Investigator: "Doctor, who shaved you on a desert island all these days after the plane crash?" - ("The Silence of Dr. Evens." Soviet film.)
Continuous conversations on the topic of flying - the Americans did not fly to the moon basically boil down to two topics:
-the presence or absence of evidence of such flights
- availability of technical capabilities for flight and landing on the moon.
It seems to me that the other side of the issue is no less interesting, which largely clarifies the disputes around individual events and participants, namely how, under what circumstances and why both "flight" and "landing" became possible.
It has always been the case that the human invasion of new, unexplored worlds, whether geographical, scientific, technical or others, never went smoothly, but always proceeded very dramatically with ups and downs - they drowned, fell on the table to cannibals, were irradiated, killed by lightning and electric shock, fell ill with unknown diseases and generally underwent a lot of other big and small difficulties and trials. Space, a fundamentally new environment, which until now mankind has not had to face, could not be an exception, the number of human victims goes to dozens. The lack of knowledge about the new world was superimposed on the imperfection of technology and technology of those years and the unpreparedness of the human body for a new, alien to it, habitat and ignorance. Here are just two examples of the first steps into space.
The Vostok spacecraft, on which Yuri Gagarin flew, lacked very important components: an emergency rescue system at the start and a soft landing system. A duplicate braking system was removed from the ship's structure. This decision was justified by the fact that when the spacecraft was launched into a low (up to 200 km) orbit, in any case within 10 days it would have left it due to natural deceleration against the upper atmosphere. The entire life support system was designed for 10 days. But due to the failure of the radio control system, the shutdown of the 3rd stage engines by the backup device occurred at an altitude that turned out to be 100 km higher than the calculated one. Do not work, in such a situation, the only brake engine - Gagarin would be doomed. But the engine worked, though with a lack of momentum,as a result, the automation issued a ban on the separation of compartments and within 10 minutes the ship tumbled randomly at a speed of 1 revolution per second. After entering the denser layers of the atmosphere, the connecting cables burned out, and the compartments nevertheless separated. The descent took place with 8-10 multiple overloads, which were replaced by a psychological load - after entering the atmosphere, the ship's skin caught fire, streams of liquid metal flowed through the windows, and the cabin itself began to crackle. At an altitude of 7 km, the exhausted Gagarin ejected. After which he almost suffocated due to the fact that he could not immediately open the valve for access to outside air. G. Titov, who flew after Y. Gagarin, who was the most medically fit cosmonaut in the entire squadron and whose flight, unlike the short Gagarin one, lasted more than a day,experienced other "delights" of the new environment - dizziness and nausea. I had to control every movement.
The second example is the flight of the Voskhod-2 spacecraft and the spacewalk of A. Leonov, during which the following "troubles" happened. Cosmonaut Leonov's spacesuit was inflated and, being on the verge of death, contrary to instructions, blew air from the spacesuit and climbed into the hatch not with his feet, but head first. Then Voskhod's orientation system failed. Belyaev - the commander of the ship manually oriented the ship and turned on the braking engine. As a result, the landing did not take place in a given area, but almost 200 km away, in a dense snow-covered taiga, where local foresters, delivered by a rescue helicopter, came to the aid of the cosmonauts.
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This is how, from the first steps into the unknown, it became clear that luck and tragedy are separated by a fine line of chance and luck. Each new step was difficult, the problems grew and multiplied. Let us not forget to note that it was the conquest of the nearest space, low near-earth orbit, where there is still a gravitational connection with the native Earth and a lot of saving atmosphere, where local foresters are always ready to come to your aid. We are not talking about real, open space, where there is none of this, where unknown and unexplored dangers are at every step, where, if anything, no one will help! No wonder the head of the Soviet cosmonaut corps NP Kamanin estimated the probability of a successful landing on the moon at 0.1% (one chance in a thousand). Add, with fantastic, outrageous luck! Kamanin's assessment can be supplemented by the vision of the problems of our contemporaries,so to speak with a look from the 21st century. And to eliminate bias, let's take the assessment of American specialists who worked in the NASA commission created within the framework of the Constellation program (the program for returning to the moon by 2020). The commission asked questions, looked for and did not find answers that could provide this very "return", such as:
-the availability or the possibility of manufacturing a heat shield for thermal protection of a ship capable of withstanding the temperature head during hypersonic (2nd space speed) entry of the ship into the Earth's atmosphere
- how to ensure the safety of the crew in the absence of data on radiation beyond low-Earth orbit and on the Moon (including when passing through the Van Allen radiation belts) and in the absence of data on the reaction of the human body to space radiation and biological consequences
-How to solve the problem of deep "gravity wells" during takeoff from the surface of the Moon
-Where to get engines for the first stage of the launch vehicle? Modeling the operation of the F-1 engine on the Saturn showed that the thrust oscillation causes unacceptable structural vibrations incompatible with the survival of the crew (one of the reasons for the failed test of the Saturn on April 4, 1968) and, as they say, other, other, other. An appeal to the Apollo program, in which all problems were “successfully” resolved, did not clarify or yield anything. Literally, there is nothing. It turns out that at the end of the second decade of the 21st century, the technical capabilities and scientific data for a successful flight to the Moon are not enough. The commission stated that any such flight is a complex chain of basic operations, and all of them must be reliably executed. Just one unreliable link is enoughto make the flight deadly and the mission becomes completely impossible. How did such "missions" become possible many times over 40 years ago?
