Could the USSR have won the moon race?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

As you know, the Soviet Union did not manage to get ahead of America on the Moon. H-1 - Soviet answer to Saturn-V - the rocket that our lunar hopes were pinned on, tried to take off four times and exploded four times shortly after launch. Not wanting to spend millions and billions of rubles on an already lost race, in the mid-1970s the Soviet government forced the designers to forget about the Moon.

But was the path taken by the Soviet lunar program in the end was correct? Of course, history does not know the subjunctive mood, and it would be too bold to argue that if the reins of the program were not in the hands of S. P. Korolev and his successor V. P. Mishin, and, say, in the hands of M. K. Yangel or V. N. Chelomei, the outcome of the competition with America would have been fundamentally different.

However, all the unrealized projects of manned flights to our satellite are undoubtedly monuments of Russian design thought, and it is interesting and instructive to remember them, especially now, when they are increasingly talking about flights to the Moon in the future tense.

Train in orbit

From a formal point of view, both the American and Soviet lunar programs consisted of two stages: first, a manned flight around the moon, then a landing. But if for NASA the first stage was the immediate predecessor of the second and had the same material and technical basis - the Saturn V - Apollo complex, then the Soviet approach was somewhat different. Forced to others.

Lunar spacecraft to fly around the moon

The photo shows a scheme of the spacecraft for a manned flyby of the Moon from a draft design prepared at the design bureau by V. N. Chelomey.

1) Construction. The draft design of the lunar ship (LK) was prepared at OKB-52 by June 30, 1965. The ship consisted of block "G" - the engine of the emergency rescue system, block "B" - the reentry vehicle, block "B" - the equipment compartment and the compartment for correction engines, block "A" - the pre-acceleration stage for reporting a speed close to the second space, for flyby of the moon.

2) Flight. The ship was to be launched into a reference orbit with an altitude of 186-260 km with a three-stage UR-500K rocket. The separation of the carrier took place at the 585th second of the flight. After a revolution around the Earth, the engines of the pre-accelerating block were turned on for about 5 minutes, imparting a speed to the vehicle close to the second space speed. Then the block was separated. On the way, three orbit corrections were carried out using the engines of the "B" block. It was planned to carry out 12 launches without a crew and up to ten launches with an astronaut on board.

The first calculations made at the royal OKB-1 at the very beginning of the 1960s showed that in order to land the crew on the moon, it would first be necessary to put about 40 tons of payload into low-earth orbit. Practice has not confirmed this figure - during lunar expeditions, the Americans had to put into orbit a three times larger load - 118 tons.

LK model in full size The accelerating block "A" is separated from the compartment "B" (correction engines) by a metal truss. Characteristics of the LC. Crew: 1 person // Weight of the ship at launch: 19,072 kg // Weight of the ship during flight to the Moon: 5187 kg // Weight of the reentry vehicle: 2457 kg // Flight duration: 6-7 days.

But even if we take the figure of 40 tons as a starting point, it was still obvious that Korolev had nothing to lift such a load into orbit. The legendary "seven" R-7 could "pull" a maximum of 8 tons, which means that it was necessary to re-create a special super-heavy rocket. The development of the N-1 rocket was started in 1960, but S. P. Korolyov was not going to wait for the appearance of a new carrier. A manned flyby of the moon, he believed, could be done in cash.

His idea was to launch several relatively light blocks into orbit with the help of "sevens", from which, by docking, it would be possible to assemble a spacecraft for flying around the moon (L-1). Incidentally, the name of the Soyuz spacecraft originated from this concept of connecting blocks in orbit, and the 7K module was the direct ancestor of the entire line of workhorses of Russian cosmonautics. Other modules of the royal "train" were indexed 9K and 11K.

So, a capsule for the crew, a container with fuel, booster blocks should have been put into orbit … From the initial idea of assembling a spacecraft from just two parts, the designers of OKB-1 gradually came to a whole space train of five vehicles. Considering that the first in history successful docking in orbit took place only in 1966, during the flight of the American Gemini-8 spacecraft, it is obvious that the hope for docking in the first half of the 1960s gave off a gamble.

Characteristics of the aircraft crew: 2 people // Weight of the ship at launch: 154 t // Weight of the ship during flight to the Moon: 50.5 t // Weight of the reentry vehicle: 3.13 t // Time of flight to the Moon: 3, 32 days // Flight duration: 8, 5 days.

