Talk:Lunokhod programme

Does anyone have a problem with this being locked while it's on the /. front page? It was being edited to add goatsex links, mention slashdot trolling phenomena and generally make the project look horrible. Pakaran. 23:14, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Not a problem - given the history and temporary prominence I'd have protected it as well. Wonder which of our user pages will be the first one hit in a frustrated followup?:) Jamesday 23:30, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I thought it was quite interesting that all the edits seemed to be the work of one person. When I saw a Wikipedia article on the front page of Slashdot, I expected to find nothing but ruins at the other end for weeks.Sbonds 04:48, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm unprotecting and monitoring this page for a while out of curiosity. If anyone wants to take over when I go home let me know, else I'll reprotect. silsor 00:02, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)

I'll do it for awhile. Pakaran. 00:04, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm going home now. silsor 00:57, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I can keep an eye on it. Pakaran. 00:58, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

My apologies for the troubles. I posted the article to slashdot, never imagining the troubles it could/would cause here. (w)

Don't apologize - we love publicity about the project, but naturally we don't like vandalism! :) Dysprosia 04:26, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the mention! Don't worry about us dealing with vandalism - we're well prepared to handle it, with lots of eyes and technical solutions in reserve if we find it happening fast enough that humans can't keep up.:) Jamesday 04:31, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

James, what did you mean by "switch to image markup which doesn't result in a completely invisible image"? As far as I can see, the [[image:Lunokhod.jpg|right|]] markup is the proper format for displaying it like that and I could see the image just fine on the rendered page. Bryan 04:36, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The |right| markup produces <div style="floatright"> which is defined in the stylesheet as

div.floatright { float: right; margin: 0 0 1em 1em; }

James replaced it with <div style="float:right;width:250px;margin:0 0 1em 1em">

so I don't know why it would be invisible. silsor 04:39, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)

Well, I guess I'll revert for the time being, then; if there's something wrong with the div style Wikipedia is producing then it's an issue that I guess will have to be corrected by the developers. Bryan 04:50, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

What I meant was that the image was completely invisible in IE4, just as if it wasn't there at all. Not a trace of it anywhere on the page. Looks OK in IE5 and 6 as well as Mozilla but invisible isn't good. The replacement I did avoids whatever in the css style is causing the problem. Jamesday 06:42, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, the wiki markup I'm using here is intended to be the "wave of the future" for Wikipedia; it's the hot new thing for floating images. If there's a problem with how IE4 displays it, I think that should be marked down as a bug report. Bryan 06:47, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

KGB midget

Last year there was some news story to say that NASA has purchased the russian's video and photo archive of Lunokhod imagery and using computer enhancement to gain several thousand new high quality on-site photos of the lunar surface. This should probably get in the article.

Also why there is no mention of the "KGB midget" hoax in the article?

I mean this: http://www.astronautix.com/astros/kgbdwarf.htm

Why is there no mention of the KGB midget? Because it is a bunch of bullcrap and it is not encyclopedic.

User:Andy120290|Andy120290]] 19:42, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, before I Left the Ukraine in 1993, I read an article in some publication, dedicated to a suicide manned Moon mission by Soviets. It was very factitious, provided exact dates, times, and names of the cosmonauts. It was not related to the Lunokhod program, more of competition to beat Apollo to the Moon. I do not remember any specifics, but have no doubt one of our compatriots might read this note and find the article, sooner or later. Interestingly enough, Soviets did have a lunar mission right before the Apollo take off, pronounced "failed" and never made public. Per History Channel show yesteday, 12/08/07, Secrets of Soviet Space Program, that mission was launched succesfully, but lunar module crashed into the lunar surface. It was described as "unmanned".

Though might be "displaced", besides having personal experience doubts into History Channels trustworthness where it relates to the USSR (38 years of life there probably counts some against their "documentaries"), I have an observation from that show: though heavily leaning towards depicting Soviets as "losers" and even insinuating theft of American designs, why it does say NOTHING about Lunokhod program, while just drooling over success of the Apollo program and American might in space? I mean, answer is obvious, but for pete's sake, thing was number one rover robot on another celestial body and still beats any American rover by the length of use and distance traveled. Give guys a credit!