The "ingenious" speech at the closure of the "Constellation" program (April 15, 2010) was delivered by the then US President B. Obama: “I believe that by the mid-2030s we will be able to send people to Mars orbit and return them safely to the ground. And then there will be a landing on Mars, and I'm going to be present to see it! " Does this remind you of anything? And for me an old Soviet anecdote: Brezhnev to cosmonauts: "Do not worry, the Americans flew to the moon, and you will fly to the sun right away." Cosmonauts: "Leonid Ilyich, we will burn!" Brezhnev: “There are no fools in the Politburo! Fly at night in order not to burn out. " Indeed, for political clowns in flights to the Moon, Mars or the Sun there was no and there is no difference. I replaced some words in the text and that's it. Delov something!
Meanwhile, by the end of the 60s of the 20th century, the following situation developed in the unfolding "lunar race". In the USSR, under the task of a manned flyby of the Moon, the Soyuz spacecraft was created, which is now the only vehicle for delivering cosmonauts to the ISS and the UR-500 (Proton) rocket to launch Soyuz into near-earth orbit. With the help of this technique, 14 unmanned launches of "Probes" (unmanned version of "Soyuz") were carried out. Not always successful, but still success came. Probes-7 and 8 fully completed the flight program. The path to manned flights around the moon seemed to be open. And what about the Americans? Yes, everything is very sad. The lag behind the USSR was visible with the naked eye, and all attempts to get ahead ended in disasters and tragedies. So, during ground tests on January 27, 1967 at the launch complex,along with "Apollo-1" the crew of three was burnt alive. And the unmanned test of the Saturn lunar rocket on April 4, 1968 was declared unsuccessful.
Could the Americans in such a situation give up their attempts to "fly" and "land"? No, they couldn't. Moreover, it was necessary to fly urgently! And they had to thank their former President D. Kennedy for this. Frustrated by the successes of Soviet cosmonautics, in his speech on September 12, 1961 at Rice University, he declared that: "… the Americans will land on the moon by the end of this decade." One can only imagine how many specialists in the United States after that cursed their ex-president for the "planted pig", but there was nothing to do, the prestige of America was at stake, it was necessary to "fly" at any cost and not just "fly", but "fly successfully ". There was only one "right" way - a hoax. History, as we remember, does not know the subjunctive mood,but it would still be interesting for the Americans to untie the dollar from gold in the early 70s and turn it into a petrodollar, to make the dollar the main reserve currency, thereby ensuring its world domination for many years, it would be possible to destroy the USSR and the socialist camp and turn the world into “unipolar "and other dirty tricks, if the country's authority fell sharply in the eyes of the whole world, if there were no such" flights "?
However, the hoax also required a great deal of work. To begin with, it was necessary to "clean up" all those who did not agree to play by the new rules in their own ranks, leaving those who, after appropriate training, would be able to "lie without blinking." In 1968, more than 700 employees of the Center for Space Research. Marshall in Huntsville, where the Saturn was developed. In 1970, in the midst of the lunar program, the chief designer of the Saturn rocket, Werner von Braun, was relieved of his post as director of the Center and removed from the leadership of rocket development. It seems that the unprecedented series of tragedies with American astronauts and people, in one way or another, involved in the space theme, who died in auto and plane crashes in the late 60s, are also links in this chain.
