After maintaining an enigmatic silence about their successful soft landing on the moon, the Russians finally answered some questions last week and gave Western scientists a chance to check their own interpretation of Luna 9's remarkable photographs.
At a 21-hr, news conference in Mos cow, top Soviet scientists disclosed that Luna 9's instrumented, picture-taking payload stood only 2 ft. high and weighed a mere 220 Ibs. The remaining bulk of the 3,428-lb. craft that the Russians fired into space consisted large ly of fuel and the retrorockets that slowed Luna 9's final descent. In addition, the payload was detached...
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