Russian Race to the Moon - Korolev Biography and what it says

RobS · 2003-07-07 00:21:03

I've just been reading James Harford's Korolev, a biography of the leading figure in the Russian space program up to his death in January 1966. Korolev did almost everything; he was Werner von Braun and James Webb (head of NASA at the time) rolled into one person. The book is well written and seems very well researched.

I think there are a lot of fascinating tidbits in here for Mars types. According to the book, the Russians, by 1965, were falling behind the US fast and had little chance of getting to the moon first. This was for several reasons: (1) total resources being devoted were less; (2) the resources were going to two competing systems, rather than being concentrated in one; and (3) the top leadership had ambivalent feelings about the moon race, because it had little military benefit.

Korolev's wish originally was to send cosmonauts to Mars, not to the Moon. The moon emerged as a place of competition largely because of the US. Korolev had to use military hardware because he was the designer of most of the USSR's ICBMs as well and could only justify so many diffferent projects. The military wanted a large booster for earth orbital use, so the N-1 rocket was proposed. It weighed about 2,200 tonnes and initially was to put 75 tonnes into low earth orbit. Eventually it evolved into a 2750 tonne machine able to put 104 tonnes into low earth orbit. The Saturn V, in contrast, weighs 2938 metric tonnes and can put 100 tonnes in orbit (according to this book; I think it is more like 125 tonnes, though). The N-1 did not adapt well to a moon mission for the following reasons:

1. The throw weight fundamentally was not enough. This was made even worse by the fact that from Canaveral you can sometimes do a direct launch to the moon, but Baikonur is so far north--45 degrees latitude--that this is impossible. From Baikonur (and from ISS, for that matter), an orbital plane change is necessary first, and that requires a lot of energy.

2. The Russians were convinced that liquid hydrogen technology was not workable, so they did not develop it. The result was less throw weight per tonne of launch vehicle.

3. The Russians did not have the electronics needed to control a large vehicle. The N-1's control module weighed something like 6 times as much as the Saturn V's.

4. The Russians did not have the time and money to develop a large rocket engine, nor did they have the test stand where they could fire it, so the N-1 was to be launched by 24 (later 30) rocket engines at the bottom. If anything went wrong with one, it and the corresponding opposite engine could be shut down. But the compex of engines was so complicated they were never tested together. As a result, all four of the N-1s launched blew up. Two of them blew up on the launch pad, totally destroying a very large launch facility.

In spite of these problems, the Russians built the Soyuz, which was to be the command module of a flight to the moon and back. They launched several to the moon (unmanned), and some of them came back and landed successfully (and some did not). They built the lproposed unar lander and conducted several successful flights in Earth orbit.

They beefed up the N-1 until it could lift 104 tonnes into low earth orbit. In spite of the successes of Apollo, the Russians continued to develop their moon program until 1974. Several scenarios envisioned cosmonauts landing on the moon by 1978-80. These were the chief scenarios outlined in the book:

1. Launch of one N-1 carrying a small vehicle with only two cosmonauts. It would be preceeded by several smaller launches that would place on the lunar surface two unmanned rovers, a rover that a cosmonaut could operate, and a back-up earth return vehicle (ideas that were not used in Apollo, though sound a bit like Mars Direct). One cosmonaut would stay in lunar orbit while the other landed, explored for six hours, then returned to lunar orbit. They rendezvoused and returned to Earth rather like Apollo. This idea was not very favored because after the Apollo successes, six hours on the moon wasn't very exciting.

2. Launch of two N1s, putting 103 and 104 tonnes into low earth orbit respectively. Both would proceed to the moon separately; the second craft had three cosmonauts. In lunar orbit they would rendezvous. The first craft carried a big rocket that would be used to decellerate the lunar lander and earth return vehicle carried by the other craft. The lander would only need to use a small delta vee to land and thus would preserve most of its fuel for a direct launch back to the earth from the moon. Nothing and no one would be left in lunar orbit. The two or three cosmonauts would have the supplies and equipment to stay on the moon up to 14 days, and in subsequent flights the crews might be able to stay up to three months.

3. Development of a new booster to replace the N1 with 145 tonnes to low earth orbit capacity, which would allow a direct flight to the moon and back, without lunar orbit rendezvous. This was like the original Nova-Apollo plan.

Option #2 had lots of possibilities because it could have led to a Soviet base on the moon.

