Alien Anomalies

No problem, Watcher I found A photograph without the marks and also encompassing a bigger area. Definitely the   Lunokhod 1 is sitting among a massive monument complex on the Moon.

"The reaction of mainstream science to this study is perhaps the most interesting result of our project. There is a paradoxical contradiction between the vision expressed in science fiction and the agendas of scientific research. Unfortunately, idea of artificial objects on the Moon has been discredited by sensational press [24]. As a result, serious lunar research is not of interest to editors of scientific journals or even popular science magazines. "

Read here Archaeological Reconnaissance of the Moon: Results of SAAM Project

-- Frutty

C'mon watcher you think I did not see that?

Can't you abstract that out and realize the landscape is really "out of this world?" lol

If you can find the image without the copyright marks (that only run trough two paralel narrow borders on the image) I would be glad to bring it out and prove the difference would be negligible.

-- Frutty

qmantoo wrote:

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But... where are they now I wonder????

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Lunokhod 1 sits on the Moon in this photo taken by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on November 30, 2009. Lunokhod 1 is a bright spot with a prominent shadow cast by its open cap. Its approximate coordinates are 38.32507 N, 324.9949 E. Credit: NASA / GSFC / ASU / Laboratory for Comparative PlanetologyIts has been recently been found!
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter team helped scientists track laser signals to the Russian rover mirror.
April 27, 2010
Using information provided by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) instrument teams, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have successfully pinpointed the location of a long-lost light reflector left on the lunar surface by bouncing laser signals from Earth to the Russian Lunokhod 1 retroreflector.
The initial imaging of the two Russian rovers, Lunokhod 1 and 2, were made earlier this year by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) team, led by Mark Robinson from Arizona State University in Tempe.
SOURCE: http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=9804
SOLD!
In 1993 Richard Garriott purchased the former Soviet Union's Luna 21 moon lander and its Lunokhod 2 moon rover at a Sotheby's auction for $68,000... Luna 21 landed on the lunar surface on January 15, 1973, and its Lunokhod passenger remained operational until May 9, when it accidentally rolled into a crater and was buried under dust, ending its mission.

I think it a little naive to judge this semi-autonomous robot by its tin cover.
I've designed 3 commercial robots and 2 educational units and this robot was way ahead of the game in 1971.. It was and still stands as a mechatronic wonder.

Lunokhod 1 Specs.
Lunokhod 1 was a lunar vehicle formed of a tub-like compartment with a large convex lid on eight independently powered wheels. Its length was 2.3 metres. Lunokhod was equipped with a cone-shaped antenna, a highly directional helical antenna, four television cameras, and special extendable devices to impact the lunar soil for soil density and mechanical property tests. An X-ray spectrometer, an X-ray telescope, cosmic ray detectors, and a laser device were also included. The vehicle was powered by batteries which were recharged during the lunar day by a solar cell array mounted on the underside of the lid. To be able to work in vacuum a special fluoride based lubricant was used for the mechanical parts and the electric motors (one in each wheel hub) were enclosed in pressurized containers.[1][2] During the lunar nights, the lid was closed and a polonium-210 radioisotope heater unit kept the internal components at operating temperature. Lunokhod was intended to operate through three lunar days (approximately 3 Earth months) but actually operated for eleven lunar days.
This was no heap of junk or Victorian curiosity. It was a well thought out superbly designed robot that was the vanguard to todays modern robots on Mars. It is still sending intermittent data back to earth.. What the data contains is of course unknown fully to the general public.

This robot was fully remote controlled.


Hostile Lunar Conditions:
The temperature at the surface of the Moon ranges from 280 degrees (138 degrees C) as the sun reaches its highest point in the sky to 243 below zero (-153 degrees C) during the lunar night cycle. The Apollo missions were planned to coincide with the early morning portion of the lunar day, when the sun was at relatively low angles in the sky. This way, they avoided the high temperature extremes. Any equipment designed to remain on the surface for extended periods of time, would have to deal with the enormous temperature swings which can be more than 500 degrees Fahrenheit (almost 300 degrees C) – not a trivial engineering challenge.
Since the Moon has no magnetic field, it is subjected to a steady flux of galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) and low energy solar wind particles. The radiation levels are normally low enough (on the order of 1 to 2.5 particles per square cm per second) that people can carry on surface activities without any protection beyond what is offered by the space suits. However, during periods of high solar activity, it sometimes happens that the Sun ejects high energy particles and radiation in the direction of the Moon that can be lethal to anyone on the surface within just a few minutes of exposure.
Solar protons pose a significant risk to inadequately shielded crewmembers. Very large energetic particle events, which can cause acute radiation effects, occur at intervals of 7 to 10 years. Intermediate events, which can limit mission activities, occur several times each year. For nominal flares, build-up to peak radiation intensity occurs within a few hours or less. Monitoring of X-ray precursors may provide 30 minutes to one hour of additional warning.
Micrometeorites can hit the Moon at speeds up to 100,000 Km per hour. Even a small particle the size of a grain of sand could puncture a space suit or the Apollo Lunar modules and cause enormous damage. Fortunately, these events are statistically rare.
However, for long duration missions, there is a non-zero probability that the lunar habitat may get hit by one of these high energy micrometeorites. Therefore, it is necessary to provide some method of shielding. This can be done with just a few inches of regolith.
The hard vacuum on the surface of the Moon (about 2 orders of magnitude fewer particles per unit volume than low Earth orbit) also creates some problems. Many common plastics and rubber substances loose flexibility and become brittle due to outgassing in hard vacuum environments.

So, just like diving to the deepest reaches our oceans, this robots main core control system was enclosed in a well protected enviroment. with critcal driving parts / systems bathed in fluoride.. Unlike Mars, where there is some remnants of an atmosphere which would protect and erode large particles as they crashed through the Martian atmosphere therein allowing those flimsy rovers some kind of rudamentary protection. I would think any of the Martian rovers would last a day on the moons surface.

I think the main problem of the robot was the gate of the wheels and possible problems with center of gravity. The mesh on wheels (acting as tires similar to lunar rover) were too porous and I think they had a serious weight issue. Combine these few problems and one can imagine the problems this robot had negotiating crater rims with very fine, loose dust and regolith, an accident was waiting to happen. of course there were many other problems that im sure contributed to the demise of the robots mission.

All in all modern day remote robots owe a lot to these incredible (though short lived) robots! 

footnote:
Ironically the Apollo space program APOLLO is now using Lunokhod 1's reflector for experiments, as they discovered, to their surprise, that it was returning much more light than other reflectors on the moon. According to a NASA press release, APOLLO researcher Tom Murphy said, "We got about 2,000 photons from Lunokhod 1 on our first try. After almost 40 years of silence, this rover still has a lot to say