8 in 10 new-borns receive home visits from the public health centres. In 2015, 83 per cent of new parents had home visits from the public health centres, and almost all infants underwent a health examination within eight weeks of birth. Health examinations for children of pre-school age and in their first year at school have nearly full coverage.
The Cold War between the U.S. And the U.S.S.R. Formed the backdrop of the Apollo program, as the two superpowers jockeyed for. Under premier Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Union had succeeded in launching, the first artificial satellite, and sending the first man into orbit. Reeling from a succession of Soviet space firsts, President John F. Kennedy promised that the U.S.
Would be first to send humans to the moon and return them to Earth before the end of the 1960s. On July 20, 1969, that promise came true as Americans claimed victory when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, witnessed by some on Earth. Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita's son, recently looked back and remembered what it felt like to be on the Soviet side.
(These days, Khrushchev, 74, is a fellow at in Providence, R.I., where he spoke in his office, surrounded by Soviet memorabilia.) [ An edited transcript of the interview follows.] Where were you when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon? I remember the moon landing very well. I was on vacation with my friends, most of whom worked at the design bureau. There was also an officer from the KGB. We were in Ukraine, in Chernobyl. It was exactly the place where they later built the [infamous] nuclear power station. The KGB officer had just returned from Africa, and he had brought a small telescope.
So we looked through the telescope, but we didn’t see any moon landing! So it was still questionable to us! [laughs] How widely was the news of the moon landing disseminated in the Soviet Union in advance of the event?
Of course, you cannot have people land on the moon and just say nothing. It was published in all the newspapers. But if you remember [back then] when Americans spoke of the first man in space, they were always talking of 'the first American in space' [not ]. The same feeling was prevalent in Russia. There were small articles when Apollo 11 was launched.
Among the challenges are radical life extension, technological unemployment, an arms race to produce autonomous robotic weapons, driverless cars, synthetic organisms, new methods to produce energy, and devices and drugs that enhance human capabilities.
Actually, there was a small article on the first page of Pravda and then three columns on page five. I looked it up again. What was the mood in the Soviet space program when astronauts from Apollo 11 landed on the moon? It was very similar to feeling among Americans when Gagarin went into orbit. Some of them tried to ignore it, some of them were insulted.
But I don't think it had a strong popular effect. First of all, the Soviet propaganda did not play it up or give too much information. I remember I watched a documentary on this. It was not secret, but it was not shown to the public. The Russian people had many problems in day-to-day life, they were not too concerned about the first man on the moon. Was Russia pretty close?