Moon Man Mitchell and Soviet Moonship

       The anniversary of an Apollo lunar landing or death of a rare moon walker gets the attention of everyone looking at the Moon.

       And it gets the Space Age fanatics thinking about the race to the Moon in the 1960s.

       It was America vs the Soviet Union; Democracy vs Communism; Good vs Evil; open access vs censored secrecy; and triumph vs tragedy.

Apollo 14 Moonship "Antares"  Note right pad dug in edge of crater...close call!

       And one of the astronauts taking steps on the Moon and making a triumph out of the near-tragedy of Apollo 13 was Edgar Mitchel, who died at age 85 on Feb. 3, 2016, which was the 45^th anniversary of him orbiting the Moon with two other astronauts aboard Apollo 14.

       While I was enjoying Internet posts about the life of Mitchell and the Apollo 14 mission to the Moon, I also participated in the space nerds’ cyber banter about the one-man Soviet moonship called “LK” for Lunar Ship. It’s clear that America was ahead during most of the space race, but just barely. And once censored details about the Soviet space program are being revealed each year.  

       Edgar Mitchell walked on the Moon Feb. 5, 1971 with his commander and Mercury space hero Alan Shepard, the fifth and sixth humans to set foot on an alien world.  The astronauts were outside for two, four-hour moonwalks during their 37 hours on the surface. They brought back 95 pounds of precious lunar rocks.

       The Apollo 14 landing will be remembered for Shepard swatting two Titleist golf balls with a make-shift 6-iron during the last moonwalk.  This was after the pair became exhausted in the fluffy moon dust. They actually turned away with just a few yards from the edge of a large crater they wanted to look inside, the moonscape disorientating them slightly. 

The Apollo 14 moonwalkers taught us that without familiar objects like trees and telephone poles that we have on Earth, it was extremely hard to judge distances on the Moon.  Shepard and Mitchell walked in the deepest lunar soil experienced among the six landers, often over the tops of their boots.   They had a wheeled utility cart with all their tools, like a lunar rickshaw, which was hard to drag along the deep, moon dirt.

The Apollo 14 mission was the last of the three test missions that basically verified all the complex systems and navigational requirements.  The next three, Apollos 15, 16 and 17, would have three-day stays with a lunar rover to drive them around complex geology.

Edgar Mitchell came back from the Moon experience a changed man.  He said he felt the presence of a universal entity, not unlike, but different from the Biblical God of Christianity.  He created the Institute of Noetic Sciences to investigate the paranormal and psychic phenomenon.  A staunch believer that UFOs are evidence of extraterrestrials, he often created controversy that NASA chose to ignore. 

Mitchell’s impression of his Apollo 14 experience and his unworldly beliefs are put down in his book, “The Way of the Explorer: An Apollo Astronaut's Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds” (1996).

Had the Soviets landed on the Moon first, their mission would have been a “grab-and-go” to claim the historic first.  The Soviet moon plans has no scientific experiments, and it has been guessed that the lucky cosmonaut would dash

Soviet Moonship "LK"  

outside for a mere 20-30 minutes with a camera, shovel and suitcase.  After hurriedly gathering rocks and tossing the suitcase of lunar booty into the LK moonship, the cosmonaut would get ready for blast off and rendezvous with a second cosmonaut orbiting in a Soyuz-style ship called Zond.

This “land and go” scenario would have to take place during a two-hour Zond orbit. The LK moonship could probably only operate for 6-8 hours on the Moon surface because of its small batteries for power.  So the Zond cosmonaut would be in position for rendezvous for two, maybe three lunar orbits.

       Though America had won the Moon Race in July 1969 with Apollo 11, the Soviets continued to test their LK moonship in Earth orbit without cosmonauts.  Disguised as “Cosmos” series flights, the usual cover for Soviet secrecy, it is known that Cosmos 379 and 382 were LKs flown in November and December 1970, and Cosmos 398 and 434 were LKs flown in February and August 1971.  Space insiders followed the flights with tracking information, confirming that the descent and lunar ascent systems seemed to work well.  Yet, the Soviets never sent a man on their LK moonship.

       The main reason America beat the Soviets to the Moon was the Russians failure to build a successful rocket to launch the LK moonship.  America’s Saturn V rocket was a modern day marvel even today, and it’s proven, three-stage system proved the difference in the Moon Race. The Soviet’s moon rocket, called N-1, exploded in catastrophic fashion three times in 1968 and 1969, dooming the dreams of a cosmonaut on the Moon before an American.

       The LK moonship was also questioned if it could pull off the landing and launch from the Moon. The LK was one-third the size of NASA’s Apollo.  Weight distribution, including the cosmonaut, would have been critical to maneuvers.  And the claustrophobic interior with death a simple mistake away would have taken a very brave cosmonaut to fly the mission.  Indeed, several cosmonauts have openly doubted it would work, calling their Moon landing plans a suicide mission. 

       Would the world be different if the Russians won the Moon Race?  For a while. The secrecy and ensuing propaganda would have the world thinking Communism was superior to Democracy. 

But NASA would have kept on schedule with its plans and continued the exploration of the Moon.  America’s ambitious scientific missions would have put any Soviet moon science to shame. The Russians weren’t going for the science, just the fame of being first to the Moon.  

Nearly 50 years later, only Americans have been on the surface of the Moon. The Chinese say they’re going back to the Moon in the next 10 years, while NASA looks to a Mars mission with the Moon as a possibility in 15-20 years. And Russia says they also want to go the Moon. 

       One thing is for certain, humans will one day again walk on the Moon as our nature is to explore, and outer space is the ultimate adventure.