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Viking 1: First U.S. Lander on Mars

Viking 1 was the first American spacecraft to touch the surface of Mars, and the first spacecraft ever to remain there for the long term. It followed a series of short-lived Soviet probes that either landed or crashed into the surface in the decade before.

Its successful landing on July 20, 1976, provided a window into climatic conditions on the red planet. From Viking 1's perch on Chryse Planitia, the lander spent six years beaming pictures, information and even life experiments back to Earth. Its life results are still being debated today.

An ambitious project, scaled down

NASA originally planned to head to Mars with an ambitious program called Voyager (not to be confused with the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes that eventually soared to the outer edges of the solar system.)

The agency proposed to use the Saturn V rocket — once used to hoist astronauts to the moon – to send Voyager to Mars. An orbiter would circle above as a lander touched the surface, where it would remain on the surface for at least a Martian year (two Earth years) to observe the changing seasons. Project costs were estimated to be as high as $2 billion in 1970s dollars.

"I guess our eyes were too big for the budget there," said Edgar Cortright in a 1998 NASA oral history . He held a series of senior human spaceflight positions at NASA in the 1960s before becoming director of the Langley Research Center between 1968 and 1975.

"There was a money crunch at the time," he added. "We were lucky to get the money to do Viking, and that was a struggle."

The mission concept was scaled back to two orbiters and two landers, launching on smaller rockets and designed to stay on Mars for 90 days. NASA estimates the cost was about $1 billion (in 1970s dollars) for the entire Viking project.

Viking 1 launch and landing

Viking 1's Titan III-E rocket roared to life Aug. 20, 1975, as the spacecraft set forth on its nearly 500-million-mile journey to Mars. Fully fueled, the orbiter-lander duo weighed about 7,800 pounds. Viking 1's twin, Viking 2, went into space on Sept. 9, 1975.

Viking 1's lander was supposed to touch down on Mars on July 4. But as the spacecraft drew closer to Mars and began taking pictures of the landing site, the Viking 1 team worried about the spacecraft's chances of making it safely to the surface.

The prime landing site at Chryse was based on looking at Mariner 9 pictures, which were taken in lower resolution. Viking 1's view of the site showed the opposite of what planners wanted: "a deeply incised river bed," according to On Mars , a NASA History Office publication detailing the early Mars missions.

Complicating matters was the fact that the landing date of July 4, 1976, happened to coincide with the bicentennial celebrations of the United States' founding. Viking 1 was supposed to be a part of that, but of course, safety needed to be the primary consideration.

Mission planners voted to extend Viking 1's landing date until a more suitable landing site could be found. They debated between a few sites and voted on July 12 for a location in Chryse Planitia, about 365 miles (575 kilometers) west of where the lander was supposed to go.

Viking 1's orbit was adjusted on July 16, and the spacecraft touched down safely on July 20, 1976 . On that day, only seven years before, man stood on the moon for the first time.

Six years of science observations

Each Viking mission was only supposed to last 90 days after landing, but the landers and orbiters actually lasted for years. Their images and data on Mars would define our view of the planet for the next couple of decades.

From orbit, the Vikings provided a window into Mars' tumultuous past. They took pictures of volcanoes and also imaged ancient channels where floods may have roared in ancient history. The cameras peered closer at the vast Valles Marineris , a 2,500-mile rift across Mars' equator, taking snapshots of landslide sites and craters.

As for the Viking 1 lander, it sent back its first image of the surface just moments after landing, and took thousands more for scientists to process over its lifetime. Besides a seismometer experiment that refused to deploy properly, and early problems with a sampler pin, the experiments on board the lander remained healthy through its last day of transmissions on Nov. 13, 1982.

Viking 1's results showed scientists a few surprises. There were a lot of rock types at its landing site, indicating that they probably had different origins. Day-to-day weather conditions on Mars were usually consistent, although there were seasonal variations. Winds were higher speed during the day and tended to die down at night. The lander detected magnetic particles in the soil , although scientists could not fully describe what the soil was made up of.

