Slashdot Mirror
Soviet Moon Rocket
TestBoy writes "There is a decent article about the Soviet Union's moon rocket and why it was doomed to fail. From one of the pictures on the website, you realize how large just one of its multiple engines were."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
The American Saturn V booster uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
Liquid hydrogen is much more efficient in terms of energy/unit weight than kerosene.
It's cleaner burning, as well.
If you don't believe me, ask that guy over there.
Everything you've ever wanted to know about the Saturn V.
When things go BOOM, this is technically not a good thing.
Here is a summary of the Russian lunar launches. Here is the data from 1969
Jan. 20, 1969 7K-L1/ 13L - Circumlunar UR-500 Launch failure
Feb. 19, 1969 E-8 - Lunar rover 8K82K (UR-500) Failed to reach orbit
Feb. 21, 1969 7K-L1S - Circumlunar N-1 / L3 Exploded during launch
June 14, 1969 E-8-5 #402 - Sample return UR-500 Failed to reach orbit
July 3, 1969 7K-L1S - Circumlunar N-1 / 5L Exploded at launch
July 13, 1969 E-8-5 Luna-15 Sample return UR-500 Crashed on lunar surface
Aug. 8, 1969 7K-L1 Zond-7 Circumlunar UR-500 Flew around the Moon
Sept. 23, 1969 E-8-5 Cosmos-300 Sample return UR-500 Failed to leave Earth orbit
Oct. 22, 1969 E-8-5 Cosmos-305 Sample return UR-500 Failed to leave Earth orbit
Give them points for effort.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Sadly, no.
That model was involved in one of the worst disaters of the Soviet space program. And given their track record, that speaks a lot.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Here ya go (For those who like BluePrints more than cute pics)
http://members.aol.com/Satrnpress/samprotw.htm
MessEdUp
#/var/www/v
Mishin, Sergei Korolev's successor, was not an experienced engineer. This was a major factor in the failure of the N-1 program.
Korolev, on the other hand, was very successful -- a rocket sharing the same basic design as the one that launched Sputnik 1 was rolled to the launch pad in support of a Progress freighter launch to the ISS. When?
This morning.
i am a soviet space shuttle
All the 30 first stage motors are identical Kuznetsov Design Bureau NK-33's generating 154 metric ton's of thrust each.
There is a lot of debate about why the Soviets chose this approach, but for me its a combination of three reasons:-
a) Previous Soviet Rockets were also based on the "many small engines" approach - they worked fine. (Even if it was not the most efficient approach)
b) A key reason the the N-1 ended up with 30 NK-33 engines instead of something more manageable was political infighting. The Soviet chief engine disigner Glushko had an intense argument over fuel choice with the N1 designer Korolov and ended up taking experience to the Soviet military with the UK-500 and 700 boosters. That left Korolov with no engine designer and in the end the N-1 had it's engines designed from existing templates.
c) At the time there were real doubts over the feasibility of combistion stability in engines with large injector surfaces. (Ie - large engines). It took Rocketdyne many, many tests to get the F-1 to work. The Soviets felt that developing these large engines was simply too risky (and expensive), despite the obvious efficiency gains.
Encyclopedia Astronautica is a great, and I mean the best, site on the internet for rocketry info. Here are some of their links to the N-1, and reasons why they built it the way they did:
THe N-1 StoryMore technical than the bbc article
Soviet space history, broken down by year
great site with a ton of content if you want to waste a few hours.. =)
Multi-engine rockets are still used by Russia today. These photos are dated today -- and this particular rocket design is very, very successful.
Photo of base of the Soyuz rocket (20 main engines and 12 smaller auxiliary engines)
The same rocket rolling to the pad
On the pad (probably the same one that launched Sputnik 1!)
