
Faxes from the far side of the moon - vinnyglennon
http://www.damninteresting.com/faxes-from-the-far-side/#read-more
======
avmich
Boris Chertok described how the first picture was received from the Moon.
Korolev and others were in the room, the printer started to print, a very
vague picture appeared. Somebody said "we know now that the Moon is round" \-
so little could be seen on the picture. A chief project engineer apparently
wasn't satisfied, said "we'll get another picture, a better one", took the
paper print, torn it and threw into waste basket. Korolev was calm: "Do you
understand, that this is the first - realize it, the first - image of the far
side of the Moon, seen by humans?"

They did get better pictures later :) .

------
ctdonath
We tend to discuss (understandably) how we don't see the far side of the Moon,
discuss the difficulty of the "radio shadow", and are delighted to
occasionally see pictures thereof.

Consider the reverse: someone (yes, hypothetically) living their life on the
far side of the Moon would be completely unaware their quiet home is just 1.3
light-seconds away from a brilliantly reflective orb teeming with life.

~~~
mediumdeviation
Well, all Moonies have to do to see the Earth is to travel to the opposite
side of it, whereas to do the opposite from Earth requires launching a vehicle
out of the planet's atmosphere, across the orbit of the Moon, and back to
Earth again.

Granted, it wasn't until several hundred years ago that Earthlings began to
circumnavigate the globe, but the technology to travel long (cross-
continental) distances have existed since ancient times.

~~~
TomSawyer
Moonies is not the preferred nomenclature — Mooninites, please.

~~~
Rotten194
Moonmen, please.

------
drumdance
Fascinating story.

What's even more fascinating to me is to ponder that the space race was part
of an arms race that goes back eons.

It's fun to imagine Og the caveman and his council trying to think up a
defense mechanism against the evil Oog. The tribe of Oog's most recent
innovation was the spear, allowing them to fight at a distance.

Repeat a million times or two and now we have cyber warfare.

------
anovikov
Of course there wasn't an 'array of 1000 vacuum tubes'. There was just one. It
worked as a good old photo telegraph machine

[http://gorod.tomsk.ru/uploads/34046/1289982897/ta2.jpg](http://gorod.tomsk.ru/uploads/34046/1289982897/ta2.jpg)

------
ck2
It was great we had space races during the cold war (and the fact it was
cold).

Now we have no more space exploration and just hot wars in Syria. No troops on
the ground - wait what, Russia is in Syria? Troops on the ground!

Hey I know, let's give Russia millions of dollars to fly American astronauts
to the space station because we can't do it ourselves because we drove NASA's
budget into the ground, that will teach them.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _Now we have no more space exploration_

What?

[http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/](http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/)

[https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/all-systems-go-for-
nasas-...](https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/all-systems-go-for-nasas-
mission-to-jupiter-moon-europa/)

[http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/dawn/](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/dawn/)

[http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/juno/](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/juno/)

[http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mars-science-laboratory-
cur...](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mars-science-laboratory-curiosity-
rover-msl/)

[http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/cassini-
huygens/](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/cassini-huygens/)

> _let 's give Russia millions of dollars to fly American astronauts to the
> space station because we can't do it ourselves_

Oh, shit! Nothing is worse than nations cooperating^ to explore space! And
it's not like we're working on any way to do it ourselves:
[http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/05/18/spacex-has-
aggressive-s...](http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/05/18/spacex-has-aggressive-
schedule-leading-up-to-crew-flights/)

^ Yeah, this is technically unfair, because it's not so much cooperation as a
literal lack of ability, coupled with Russia's occasional vague threats to
block America's astronauts from getting to the ISS. It just felt good to say
it.

~~~
zipwitch
Space exploration of this sort has a long lead time. We're reaping the fruits
of year and years of labor with most of those.

Cassini started in the Eighties and launched in 1997. New Horizons was
greenlit in 2001 after a decade of work and launched in 2006. Dawn was
intitially greenlit 2001 and finally launched in 2007. Curiosity started in
2004 and launched in 2011. Juno was greenlit in 2005 and launched in 2011.

The Europa Mission will, presuming no delays, launch in 7-10 years. In between
there is very, very little. (One asteroid sample return mission, and one Mars
lander. Nothing beyond the asteroids until the Europa mission, and nothing
greenlit for afterwards.)

~~~
fapjacks
Yeah, exactly! The saddest part of all this beautiful discovery and imagery is
that we are about to be thirsty for more, and there are hardly any new robots
in the pipeline. So sad.

