Word: baikonur
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...with the moon last week, the Apollo 11 astronauts were aware that they would have company in the lunar neighborhood. With the aid of periodic news reports from Houston, they were able to keep track of the progress of Luna 15, the unmanned Soviet moon probe launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome three days before their blast-off from Cape Kennedy. The Russians cloaked Luna's mission in characteristic secrecy. Some scientists speculated that it was a "scoopy" shot designed to dig up some lunar soil and return it to earth before a manned Apollo mission could accomplish the feat...
...Frank Borman flew off with his wife and two sons for a nine-day tour. It was all unofficial -Moscow's invitation came via the Soviet-American Relations Institute-but there were broad hints that Borman would be allowed to see something of the Soviet space complex at Baikonur so far visited by only one Westerner, France's Charles de Gaulle in 1966. In any event, the trip got off to a happy start when Borman tried to say a few words in Russian for the three cosmonauts who greeted him at Moscow airport. "Ya ochen...
...SOVIETS IN SPACE (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). A first-and impressive-look at the Soviet space program. Highlights of this joint Soviet-NBC effort include a look at the Baikonur Cosmodrome (the Soviet Cape Kennedy), shots of Yuri Gagarin's first manned space flight, and a visit to Star Village, where the cosmonauts live...
Whatever the subjects were, they were discussed in quiet voices. Even the space spectacular at Baikonur, the Soviet missile site deep in Central Asia, was a bit sotto voce. Instead of the multinational, six-man lunar shot that some observers had predicted, the Russians showed their guests the launch of a radio-and-TV-relay satellite named Molniya (Lightning). About the only clue from the Moscow summit was a negative one: in the list of slogans promulgated last week for the 49th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, a key phrase was missing. For the first time since 1918, the Soviets...
From Novosibirsk, De Gaulle flew south to Baikonur, the Soviet Union's main space center. No other Westerner had ever seen the Baikonur "cosmodrome," and the Russians topped that distinction by launching a satellite in De Gaulle's honor-probably, said wags, a polar-orbiting satellite aimed at spying on the U.S. From there, at week's end, De Gaulle flew on to Leningrad for tours of the Hermitage and the Petrodvorets palace-and more talks with Podgorny and Kosygin about the ultimate disposition of Europe...