1. Previous Soviet and American Probes
One of the most
interesting aspects of the lunar anomalies is the strange behavior
of early Soviet and American unmanned probes to the planet. The
Russians were the first to the Moon with an unmanned probe, another
first in their long line of early space firsts; Luna 1 reached the
Moon on a “fly-by” mission in 1959, coming to within about 4500
miles of the Moon’s surface.
This was followed by
Luna 2, which was the first man-made object to actually hit the
moon. This probe was not designed to survive the impact on the
Moon’s surface. Things suddenly changed, however, with the Luna 3
probe.
Luna 3 was the first
man-made satellite to circle around to the far side of the Moon,
where it was also the first to take pictures of that side of the
Moon. Strangely, and as far as is publicly known, the Soviet Union
ceased all lunar exploration for a full four years after Luna 3,
and the probe’s pictures were a closely held secret.
Meanwhile, the United
States was late getting to the Moon, and its early probes were not
very successful. Ranger 3, which was launched in 1962, so
completely missed the Moon that it wound up in orbit around the
Sun. Ranger 4 struck the Moon, but returned little useful
information. Ranger 5 missed the Moon by a whopping 450
miles.
When the Soviet Union
revived its lunar exploration in 1964 with Luna 5, the craft
crashed into the Moon at full speed when it had been designed for a
soft lunar landing. Luna 6 was even less successful, missing the
moon completely. Like Luna 5, Luna 7 crashed into the Moon, a
result of its retro-rockets having fired too early. This point is
highly significant, as will be seen momentarily.
Luna 8 also crashed,
but finally the Russians were successful with Luna 9, which was
able to soft land on the Moon, the first man-made spacecraft to do
so. It is also noteworthy that after Luna 9, both Russian and
American success rates of attempts to land probes on the Moon
improved.