What did the US know about Soviet lunar plans?

[Saint in Paradise]

Long time ago now I know but I found this bit of history quite interesting.

 

 

The CIA's National Intelligence Estimate 11-1-67 was handed to President Johnson in March 1967. It shows that the

decision makers not only knew about the Russian lunar program, but were quite up to date with the latest Soviet schedule

estimates. While their program information was solid, their knowledge of the Soviet launch vehicles and spacecraft under

development was less so. This annotated version contrasts the CIA's knowledge of the program with what we now know

to be the situation on the Russian side in February 1967. Special thanks to Peter Pesavento for providing the copy of this

document, which he was able to have declassified by the LBJ Library back in 1993!

 

http://www.astronautix.com/articles/ciah1967.htm

 

Also have a read of this book:-

 

 

Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race Paperback

by David Scott (Author), Alexei Leonov (Author), Tom Hanks (Introduction), Neil Armstrong (Foreword)

 

Can be obtained from Amazon, my local NZ library has a copy so yours might as well.

 

 

 

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Edited 20 April, 2014 by Saint in Paradise
Added book title

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

Revelations that the US was keeping a very close eye on the Soviet space programme - and vice versa no doubt - should really come as no surprise to anyone. Indeed, as revelations go this one hardly counts as earth-shattering.

 

Even if we leave to one side for the moment issues surrounding national prestige and the intense levels of rivalry in existence between East and West during the Cold War era, a 'Civil' aerospace effort and a 'military' research programme were often closely interrelated fields of endeavour that each side felt the need to monitor. Therefore this type of behaviour became commonplace. But if anyone doubts that both sides were playing the very same game, I will offer the following images for their consideration:

 

1 - Nasa STS 'Space Shuttle' and Soviet 'Buran' vehicles:

 

2 - Soviet Tupelov 144 supersonic airliner - not often know as the 'Concordski' for nothing methinks:

 

Espionage, and other forms of intelligence gathering, did not of course come to a sudden stop with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Only last week I saw reports that the security of the US Department of Defense's computer network at the Pentagon is under a constant threat from a hacking attack campaign emanating from a large Asian country with a name that rhymes with 'Bhina'.