Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

the southern hemisphere and make a skip reentry, coming down in the normal land
recovery zone (Zond 6 and 7), or, if the skip failed, a ballistic descent into the Indian
Ocean (Zond 5).
The alternative approach, one favoured by Mishin, was to come through reentry
over the northern hemisphere, with good contact with the ground during this crucial
period, but make a southern hemisphere splashdown. This route had not been tried
before. Two Soviet writers of the period confirm that the purpose of Zond 8 was
indeed 'to make it possible to verify another landing version with deceleration over
the USSR' [14]. Zond 8 made a smooth northern hemisphere skip reentry and came
down in the Indian Ocean 24 km from its pinpoint target where it was found within
15 min by the ship Taman. This seemed to prove Mishin's point. Six years later,
though, cosmonauts Vyacheslav Zudov and Valeri Rozhdestvensky splashed down
in a lake and very nearly drowned during a protracted and hazardous recovery.
Analysis of the biological samples found similar results across the series. The
turtles were hungry and thirsty after their return: hardly a surprise as they had not
been fed or watered during their mission. They were examined for changes to their
heart, vital organs and blood. There were some mutations in the seeds as a result of
radiation. Overall, radiation dosages seemed to be well within acceptable limits, not
posting a danger to cosmonauts and not significantly different from conditions in
Earth orbit.
Thus, of nine Zond missions and of six attempts to fly to the moon, only Zond 7
and 8 were wholly successful. The last two production Zonds were never used. Just as
the Russians tested their lunar hardware in Earth orbit successfully (Cosmos 379, 382,
398,434), they tested their round-the-moon hardware successfully. We now know that
the Russians reached the stage where they could, with a reasonable prospect of success,
have proceeded to a manned around-the-moon flight. Years later, Vasili Mishin was
asked about his period as chief designer and whether he would have done things
differently. 'Perhaps,' he said wistfully, 'I would have insisted on making a loop
around the moon, even after the United States, because we had everything ready
for it. Maybe we could have done it even before the Americans' [15].
L-1, Zond series
10 Mar 1967 Cosmos 146
8 Apr 1967 Cosmos 154 (failure)
28 Sep 1967 Launch failure
23 Nov 1967 Launch failure
2 Mar 1968 Zond 4
23 Apr 1968 Launch failure
22 Jul 1968 Pad accident
15 Sep 1968 Zond 5
14 Nov 1968 Zond 6
20 Jan 1969 Launch failure
8 Aug 1969 Zond 7
20 Oct 1970 Zond 8