Now, what happened? It is a sad story. The US decided to build a space shuttle and the shuttle had various military applications that worried the Soviets greatly, so they decided they had to develop a shuttle of their own. Hence in 1974, just before the launch of the fifth N-1 booster--which many felt would have flown, because of all the design work done on it--Brezhnyev pulled the plug and canceled the moon program. The result was two space shuttles, and "now we have to ask why we have these systems," as one former Soviet designer put it! So the Cold war giveth (Apollo) and taketh away (space shuttle).

It is interesting to speculate what might have happened if Korolev hadn't developed inoperable colon cancer and hadn't died in 1966, leaving his program in the hands of someone with far less political and managerial talent as he. Perhaps the Soviets could have gotten the N1 and its moon equipment flying by 1972 or so, rather than 1976. This might have forced the US not to cancel Apollos 18 through 20 and to plan a followup on Apollo (there were many ideas about using the Saturn V to land supplies on the moon and build up a base). Perhaps the moon race and its equipment might have continued. Each Apollo mission cost about $300 or $400 million then, which might be $1.5 billion now, but the current Space Shuttle budget would still have allowed about three moon flights per year. In thirty years, that's 100 flights and about 200 astronauts walking on the moon. If Saturn Vs had continued, they would have been improved. An international space station based on Skylab would have cost much less than our current ISS. Possibly we'd be looking at a Mars mission about now, too (Mars Direct is achievable with two Saturn V launches).

So, things could have been different.

-- RobS

Free Spirit · 2003-07-07 01:01:19

I read that book awhile back. Too bad the USSR's paranoia about the shuttle killed the moonbase plan. It's ironic how Korolev went from being a slave doing hard labor to becoming the Soviet's top space official. He easily deserves as much credit as Von Braun for getting the ball rolling in space.

Shaun Barrett · 2003-07-07 04:05:46

RobS, you never cease to amaze me!
What a fascinating post!!

I normally enjoy alternative histories but this one is almost too poignant to bear. Your speculative Russian lunar efforts could have made such a profound difference to the present-day situation. Things could have been so much better than they are: Moon bases, Mars missions ... Wow!

RobS · 2003-07-07 18:05:34

Well, MAYBE they could have been better; that's all I can claim!

In retrospect it is easy for most friends of the space program to maintain that the Space Shuttle was not the best direction to take. But I was alive when the decision was taken, and I remember the debates as early as 1970 about what should follow Apollo. In June 1970 I was a high school student between my junior and senior years attending JESSI (the Junior Engineers and Scientists Summer Institute) at FIT (Florida Institute of Technology) in Melbourne, FL. We got a VIP tour of the vehicle assembly building at Kennedy Spaxce Center, among other things. I remember NASA scientists or engineers speaking to us about the advantages of reusable spacecraft and building everything in space out of modules that could be plugged together. It was fascinating to an almost 17 year old. And if you read Arthur C. Clarke's *The Promise of Space,* published in 1967 (I still refer to my copy frequently), you will see a strong bias against "throw-away" rockets and "carpeting the Atlantic Ocean floor" with stages. Everyone in those days wanted to turn their backs on the throwaway approach as primitive and outdated and move to the "more airplane like" and therefore more sophisticated space shuttle. It took us 30 years to realize the technology to make this change wasn't yet mature, though, and that throw away was still better.

I really doubt the moon program could have been maintained, though I dearly wish it could have been. Maintaining it would have required (1) spending more money on NASA per year than the Nixon administration was willing (maybe not a lot more, but more), and (2) looking at lunar science and space technology as something of great LONG TERM benefit.

-- RobS

Shaun Barrett · 2003-07-07 19:25:31

Perhaps in space exploration more than any other human endeavour, we need a long-term program with incremental, carefully planned improvements in our capabilities.
This is a perfect example of one of the main drawbacks with democracy, the 'election horizon'! Most politicians can't see past the next polling day. And they can't resist short-term political gains at the pork barrel, either!
It seems to me that some of us here at New Mars would make a better job of space planning and budgeting than most of the organisations we see before us today.

[Just wait until I become dictator of the world, guys. 'Crikey'! You'll see some space exploration then!!! ]

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#1 2003-07-07 00:21:03

Re: Russian Race to the Moon - Korolev Biography and what it says

#2 2003-07-07 01:01:19

Re: Russian Race to the Moon - Korolev Biography and what it says

#3 2003-07-07 04:05:46

Re: Russian Race to the Moon - Korolev Biography and what it says

#4 2003-07-07 18:05:34

Re: Russian Race to the Moon - Korolev Biography and what it says

#5 2003-07-07 19:25:31

Re: Russian Race to the Moon - Korolev Biography and what it says

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