[X] My Assistant

[ronatu]

Do you know that Russains could be on Moon first?
This is how:

http://site.voila.fr/space-models/model/n1/n1_miss.htm

[RNeuhaus]

I found additional information about Russia's manned Lunar program (1940-1980)

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/spacecraft_manned_lunar.html

Interesting article. Previously I was so ignorant abut it

Rodolfo

[tedstryk]

My understanding is that the Russians had just about everything ready to go but no ride for this moon landing mission. In other words, the N-1 just never worked right. So in other words, they were so close and yet so far away. It would be like Apollo had the Saturn V not worked. They probably, from what I understand, gotten it to work by the mid 70s, but since their landing was still smaller scale than Apollo, they considered it embarassing, and moved on to building space stations, an area where they could claim "firsts." I wish they had continued the effort....it might have provided the push needed to keep Apollo going a while longer.

[GregM]

My understanding is that the Russians had just about everything ready to go but no ride for this moon landing mission.  In other words, the N-1 just never worked right.  So in other words, they were so close and yet so far away.  It would be like Apollo had the Saturn V not worked.  They probably, from what I understand, gotten it to work by the mid 70s, but since their landing was still smaller scale than Apollo, they considered it embarassing, and moved on to building space stations, an area where they could claim "firsts."  I wish they had continued the effort....it might have provided the push needed to keep Apollo going a while longer.

Well, yes it true that the main sticking point in the Soviet lunar program’s inability to get the job done was the launch vehicle, when speaking in the strictest of terms. However, the whole Soviet scheme was VERY weak when compared to Apollo, and there were many other places besides the booster in the Soviet Lunar mission plan that might (or likley would) have caused a mission failure. The booster was just the largest of many weak points. With a few exceptions, everything in the Soviet program was much more primitive than Apollo in terms of technology development and robustness, yet was excessively complicated in areas that would not gladly tolerate such things (such as two separate descent propulsion stages for the lander). To look into the interior of the Soviet lander or mothership (a beefed up Soyuz) is to look into something more akin to a 1930’s submarine rather than a late 1960’s spacecraft. I half expect to see Captain Nemo flying the LK instead of Alexi Leonov – who might have been the first person on the Moon in a different timeline had everything gone perfectly for them. In terms of sophistocation, robustness, redundency, and technical development, Apollo looked like the starship Enterprise compared to these spacecraft. Mr. Leonov would have been a very brave man indeed if he had got the chance to succeed instead of Neil Armstrong.

I strongly suggest learning more on the subject for anyone interested – it is a fascinating subject on what was the riskiest and most longshot manned space mission design ever conceived. But boy, it would have been really cool to have seen them actually pull it off.

Good links for any who are interested:

http://www.astronautix.com/articles/sovpart2.htm

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/soy7klok.htm

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/lk.htm

http://www.myspacemuseum.com/eurolk.htm

http://www.deepcold.com/deepcold/lk_main.html