We will probably never know if the Americans had anything to do with the elimination of those people in the USSR who could potentially disagree and interfere with the "flights", or they were simply "lucky", but, one way or another, the removal of N. Khrushchev from power in October 1964, and the death of S. P. Korolev on January 14, 1966, and the death of Y. Gagarin on March 9, 1968. were for them "a lucky coincidence."
There were still two categories of people who needed to be convinced of the reality of "flights" and "landings", these are the leaders of the USSR and the rest of the population of the country and the world. The latter did not constitute much of a problem with the massive propaganda of "achievements" when, as they say, "from every iron" flowed an endless stream of recognition of American successes in space. It should be noted that the peculiarity of that time was the unprecedented trust of people in the written or spoken word in general. I recall the popular film of that time in which the Gestapo chief Müller releases the suspect Stirlitz, completely satisfied with the explanations that his fingerprints on a suitcase with a Russian radio were left at the moment when he helped someone, somewhere, to carry some things across the road. As a teenager at the time, I don't remember a casefor someone from the adults around me to criticize the possibility of such a situation. Official sources were even more credible. The argument of the supporters of the "landing" - "ours, if something were wrong, would have immediately exposed", really seemed strong and for a long time was decisive in disputes. At that time, for me and my contemporaries, the impossibility of the country's leadership to play on the side of the enemy and the impossibility of surrendering leadership in space - the pride of the entire Soviet people seemed natural. Only much later, under the abundance of more and more new data, many, including your humble servant, "saw the light" and the fact of collusion between the leaders of the USSR and the United States became obvious. What did the Brezhnev Politburo trade for the brilliant results of the selfless work of tens and hundreds of thousands of Soviet space specialists?Official sources were even more credible. The argument of the supporters of the "landing" - "ours, if something were wrong, would have immediately exposed", really seemed strong and for a long time was decisive in disputes. At that time, for me and my contemporaries, the impossibility of the country's leadership to play on the side of the enemy and the impossibility of surrendering leadership in space - the pride of the entire Soviet people seemed natural. Only much later, under the abundance of more and more new data, many, including your humble servant, "saw the light" and the fact of collusion between the leaders of the USSR and the United States became obvious. What did the Brezhnev Politburo trade for the brilliant results of the selfless work of tens and hundreds of thousands of Soviet space specialists?Official sources were even more credible. The argument of the supporters of the "landing" - "ours, if something were wrong, would have immediately exposed", really seemed strong and for a long time was decisive in disputes. At that time, for me and my contemporaries, the impossibility of the country's leadership to play on the side of the enemy and the impossibility of surrendering leadership in space - the pride of the entire Soviet people seemed natural. Only much later, under the abundance of more and more new data, many, including your humble servant, "saw the light" and the fact of collusion between the leaders of the USSR and the United States became obvious. What did the Brezhnev Politburo trade for the brilliant results of the selfless work of tens and hundreds of thousands of Soviet space specialists?really seemed strong and for a long time was decisive in disputes. At that time, for me and my contemporaries, the impossibility of the country's leadership to play on the side of the enemy and the impossibility of surrendering leadership in space - the pride of the entire Soviet people seemed natural. Only much later, under the abundance of more and more new data, many, including your humble servant, "saw the light" and the fact of collusion between the leaders of the USSR and the United States became obvious. What did the Brezhnev Politburo trade for the brilliant results of the selfless work of tens and hundreds of thousands of Soviet space specialists?really seemed strong and for a long time was decisive in disputes. At that time, for me and my contemporaries, the impossibility of the country's leadership to play on the side of the enemy and the impossibility of surrendering leadership in space - the pride of the entire Soviet people seemed natural. Only much later, under the abundance of more and more new data, many, including your humble servant, "saw the light" and the fact of collusion between the leaders of the USSR and the United States became obvious. What did the Brezhnev Politburo trade for the brilliant results of the selfless work of tens and hundreds of thousands of Soviet space specialists?Only much later, under the abundance of more and more new data, many, including your humble servant, "saw the light" and the fact of collusion between the leaders of the USSR and the United States became obvious. What did the Brezhnev Politburo trade for the brilliant results of the selfless work of tens and hundreds of thousands of Soviet space specialists?Only much later, under the abundance of more and more new data, many, including your humble servant, "saw the light" and the fact of collusion between the leaders of the USSR and the United States became obvious. What did the Brezhnev Politburo trade for the brilliant results of the selfless work of tens and hundreds of thousands of Soviet space specialists?
