Moon Tank: Lunokhod 1 (w. Victoria Scott)
7/1/20261 hr 27 min
In a desperate bid to one-up the American Apollo missions, the Soviets built nuclear Moon tanks. We’re joined by auto journalist and podcaster Victoria Scott for a series on the Soviet Lunokhod rovers. In Part 1, we talk about the three-pronged Soviet lunar program, how they built the first space tank, and how you can stay warm in winter with a kilo of Polonium-210.
Check out Victoria’s work here and listen to Tran Girlismo!
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SOURCES:
- Unmanned Missions toward the Moon, Anatoly Zak
- Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration, Brian Harvey
- Tank on the Moon, 2007
FTL theme song by DJ Danarchy
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 1· Soundbite0:00
[upbeat music] We hit a pretty large bank associated with the, uh, caution and warning now. Okay, so we have an apparent serious oxygen leak. Four, three, two, one. Uh, Houston, we've had a problem. He's in a roll, and he can't stop it. Performing an evasive maneuver. Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here. I think we need to do a little more all-weather testing. Welcome to space. Space. Space. Space. Space. Space. Space. Space. Space.
Chris· Host0:47
Hello, listener, and welcome to Failure to Launch, the space history podcast where we take you through all the mistakes, failures, and explosions that made modern space exploration possible. We are your hosts. Quinn, he/him. Chris, he/him.
Victoria Scott· Guest1:06
I am today's guest. My name is Victoria Scott, and my pronouns are she and her.
Chris· Host1:11
And I'm Encrypted Chris, he/him. And today, we're talking about the Soviet Lunokhod moon rovers, and why the guy who made the Ultima games owns one of them, legally, on the moon. Wait. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, admittedly, this is another one of those, these stories, uh, Victoria can attest to this, where it started