A Giant Step for the Soviets
Soviet TV viewers finally got a chance today to see what the rest of the world saw 20 years ago: the first steps by a man on the moon.
State-run TV featured a lengthy documentary on the Apollo 11 lunar landing by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, including interviews with U.S. scientists.
On July 20, 1969, Soviet television ignored the historic landing that millions around the world witnessed live, and instead broadcast a musical variety show.
Today’s 20th anniversary documentary showed footage from the moonwalk by Armstrong and Aldrin, with the astronauts gathering samples of moon rocks. The American flag was clearly visible.
Today’s broadcast--shown on a weekday morning that hardly guaranteed a wide audience--came after a July 10 article in Ogonyok magazine that said it was wrong to hide the moon landing from the Soviet people. The article also gave a detailed description of the lunar landing.
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