Why Russia Did Not Put a Man on the Moon - The Secret Soviet Moon Rocket
Δημοσιεύτηκε στις 18 Αυγ 2016
It’s
probably the most well known peacetime battle between the USA and the
Soviet Union, in both technological and ideological terms of the 20th
century.
Although the USA won the race to the moon, if you’d been
a betting person from the mid 1950’s to 1960’s, the chances are that
you would have thought the Soviet Union had a very good chance of
getting there first.
So why didn’t Russia put a man on the moon?
At
the time the soviets were leading the space race, they had already
started with the launch of Sputnik, then launched several probes to the
moon, including one in 1959 that orbited and taken photos of the far
side and By 1961 they were the first to put a man in to space.
So
when Kennedy made his now famous “We choose to go to the moon” speech
in 1962 to rally public support, Khrushchev’s response was silence,
neither confirming nor denying that they had a plan for a manned moon
mission.
But at the time Khrushchev wasn’t really interested in
competing with the US over the moon, he was more interested ICBM’s the
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles for the strategic rocket forces.
But
there were others that had harboured plans for manned mission for a
long time, these included the man whose name was a state secret and the
most powerful man outside the Kremlin when it came to space.
He
was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, outside the inner circle of the top space
scientists he was known only as the “Chief Designer” or by his first 2
initials SP, because the Soviet leadership feared that the western
powers would send agents to assassinate him.
Korolev was the man
who was behind many of the soviet space successes and the head of the
OKB-1 design bureau, he over saw sputnik, and the manned missions
including the first man in space Yuri Gagarin. His authority extended
over almost everything to do with space, his design group worked on
missions to mars and venus, communications, spy and weather satellites,
ICBM’s and the soviet manned moon missions.
Korolev had a huge
amount of control over the space program. In administrative power he was
almost a one man version of NASA covering areas that in the US were
done across multiple aerospace companies and flight centres.
But
even a man with his power and connections didn’t get everything his own
way. He had to continuously fight against rival designers and design
groups. Although Korolev wanted the moon missions, in 1960 the job was
given to his rival, Vladimir Chelomei because of his patronage by
Khrushchev but his lack of experience meant that progress was slow.
The
progress of Apollo on the other hand worried the chief designers and as
a result of this and the in-fighting between the design bureau’s meant
that there were multiple overlapping designs for the moon missions, at
one point there were 30 different designs for launchers and spacecraft.
In
1964 and with the fall of Khrushchev, Korolev was given complete
control over the moon missions and pushed through his designs ahead of
Chelomei’s and the decision to finally compete for the moon was given,
with the aim to land in 1967 the 50th anniversary of the October
revolution and get there before the Americans.
This created a
problem for Korolev, in order to lift the payload weight of 95 tons he
needed a very large rocket. This new rocket would be called the N1, be
as big as the American Saturn 5 and would require large powerful
engines, similar to the F1 rockets in the Saturn.
Valentin
Glushko was the leading Soviet rocket designer and head of the OKB 456
bureau, which had a near monopoly when its came rocket design &
production. He specialised in making engines that used hypergolic
propellants.
These consist of a fuel and an oxidizer, that when
mixed together spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with
each other. Korolev thought these were too dangerous for manned missions
due to the highly toxic and corrosive nature of the chemicals that made
up the fuel.
Glushko said that it was not possible to create a
new large engine design that used cryogenic fuel of liquid oxygen and
Kerosene and get it ready in time with limited resources and cash. He
also sited that at the time the Americans had been working on cryogenic
Saturn engines for 5 years and still hadn’t got them to work
reliably.......
Another Place by Frank Dorittke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)
Source: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Fra...
Sit Idly By And Watch The World Crumble Before Your Eyes by Rowan Box is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Source: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Row...
probably the most well known peacetime battle between the USA and the
Soviet Union, in both technological and ideological terms of the 20th
century.
Although the USA won the race to the moon, if you’d been
a betting person from the mid 1950’s to 1960’s, the chances are that
you would have thought the Soviet Union had a very good chance of
getting there first.
So why didn’t Russia put a man on the moon?
At
the time the soviets were leading the space race, they had already
started with the launch of Sputnik, then launched several probes to the
moon, including one in 1959 that orbited and taken photos of the far
side and By 1961 they were the first to put a man in to space.
So
when Kennedy made his now famous “We choose to go to the moon” speech
in 1962 to rally public support, Khrushchev’s response was silence,
neither confirming nor denying that they had a plan for a manned moon
mission.
But at the time Khrushchev wasn’t really interested in
competing with the US over the moon, he was more interested ICBM’s the
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles for the strategic rocket forces.
But
there were others that had harboured plans for manned mission for a
long time, these included the man whose name was a state secret and the
most powerful man outside the Kremlin when it came to space.
He
was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, outside the inner circle of the top space
scientists he was known only as the “Chief Designer” or by his first 2
initials SP, because the Soviet leadership feared that the western
powers would send agents to assassinate him.
Korolev was the man
who was behind many of the soviet space successes and the head of the
OKB-1 design bureau, he over saw sputnik, and the manned missions
including the first man in space Yuri Gagarin. His authority extended
over almost everything to do with space, his design group worked on
missions to mars and venus, communications, spy and weather satellites,
ICBM’s and the soviet manned moon missions.
Korolev had a huge
amount of control over the space program. In administrative power he was
almost a one man version of NASA covering areas that in the US were
done across multiple aerospace companies and flight centres.
But
even a man with his power and connections didn’t get everything his own
way. He had to continuously fight against rival designers and design
groups. Although Korolev wanted the moon missions, in 1960 the job was
given to his rival, Vladimir Chelomei because of his patronage by
Khrushchev but his lack of experience meant that progress was slow.
The
progress of Apollo on the other hand worried the chief designers and as
a result of this and the in-fighting between the design bureau’s meant
that there were multiple overlapping designs for the moon missions, at
one point there were 30 different designs for launchers and spacecraft.
In
1964 and with the fall of Khrushchev, Korolev was given complete
control over the moon missions and pushed through his designs ahead of
Chelomei’s and the decision to finally compete for the moon was given,
with the aim to land in 1967 the 50th anniversary of the October
revolution and get there before the Americans.
This created a
problem for Korolev, in order to lift the payload weight of 95 tons he
needed a very large rocket. This new rocket would be called the N1, be
as big as the American Saturn 5 and would require large powerful
engines, similar to the F1 rockets in the Saturn.
Valentin
Glushko was the leading Soviet rocket designer and head of the OKB 456
bureau, which had a near monopoly when its came rocket design &
production. He specialised in making engines that used hypergolic
propellants.
These consist of a fuel and an oxidizer, that when
mixed together spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with
each other. Korolev thought these were too dangerous for manned missions
due to the highly toxic and corrosive nature of the chemicals that made
up the fuel.
Glushko said that it was not possible to create a
new large engine design that used cryogenic fuel of liquid oxygen and
Kerosene and get it ready in time with limited resources and cash. He
also sited that at the time the Americans had been working on cryogenic
Saturn engines for 5 years and still hadn’t got them to work
reliably.......
Another Place by Frank Dorittke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)
Source: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Fra...
Sit Idly By And Watch The World Crumble Before Your Eyes by Rowan Box is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Source: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Row...
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