Media for megatons

At the same time, V. N. Chelomey, the main competitor of Korolev, who headed OKB-52, had his own space ambitions and his own weighty arguments. Since 1962, the design of the UR-500 heavy missile has begun at the branch No. 1 of OKB-52 (now the Khrunichev State Research and Development Center). The UR index (universal missile), which all ballistic missiles of the Chelomeev "firm" had, implied various options for using these products.

In particular, the impetus for the start of work on the UR-500 was the need for a powerful ballistic missile to deliver superpowerful hydrogen bombs to the territory of a potential enemy - the very "Kuz'ka mother" that NS promised to show the West. Khrushchev.

According to the recollections of Sergey Khrushchev's son, who just in those years worked for Chelomey, the UR-500 was proposed as a carrier of a thermonuclear charge with a capacity of 30 megatons. At the same time, however, it was meant that the new rocket could play an important role in manned space exploration.

At first, a two-stage version of the rocket was created. When the third stage was still being designed, Chelomey came up with a proposal to fly around the moon using a three-stage UR-500K - it can put up to 19 tons into orbit - and a single-module manned spacecraft (LK), which will be assembled entirely on Earth and will not require any docking on orbit.

This idea formed the basis of a report made by Chelomey in 1964 at OKB-52 in the presence of Korolev, Keldysh and other prominent designers. The project aroused sharp opposition from Korolyov.

He, of course, not without reason believed that his design bureau (in contrast to Chelomeev's design bureau) had real experience in creating manned spacecraft, and the designer was not at all happy with the prospect of sharing cosmonautics with his rival friends.

However, the Queen's anger was directed not so much against the LK as against the UR-500. After all, this rocket was clearly inferior in reliability and sophistication to the well-deserved "seven", and on the other hand, it had three to four times less payload than the future N-1. But where is she, N-1?

LK700 landing platform (layout). She was to stay on the moon.

A year has passed, which, one might say, was lost for the Soviet lunar program. Continuing to work on his prefab ship, Korolyov actually came to the conclusion that this project was untenable.

At the same time, in 1965, with the help of the UR-500, the first of four "Protons", heavy satellites weighing from 12 to 17 tons, was launched into orbit. The R-7 would not have been able to do this. In the end, Korolyov had to, as they say, step on the throat of his own song and compromise with Chelomey.

1) Direct fit. “The use of a direct flight scheme without docking in orbits of artificial satellites or ISL, on the one hand, greatly simplifies the task, reduces the cost and development time and increases the reliability of the task, and on the other hand, it allows the ship to be used as a transport vehicle.

With an increase in cargo traffic to the Moon, the only possible flight scheme will be a direct scheme, in which the entire ship (or all payload) is delivered to the lunar surface, as opposed to the unpromising flight scheme with docking in the ISL orbit, where most of the cargo remains in the Moon's orbit (from the draft text project).

2) Lunar bases. The UR-700-LK700 complex was designed not only for one-time landings on the Moon, but also for creating lunar bases on the Earth's satellite. The equipping of the base was planned in three stages. The first launch on the lunar surface delivers a heavy unmanned stationary lunar base.

The second launch to the moon delivers the crew on the LK700 spacecraft, while the base is used as a beacon. After the landing of the ship, its crew moves to the stationary base, and the ship is preserved until the return flight. The third launch delivers a heavy lunar rover, on which the crew makes expeditions on the moon.

How to share failure

On September 8, 1965, a technical meeting was convened at OKB-1, to which the leading designers of the Chelomeevsky design bureau, headed by the General Designer himself, were invited.

Korolev chaired the meeting, who made the keynote speech. Sergei Pavlovich agreed that the UR-500 was more promising for the project of flying around the moon, the "seven", and suggested that Chelomey concentrate on finalizing this carrier. At the same time, he intended to leave the development of the spacecraft for flying around the moon.

The Queen's immense authority allowed him to put his ideas into practice. In order to "concentrate the forces of design organizations", the country's leadership decided to stop work on the LK project. The 7K-L1 spacecraft was to fly around the moon, which would lift the UR-500K from Earth.

The photographs show archival photos of the full-size mock-up of the ship in the launch configuration and the lunar landing option.

On March 10, 1967, the royal-Chelomeev tandem started from Baikonur. In total, from 1967 to 1970, twelve 7K-L1s were launched, having the status of lunar probes. Two of them went to low-earth orbit, the rest to the Moon.

The Soviet cosmonauts were looking forward to - well, when would one of them be lucky enough to go to the night star on board the new ship! It turned out that never. Only two flights of the system passed without comment, and in the remaining ten serious malfunctions were noted. And only two times the reason for the failure was the UR-500K missile.