These results were important as they hinted at what a human would experience when walking upon the Red Planet. Dust storms, radiation and weather conditions are all things that will need to be considered when humans choose to make the journey to Mars.

Did Viking 1 find life?

Perhaps no other life experiment has come under as much scrutiny as those aboard Viking 1 and its sister craft, Viking 2. The landers had rudimentary tools on board to search for life. The results they dug up in the 1970s were widely seen as proof that no life was detected. However, studies in the past few years have cast that finding in doubt.

The life-detection experiment was actually in three parts, but the part that is under the most debate is one that was seeking microorganisms in Martian soil. Viking 1 picked up a handful of Martian soil, heated it up to 932 degrees Fahrenheit (500 Celsius), and then checked out the dirt for any sign of organics. Neither Viking 1 nor its sister found organic compounds.

But a flurry of questions has come up about those results in the decades since then. Were the experiments sensitive or suitable enough to find life? Were the findings enough to dismiss life's existence?

Researchers in 2006 duplicated the experiments using Mars-like environments on Earth (such as an Antarctic dry valley and the Chilean desert) and detected organic compounds at levels not visible to the instrument, suggesting that life could have been hiding there all the time.

A 2010 study theorized Viking could even have destroyed the organics before detecting them . Researchers went on the assumption that Viking's landing sites had perchlorate, a substance discovered in the 2008 Mars Phoenix. The scientists took Mars-like soil known to contain organics and injected it with perchlorate before heating it.

After heating, the results showed chloromethane and dichloromethane, which are the same results that Viking produced. The key here is organics tend to break down into those substances when heated, meaning any organics could have been destroyed in the experiment.

Organics are not in themselves proof of life, but it's a key indicator here on Earth. Researchers will continue the hunt for organics on the Mars Curiosity mission currently roaming the red planet. It should be noted, though, that Mars Curiosity is not designed to find life. It instead is looking for evidence of habitability in the past or present.

— Elizabeth Howell, SPACE.com Contributor

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Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, " Why Am I Taller ?", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace

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45 years ago: viking 1 and 2 off to mars, johnson space center.

Is there life on Mars? That question has been on the minds of scientists and lay people alike for a very long time. Nineteenth century Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli claimed to have observed linear patterns on the planet’s surface that he called canali , unfortunately mistranslated into English as canals, that led to a belief that they were the products of intelligent beings on Mars. Although that concept fell out of favor among scientists in the 20th century, the idea of sentient beings on Mars persisted in popular culture. With little concrete information about surface conditions on the Red Planet, even some scientists into the 1960s believed Mars might be hospitable to at least some form of primitive extraterrestrial life. 

Those hopes were dashed in 1965 when Mariner 4 snapped 22 photographs of Mars as it flew by the planet, revealing a heavily cratered surface resembling the Moon, and its instruments indicated a surface temperature around -100oC  and an atmospheric pressure around 1% that at Earth’s sea level. Two additional flybys by Mariner 6 and 7 in 1969 did little to raise scientists’ optimism. However, Mariner 9 entered orbit around Mars in November 1971, observing the planet from that vantage point until August 1972. The spacecraft discovered many surface features that indicated that at least sometime in its past Mars was geologically active and photographed features that could have been caused by flowing liquid. The discoveries revolutionized our perception of Mars and gave hope that perhaps at some time in its history it had conditions favorable for life.

The next step in Mars exploration involved placing landers on the surface to examine its properties up close and search for possible signs of present or past life. The Soviet Union attempted four landings in the early 1970s but unfortunately none met with any success. In 1971, Mars 2’s lander crashed, Mars 3’s soft-landed but did not return any useful data, and in 1974 Mars 6’s lander also crashed while Mars 7’s missed the planet entirely due to its retro-rocket failing to fire. NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, managed the Viking project to develop twin spacecraft each consisting of an orbiter, based on the Mariner 9 spacecraft built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, California, and a lander, built by Martin Marietta under contract to NASA Langley while JPL handled the operations of the spacecraft once in flight. The primary mission objectives of the Vikings were to place two orbiters around Mars and two landers on its surface in 1976 to obtain high resolution images of the Martian surface, characterize the structure and composition of the atmosphere and surface, and search for evidence of life. The orbiters would carry the landers into orbit around Mars before releasing them to make soft landings at predetermined sites on the planet. The orbiters carried sophisticated equipment to take high-resolution images of the planet while the landers carried cameras for imagery, instruments to study the Martian surface and atmosphere, and sophisticated instruments to detect possible signs of present or past life on the planet. The orbiters and landers were expected to function for approximately 90 days.

