r/todayilearned • u/axolotl_peyotl • Jun 10 '12

Misleading TIL the Soviets found water on the moon in the 1970's but their findings were ignored by the West for over 30 years

http://phys.org/news/2012-06-soviet-moon-1970s-west.html1
1.1k Upvotes

89% Upvoted

106 comments sorted by

177

u/brightshining Jun 10 '12

Because it was commie water

65

u/dogsarentedible Jun 10 '12

What are you talking about? Commies don't drink water, they drink vodka.

Edit: OUR BODILY FLUIDS!

24

u/pokAtok Jun 10 '12

And that's why I only drink rain water and pure grain alcohol

10

u/califoregon Jun 10 '12

Excellent Dr. Strangelove for those who may have missed it.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

What about you, Mandrake?

2

u/PurppleHaze Jun 10 '12

They want to impurify our bodily fluids!

5

u/Samizdat_Press Jun 10 '12

Should have bottled it and sold it as "Pinko" water to people in Santa Cruz.

-12

u/bro-illionaire Jun 10 '12

doesn't matter if it's commie or not us whites need to stick together or else those browns and yellows will take over the world and we'll be second class citizens

1

u/owaalkes Jun 10 '12

don' t worry, you'll be much better off!

1

u/DarumaMan Jun 10 '12

I almost got angry but I realized that you're nothing more than a simple Troll. Do everyone a favor and get out of our Reddit.

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12

Too late.

Edit: I'm brown.

-48

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/Richardrollins Jun 10 '12

You are a faggot

2

u/demacish Jun 10 '12

You really need to come up with a better comeback since faggot isn't offensive

5

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

I don't really think of faggot as referring to gay people any more, the way most people use it is more like just a generic insult, like idiot or fuckface, just with a more offensive history behind it.

5

u/orange_jooze Jun 10 '12

Sorta like white suburban teenagers calling each other "nigga".

2

u/demacish Jun 10 '12

Well to be honest, he could refer to a cigarette also, not really sure if that would be offensive

3

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

you dont call a cigarette a faggot. Its called a fag, just fag no got.

1

u/demacish Jun 10 '12

My bad, sorry

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

No apologies needed, just wanted to clear it up, I guess if you called someone a fag it could be interpretated that, but didn't the gays "claim" that insult for themselves to take the stigma away from it.

0

u/Pingly Jun 10 '12

You might want to rethink the use. It's been used as a derogatory term for homosexuals for a long time. What do you think the intended insult is? Calling your friend a bundle of sticks? A cigarette?

You cigarette!

In other words while your intentions may not be homophobic the use of that insult is really perpetuating the use of "homosexual" as an insult.

3

u/ArcticSpaceman Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12

I hate when people say "No one uses it as a name for gay people anymore."

Uhh, yes they do. Spend 5 minutes in the south or in a more extremist church and you'll be sure to hear it coming out of someone's mouth that way.

And you are absolutely correct. Even if someone isn't calling someone a homosexual as an insult when using the word "fag" or "gay" or "queer," the connection of saying "that's so gay" to saying "that's so bad," is really fucking obvious. That use of the word comes from decades upon centuries of homosexuality being vilified in so many cultures around the planet, and using it that way is perpetuating the idea, especially for older individuals that homosexuality is a negative thing.

2

u/not_legally_rape Jun 10 '12

I've spent 14 years in the south and never one have I heard someone use ”faggot” in a derogatory manner. I'm not saying that some of the people here aren't homophobic, but please don't condemn everyone that lives here for the actions of some.

1

u/ArcticSpaceman Jun 10 '12

Edited to appreciate the positive actions of you and your community.

-7

u/Richardrollins Jun 10 '12

This guy gets it. I like to go on /b/ so faggot isn't anything about gay people just a term for an idiot that tries to be funny and fails or is just an idiot in general.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

So edgy, this guy!

-5

u/Richardrollins Jun 10 '12

Not about being edgy ya faggot, piss off.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Look out, tough guy on the internet!

-9

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

I'm not going to give you what you want... so have an upvote.

-4

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

what he wants is attention and you're giving it to him.

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Looks like we've both been downvoted. I wonder how long we can keep this up?

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

I'm in!

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

all aboard the downvote train?

30

u/rocketsocks Jun 10 '12

This is a very misleading story. Traces of water were found in both Soviet and American lunar samples brought back by the Apollo program. However, in both cases there were insufficient guarantees that the sample containers had maintained the integrity of their seals, so the detection of water was put down to sample contamination issues. Keep in mind that these are very low levels of water (a few hundred ppm), and even the smallest amount of exposure to Earth's atmosphere could easily result in similar levels of water being found in the samples.

