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Introduction: "DEEP POLITICS" AND THE MOON RACE

There are two unalterable truths about the Moon race between the USA and USSR-the first, that there have been nine American manned missions to selenocentric space; and the second, that no Russian cosmonauts have ever been to our nearest neighbor.  An important, yet unanswered question is this:  What definitively and actually took place between these two truths? 

For many in the space history community, this question that I have rhetorically asked has already been answered to their satisfaction.  During Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost ("openness") era, there appeared the first-published and officially cleared revelations about the Soviet manned lunar space program of 1964-1976.  This newer "official" version confirmed that the Russians indeed were in a "race" to the Moon with the Americans, which appeared to replace the previous "official" version that there had been no Moon race at all. 

But there are problems with this newer "official" Russian version, despite many in the space history community accepting it at face value.  The newer version promulgates that the Russians had prepared in some incomplete way for the competition with the Americans, with the added tenet that the USSR's preparations weren't performed on the basis of truly full-scale, contemporary competitor-equals to the USA.  This newer Russian history basically concedes that things weren't very close, and the equipment not fully developed. A second-rate contestant, in other words.  Strangely, this newer version of events by the Russians appears to re-affirm the older, disavowed version, in that the "ultimate truth" was that the Americans were in a race by themselves. 

And many space historians in the West agree with this assessment-without sufficient corroboratory evidence, in my view-and subscribe to the perspective that the Moon race was not "sporting." This erroneous judgement has so far reduced interest in any information that might speak to the opposite.  (But the information is there, and more is continuing to be found.)

To many in the space history community, everything that there is to know (or should be known) about the history of the Moon race has already been revealed.  The supporters that advocate this view continue to promulgate the idea that a handful of Russian-published books in the early and mid-1990s-RKK Energia's corporate history volume, the multi-volume sets of Boris Chertok's recollections, as well as Nikolai Kamanin's diary entries-tell the whole and complete story, and that nothing more needs to be looked at.[1-3] 

However, in a contrary and countering viewpoint, there are a number of independent, non-affiliated scholars and historians-those that have taken a jaundiced eye toward the current Russian version of those 1960s events-that have also engaged in research about the Moon race.  Their efforts have led to a different conclusion from the "non-sporting race" proponents.  These researchers have found newly re-discovered materials (both Russian and American, and also European) that contradict the current Russian space history, and pointedly display in bold relief that the competition was indeed quite real, exceptionally competitive, and nearly had history re-written quite differently from what it now is.  

As scholars have found via re-inspection of old press reportage, that even though later on  there were denials of a Moon race competition, the crux of comments by Soviet space luminaries at the time the events were happening had emphatic statements that the USSR was in the race, and they were in it to win. 

Additionally, while engaging in current discussions with former members of US intelligence, this theme has been further amplified and confirmed. There has been additional corroboration of a significant slice of the comments of these former intelligence personnel via recently declassified US documents, even though the present materials remain few in number.

Indeed, there also appears to be a concerted effort on the part of some actual Russian participants in Moon race currently to reveal information that defies the newer "official" Russian version of events, by disclosing contradictory data that further impels the view that a completely different, and previously undisclosed, story took place.  A number of these Russian-based sources however, are doing so posthumously.

But there has been contentious resistance on the part of some other Russian-based commentators to further exploration of the Soviet space past, particularly relating to the manned lunar projects. (I have personally experienced such rebuffs.) This specific set of commentators uphold completely the notion that the USSR was only partially in a race with the Americans to send men to the Moon, and that there were no concrete plans to "face down" the USA at critical junctures, such as in December 1968 or July, 1969.

Despite these contradictory "information streams" coming out of the former USSR, independent scholars have found a trend in the burgeoning information accumulation, that appears to point to an undeniable conclusion--that even the newer Russian "official" version of events is not only incomplete, but that it is likewise contains inaccuracies, due to the incompleteness. 

This article-editorial provides a pointed, selected sampling of a number of these discoveries that fly in the face of the current version of Russian "official" space history.  These new discoveries also have led to new interpretations-albeit from a non-status quo perspective.  These new interpretations include influences from Russian-sourced materials previously unpublished that bolster suspicions that the Moon race story is far from complete.  Indeed, in many ways, the two "prisms" of the Moon race-both the Russian and American-have remained a distortion, due to the incompleteness of the available record.

But there are efforts, by myself and others, who are working to change this incompleteness of the record.  As will be described here in this serialization, Globalsecurity.org readers will be able to read and view for themselves many of the previously untold elements of the Moon race story.  And where there are gaps in the storyline, I point out those "history blanks," and where appropriate, provide questions that--when answered--will provide a more complete understanding of the great "starry"competition of the Cold War.