How were unmanned spacecraft in the early days of space exploration, like the Luna landers, remotely controlled?

by dudewiththebling

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this. If there is a better place for this question, please direct me.

Thanks!

Gargatua13013

might want to try r/space, or /r/askscience.

However, you should expect the answer to ba a variant of the way we currently do things: instructions are painstakingly planned on a step by step basis, converted in a program, and transmitted by radio, stored in a buffer to be exectuted at a predetermined time mark. There is no "real time" remote control activity because of the outlandish transmission times.