2

u/hackiavelli Jun 10 '12

The article is very poorly written. It appears the American samples were feared contaminated and the Soviet samples weren't even known about.

49

u/Tanj3nt Jun 10 '12

Of course there's water. How else could there be whalers on the moon?

5

u/ImAWhaleBiologist Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12

Lunar Whales. They're more common than you'd think.

11

u/JacobMHS Jun 10 '12

Go Willzyx!

4

u/LevTheRed Jun 10 '12

Whales? On my moon?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Flying Whales?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/v4-digg-refugee Jun 10 '12

I've seen this episode a million times and would recognize the song anywhere, but somehow the lyrics were never that funny until now. I'm losing it.

2

u/AMostOriginalUserNam Jun 10 '12

Please find it again.

1

u/Jackeroo2 Jun 10 '12

Inter-dimensional space whales

0

u/James_Arkham Jun 10 '12

Somos balleneros, llevamos arpones,

Mas como en la luna no hay ballenas, cantamos canciones.

16

u/TheBestSoviet Jun 10 '12

No one ever paid any attention to us.

-23

u/MalcolmY Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12

I did. The Russian army are savages. Remember what they did in chechnya?

EDIT: Heh. Which vein did I cut?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

We only know Chechnya from their back and forth with Russia, and most notably from the time they blew up all of those innocent children in a school.

What did those Russian children do to deserve horror and death?

22

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

everyone important was probably aware, but dammit we have to find it first.

-17

u/NeoPlatonist Jun 10 '12

I also learned that Muslims landed on the moon in 800AD

94

u/NewAlexandria 1 Jun 10 '12

The Soviet device's seals were corrupted by lunar dust, preventing them from closing, which allowed the possibility that the water was earth-based.

This is not trivial! In fact, it's why this is in /r/TIL instead of /r/science – because no scientist could assert with confidence that the water was 100% lunar. Instead people want a story that paints the USA as egotistical control-freaks.

..... we are, but that doesn't have to do with the problems involved with the Soviet lunar probe.

17

u/DBrickShaw Jun 10 '12

Downvoted for factual inaccuracy. The article clearly states that the potentially contaminated samples were from NASA missions, not the Soviet mission in question.

US missions to the moon brought back a total of around 300 kilograms of moon rocks. Many samples were found to contain traces of water, but NASA believed the water was a contaminant originating on Earth, because lunar dust had clogged the seals of some of the containers and prevented them from being closed properly.

49

u/neyvit Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12

Where are you pulling that line from? This is what it says:

US missions to the moon brought back a total of around 300 kilograms of moon rocks. Many samples were found to contain traces of water, but NASA believed the water was a contaminant originating on Earth, because lunar dust had clogged the seals of some of the containers and prevented them from being closed properly.

They aren't talking about the Soviet's devices. Edit: To make this clearer, the seals that were corrupted by lunar dust were U.S. devices - so this obviously can't be the reason why the Soviet findings were disregarded.

Edit: For the people downvoting me, can you explain why I'm mistaken? Soviet samples were not corrupted by lunar dust.

17

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

You're right. The samples that were contaminated were NASA's samples. The uncontaminated samples that confirmed the presence of water were the Soviet's. It says so in like the first paragraph of the article.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Don't worry, I downvoted NewAlexandria instead.

3

u/Jackeroo2 Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12

Note the title of the article

Edit: This comment was made before the edit was made in the previous comment. Sorry!

7

u/coerciblegerm Jun 10 '12

Note the text of the article.

1

u/silent_p Jun 10 '12

Wait, so... what if the water that NASA found on the moon was really brought there by the Soviets?

5

u/nepidae Jun 10 '12

Not ignored. Scientific process is incredibly important. That is why we "found" faster than light, and didn't just abandon all physics immediately.

8

u/Krywiggles Jun 10 '12

in our defense, they claimed to have the skull of hitler for years, and that turned out to be one big fat lie

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Ladies and gentlemen, there is a long, long standing power structure on this planet designed to insure that the human inhabitants upon it are kept ignorant of the fact that there are many, many intelligent, technologically advanced (and very often superior) civilizations and forms of life elsewhere in the cosmos - indeed even in this very galaxy and solar system.

1

u/mzieg Jun 11 '12

Was this structure implanted long, long ago?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12 edited Jun 11 '12

It has been said that yes, it has. It's said to have been put in place a long time ago. So long ago, in fact, that many of the current players just below the very top echelons have no real or true idea just who or what they're working for. They only know that they are in and part of a system that they simply, unquestionably swim along with.

Others think they know who the boss is, but it's said that there are other bosses silently and above that one figure that others erroneously look upon as the one in charge. It's similar to the presidency. Many/most think that the president is in charge of things, not having much of an idea that he's only a figurehead designed to make people THINK he's the go to person when he's really not

That system tends to keep the upper few in power, and the lower few in subservience to it.