Each Viking spacecraft carried a suite of instruments to accomplish its scientific mission at Mars. Instruments on the orbiters included an imaging system consisting of two cameras, an infrared spectrometer to map water in Mars’ upper atmosphere, and an infrared radiometer for thermal mapping. The lander’s aeroshell carried two instruments, a retarding potential analyzer and an upper atmosphere mass spectrometer, as well as pressure, temperature, and density sensors to take measurements of the Martian atmosphere during the descent. At the time the landers were the most sophisticated planetary spacecraft launched. Each carried two cameras as part of its imaging system, a seismometer, an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer, a weather instrument package to monitor temperature, pressure, and wind velocity, and a biological laboratory.

The biology package consisted of four experiments. The gas chromatograph mass spectrometer was designed to look for any organic compounds that might be present in Martian soil samples. The gas exchange experiment looked for gases given off by a sample of Martian soil incubated in a mix of organic and inorganic nutrients, essentially looking for products of metabolism by any microorganisms. In the labeled release experiment, a drop of a nutrient solution tagged with a 14C label was placed on a soil sample and the air monitored for the release of any 14CO2, a sign of metabolism. The pyrolytic release experiment placed 14C labeled gasses in a chamber with Martian soil, and after a few days of incubation the soil was baked and detectors looked for signs of any labeled gas that would be evidence that organisms in the soil had incorporated them in a process such as photosynthesis. Each lander also carried a remote sampler arm to take soil samples and deposit them into the biology instruments.

To reach the surface of Mars after separating from their orbiters, the landers’ seven-minute entry, descent and landing was assisted first by the aeroshell to enter the upper layers of the planet’s atmosphere, followed by deployment of a supersonic parachute at an altitude of four miles, and finally by three retro-rockets fired at a height of 5,000 feet to achieve a soft landing at about 4.5 miles per hour. Because of the possibility that Mars harbored some form of life that could be harmed by any terrestrial microorganisms carried by the spacecraft, the Viking landers had to meet the most stringent planetary protection requirements imposed on any U.S. spacecraft. Additionally, since the landers were tasked with looking for signs of life, scientists needed to be sure that if any were detected they were due to indigenous biology and not imported from Earth. For this reason, the lander and its aeroshell were encased inside a pressurized bioshield and the entire assembly sterilized in a nitrogen gas environment at a temperature of 232oF for 40 hours. For several years, engineers at JPL oversaw the study of more than 40,000 parts of 232 types of materials to find those that would survive the sterilization process to ensure the proper functioning of the landers’ systems and science instruments.

The Viking spacecraft, at 7,776 pounds fully fueled the heaviest planetary spacecraft up to that time launched by the United States, required the most powerful rocket in America’s fleet, the Titan IIIE with a Centaur upper stage. Viking 1 took off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Aug. 20, 1975, to begin its 304-day cruise to the Red Planet, followed by Viking 2 on Sept. 9 to begin its 320-day voyage. On June 19, 1976, Viking 1 entered an elliptical orbit around Mars. On July 20, by coincidence the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, the Viking 1 lander separated from the orbiter and began its descent to the surface, making a soft landing in the Chryse Planitia region of Mars. Within five minutes it began sending back its first photograph of the landing site. Viking 2 entered orbit around Mars on July 25 and the lander made its touchdown in Utopia Planitia on Sept. 3.

