Not that long ago, some good laughs were had about the Russian craft that smashed into the moon, their first in about 5 decades. The good laughs were had even by some of the higher up officials around certain parts of the world. But… Laughs usually come around, don’t they? Indeed, they do, as now (yet again) proven by a failure of the virtually identical mission of the United States.
While it is clearly a task of epic proportions (I mean it is rocket science, literally, and more) and no one should be laughing in either case because it had happened numerous times previously to all involved, here is the funny (or not) part. Here is the article that talks about the recent failure of the American mission:
Fuel leak on Astrobotic's moon lander leaves 'no chance' of soft landing
Here is one from 6 or so months ago that talks about the Russian attempt for a Moon landing:
Russia's first lunar mission in 47 years smashes into the moon in failure
Note that both articles are from the same organization, being Reuters, one of the most respected news organizations in the world (and it really is, in my opinion). However, headlines aside, let’s look at the contents of the articles. Here is an excerpt from the Russian failure:
Russia's first moon mission in 47 years failed when its Luna-25 space craft spun out of control and crashed into the moon after a problem preparing for pre-landing orbit, underscoring the post-Soviet decline of a once mighty space programme.
That is the very first paragraph of the article. What is the first paragraph of the article that talks about the American mission?
Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander has "no chance" of a soft landing on the moon after springing a propellant leak in the first few hours of its journey in space, the company said on Tuesday about the first such U.S. attempt in five decades.
Well, that is a little bit different. But let’s look more. The article about the American mission talks about the 40 hours worth left of fuel (for the thing to operate as a spacecraft because any attempt to land would look like the one described in the Russian landing article) and that there was another problem with launch to begin with, but it was dealt with, and so on. The article is ended with:
"The team continues to work to find ways to extend Peregrine's operational life," it said, adding that engineers are receiving data and proving spaceflight operations for components and software related to its next lunar lander mission.
The article about the failure of the Russian mission ends with:
"This was perhaps the last hope for me to see a revival of our lunar program," he said.
Here is something funny though. The article in regard to the Russian mission says the following:
Russian state television put news of the loss of Luna-25 at number 8 in its line up at noon and gave it just 26 seconds of coverage, after a news about fires on Tenerife and a 4 minute item about a professional holiday for Russian pilots and crews.
But here are the facts about the two articles though.
Guess which one is which.
This is an example of conditioning that (likely) is unintended, but it is existent and has always been.
Imagine if the two worked together though. It may seem counterproductive because competition brings the best, but is it really valid in situations like this?
Moon missions failures and reporting
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