Word: mooning
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Dates: during 1970-1970
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Vague Hints. Luna 17 landed on the unexplored Sea of Rains, one of the oldest lunar maria. It lies some 1,400 miles northwest of the Sea of Fertility, where Luna 16 landed two months ago to scoop up 3.5 oz. of moon dust for later study on earth. At first, the Russians gave only the vaguest hints about Luna 17's mission. But once the rover demonstrated its maneuvering ability, they began revealing details of their moon machine...
...Lunokhod cannot do is come back to earth. Even though it was built of extremely light materials, its undisclosed weight is apparently too great for the lift-off capability of Luna 17. In that respect, Lunokhod resembles NASA's own lunar rover,* which will be carried to the moon by Apollo...
...cosmic rays, stomp on the ground to test its rigidity and-speculates Heinz Kaminski of West Germany's Bochum Observatory, where the radio transmissions from Russian space shots are carefully monitored -take three-dimensional pictures of the lunar surface with its multiple cameras for making maps of the moon...
...French-built array of 14 corner-shaped mirrors designed to reflect long-distance laser beams from observatories in southern France and the Crimea. A similar reflector left behind by Apollo 11 on the Sea of Tranquility has already enabled U.S. scientists to measure the distance between earth and moon with an accuracy of less than a foot. Indeed, U.S. observers think that the Soviets might be interested in testing such a device as a means of navigating future moon robots...
...well resume its explorations, eventually traveling hundreds of miles from the landing site-provided no other calamity befalls it. The Russians themselves were not inclined to make any risky predictions. But they did say that in the future more advanced robots-so-called planetokhods-would explore not only the moon but more distant landscapes on Mars, Venus and Mercury...