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I've read somewhere that the Russians have moon rocks. How did they get them?

uhoh
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Gabriel Fair
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    The Soviet Union were the first to do many things space related: put an object into space, put a creature into space, put a man into space, land a vehicle on the moon, land a robot on the moon, return things from the moon, etc., etc., ... – Octopus Jul 04 '18 at 16:44
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    Luna-15 tried to be first with lunar rocks but failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_15 – Heopps Jul 04 '18 at 17:58
  • I read somewhere (wait, I saw some at SpaceX), that the USA have moon rocks. How did they get them? – Reversed Engineer Jul 05 '18 at 11:06
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    @DaveBoltman: through the Apollo program. – Hobbes Jul 05 '18 at 11:06
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    The main reason this is question is being asked is probably because the Soviet Union never landed a human being on the moon. Before reading the accepted answer, I would have guessed that they simply acquired all of their moon rocks through the US. – Panzercrisis Jul 05 '18 at 14:39
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    @Octopus Luna 16 flew September 1970, so Apollo 11 beat them in "returning things from the moon". – user71659 Jul 06 '18 at 05:19
  • @octopus Brother! I thought I was the only cephalopod! – Magic Octopus Urn Mar 10 '19 at 03:41

1 Answers1

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The USSR flew three successful automated lunar sample return missions: Luna 16, Luna 20 and Luna 24. The probes landed on the Moon, collected samples, and started a small rocket with the samples back to Earth. The returned mass was very small (101 g, 30 g and 170 g, respectively).

DarkDust
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