But, as you say, the N-1 just took the concept too far, and the Soviets had invested so much into it by that point that the N-1's failure forced the entire lunar program to be cancelled. The only other booster that could do the job at the time (nothing exists now that could, though the Shuttle could launch a moon ship) was the Saturn V.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Wow, you make it sound as though USSR had no successfull lunar missions at all. Here is a link to the NASA web page with details on the USSR lunar missions: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/lunarus sr.html
My favorites are the Lunokhod missions:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/tmp/1970-095A.html
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/tmp/1973-001A.html
And a few other cool looking unmanned landers:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/tmp/1976-081A.html
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/tmp/1970-072A.html
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/tmp/1966-006A.html
Now that you've read all the posts about how the Russian space program is done, read this Wired article (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/rd-180.ht ml) that describes how US companies are launching their payloads using Russian propulsion.
Here's a quote: "They build the thing and test the shit out of it. This engine cost $10 million and produces almost 1 million pounds of thrust. You can't do that with an American-made engine."
that people never learn...
The giant rocket was launched just four times; each one was a disaster ending in abrupt and catastrophic failure.
You'd think at least after the second time it ended in disaster they'd think it was time to go back to the drawing board. However I suppose this is the kind of thing that happens when they are political motivations behind scientific achievements - shortcuts are made.
Video Game cheats, hints a
There were a lot of reasons for the failure of the N-1. Mishin's competence as an engineer had nothing to do with it. Korolov was successful because he had the ear of Kruschev and was good at motivating his people. When Kruschev was removed from power in 64, some would argue that the drive behind the N-1 went with him, though the last launch wouldn't be until late 1972. There were also the issue of multiple design bureaus getting money to build rockets capable of getting to the moon (Chelomei and Yangel are two that come to mind).
Korolov, like von Braun, made things happen more because of his personality and management skills than engineering prowess.
Jim Harford wrote an excellent book titled Korolov, which presents an excellent picture of his life from childhood to death. There's also quite a bit of information on what happened at his design bureau after his death.
Just to clarify a few things.
The NK-15 was actually used on the N-1. The NK-33 are the modified NK-15 engines sold to Kistler. The NK-15 is based off the design for the NK-9.
The engines in the R-7, the RD-107/108, were single turbopumps (one for fuel and one for oxidizer) driving four combustion chambers. The reason for four combustion chambers was to deal with acoustic problems inside the chamber. The F-1 had similar acoustic problems, but they were solved with baffles inside the chamber. The RD-170/171/180 are also multiple chambers driven by single fuel and oxidizer turbopumps.
Glushko's bureau did the N2O4-hydrazine engines for the UR-500 (Proton). The UR-700 was never built.
you are wrong!
USSR:
1st lander on Mars
1st lander on Venus
The same basic considerations are why the jet engines used in the very successful Su-27 class fighters are more fuel-thirsty for the same thrust as an F-15 class fighter (the two are roughly equivalent). The hotter you can get, the more expansion you can get. If you don't have the expansion, the only way to get the same thrust is to pour more fuel into the nozzle. The Russian designers are confident that their newest engines for the Su-30 class follow-ons to the Su-27 are every bit as good as current Western engines -- but they have not had the money to actually build the things.
There is also, of course, the Russian tendency to improve existing designs rather than embark upon all-new designs. For example, the next-generation Russian air superiority fighter, the Su-34/Su-35, is basically an Su-27 improved with the latest in materials to decrease weight, increase strength, and improve payload and maneuverability (not to mention better engines). The Su-34/Su-35 aren't going to be built because Russia cannot afford them, but show what Russian designers prefer to do rather than embark upon all-new aircraft like the U.S. designers like to do. The N-1 engines were similar in design to other engines used by the Soviets, and thus preferable, in the eyes of Russian designers, to all-new (risky) engine designs.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Wow - how astute of you to come up with such commentary!
Oh, btw; the greatest single achievement of mankind - man landing on the moon - was fueled and driven by political motivation. It also gave us the technology to produce Integrated Circuits, Fuel Cells that will (eventually) replace the Internal Combustion Engine for cars (and have water as it's only major byproduct), and the "Space Race" also was a major part of the further development of ARPANet.