Apollo 17 landing site.

I have read that Lunokhod 2 took pictures of the Apollo 17 landing site, but I can't find those pictures anywhere on the 'net. Does anybody know where I can find them? I want to show them to a friend of mine who beleives in the Apollo conspiracy theories. The Soviets would have loved to prove the Apollo missions were hoaxed (which is possibly why they visited the site in the first place) so the fact that a Soviet probe photographed the site kinda proves that the Apollo missions were not faked. So if anyone can find those pictures for me, it'd be great, and perhaps they can be put on this article if they're licensed correctly. Nick Warren (talk) 17:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

This sounds like one of those urban myths. Lunokhod 2 landed at Le Monnier crater at 25.85 N 30.45 E which is 180 km from the Apollo 17 landing site. Between Jan 1973 and May 1973 when the robot finally died it had travelled 37 km nowhere near thew distance it would need to reach the Apollo 17 site. Only years later was the reason for its sudden demise revealed. As the drivers were trying to manoever it out of a crater the open lid touched the crater wall dumping soil on the solar cells. There were no immediate consequences as there was still sufficient power to to operate the rover. However when night fell and the lid was closed soil was dumped on the radiators. When the lid was opened the next lunar day in June the soil acted as an insulator preventing the rover from releasing heat. It quickly overheated and expired. 4 August 2008. Mstanaway (talk) 11:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a primary source for that info on Lunokhod 2's demise Mstanaway? (I came across the same story once but don't remember where). It should be added to the Lunokhod 2 article. Tweesdad 17:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I found the account in 'Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration' by Brian Harvey p271 published by Springer/Praxis books. The reference given there for the story is from an article in 'Air and Space' Vol 18, #6, Feb/Mar 2004 'The Other Moon Landings" by Andrew Chaikin. There is a lot of other interesting info on the Lunokhod missions in Harvey's book.Mstanaway (talk) 12:22, 17 August 2008 (UTC) Here is a couple of other Lunokhod gems from the same source: The first attempt to launch a Lunokhod was aborted in February 1969 when the UR 500 Proton launch vehicle failed when excessive vibration tore off the launch shroud and the rocket exploded scattering debris 15 km downrange. For months afterwards, teams tried to recover the Polonium nuclear isotope intended to keep instrumentation in the Lunokhod pressurised container warm during the lunar night. It later transpired that some insufficiently briefed local troops had found the container and were using it to keep their hut warm during a particularly cold winter! This failure was the start of an incredibly unlucky string of disasters which afflicted the Soviet moon programme at a time when they were trying to upstage the American Apollo programme during the first half of 1969.

A team of five operators based at Simferopol in the Crimea near the big tracking dishes at Yevpatoria operated Lunokhod. Two teams took alternating shifts and each consisted of a commander, a driver, a navigator, an engineer, and a radio/antenna man. Operating Lunokhod from 380,000 km away was a tense business requiring a high degree of co-ordination between the team members. During the first few days excitement was such that scientists, academicians, and journalists crowded mission control and began offering advice like “Mind that crater!” or “He’s going to crash into that rock!” The situation was so tense that when the drivers’ pulses reached 140, Babakin the director, finally had enough and ordered the chorus of back seat drivers out of the control room to reduce the stress on the team. It was quickly determined that the cameras were mounted too low on the body of Lunokhod with the view being similar to someone crawling across the ground on their hands and legs and the 20 second per frame transmission rate was too slow as drivers had to memorise features a full third of a minute before they were on top of them. These faults were rectified on Lunokhod 2. Also operations had to be halted at lunar noon (two earth days) as the landscape was washed out and there were no shadows to pick out features.Mstanaway (talk) 12:10, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Legacy

The engineers behind the Lunokhod also worked on remote controlled vehicles used to clean up after the Chernobyl disaster as well as consultants for the Sojourner (rover) and Mars Exploration Rover. Should this go into the article? // Liftarn (talk)

I just added a write-up for the Chernobyl legacy part. 91.83.26.231 (talk) 21:30, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I heard that they worked on the planned ESA Mars rovers too. If you can find good sources for these, by all means be bold and include them! Tweesdad 20:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tweesdad (talk • contribs)