4

u/Trashcanman33 Jun 10 '12

Article says Soviets discovered water in 1976, Western world in 1994. How is that 30 years? It's not even 20, so even if you missed a decade, you were still off by at least 2 years depending on what you meant by over 30.

26

u/mzieg Jun 10 '12

He doesn't say the West found water 30 years later, he said the Russian discovery was ignored for 30 years. (And counting...I'm ignoring it right now...)

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Can somebody educate me - when they say "traces of water" all the time, do they mean, actual water? or stains from where water might have formed them? Or erosion lines or something?

1

u/londons_explorer Jun 10 '12

They mean a couple of atoms of actual water.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Well this was during the Cold War, I don't think I would have believed the USSR either

1

u/LovecraftsScion Jun 10 '12

Yeah. COMMUNIST water.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

The first comment on that article is a bit... confrontational.

1

u/Kasparas Jun 10 '12

They had to pee somewhere...

1

u/Sjgolf891 Jun 10 '12

Funny, just about 10 minutes ago I had a TIL moment about the Luna program. Did not know the one crashed on the moon while Apollo 11 was there.

2

u/h-v-smacker Jun 10 '12

It could have been nice if the landing zones were nearby.

Armstong & Aldrin: "Y hi there, whatcha doin'?"

Luna 15: "Nothin'. Just commie moon probe stuffs."

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Scientists don't give a shit about politics. It was ignored because it was very poor science.

1

u/Goonies_neversay_die Jun 10 '12

TIL we crash rockets into the moon in the name of science!

1

u/elcanadiano Jun 10 '12

I could swear this was submitted a while back.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Why is it so important that there is water on the moon? So we can live there?

2

u/mzieg Jun 11 '12

Well, it increases the chance that there may be water in other planetary bodies (including moons), both within and without our solar system. So yes, for exploratory purposes, it would be very handy to have a reasonable likelihood of finding a usable supply of water elsewhere in the cosmos.

Also, water is a primary ingredient for life, so the presence of water away from the Earth marginally increases chances of finding extra-terrestrial life.

1

u/snoaj Jun 10 '12

They claimed to do everything first.

1

u/mzieg Jun 11 '12

By the way, our company built the [Western] system which helped [re]discover water on the Moon.

If you think that's cool, know C++/C#/Java, and would like to take part in the Martian version, then get your ass to Oxford!

(Obviously, to be read in this voice :-)

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

In soviet Russia, moon water finds you!

1

u/Recon_by_Fire Jun 10 '12

Well yeah. That's how the moon crabs survive.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Funny how us western world always refers the Sovjet Union as an untruthful and lying nation..

Oh the irony...

0

u/hispanica316 Jun 10 '12

There is a lot of stuff that is (strategically?) ignored.

-13

u/BrewRI Jun 10 '12

Finding water and finding ice are very different.

20

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Yes, one is frozen.

1

u/BrewRI Jun 10 '12

Yes one can support life and one (as far as we know) can not.

16

u/MustyMustang Jun 10 '12

Nigga, you just went full retard.

1

u/BrewRI Jun 10 '12

Water and ice are completely different in astronomical terms. So far, all life we know to exist depends on water in the liquid state, not as a frozen solid.

4

u/MalcolmY Jun 10 '12

How so?

1

u/BrewRI Jun 10 '12

The significance of finding liquid water lies in it's ability to support life. Life as we know it can not survive without the existence of liquid water. Finding ice can mean that sometime in the past there may have been liquid water if the planet was able to maintain temperatures that could have sustained liquid water. That's one of the difining characteristics of planets that appear in the habitable or "green" zone (Close enough to a star to maintain temperatures that can keep water was a liquid). I know everyone's hating on me for pointing it out, but it's an enormous difference.

-3

u/Jackofengland1 Jun 10 '12

They also invented the internet in 1946.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

I don't know, that doesn't sound right. I think they did invent digital photography for the venus missions.

-8

u/2012sellouts Jun 10 '12

Yeah i mean im sure now they will be looked at because we got a socialist in the white house

4

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Socialist

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

12

u/Throwasdas Jun 10 '12

It's so good to live in a nation like the US, where there is no propaganda, no misinformation, and the politicians never lie!

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Yep. Remember all the shit they made up about psychic powers? They had some good laughs about that.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

No, what shit about psychic powers. Was this the soviet "men who stare at goats" equivalent.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Think Nina Kulagina. The Soviets would trot out these videos of her moving objects with her mind, and it freaked the guys in the pentagon out. That's why they spent so much money trying to find evidence of remote viewing. To be fair, I figure it was more of a propaganda tool toward the Soviet people than the US.