Abandoned lunar station in Crimea

Blogger Sergey Anashkevich writes:
This is a story about one of the coolest, most unusual and little-visited abandoned abandoned Crimea. Moreover, I myself visited it quite by accident and still remember perfectly that evening when we stood high above the valley on the half-rotten beams of the once secret lunar station, admiring the sunset ...

Hard or dust?

This question was one of the most important in Soviet space science in the early 60s and it dealt with the surface of the moon.

The Soviet Union in those years worked closely on the lunar program, we had to get ahead of the Americans and be the first to send an artificial apparatus to the satellite of our planet. But no one knew what the structure of the lunar surface was, so there were two hypotheses: the first - that the moon is covered with a powerful layer of loose cosmic dust, the second - that the surface of the moon is solid ...

So in 1964, the artificial moon appeared in the Crimea. A lunar station was built on the top of Mount Balaly-Kaya, and radio telescopes were installed at its foot, with the help of which, in the end, reliable information was obtained that the surface of the moon was solid and that it was possible to send a lunar rover (lander) and a person.

Subsequently, this station was used to calculate the absolute temperatures of Jupiter and the objects of Cassiopeia, Taurus, Swan, and also when studying the surface of Mars, Jupiter and Mercury ...

The abandoned installation "Artificial Moon" is clearly visible from the Sudak-Koktebel highway, and that they just don’t speak about the question of a passing tourist. This is a repeater, and a ski lift, and part of an incomplete power transmission line, and even ... the remains of Noah's Ark (despite all the nonsense of the latter option, they believe in it !!!).

This once-advanced facility belonged to the Gorky Research Radiophysical Institute. Its installation, as well as the construction of radio telescopes located at the foot of the mountain, began in October 1964. The project was led by a Soviet scientist Vsevolod Troitsky. At the time of construction, the lunar station was actually an experiment.

There is an opinion that two years before the start of the Artificial Moon project in Moscow a legendary story took place. At a meeting chaired by S.P. Korolev and held in the building of the Council of Ministers, the question of lunar soil characteristics necessary for the construction of a lunar rover was toughly raised. These two points of view collided: the first - that the moon is covered with a powerful layer of loose cosmic dust, the second - that the surface of the moon is solid. S.P. Korolev had to make a decision, but the discussion did not stop. Sergei Pavlovich found an original organizational solution: he left a sheet of paper among the participants divided into two parts. It was necessary to subscribe (for history) under one of the points of view. And only one signature of V. S. Troitsky appeared on the sheet. After that, S.P. Korolev put forward his resolution: "The moon is solid!"

But actually it was still to be found out.

It is this mountain and this particular place that was chosen for a reason. The fact is that the experiment was based on the method of comparing radio emissions from the real moon and the artificial moon, using the artificial moon as a reference. But for the experiments, a certain landscape was needed - the artificial moon should be as high above the horizon as the real one, and the angle of the radio telescope should be the same.

The top of Balaly-Kaya and the foot of the mountain were ideally suited for these purposes, and experiments could be carried out several times a day for several months.

To conduct experiments on the top of the mountain, a special metal structure was installed on which an artificial Moon was fixed - a black disk with a diameter of 5 meters, the surface of which was covered with a carbon foam radio absorber. The setup was a practical model of a completely black body for centimeter-wave radio waves.

The result of these studies was an accurate determination of the parameters and composition of the lunar soil, as well as the creation of a modern model of the structure of the upper cover of the moon. It was discovered that the temperature of the moon is due to the decay of radioactive elements (uranium, thorium and potassium) in its bowels. Subsequently, the Artificial Moon method was used for high-precision measurements of the effective temperature of the distributed radio emission of the Galaxy.

At a distance of about 550 meters from the "artificial moon", at the foot of the mountain, a radio telescope was installed, which sent waves to the disk and the real moon.

Now only the base remains of the telescope.

Today, the object is completely abandoned, but due to the fact that it is located on the territory of the Karadag Reserve, it was not cut into scrap metal and it was miraculously preserved even in this form.

The upper part of the lunar station is located at the highest point of Balaly-Kaya, at an altitude of 391 meters above sea level. A metal staircase leads directly to the upper platform, by the way, it is already rather shaky from time to time and rust destroying it.

The platform under the beams that once supported the disk is small, reinforced with metal right in the rock. It is covered with half-rotten wooden logs and boards, and the beams themselves are held with metal stretch marks.

The design is still pretty tight, but, being on it, you understand that it will not stand for long - everything is playing and bending underfoot.

Time and weather are slowly doing their job.

Stretch marks. Some are still in a fully functional state and support high iron beams, and some have already “surrendered”, rust has “torn” the ends of the cables from the pins fixed in the rock.

Wooden logs and flooring boards are also on the way ...

An amazing combination of the crumbling creation of human hands and the eternal creation of nature.

A dying urban object amid incredibly beautiful landscapes.

Views of Karadag and surrounding valleys.

Below are the vineyards, the Black Sea, the Karadag nature reserve and several bright buildings on the right. This is where the telescope was located, as well as laboratory cabins.

The remains of metal structures. Part of the cables, as we see, is already torn.

One of the metal beams fading into the sky, on which a disk of an artificial moon hung.

The opening in which the disk hung.

It was such graphite dies that the artificial moon was covered.

One of the stretch marks supporting a high beam. Not for nothing guides "treat" gullible tourists about Noah's Ark. Even from here it seems that you are standing on the bow of a ship hovering over the mountains.

The remains of the room in which the necessary equipment was stored. It is amazing to see so whole parts of it on a long-abandoned object.

Usually, even if not looters, then vandals, everything is smashed, fouled with inscriptions and graffiti.

Well, in addition to the views, from here you can watch an incredibly beautiful summer sunset. Right from the bow of the metal “ship”, which provided extremely valuable information for sending another ship into space, right to the moon ...