The Lunar Landscape

It was beyond doubt one of the greatest achievements of Soviet science. By landing the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft softly on the surface of the moon in condition to take and transmit pictures, Russian space scientists did more than edge ahead of the U.S. in the race to place a man on the lunar landscape. They proved that he would find a surface solid enough to stand on when he got there. Inexplicably, after announcing the landing, the Russians delayed capitalizing further on their triumph. Then, when British astronomers intercepted Luna 9's pictures and released them first, a Soviet scientist lamely charged them with "certain motives of a sensational nature."

Earlier, the Russians had gone out of their way to tell the operators of Britain's giant 250-ft. Jodrell Bank radio telescope the precise frequency of Luna 9's transmissions. Forewarned, the British astronomers easily picked up and recorded the spacecraft's signals. Noting that they were suspiciously similar to ordinary wirephoto transmissions, the men at Jodrell Bank fed them into an ordinary facsimile machine hurriedly borrowed from London's Daily Express. The machine converted the signals into a light beam that varied in intensity as it mowed back and forth across photosensitive paper, producing lines of light and dark dots. The results, said Jodrell Bank Director Sir Bernard Lovell, were "the most sensational pictures we have ever received."

A Dusty Theory. Taken by a camera with a wide-angle lens from about 10 ft. above a porous, pumicelike surface, the pictures showed a barren, forbidding crust, littered with jagged rocks and tiny pebbles that the Russians later revealed were as small as 1 or 2 millimeters wide. The lunar view suggested to University of Arizona Astronomer Gerald Kuiper that Luna 9 was probably resting on the floor of a small crater, that the rocks were only about a foot high, and that the horizon in the picture was actually formed by the crater's rim, apparently less than a mile away.

Even more significant, the pictures showed no evidence of the thick and treacherous layer of dust that many astronomers and physicists have predicted might envelop vehicles landing on the moon's surface. Said Astronomer Kui per, who at times during the past several years has stood nearly alone in insisting that there is little or no lunar dust: "There was never any basis for believing it anyway, but the idea seemed to fascinate people in the same way as flying saucers." The surface of the Ocean of Storms, Kuiper said, seemed to have been formed by lava flow during volcanic activity billions of years ago. "It must be nasty stuff to walk on," he said, "brittle, sharp and full of little holes." The first lunar explorers, he feels sure, will have to be equipped with some form of snowshoe to maneuver successfully.

Because Luna 9 landed in an area that would bask in sunshine for 14 consecutive earth days before lunar nightfall descended, British scientists were hopeful that the spacecraft's solar-powered batteries might last long enough for it to transmit pictures of the same scenes at regular intervals for several days. Then, as the sun gradually moved through its zenith toward the lunar horizon, ridges and rocks would cast changing shadows that would reveal more information about their size and shape. But at week's end the Russians announced that they had completed Luna 9's program, leading the scientists to speculate that its batteries had failed--perhaps because its solar cells had been damaged.

An Upright Landing. This minor disappointment detracted but little from the magnitude of the Russian feat. By successfully slowing an unmanned, 3,400-lb. spacecraft from an approach velocity of 6,000 m.p.h. to a speed of about 10 m.p.h., and setting it down upright on the moon's surface, the Russians proved that they had finally mastered a technique essential for a manned mission. The first U.S. softlanding attempt with the problem-plagued Surveyor will not take place before May. And even then, U.S. space scientists will not have the experience that their Soviet counterparts have gained during four successive soft-landing failures.

Nonetheless, the Russians have yet to learn another essential technique that the U.S. developed during the flights of Gemini 6 and 7: rendezvous in space. And the well-managed U.S. Apollo program is making such rapid headway that space officials still hope to land Americans on the moon before 1969. Quite possibly, they will try the trick even before their instrument-carrying Surveyor is able to carry out its mission successfully. Neither contestant is yet an odds-on favorite in the lunar sweepstakes.

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