Most likely, the leader of the country at that time, Leonid Brezhnev, was a good man who sincerely wished good for his “subjects” and wanted his “subjects” to love him. But a good person and a good leader are a rare combination. In addition, he, like his predecessor, had a complex associated, on the one hand, with the achievements of his predecessor, and on the other, with the need for self-affirmation in some great cause. And if Khrushchev, being in the shadow of the great Stalin, solved the first task by trying to lower Stalin as much as possible, accusing him of repressions, and the second task due to primacy in space, then Brezhnev, having dropped Khrushchev in turn with voluntarism, corn, etc., apparently, wanted to go down in history as a person who gave his people prosperity, a better and more satisfying life, well, approximately the same as he saw in the "West". Therefore, he was psychologically comfortable and hardly felt any remorse, exchanging "Khrushchev's" space for his idea of a fix.
The Americans, apparently believing that this was not enough for the rest of the Soviet leadership, created serious problems for this in Czechoslovakia in 1968, greatly frightening the representatives of the Soviet elite. The ground for bargaining was ready. We do not know how it proceeded, but the result was obvious. If before the start of the bargaining the USSR had an uprising in Czechoslovakia in its asset, then at the end it was given not only to suppress this uprising without serious international consequences, but also helped to build VAZ and KAMAZ, chemical plants, stretch oil and gas pipelines to Western Europe, to build a BAM and presented a lot of big and small "buns". Serious concessions were made in political terms, a number of international treaties limiting the arms race were signed, which was a great relief for the Soviet economy, and treaties on the inviolability of borders, all thatwhat Soviet propaganda called the "Policy of detente" and "The principle of peaceful coexistence." And, of course, in 1974 Moscow won the right to host the 1980 Olympics from Los Angeles. L. Brezhnev personally did not lose out, whose garage, according to various estimates, numbered from several dozen to several hundred very expensive cars. He, who loves fast and comfortable driving, was given cars by R. Nixon and V. Brant and other leaders of countries and concerns, I think not for beautiful eyes and thick eyebrows. And yes, in a country where people could be shot for large bribes according to the law, the chief official and political leader shamelessly took "greyhound puppies". Time has shown what all these treaties on disarmament, detente and inviolability of borders are worth. The road, paved with good intentions, once again led to a natural ending.
Apparently, the end of the main bargaining and the start of the play called "Flights and Landings of Americans on the Moon" came at the end of 1968, as we remember, time was running out. It was by this time that the USSR was given the opportunity to "deal" with Czechoslovakia, and in December "the American Apollo-7" piloted by the crew flew around the Moon ", which after the failed unmanned test in April of the Saturn rocket and the absence of other tests for the scriptwriters of the play did not look absurd … It is this “courage” of the scriptwriters that amazes the most. The Russian literary classic M. Bulgakov has a scene in the novel “The Master and Margarita” in which the administrator of the variety show Varenukha tells the findirector Rimsky about the outrages of director Likhodeev: “… Styopa was well known in Moscow theater circles, and everyone knew that this man was not present. But still,what the administrator said about him, even for Styopa it was too much. Yes, it was too much, even very much… The more vital and colorful the details became, which the administrator put on his story… the less the findirector believed the narrator. And the moment came when: “… the findirector already knew for sure that everything that the administrator, who returned at midnight, tells him, is all a lie! Lie from the first to the last word. " Official reports tell us about the successful flyby of the moon in December 1968. About five expeditions that followed one after another, of which only one was not fully completed (the number of "Apollo" - 13 obviously interfered), and even there the brave guys did not get confused and returned with a victory. About what they did on the Moon (they dug and loaded soil, set flags, drove the Rover, took selfies, etc.). About the duration of stay on the lunar surface from 21 hours in the first expedition to 75 hours in the last one! Wow! This is not Gagarin's 1.5 hours in a spacecraft in low-earth orbit and not Leonovskiy's 12 minutes in not quite "open" space, this is more than 3 days in a frying pan hot from temperature and radiation and in a foil house. Why didn't the “scriptwriters” worry that all this was too much, even very much? Perhaps they acted according to the principle of Dr. Goebbels: “the bigger the lie, the sooner they will believe in it,” or perhaps I hope that all of this is someone who is not completely lost, wanted to shout: “PEOPLE, REMEMBER HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS RANGE! "this is more than 3 days in a frying pan heated from temperature and radiation and in a foil house. Why didn't the “scriptwriters” worry that all this was too much, even very much? Perhaps they acted according to the principle of Dr. Goebbels: “the bigger the lie, the sooner they will believe in it,” or perhaps I hope that all of this is someone who is not completely lost, wanted to shout: “PEOPLE, REMEMBER HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS RANGE! "this is more than 3 days in a frying pan heated from temperature and radiation and in a foil house. Why didn't the “scriptwriters” worry that all this was too much, even very much? Perhaps they acted according to the principle of Dr. Goebbels: “the bigger the lie, the sooner they will believe in it,” or perhaps I hope that all of this is someone who is not completely lost, wanted to shout: “PEOPLE, REMEMBER HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS RANGE!"
