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If there were cosmonauts to be launched in July 1969, who were they? Kamanin has a June 18, 1969 diary entry indicating lunar landing cosmonaut candidates as Leonov, Bykovsky, Voronov, Khrunov, Yeliseyev, Makarov, Rukavishnikov, and Patsayev. Vick and Pesavento attempt to account for the whereabouts of the cosmonauts at this time (there is good information on this since American astronaut Frank Borman was visiting Russia and touring space facilities in the Moscow area in the week prior to the launch attempt). They conclude that Gorbatko, Bykovsky, and Khrunov are the most likely cosmonauts, and also place Leonov, Makarov, and Kuklin at the cosmodrome. (Leonov may be considered unlikely, since he was on a tour to Japan just the month before - where he got in trouble by not following the moon hoax party line and told reporters 'both manned and unmanned lunar spacecraft are in preparation and that lunar rocks will be returned by Soviet spacecraft by March 1970!').

Khrunov reportedly told Vick that he was at the launch and 'that he had wept soon afterward, realising the race was over.' Would this be the reaction to a launch of an unmanned test vehicle? In any event, the explosion meant any launch of a crew to man the lunar spacecraft in low earth orbit was cancelled.

However the Luna robot soil return spacecraft was launched a ten days later, and almost succeeded in its mission. After eight days of controlled flight and lunar orbit manoeuvres, it crashed into the lunar surface as the Apollo 11 astronauts rested after their historic moonwalk. So the moon race was played out to the very last moments after all…

Officially, the Soviets pressed forward with the prepared line: They had never been in the moon race. They had no program to land men on the moon. They would never risk the lives of Soviet citizens in such a dangerous exercise when robots could do the job just as well. This was swallowed by the Western media. Walter Cronkite gravely informed the American people in the 1970's that the money spent on Apollo was wasted, since the 'Russians had never been in the race after all'.

A few voices, notably that of Charles Vick, analysed scraps of information that were inadvertently released by the Soviet censors and tried to make the case that there was an enormous, hidden, Soviet moon landing program. It was only with the collapse of the Soviet Union that part of the real truth finally came out. They were in the race. And they had lost. But only now have Vick and Pesavento shown how truly close they came to winning.

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Smurf, Bill is quite intelligent and talented.

I think you may misunderstand this conversation between us, we've been having it for a while (in various forms, on various topics). We all play a part, and Bill invariably plays his all too well.  :;):

Ok, but his arguments (not his thoughts) will get him no where. He is saying basically that the end of Earth is near, we need Mars. How many times have people in history told that before?

Basically he is speaking like a cult leader: "The end is near, the others are blind sheep, they can't understand, we are better, follow me."

True, but we could just focus on that directly instead of hoping we learn these new skills by going to the stars. How is the indirect path better than the direct one?

The problem here is that your vote requires the collective help of those who vote against the idea in the first place. I'm all for choice, which is why I generally conceed to this view, but being realistic, I don't see a reason why anyone who thinks contrary to you would want to help. They think it's daft to begin with, but you need them to help so you can pursue the daft choice...

BWhite: [re What will be lost - -  if we do not go - -  are our souls.] I was with you, until that last, loaded word. Sorry, but I have to ask--how do you define "souls"?

It still means rebuilding of infrastructure that the Russians' done have and which we already do... if Boeing would be willing to sell the RS-68 for $10M a copy I don't think the price of bringing the Russians in on this is worthwhile, especially considering the expense in political capital over the Iran mess or rebuilding parts of Russian space infrastructure & jobs with US taxpayer dollars, and at such a price then developing a engine reentry pod makes dubious financial sense if equipped with SSMEs.

The RS-68 is more powerful than either the SSME or the RD-0120 in any event by around 50%, so if Shuttle-C were originally intended to have a trio of SSMEs, then it is possible to get away with only a pair of 68's, giving you fewer engines to fail and the engines will be brand new on every flight, increasing reliability. Even at the current price of ~$15M each, $30M for engines is not too bad for a vehicle able to lift three or four times what the $200M Delta-IV HLV can haul (and even more savings over orbital assembly).

It is important I think to take the time to make a clear break from Shuttle and not be concerned with commonality to save a buck today on development; Shuttle-C will not be Shuttle, and should have as few of its failings and inefficencies as possible, so in a way it WILL be re-inventing the wheel, and this will be a good thing, a more efficent and less expensive vehicle will surely result.

The STS system as a means of launch, by and large, has been a miserable failure... while expendable rockets, the children of which are the EELVs of today, have proven themselves time and time again. The reuseable engine pod idea was cooked up to save the super-expensive SSMEs and for no other reason, and making such a scheme would be difficult... heat shield, tank disconnect system, RCS, parachutes, a host of other issues, and then you need to pay to refurbish them... plus add extra weight and extra complexity and more ways for the system to fail. Just use expendable off-the-shelf rockets for goodness sakes.

Fact remains. Ain't nothing Delta IV can do that Proton/Zenit can't do, at a lower cost.

System integration will be far eaiser, and logistics will be easier, for a CEV on an American rocket. We have far more control over the rocket here in America than we would ever have with the Europeans or the Russians.

Numbers, yeah, it can't be beat- for now. But there are a few more details that change the final equation in determining what is the better deal.

NASA becomes a purchaser instead of a producer, which allows them to focus on research beyond what is already available. If a priavte interest can provide similar capabilities, NASA will buy from them, instead of controling the entire process from design to production to launch.

In August 1995, NASA expressed its desire to consolidate the large number of Space Shuttle program contracts under a single prime contractor. The space agency initiated an open competition for a single prime contract to conduct Space Shuttle operations, and received responses from more than 40 companies.

We need to get NASA back to exploration, back to pushing the envelope, and privatize satellite launch services, space station supply and maintainance, things of that sort. It's not really an 'either or' problem.