SOVIET ROBOT BRINGS MOON SOIL BACK TO EARTH

MOSCOW, 1970-09-24. — A Soviet spacecraft has brought lunar soil to Earth without carrying a man on any stage of the journey. The return capsule of Luna 16 came down in Kazakhstan today, completing a twelve-day expedition in which an automatic station landed on the Moon, drilled into its surface and dispatched its cargo home. The recovery gives the Soviet Union a new first in lunar exploration, fourteen months after American astronauts first walked on the Moon. More immediately, it puts material from a different lunar locality into the hands of investigators who can examine it with the full resources of laboratories on Earth.

The capsule landed about 80 kilometres south-east of Dzhezkazgan at approximately 5.25 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time. Its return followed an ascent from the Moon on September 21 and a direct journey towards Earth. A heat shield protected the returning container during its passage through the atmosphere, and a parachute slowed the final descent. The cargo amounts to approximately 100 grams of lunar material: a modest quantity by ordinary measures, but an exceptional delivery by any reckoning of distance and difficulty. No cosmonaut stood beside the drill or accompanied the sample through the hazards of its return.

Luna 16 was launched on September 12 and entered lunar orbit before descending to the Sea of Fertility on September 20. This broad, dark region lies on the Moon’s Earth-facing hemisphere, east of the areas visited by the first two American landing expeditions. The Soviet machine touched down during the lunar night. Its operations therefore did not depend upon the familiar sunlit scene of an astronaut choosing stones within sight of his landing craft. Instruments, radio links and automatic mechanisms had to perform the work, with the sample secured in a container attached to the small rocket intended for the homeward journey.

The drilling apparatus penetrated roughly 35 centimetres beneath the surface. Material collected by the drill was transferred to the return container, after which the upper section of the spacecraft lifted off, leaving the landing stage on the Moon. About twenty-six hours separated the landing and departure. This division of labour is central to the achievement: the equipment needed to descend, stand on the surface and gather soil did not all have to be lifted again. Only the return apparatus and its precious freight had to make the next departure. The expedition has thus demonstrated a complete mechanical chain from lunar landing to terrestrial recovery.

American astronauts have already returned much larger collections. Apollo 11 brought back more than 21 kilograms in July last year, and Apollo 12 added approximately 34 kilograms in November. Luna 16 does not rival those expeditions in the weight or variety of its cargo, nor can a drill exercise a field geologist’s judgment. Its distinction is different. A sample has been obtained from another lunar site without exposing a crew to flight, landing or ascent. The contrast is particularly evident after April’s Apollo 13 emergency, when an oxygen-tank explosion forced the Americans to abandon their intended landing and concentrate upon bringing three men safely home.

The scientific question is not simply which country can place the larger collection on a laboratory bench. Material from the Sea of Fertility can provide another point of comparison in inquiries into the Moon’s composition and history. When Neil Armstrong stepped down last year, he reported that the surface was “fine and powdery.” That observation described what a man could see and feel at one place. Investigators now have a specimen obtained by a different method at another. Its minerals, chemical constituents and physical character must be examined before firm conclusions can be drawn; today’s recovery is the beginning of that work, not its answer.

For the Soviet space programme, the return continues a substantial record of automatic lunar exploration. Luna 2 reached the Moon in September 1959, and Luna 3 photographed its hidden face the following month. Luna 9 made the first successful soft landing in February 1966, while Luna 10 became the first artificial satellite of the Moon that April. Those accomplishments established that machines could reach, survive upon and observe the lunar world. Luna 16 adds the missing homeward movement. It also follows the disappointment of Luna 15, which struck the Moon during its attempted descent in July last year while the American landing expedition was under way.

The political importance is plain, although this is not a Soviet equivalent of landing men on the Moon. Washington retains that distinction, together with the experience and substantial collections obtained by two successful landing crews. Moscow can now point to a different capability, one which answers a practical scientific requirement without repeating the American method. The competition consequently cannot be reduced to a single scoreboard of footprints and flags. Automatic spacecraft and piloted expeditions offer different combinations of reach, flexibility and risk. Today’s recovery supplies tangible evidence for the Soviet emphasis upon machines in lunar exploration, without settling the larger argument over the respective programmes.

There is also a declared international purpose against which both powers’ achievements may be judged. The plaque left by Apollo 11 stated, “We came in peace for all mankind.” The Outer Space Treaty, to which both the Soviet Union and the United States are parties, says that exploration and use of space shall be conducted “for the benefit and in the interests of all countries” and shall be “the province of all mankind.” Those words do not abolish national rivalry or prescribe how this particular specimen must be distributed. They do establish a public standard: the enduring value of the cargo will depend upon the knowledge obtained from it, not merely the prestige attending its arrival.

Attention now turns from the recovery ground to the laboratory. A sealed container returned from the Moon must be opened and its contents handled with care if terrestrial contamination is not to confuse the investigation. The amount available will require deliberate choices about examination and allocation. No account of the Moon’s origin can properly be pronounced from the successful descent of a parachute in Kazakhstan. What can be said today is both narrower and remarkable: an apparatus sent from Earth has collected material on another celestial body and brought it back. The Soviet Union has made the unmanned lunar expedition a round trip.