Failed Soviet Moon Landing
At the height of the Space Race, the United States and the Soviet Union bitterly tried to outdo one another, each attempting to be the first to succeed in a number of scientific and exploratory challenges. In the beginning the Soviets won many of the ‘firsts’, such as launching the first craft to enter Earth’s orbit, Sputnik 1 in October 1957, sending to space the first living animal, Laika, on Sputnik 2 in November 1957, and putting the first man in orbit with Yuri Gagarin’s mission in April 1961.
In fact, by most accounts, the USSR was even ahead of the United States in sending the first man to the moon by the time US president John F. Kennedy’s famous “We choose to go” speech in 1962. The Soviets had already landed the Luna 2 probe on the moon’s surface in 1959, and they were in the middle of developing a manned-mission that was strikingly similar to the US effort. Yet, that early success would eventually be forgotten as the Soviet Union buried their final moon missions in secrecy. Because just as Neil Armstrong was setting foot on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, the Luna 15 lander was crashing into the other side of the moon. It is a story the Soviets did not want the world to know…
Credit to : Dark Docs