Soviet missiles, ever since the Vostok launchers, have always used multiple rocket motors/engines of smaller size to provide the needed thrust versus the F-1 engines used in the Saturn V. The images that you see on the BBC site show (1) the tail-end of the N1, which housed the 30 smaller engines, and the 2nd image is also just the tail-end housing of the N1 and not the exhaust nozzles. The nozzles for the N1 engines ranged from about 3 feet to 1 foot in diameter. The overall diameter of the tail-end of the N1 is greater than the Saturn V, because they had to fit 30 of the smaller, less-efficient engines instead of the 5 vastly more efficient F-1 engines used in the Saturn V.
Some links to some photos and illustrations:
Line-up Illustration of size differences of engines used for the Apollo missions (The RL-10's were used in the Descent and Acsent engines of the LEM, the H-1 served the Command & Service Modules, the J-2 for the 3rd Stage (single engine) and for the 2nd Stage (5-engine cluster), and the F-1 for the 1st Stage of the Saturn V stack))
The N1 Story - Part 1
At the time that the N1 was in the planning stages, the most powerful rocket engines produced only 40 tons of thrust, and the N1 required engines that produced (at most) 150 tons of thrust each, in comparison to the massive F-1 engines used in the Saturn V, which produced ~680 tons of thrust each. The lack of sophistication in Soviet designs called for many more engines in the N1 than in the Saturn V, proving to be a systems-management nightmare (the more engines/systems you have, the larger the "point-of-failure" boundaries, which negates any kind of planned redundancy.). Engines to equal the F-1 were almost impossible for them to build, due to the technology gap between the USSR and the USA.
Additionally, You'd be suprised at how many botched launches of various launch vehicles happened at Cape Canaveral/Kenedy; the "Mercury Seven" were about ready to voluntarily drop-out of the Mercury program when they learned that the proposed launch vehicle was the Atlas - one of the most disaster-plagued launch vehicles the USA ever had - hence, the "Spam in a can" comments from the Astronauts to illustrate what would happen to them if the Atlas malfunctioned. Several different designs of the Saturn launch vehicle blew-up or were ordered to self-destruct when early guidance system designs failed and caused the rocket stack to "end-over" several times.
Rocket Science IS "Rocket Science"
Also remember that the technological state of the Soviet Union was about 10 years behind the USA - but they made up for it by pouring huge financial backing from the Soviet government into producing quantity and not quality - which partially led to the financial collapse of the Soviet Union and it's enevitable disintegration.
So much for your ignorant comments. Learn something instead of parroting some obscure Liberalist doctrine. If you didn't have "...political motivation behind scientific achievement...", we wouldn't have the Internet and we'd all still be chatting and swapping files on BBS systems.
ScottKin - who was a NASA-junkie at the ripe, old age of 7.
I don't give a rat's behind about "karma" here or anywhere else. Don't like what I have to say here? Deal with it!
I had the extreme pleasure to take the 4-hour drive from Dallas to Houston when I was in Dallas on business for two weeks, and went to the Johnson Space Center - for someone who has followed the Space Program for as long as I have (ever since John Glenn's first mission - I was a baby then...), to visit that place was pure heaven!
Tours of the Mission Control Center for the Shuttle and the ISS...
Seeing the X-38 (Crew Return Vehicle) being built...
See the places where Astronauts are trained...
A peek at the fully preserved but access-restricted Mission Control Center for the Gemini & Apollo missions...
You can even walk right up to a full Saturn V stack laid-down on the ground and taken care of quite nicely - it's the stack they were going to use for Apollo 18, which was cancelled when funding for further Apollo / Lunar missions was cut in favor of the Space Shuttle / STS.
ScottKin
I don't give a rat's behind about "karma" here or anywhere else. Don't like what I have to say here? Deal with it!