Both orbiters and landers far exceeded their expected 90-day lifetimes in their scientific exploration of Mars, vastly increasing our knowledge of the planet, its atmosphere, and its surface. The Viking 1 and 2 orbiters continued their missions until Aug. 17, 1980, and July 24, 1978, respectively, in total returning 52,663 images of Mars, mapping 97% of its surface at a resolution of 300 meters. The Viking 1 and 2 landers continued monitoring weather changes at the surface until Nov. 11, 1982, and April 12, 1980, respectively, together returning 4,500 photographs from the two landing sites. The Viking 1 lander held the record for the longest operating spacecraft on the surface of Mars, 2307 Earth days (more than six years) or 2245 Martian sols, until May 19, 2010, when the Opportunity rover surpassed it.

To be continued…

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Viking 1 and 2, NASA’s first Mars landers

Highlights Viking 1 and 2 were a pair of NASA Mars landers and orbiters that launched in 1975 and arrived in 1976. The orbiters created global maps while the landers examined the surface up close. The landers performed ambitious chemistry experiments to search for life; the results were ambiguous.

No one knew what the surface of Mars looked like up close until July 20, 1976, when Viking 1 snapped a picture of its landing pad sitting on a vast plain of soil and rocks.

Viking 1 and 2 were a pair of NASA landers and orbiters. Each launched as an integrated spacecraft that separated in Mars orbit. The landers headed for the surface, while the orbiters stayed behind to survey the planet from above.

Prior to the landing of Viking 1, the only mission to operate from the surface was the Soviet Union’s Mars 3 spacecraft, which touched down in December 1971. Contact with the lander ended for good less than 2 minutes after touchdown .

Viking 1 and 2 provided scientists with their most complete picture of Mars to date. The orbiters had high-resolution cameras that created global surface maps of the planet, revealing that Mars was generally divided into two distinct regions: northern low-elevation plains and southern cratered highlands. The orbiters captured stunning close-up views of volcanoes , dust storms , and canyons .

The landers, meanwhile, measured temperatures at their landing sites that ranged from roughly -120 to -20 degrees Celsius (-190 to -10 degrees Fahrenheit). They found that Mars’ reddish soil was composed of iron-rich clay. They also conducted a chemical analysis of the soil to search for the presence of life; the results were ambiguous and the question of life on Mars remains unanswered to this day.

When did Viking 1 and 2 launch?

Viking 1 launched on August 20, 1975. It arrived in Mars orbit on June 19, 1976 and the lander touched down on July 20, 1976.

Viking 2 launched less than a month after Viking 1 on September 9, 1975. The spacecraft arrived in orbit on August 7, 1976 and the lander touched down on September 3.

How much did the Viking missions cost?

The Viking missions cost $1.06 billion , which when adjusted for inflation is roughly $7.1 billion in 2020 dollars. Viking remains NASA's most expensive robotic planetary science mission of all time. More than half of Viking costs ($610 million) went to lander development, while the orbiters accounted for $217 million. Mission operations through 1982 cost $104 million.

How long did the Viking 1 and 2 missions last?

Both missions lasted far beyond their planned 90-day lifetimes. The Viking 2 orbiter mission ended July 25, 1978, while the Viking 1 orbiter lasted until August 7, 1980.

The Viking 2 lander operated until April 11, 1980, and the Viking 1 lander lasted two more years, ending on November 11, 1982.

Did Viking 1 and 2 find life?

The landers contained life-detection experiments designed to search for biological activity in the Martian soil. Each lander placed a scoop of Martian soil into a chamber and added some water containing nutrients and radioactive carbon . In theory, any microorganisms in the soil should metabolize — in other words, consume — the nutrients and emit the radioactive carbon as a gas that could be detected by the lander.

That’s essentially what happened . The landers also performed a control version of the experiment, where the soil samples were heated to sterilize any microorganisms before the nutrient solution was added. In those experiments, the landers did not detect the radioactive carbon, as would be expected.

Many scientists felt the results were too good to be true considering all other data from the mission pointed to the surface being devoid of life. Perchlorate, a non-living compound that is harmful to humans in high doses, was found in the Martian soil by later missions to Mars and could have metabolized the nutrients in the Viking experiments. Further studies have questioned whether perchlorate alone can sufficiently explain the results.

