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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."
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From the article:
In 1997, 94 leftover N1 engines were sold to the American company Kistler for refurbishment and incorporation into a new rocket.
So what did Kristler do with them?
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..It is kind of depressing to ponder the rise and fall of the soviet space exploration empire. Crippled by the fall of communism, and lack of money, a once great competitor to NASA is now a laughing stock.
Now a point to ponder, how long will it be before NASA becomes a laughing stock. Countless articles continually point out that NASA cant get proper funding, etc etc.
The sad thing is, if only Russia's space agency could of survived after the berlin wall came down, we would probably still have a thriving space race and maybe even more public interest.
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
after WWII the US got the better German V2 rocket scientists like Wernher Von Braun, instead of the USSR? Certainly the US didn't have the will to fully use their experience and talents, however, untill after Sputnik.
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As far as I know - robotic mission to the moon was complete success though. It is interesting to observe mass media in the West time after time to concentrate on areas where US were ahead and never opposite. Venus landing of a robotic craft and photographs from the surface is an example of another success of soviet space programm and I am sure there are many others not well known in the West.
... what have we done recently that's so hot? Shuttle launches still cost a billion bucks a pop (yeah, we're always learning how to save money on the next generation), and all we do is either dick around in low earth orbit or lob probes out.
Maybe I just OD'd on space opera, but to me "space exploration" means letting real people go out there and take real risks, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
One of those little throwaway comments that stuck in my mind was Buzz Aldrin commenting that we're in for a shock when (if) we do try and go back to the moon, because we're going to find out just how hard it was. Sure, we know how to do it, but do we still have the knowhow?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Listen the Americans beat the USSR in the race to get to the moon but that is absolutely it.
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They got:
1st satellite.
1st man in orbit.
1st woman in orbit.
1st lunar rover.
1st space station.
1st long term space station.
The US my country that I love so well got to the moon first.
The Soviet's took us down in every other first. It terms of keeping people in space for long periods of time they had it down while we had lost interest after seeing some guys hope around on the moon.
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ACK
It really was awful, there were analog gauges and whatnot littering the interior
It was built the late '60s. What else would they have been using?
basically one step shy of having Cosmonauts just jump out of the orbiter and hope for the best!
Actually, this isn't too far off the mark. If memory serves, the Soviet lunar missions were planned for two-man crews, as opposed to the three-man crews of the Apollo program. In the Soviet missions one cosmonaut would have stayed with the orbiter - same as the US flights - and the other would have spacewalked to and from the lander, rather the orbiter first docking with the lander. Soviet lunar landings and explorations would have been accomplished by one man, at least early on.
Why has no-one been to the moon since 1972? For those who cant count, that's 30 years. There are not even plans to go back even though we've (debatably) found ice up there (perfect for a settlement). I guess the next people to go will be from the private sector. Seems like a long way out though.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Perhaps you misunderstood what I wrote - I did read the article. I agree with you that the basic design was the problem - however what I meant was that had it not been a race to see who got to the moon first - there would've been plenty of time for the USSR to try out different types of rocket and see which one was successful first. Rather than putting all their eggs in one basket with the multi rocket design - and then things being a complete disaster when they can't fix the inherent design problems with that solution.
Both Russia & the USA tried out pure oxygen atmospheres - both with catastrophic results ending in loss of life. Without the loss of life involved in the tests I doubt there would have been the impetus to "go back to the drawing board".
Lets take the Challenger disaster - after that NASAs budget was cut & various future missions were shelved. Politics does enter into it because the politicians decide on the budget each year.
The ISS is behind schedule because of a variety of factors - it's the first ever space station not built by one nation - it's not built on previously designed and tested technology - and the plans for it have been drastically altered from the original specifications as the projected cost spiralled higher and higher.
I agree with what you say about the USSR - they managed to do a lot on a fraction of the budget the Americans did by innovating. However America & the CIS are not the only countries/ regions with plans for space now.
Anyway I've said my 2 cents & I'll let you reply
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Wow - how astute of you to come up with such commentary!
*blushes*
Exactly what "ignorant comments" are you referring to? I'm not "parroting" some obscure Liberalist doctrine - if in summarising what I think into a concise sentence it has lost some of its original meaning I apologise. As to your comment of Also remember that the technological state of the Soviet Union was about 10 years behind the USA - the Russians from an engineering perspective in many cases found much more elegant (and simpler) solutions. While the Americans would spend millions researching a pen that works in zero gravity - they just used pencils. If the Russians were as far behind as you state they wouldn't have had the first man in space & the first space station. As to the Internet depending on how far back you're going it either had it's roots in ARPANET (a military project) - or CERN where Tim Berners-Lee wanted to network different computers - neither of which were in anyway politically motivated.
I find (like a lot of Americans) your view of the world is that America is the best and anyone who doesn't agree with you must be crazy so:
1) Please tell me which comments of mine according to you are ignorant.
2) Provide a link to the "obscure Liberalist doctrine" you refer to.
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IIRC correctly the Soviets lost a total of four cosmonauts in flight (all after re-entry) and, it appears, one on the ground in an oxygen fire similar to Apollo 1 but much earlier. (There are urban myths about cosmonauts stranded in space that are comprehensively demolished on Mark Wade's site). Note that the Zond spacecraft *could* have carried two cosmonauts around the moon before Apollo 8, but the vehicle was judged insufficiently reliable to risk cosmonauts in at that stage.
Meanwhile the US lost three astronauts on the ground in Apollo 1. As for flight, how many Americans were lost when the Challenger blew up? Can you say "NASA = Need Another Seven Astronauts?". How good an example of caring about quality and safety was that launch? (done for PR reasons over the vehement protests of the engineers).
AFAICC that makes the Russian safety record better...
Interesting to see how the Chinese appear to be hastening slowly with their manned program, to make sure it is safe and successful rather than reaching an arbitrary target date.