There has been much excitement about the crew of Artemis II seeing the far side of the moon (Artemis II swings back around after completing record-setting moon flyby, 6 April). Let us remember that on 7 October 1959 the Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 (also known as Lunik 3) photographed the back of the moon for the first time. A picture was sent down to Earth and printed in Pravda newspaper using standard wire-photo equipment.
Meanwhile, the Daily Express obtained the photograph via the Jodrell Bank radio telescope but got the proportions wrong, printing it too wide or too narrow (I’m not sure which). I was a schoolboy obsessed with space, so I wrote to Pravda in Moscow asking for a copy of the newspaper with the (correct) moon photograph and they kindly obliged. Incidentally, around the time I had heart surgery a few years ago, I dreamed that I’d been in a figure-of-eight orbit around the Earth and the moon. I awoke from surgery, flung my arms in the air and declared loudly: “I’m alive!” (I’d been told I had a 90% chance of survival.)
Dr Nigel Fairweather
Brixham, Devon
• Seeing the wonderful pictures of the moon and Earth from Artemis II (Artemis II makes lunar flyby during Nasa mission – in pictures, 7 April) took me back to 1969 when doing a student job on the same morning as the first ever moon landing. The shift workers were all standing around putting on barrier cream prior to starting work, excitedly chatting about watching it all live a few hours earlier, when a lone voice chirped up: “I thought it was all a bit far-fetched.” Stunned into silence, we all trooped off to start work.
Philip Clarke
East Bridgford, Nottinghamshire
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