depend on military
rockets. Meanwhile both the Army team and the Air Force team prepared
missions intended to escape Earth orbit,to impact on the Moon, and to place
spacecraft in lunar orbit. The first attempts predated NASA; the later ones
were made under the NASA title.
All scientific space missions of that time had to be fitted into a program
with another, secret objective of much higher priority; namely, the highly-
classified goal of satellite imaging over the USSR.

III. EARLY LUNAR MISSIONS TO 1962
References 1 and 2 summarize, respectively, lunar program launchings of the
US and the USSR in the period 1958 - 1962. Reference 3 is a detailed and
well-illustrated history of those and the later lunar missions to be
discussed below.
The early record shows clearly that the lunar teams in both countries were
pushing the competitive pace at a rate too fast for the capabilities of the
then-existing technology. However, the Soviet program did achieve historic
early "firsts": reaching the second cosmic speed, impacting on the Moon,
and photographing its far side.

IV. AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE GATHERING
With the beginning of strategic ballistic missile developments in both
countries a high-priority need arose for American monitoring of Soviet
activities in this field. Rocket telemetry was a prime source of
information. To obtain the data, listening stations were established around
the periphery of the USSR and encrypted communications were provided
between these sites and analytical organizations in the United States. As a
sideline to these intelligence efforts, it became possible to use some of
the military facilities for tracking Soviet lunar and planetary probes.
Though everyone believed that those missions were entirely peaceful and
scientific, there was still some justification for watching them to gather
information about military Earth satellites using the same technologies.
Also, of course, the scientific lunar and planetary missions were part of
the larger Cold-War geopolitical contest between the US and the USSR.
Now that much of the relevant information has been declassified in both
countries, it is interesting to compare what was known at the time with the
full story as it is now being described in historical publications.
Reference 4, a 1966 publication now available in the US National Archives
at College Park, Maryland, is typical of such declassified documents. It
describes American efforts to understand the progress of Soviet lunar and
planetary missions up to the landing of Luna 9, the first spacecraft to
send signals and images from the surface of the Moon.

V. LUNAR AND PLANETARY ROBOTIC MISSIONS, 1962 - 1966
After the failure of Ranger 5 in October 1962, the US robotic lunar program
was reorganized and reoriented toward preparations for Apollo. Meanwhile
both countries' space organizations had begun launching robotic missions
toward Mars and Venus. The Soviets led the way with two Mars attempts, 10
and 14 October 1960, which failed. American telemetry analysis showed that
each of these two launch vehicles carried a new, heavy upper stage,
signaling a large commitment to a new class of deep-space missions. On 4
and 12 February 1961 two more heavy vehicles were launched for Venus. The
first spacecraft remained in low Earth orbit, but the second escaped toward
Venus, eventually failing enroute. East-West cooperation occurred when Alla
Masevitch visited Jodrell Bank, in England, to assist in attempts to
contact Venera 1. Other Jodrell Bank activities in tracking Soviet lunar
and planetary missions are well described in Reference 3. The summer and
fall of 1962 saw an all-out attempt by the Soviets to be first at Venus and
Mars. Six of the heavy vehicles were launched, but only one spacecraft,
Mars 1, escaped on a path toward its target, eventually failing enroute.
In the US, the 1962 Mars opportunity had to be abandoned for programmatic
reasons but two launches were prepared for Venus. The first of these
failed, but the second sent Mariner 1 on its way to a Venus fly-by that
returned the first close-up scientific data on the planet.
On 4 January 1963 the Soviets resumed lunar mission attempts, now using the
heavy vehicle to launch spacecraft of a new generation (Refs. 3 and 4, plus
the bibliographies included). This was the beginning of a long effort,
frustrated by many failures but stubbornly pursued until it finally
succeeded with Luna 9, the first lunar lander, and Luna 10, the first lunar
orbiter, in 1966.
In the same time frame, Venus and Mars missions were prepared for the 1964
launch opportunity. American analysts were astonished to see Soviet
planetary missions launched within days of some of the lunar attempts. The
sole Venus craft to depart Earth was called Zond 1, the Mars one was called
Zond 2. Both failed enroute.
On the US side, Mariner 3 suffered a launch failure but Mariner 4 traveled
to a Mars fly-by and returned the first close-up images of the planet.
During this period a US-sponsored, deep-space intelligence tracking station
became operational at a site near Asmara, Eritrea. Its data, plus the
unclassified information collected at Jodrell Bank, began to give Western
analysts a window into Soviet lunar and planetary design and operations
practices. Also, of course, the data gave reliable evidence of the high
priority given by the Soviets to being first at each historic space
opportunity. This provided a powerful stimulus to American efforts.
Meanwhile the US Ranger lunar series was resumed, culminating (after the
failure of Ranger 6 in early 1964) in the successful return of thousands of
high-resolution images by Rangers 7, 8 and 9 in late 1964 and 1965.
Also in 1965, the Soviets launched Zond 3, believed by American analysts to
be a remodeled Mars spacecraft, which returned good imagery of the part of
the Moon's far side that had not been covered by Luna 3. In parallel with
the Ranger project, two other American robotic lunar projects were now
underway, both oriented primarily toward Apollo suppport but also capable
of returning important lunar scientific data. One was Surveyor, five of
whose seven spacecraft successfully soft-landed on the Moon and gave close-
up imaging plus the first detailed lunar compositional information via
alpha-particle scattering. The other was Lunar Orbiter, whose five
successful missions succeeded in mapping Apollo sites and later, almost the
entire lunar surface. Thus by 1966 both nations' lunar and planetary teams
had overcome many difficulties and were beginning to produce new scientific
knowledge of the Moon. It is most fitting today to recognize those
pioneering achievements and to join in saluting the people, in all of the
countries involved, who contributed to their success.

VI. REFERENCES

1. SPACE LOG, a quarterly publication of TRW, Inc. (Formerly STL, Inc.),
Redondo Beach, California, containing a cumulative list of space
launchings. A similar unclassified list is maintained by the United States
Library of Congress.

2. Varfolomeyev, Timothy, 'Soviet Rocketry That Conquered Space', a nine-
part series in SPACEFLIGHT, a periodical of the British Interplanetary
Society. Part III, referenced here, is in Volume 38, June 1996, pages 206 -
208. These articles contain excellent bibliographies of other relevant
Soviet and Russian literature.

3. Grahn, Sven, 'Jodrell Bank's Role in Early Space Tracking Activities', a
thorough, well-illustrated, well-referenced history presented on the
Worldwide Web at

http://www.users.wineasy.se/svengrahn/trackind/jodrell/jodrole1.htm

plus the same except

4. Burke, James, 'Seven Years to Luna 9', in the periodical, Studies in
Intelligence, Summer 1966. Declassified document available in US National
Archives. See Web address:

http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/97index/index.htm