But, one way or another, the performance demanded a spectacular end. Scenes, at the end of which busy performers, hand in hand, come out to the audience to bow. On May 22, 1972, the main director himself, US President R. Nixon, arrived in Moscow to mark the end of the main part of the play and agree on the code, and the script for the last act, entitled "Apollo experimental flight" - "Soyuz", was approved 2 days later. With all of this, the Americans wanted to finally consolidate in the minds of the inhabitants of the earth the legend of the wonderful Saturn rocket and the wonderful Apollo spacecraft and to back it all up with the authority of Soviet cosmonautics, once again humiliating their main competitors. After which they, apparently tormented by an incompletely outlived inferiority complex, made another attempt to show the world at least something real in space. And on May 14, 1973with the help of the Saturn launch vehicle, the very one that first failed the tests in April 1968, and then flew to the moon six times without a hitch, the Skylab station was launched into low-earth orbit. But the "unpredictable" rocket "Saturn" showed its own temper, as a result of which the "Skylab" fell into orbit so mutilated that at first everyone gave up on it - not a tenant! Then they sort of realized it, “they sent three expeditions in a row, which repaired and improved everything,” after which … the station was finally abandoned and, having spoken, for a few more years in orbit went into the ocean to find other evidence of “flights”. But the "unpredictable" rocket "Saturn" showed its own temper, as a result of which the "Skylab" fell into orbit so mutilated that at first everyone gave up on it - not a tenant! Then they sort of realized it, “sent three expeditions in a row, which repaired and improved everything,” after which … the station was finally abandoned and, having blabbed it out, for a few more years in orbit went into the ocean for other evidence of “flights”. But the "unpredictable" rocket "Saturn" showed its own temper, as a result of which the "Skylab" fell into orbit so mutilated that at first everyone gave up on it - not a tenant! Then they sort of realized it, “sent three expeditions in a row, which repaired and improved everything,” after which … the station was finally abandoned and, having blabbed it out, for a few more years in orbit went into the ocean for other evidence of “flights”.a few more years in orbit went to the ocean for other evidence of "flights".a few more years in orbit went to the ocean for other evidence of "flights".
I had to return to the flight technology that had not failed so far - a hoax. Show must go it! If, looking ahead, to say that the Americans never had their own station in low-earth orbit and until the 80s had no experience of manned flights and docking, then in matters of hoaxes they had, as they say, "golden hands." Therefore, the casting for the main role was approached very carefully, it required not a simple artist, but preferably a people's artist with a name and charisma, besides being extremely loyal to the directors of the performance, everything else was not important. Thus, of all the contenders for the main role, A. Leonov, despite his glorious past, was the most unprepared, since he had no experience in manned flights and docking. Obviously, the main thing was different - Leonov's psychological readiness to play according to American rules and his cosmic merits. And here,Probably, there is an answer to one more question, which is constantly asked by supporters of the "landing" - why cosmonaut Leonov so stubbornly defends the American position? Probably because by recognizing the fictitiousness of "flights to the moon", he thereby recognizes his role in the final scene of the hoax, losing fame and, possibly, money. Experts interested in this topic and simply not indifferent are inclined to believe that Soyuz-19 nevertheless took off and spent the allotted time in orbit, but Apollo was never there (you know Hamlet with the ghost of his father like that), but there are "films and photographic documents" that captured the handshake "in orbit" on July 17, 1975, the very final exit to the audience of the artists holding hands.which is constantly asked by the supporters of the "landing" - why is the cosmonaut Leonov so stubbornly defending the American position? Probably because by recognizing the fictitiousness of "flights to the moon", he thereby recognizes his role in the final scene of the hoax, losing fame and, possibly, money. Experts interested in this topic and simply not indifferent are inclined to believe that Soyuz-19 nevertheless took off and spent the allotted time in orbit, but Apollo was never there (you know Hamlet with the ghost of his father like that), but there are "films and photographic documents" that captured the handshake "in orbit" on July 17, 1975, the very final exit to the audience of the