When it came to robotic probes, the Soviets got to the Moon first

bbc.com

28 pointsPerados3 comments

This seems a good place to mention the wonderful BBC TV documentary: "Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race" which was on BBC4.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04lcxms

If you can find it in a watchable sate I highly recommend it. The scene where they talk about the Americans landing on the Moon is particularly good.

You would think a BBC article on this topic would mention the bizarre postscript, where Lunokhod 2 and Luna 21 were sold at auction for around $70K USD to Richard Garriott.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott

Sold, sure, but possession is 9/10ths of the law, and both of those probes are currently on the moon. It seems more like one of those "buy a star" things than an actual bargain-basement sale of a priceless relic of the space race.

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