Where did Viking 1 and 2 land?

Both landers targeted flat, level regions of Mars in order to increase their chances of success. Viking 1 landed on Chryse Planitia — Greek for “Golden Plain” — located in Mars’ northern equatorial region. Viking 2 landed on Utopia Planitia — Greek and Latin for “Nowhere Land Plain” — a large impact basin north of the equator. China’s Zhurong rover also landed in Utopia Planitia in 2021.

Planetary Society connection

Planetary Society co-founder Carl Sagan helped design and manage the Viking missions. He also contributed to the selection of the landing sites. A Viking 1 panorama of the Martian landscape at dusk is attributed to one of Sagan’s image requests.

The high-dollar Viking program — along with the dual Voyager probes that launched in 1977 — came at a cost, stifling the development of future planetary exploration missions. Policymakers used a perceived lack of public interest in planetary exploration as an excuse to slash budgets. Sagan, along with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory director Bruce Murray, decided to build a grassroots advocacy group to prove there was public support for planetary exploration. They teamed up with JPL engineer Louis Friedman and founded The Planetary Society on November 30, 1979.

Mars, the red planet

Mars once had liquid water on the surface and could have supported life. Scientists are uncovering how it transformed into the cold, dry desert-world it is today.

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Interstellar Messengers

Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 are the only spacecraft ever to operate outside the heliosphere, the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields generated by the Sun. Voyager 1 reached the interstellar boundary in 2012, while Voyager 2 (traveling slower and in a different direction than its twin) reached it in 2018.

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Viking 1 Flight Path

The precision of the first flight path correction for the Viking 1 spacecraft on August 27 has eliminated the need for any further corrections until the spacecraft is close to Mars, the Viking Project office announced today.

The August midcourse maneuver was designed to correct the f1ight path by 2OO,OOO miles and change the time of arrival at Mars by 3l hours.

The resulting flight path was less than 2OO miles off the target and one minute off the desired arrival time.

Viking 1 will arrive at Mars on June 19, 1976, after traveling more than 4OO million miles, and drift slightly off course due to the effects of solar radiation pressure and venting of gases from the spacecraft.

A midcourse maneuver to be conducted about one month before arrival at Mars will make the final adjustments to the flight path.

Viking 1 was launched August 2O and today is 3,92O,OOO miles from Earth and in excellent operating condition.

“Ever since there have been people, there have been explorers, looking in places where others hadn’t been before. Not everyone does it, but we are part of a species where some members of the species do — to the benefit of us all.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson

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Caden Symons strong in pocket, Coeur d’Alene picks off Rigby three times in 24-14 ‘Week 0’ win

For the past two years, North Idaho high school football has kicked off in Missoula with state powerhouses Coeur d’Alene facing Rigby, splitting a pair of contests on neutral turf at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.

But because of concerts at the stadium this weekend, the rivalry shifted to Viking Field for this year’s edition – the sixth meeting between the teams since 2018.

Most coaches will schedule down the first couple of weeks of the season, but CdA coach Shawn Amos doesn’t shy away from early-season challenges for his squad.

Junior quarterback Caden Symons threw for 255 yards, the defense gathered three interceptions and the Vikings – ranked No. 1 in the new 6A classification in the Idaho preseason media poll, bested third-ranked Rigby 24-14 in a cool, misty rain on Friday.

Rigby has won three of the past five state championships, including a double-overtime game with Coeur d’Alene in 2019 at the Kibbie Dome in Moscow. But the season-opening win for the Vikings evened the overall series at 3-3.

“Gotta love playing Rigby, man,” Amos said. “You always know you’re gonna get tested. It’s gonna be a great game. You’re gonna learn a lot about your kids.”

“We like playing the best of the best at the beginning,” Symons said. “You don’t get better playing bad teams. To get better you gotta be out there fighting.”

