Last week a wonderful satellite tv documentary was dug out from beneath piles of film/DVDs/memory sticks/whatever they use nowadays (witchcraft I believe) and broadcast on a documentary channel. Absolutely typical of broadcasters in these times, the intriguing title: "Tank on the Moon" bore absolutely no resemblance to what was actually screened. There was, and still to this day is no tank on the moon.
It concerned the space race in the 1960s to successfully land a man on the moon by the end of the decade, but not from the point of view of the West. Oh, no. This documentary was concerned with the Russian effort.
What an effort it was! For reasons I couldn't quite fathom, the Russians became concerned with landing unmanned vehicles on the lunar surface, thus practically guaranteeing their failure - unless they'd misheard the speech, or rushed off early to get an extra 1/2 an hour head start...
The title of the documentary referred to the fact that the Russians went to their WWII tank designers to come up with a suitable traction device. This turned out to be caterpillar tracks without the tracks. Or wheels, as they are better known.
The Russians would have been the first ones to have their technology reach the moon if their only lunar vehicle hadn't gone up in smoke as the rocket that propelled it up there exploded after launch. They eventually got there, after the Americans had been and gone, and, boy, was their design a masterpiece. After years and years of tweaking their technological wizardry and keeping their boffins up all night, what did they come up with?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a solar-powered toilet on wheels!
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