“Russian astronomers & satellite info instead told the Politburo the bad news”
More to the point, Russian mil voice, data, and image intercepts told them the bad news. Russian ELINT ships and subs were there when they went up and when they came down. Recorded, tracked, translated, and analyzed every step of the way. There was no doubt.
Russian satellites looked down, not up. No one in the Politburo cared what some astronomers claimed.
However, Russia could have easily duplicated the feat, but did not for other classified reasons.
Classified reasons?
Wasn’t clear on how the Russians tracked the moon landing, but it makes the deniers seem even more whacko with all that evidence from our main adversary.
Ironic that in 1959 the Soviets orbited a satellite around the far side of the moon (Lunik 1?) and gave every crater & feature on it a Russian or Marxist name.
And the Politburo would have seen little sense in getting to the moon second. Kind of like the race to the South Pole a century ago.
Last lunar mission was in 1972. Four decades plus ago.
“However, Russia could have easily duplicated the feat, but did not for other classified reasons.”
Yeah, their N1 moon rocket blew up in July 1969:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m79UO4HOQmc
Not to be confused with the Nedelin Catastrophe, which occurred in 1960:
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=3206055%2C20