Symons finished 18 of 29, completing passes to seven receivers. Chief among them was wideout Kai Wheeler, who made four catches for 80 yards. Six Vikings carried 25 times for 112 yards with three rushing touchdowns in the autumn-like weather.

“It was fun,” Symons said. “First game, you know, a lot of nerves, a lot of new people. A lot of JV players stepped up. It was a team effort right there.”

“I thought, you know, we did a lot of good things,” Amos said. “We also made a lot of penalties. We’ve got to clean that up. If we want to have success down the road, we’ve got to clean up those self-inflicted wounds. But Rigby is a great program. Our kids never panicked, never.”

Amos was particularly impressed by his experienced secondary. Though Rigby quarterback Jake Flowers completed 24 of 30 passes, he was limited to 159 yards – with 48 of that coming in one chunk – and the three interceptions, two by Jayson Cady and one by Wheeler.

“Jayson Cady just has a knack for dropping underneath that pattern,” Amos said. “I mean, our back half is experienced and really good football players. Our O-line, D-line, we’re growing some kids there, so I thought they made strides, too.”

The Vikings took the opening kick at their 13 after a penalty and drove 14 plays to the Rigby 17. They lined up for a field-goal attempt, but the wet ball squirted on the snap, and holder Kolbe Coey gathered it, went around left end and hustled 17 yards for the opening score.

“Thank God, we have a really good athlete as a holder,” Amos said. “He just made something happen.”

On the next possession, Flowers punted in Rigby territory for just 11 yards, Three plays later, Tucker Booth carried for a 13-yard TD to make it 14-0.

Rigby converted a long drive with Flowers’ 25-yard pass to Brysin Youngstrom to make it 14-7, then drove to the CdA 3 with 14 seconds left in the half. Flowers hit Jerzey Duenes with a short pass, but he was stopped short of the line and time expired before the Trojans could get off another play.

Wheeler’s interception on the third play of the second half led to a 17-yard TD scamper by Christian Young, and Rigby responded with Amani Morel’s 10-yard scoring run early in the fourth quarter.

But Cady, pulling double duty as Vikings kicker, nailed a 23-yard field goal with 4:50 left, and that’s all the insurance the Vikings needed.

“It feels like playoff weather,” Amos said. “But it’s nice to play at home.”

Sandpoint 36, Twin Falls 26: The Bulldogs ran up a 22-0 lead and saw their advantage dwindle to three with 8 minutes to play before hanging on to beat the Bruins.

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• River Cruising

Questions from a first time Viking River cruiser: STP to Moscow

By Happy2cruise12345 , December 28, 2017 in River Cruising

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Happy2cruise12345

Hi Everyone,

We are considering taking our first river cruise on Viking from St. Petersburg to Moscow "World of the Tsars" cruise. I have a few questions: 1.When you are in port in STP and Moscow are the ports very commercial or are they nice? (We will be there several days with a balcony, but if the ports are ugly and noisy...) And, does it matter which "side" of the vessel you are on? 2. How are Viking excursions? Are the excursions crowded? I read about people taking private tours (which we do on other cruises that don't include excursions.) 3. If you have gone on this cruise, did it take a lot of planning on your part?

Thanks in advance!

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The river boats dock far from town in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The only viewing is other river boats. Other ports, you do dock in town but you are in port the entire time you are docked so no advantage to a balcony.

It doesn't matter which side of the ship you are on. I personally would not go out of my way to book a balcony on this itinerary.

I did not do Viking but another river cruise line. I had Russian History previously so there wasn't planning. It does help to know some Russian history but no planning is necessary. At least study the Russian Revolutions.

I have done a river cruise in Russia and a land trip in the Soviet Union (back in the day). I personally preferred my land trip and staying in downtown hotels and taking the train between the 2 cities. I got much more out of that high school trip than I did on my river cruise.

St. Petersburg and Moscow are very busy cities. You spend a lot of time on busses getting into town due to traffic congestion. Thus, I preferred staying in hotels downtown. I wasn't overly impressed with the ports in-between and wish I had more time in the large 2 cities. Just my opinion.

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