Russia & India to send joint manned mission to Moon

"Pete" wrote in message news:Lydtb.7118 ok...I'll play..

8. Analysis of the radiation aspect, and why shielding could or could not
have mattered, and why or why not the Apollo craft could not have been
shielded enough to ensure survival. (Simply saying "the technology wasn't
good enough" is not enough. Rad levels aloft, time, then-current material
science all must be included in this analysis).

Before we even go there, we have to answer why there was a moon race
in the first place if radiation were an insurmountable obstacle. Both
the US and the Soviet Union launched numerous interplanetary and lunar
probes long before any manned lunar launchs evertook place. Many of
the US probe experiments were run by university researchers, IIRC.
These people would be fully cognizant of the
interplanetary environment.

The Soviets would know based on the data from their activities and
would not have participated in the moon race. They launched probes
specifically to investigate the lunar radiation environment, including
(but not limited to):

LUNA 1 ('59) - Carried geiger counter, scintillation counter
LUNA 2 {'59) - Carried geiger counter, scintillation counter
LUNA 3 ('59) - Carried cosmic ray detector
ZOND 3 ('65) - Carried gas-discharge & scintillation detectors
LUNA 10 ('66) - Carried gamma ray spectrometer
LUNA 11 ('66) - Measured hard particulate radiation near moon
LUNA 12 ('66) - Measured hard particulate radiation near moon
LUNA 13 ('66) - Measured cosmic ray reflectivity of surface
LUNA 14 ('68) - Measured solar charged particles & cosmic radiation
ZOND 5 ('68) - Flyby carrying turtles, flies, worms, seeds, bacteria
ZOND 6 {'68} - Carried cosmic ray detectors, biological payload
ZOND 7 ('69)
ZOND 8 ('70)
LUNA 16 ('70) - Returned soil samples, carried radiation instruments
LUNA 20 ('72) - Returned soil samples
LUNA 24 ('76) - Returned soil samples

Many more lunar & planetary probes were launched, but I'm only
including the ones I found immediately that discuss measuring the
radiation environment. In fact, not only was the lunar radiation
environment well known in the early
60's , it was known well enough early enough for both sides to have
avoided ever having a moon race in the first place. Be rather
impossible for Zond 5 to have flown biologicals if the radiation level
were too high, eh?

By this we can infer one of two possibilities:
1. Either both the Soviets and the Americans were in on a deception
(unlikely)
2. The lunar radiation environment was not a significant impediment
to a manned lunar landing (likely)

The theory that the US would be pull over a hoax on the Soviets on
this is falsifiable on this issue.