Russia's Lunokhod 1 robotic moon bounces back laser beams after 40 year nap
By Paul Miller 
posted June 3rd 2010 7:34PM
posted June 3rd 2010 7:34PM
posted June 3rd 2010 7:34PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
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Nice job! Now about that 40 years...
@Jake Root
Lol i wanna see the stats they get with THAT thing
@fowenati
Tell me about, if they can take a tub, a pancake flipper and a few hamster wheels and make it a robot, then I'm impressed.
1904?!
@tyjb9x
:facepalm: they were making a crack at the fact that it is black and white.
I personally didn't think the picture was real. I thought it was some artists rendition of the Mars Rovers, if made in the late 1800's.
@tyjb9x
They got that one wrong. That pic is from 1970 lol. But I don't know how you confuse a 1970 with a 1904 Paul Miller.
@hero785
Did you seriously not get the humor? The photo looks old even for 1970...thus the crack that it was inexplicably taken in 1904. It's not because it's in black and white. It's because it's faded, noisy, and looks like it came from the inside of an H.G Wells novel.
@tyjb9x My Grandfather and Father, who are both Russian, say it was taken in 1964-1970, not 1904.
@tyjb9x
People. The crack about 1904. It's a joke. Humor.
@tyjb9x
dubstup? typo?
@tyjb9x
This conversation is ridiculous. The picture LOOKS like it was taken in 1904... LOOKS LIKE!! wow.
@HighestRanked2 This is not a joke. This is areal picture that I personally took with my DSLR in december 1904.
How the heck is that 1904? LOL! Wall-E's great grandpa looks like.
@HighestRanked2
It's apparent you don't get sarcasm either. =P
Apparently every lunar robot needs eyes.. ummm.. Actually it looks like it is meant to brew lunar beer, this is not perhaps an illustration about the world in the year 2000? When men have made a permanent home on the moon and require large robots to deliver beer?
You mean to say, some students are going to test Einstein's theory of relativity, not gravity. Newton did gravity, Einstein did relativity.
@wildbill384
They probably mean to test how a planet or other large body can effect light/time, with the assumption being if light is being bent so is time. Just a guess though, feel free to down rank me if you never paid attention is school.
@wildbill384
Sure, you're right with the names. But Einstein's work was a big deal about gravity as well. Remember how heavier objects bend space more than lighter objects? That's entirely Einstein's theory. That's gravity.
@wildbill384
Einstein redid gravity for large objects like planets and stars. Relativity is gravity.
Steampunk Space Robots! Awesome!
Wow. Bunch of genius comments here.......
Will sharks with freakin lasers on their head use this moon laser reflector robot to shoot targets beyond line of sight?
@xnox
No because it's a Retroreflector, it would come back right at them.
looks like a steampunk robot, nice!
Because no one takes black and white photos anymore. >_>
@p0p0
The Japanese prime minister still carries a vintage Polaroid wherever he goes.
You guys watch the new big bang theory episode too (S03 E23)?
@Jake88 thinking the same thing! i love how the stuff they talk about is actually going on in the world.
Poor Robot! It still thinks the Wall is up in Berlin and that the Soviet Union still exists.
What I want to know is how they lost them. O_o
@FlyersPh9 The aliens did it... You have your tinfoil hat right? Cause this s**t is about to get bumpy..
@HighestRanked2
What do you mean by "...just like JPL lost our Mars rovers?" Last I checked both of the Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) were still returning plenty of scientific data, despite their many signs of old age. Unless of course, by "Mars rovers" you meant the Sojourner rover from the Pathfinder mission which stopped operating in 1997, potentially fitting your definition of "lost." Perhaps reading more books should be something you ought to do yourself?
Why does every vehicle the Russians design look like a 1920s tractor?
Well the only thing I think that would be difficult about this experiment is how they would count 2,000 photons. That seems a little tougher than say even atoms, so I'd be interested to hear the strategy.
@buzski
Well, I just finished taking Physics II and already I can't remember enough to explain it, but IIRC this is probably not a particularly difficult problem. Wavelength determines the energy per photon A; if you have a laser with B efficiency and you put C power into it, you can roughly estimate how many photons are coming out of it by multiplying B by C and dividing by A.
A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Russian technology never ceases to amaze me. The model is gone, the philosophy and the mother nation are gone too but their technology still remains.
Chernobyl is a little, little exception to their technological proficiency.
Just a little one.
@prometeum Chernobyl is in Ukraine, not Russia
@jappleng
"The Japanese prime minister still carries a vintage Polaroid wherever he goes."
No wonder he's 'going'
Waht a load of c**p in commentsю It was absolutely top technology in 1970, when it was launched. It made a huge scientific job, all american moving robots on Mars feature almost the same design concept.
In soviet Russia, robot bounces you!
@Bahumbug
In Soviet Russia, Moon robots laser you!
Nice job - still working after 40 years on the moon.
The photo is indeed from 1970 - source: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/spacecraft/lunokhod.jpg
more info at:
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Луноход-1 (via Google translate)
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Луноход-2 (via Google translate)
also wikipedia english version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_2
(Lunokhod/Луноход/, moon walker in Russian)
wikipedia English version links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_programme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_2
@user777 It's not "working" in any normal sense. It died decades ago. It just has a passive reflector on it still.
Not among Engadget's best posts... dumb joke, ignorant tone...
i feel the recent voyager 2 fix is more impressive by far...really far as in leaving the solar system.......another reason to use nuclear power in sats...we dont need no fargin sun or stupid solar panels that dont deploy correctly etc.
and one more thing by now they have small,safe and reliable reactors that should be on the Int space station no wait they might steal our tech:)
Well, there are in fact many people who expect the photo from 1970 to be taken using some DSLR
Many more photos from lunokhod can be found here http://selena.sai.msu.ru/Home/Spacecrafts/Lunokhod1/lunokhod1e.htm
In soviet Russia, robots bounce lasers off you!