artists holding hands.which is constantly asked by the supporters of the "landing" - why is the cosmonaut Leonov so stubbornly defending the American position? Probably because by recognizing the fictitiousness of "flights to the moon", he thereby recognizes his role in the final scene of the hoax, losing fame and, possibly, money. Experts interested in this topic and simply not indifferent are inclined to believe that Soyuz-19 nevertheless took off and spent the allotted time in orbit, but Apollo was never there (you know Hamlet with the ghost of his father like that), but there are "films and photographic documents" that captured the handshake "in orbit" on July 17, 1975, the very final exit to the audience of the artists holding hands. Experts interested in this topic and simply not indifferent are inclined to believe that Soyuz-19 nevertheless took off and spent the allotted time in orbit, but Apollo was never there (do you know this Hamlet with the ghost of his father), but there are "films and photographic documents" that captured the handshake "in orbit" on July 17, 1975, the very final exit to the audience of the artists holding hands. Experts interested in this topic and simply not indifferent are inclined to believe that Soyuz-19 nevertheless took off and spent the allotted time in orbit, but Apollo was never there (you know Hamlet with the ghost of his father like that), but there are "films and photographic documents" that captured the handshake "in orbit" on July 17, 1975, the very final exit to the audience of the artists holding hands.
Well what then? The curtain? Take your time, it turns out that the tradition of substituting hoaxes for real deeds is alive and well. Not so long ago, all TV channels in the world broadcast the landing on the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko of the aircraft of the European Space Agency, a faithful student and successor of the work of his older brother - NASA. While I was racking my head over the question of how I managed to navigate and land on such a remote and small object, devoid of any significant gravitational field, the reports suddenly interrupted, stopped by the promise to demonstrate on air the sound of an aircraft landing on a comet. The lies that were not stopped in time gave rise to yet another "masterpiece" - vacuum acoustics! Perhaps, it won't be long before we all find out where NASA's stories about Mars and other "space adventures" were actually filmed.
What is the bottom line? The number of critically thinking people is growing every year and the appearance of more and more flaws in the lunar evidence of NASA is no longer without laughter, the ranks of supporters of the American landing on the Moon are melting and marginalized, the truth about those distant events triumphs over lies. But all the same the joy from this comes with sadness. No one and nothing will return the country called the USSR, whose leadership has done so much to kill the population's belief that only conscientious work can bring a dream closer, and not its profanation. And it is a great pity for the generations of those people who, after a terrible war, with their selfless labor, were able to pave the way for mankind into space. What about the Americans? "Astronauts", all these Armstrongs (lived 82 years, died after an unsuccessful operation), Bormans (still alive today for 89 years), etc. Throughout their long and healthy life they most vividly proved that they did not stand on any moon or even next to them, otherwise they would not have lived so long, but would have “died in terrible convulsions” long ago, and the rest, it seems, are already indifferent that they are now thinking about them, they then achieved their goals. Having overtaken the USSR in the 80s in terms of reusable spaceships (Space Shuttle program), after a series of accidents, they curtailed this program. So, now the "conquerors of the moon", not particularly embarrassed, get to the ISS all on the same Soviet "Soyuz". Having overtaken the USSR in the 80s in terms of reusable spaceships (Space Shuttle program), after a series of accidents, they curtailed this program. So, now the "conquerors of the moon", not particularly embarrassed, get to the ISS all on the same Soviet "Soyuz". Having overtaken the USSR in the 80s in terms of reusable spaceships (Space Shuttle program), after a series of accidents, they curtailed this program. So, now the "conquerors of the moon", not particularly embarrassed, get to the ISS all on the same Soviet "Soyuz".
And yet I want to say that after going through terrible trials, hard work, betrayal and oblivion of achievements, now the Russian people (not only Russians, but all the peoples of our country, united by the great Russian culture) have retained the main quality, which, it seems, is no longer there in the notorious "West" - passionarity. And that means it's not the end. This is the beginning!
Nikolay Negodnik