In such a situation, no one dared to risk human lives, and besides, the unmanned tests dragged on so long that during this time the Americans had already managed to fly around the moon and even land on it. Work on the 7K-L1 was discontinued.

Hope for a miracle

It seems that few of us have not asked the question that is painful for the national consciousness: why, after all, the country that launched the first satellite into space and sent Gagarin into orbit lost the lunar race with a dry score? Why, as unique as the N-1, the super-heavy rocket Saturn V has worked like a clock on all flights to the Moon, and our “hope” has not put a single kilogram even into low-Earth orbit?

One of the main reasons was named already in the years of perestroika by V. P. Korolev's successor. Mishin. “The construction of the production and stand base,” he said in an interview with the Pravda newspaper, “was carried out with a delay of two years.

And even then stripped down. The Americans could test an entire engine block at their stands and put it on a rocket without a bulkhead, send it into flight. We tested it piece by piece and did not dare to start 30 first-stage engines in full assembly. Then the assembly of these pieces, of course, without the guarantee of a clean lapping."

It is known that a whole plant was built at the cosmodrome for flight tests of the N-1 rocket. The gigantic dimensions of the rocket did not allow it to be transported in ready-made steps. The rocket was literally completed before launch, including welding.

In other words, the Americans had the opportunity to work out their systems and fix problems during ground bench tests and send the finished product into the sky, and the royal designers had only to hope that the "raw", complex and insanely expensive rocket would suddenly take and fly. And she didn't fly.

Booster rockets N-1 rocket (OKB-1, left). From February 1969 to November 1972, four launches of this rocket were made, and they all ended in failure. The fundamental difference between the N-1 rocket and the OKB-52 projects is the use of oxygen-kerosene engines designed by the Kuznetsov Design Bureau.

The NK-33 engines, created for the first stage (there were 30 of them, and they were placed in a circle), survived the Soviet lunar project and are still used both in Russia and in the USA and Japan. Rocket VP-700 S YARD RO-31 (center). Perhaps one of the most exotic projects of the Soviet lunar program.

According to the calculations of the authors of the draft design, the use of nuclear jet engines in the third stage would significantly increase the mass of the payload launched into orbit. Raising a load of up to 250 tons, such a rocket could be used in the program for the construction of lunar bases. And at the same time - to threaten the Earth with the fall of the spent reactor from the sky. Rocket UR-700K (OKB-52, right).

The project of this super-heavy carrier was based on elements of the UR-500K rocket, later known as the Proton. In the field of power plants, Chelomey worked with KB Glushko, which developed powerful engines using highly toxic fuels: amyl (dinitrogen tetroxide) and heptyl (asymmetric dimethylhydrazine).

The use of poisonous fuel is one of the reasons why Proton did not launch ships with a crew on board into space. All ready-made blocks, from which the UR-700 rocket could be assembled at the cosmodrome, fit into the dimensions of 4100 mm, which made it possible to transport them on railway platforms. So it was possible to avoid the completion of the rocket at the launch site.

Direct fit

Chelomey, the eternal rival of the Queen, also had an alternative here. Even before the unsuccessful launches of N-1, in 1964, Vladimir Nikolaevich proposes to send an expedition to land on the moon using the UR-700 launch vehicle. Such a rocket did not exist, however, according to Chelomey, it could be developed in a very short time on the basis of serially produced elements from the UR-500 rocket.

At the same time, the UR-700 in terms of power would surpass not only the N-1, which in its heaviest version would be capable (theoretically) of putting 85 tons of cargo into low-earth orbit, but also the American Saturn.

In the basic version, the UR-700 could lift about 150 tons into orbit, and more "advanced" modifications, including those with a nuclear engine for the third stage, would increase this figure to 250 tons. and UR-700 fit into a dimension of 4100 mm, they could be easily transported from the factory workshops to the cosmodrome, and there only docked, avoiding welding and other complex production processes.

In addition to the rocket, the Chelomey Design Bureau proposed its original concept of a lunar spacecraft, named LK700. What was its originality? As you know, the American "Apollo" never completely landed on the moon.

The spacecraft with the reentry capsule remained in circumlunar orbit, while the lander was sent to the surface of the satellite. The royal design bureau followed approximately the same principle when developing its lunar ship L-3. But the LK 700 was intended for the so-called direct landing on the moon, without entering a lunar orbit. After the end of the expedition, he only left the landing platform on the moon and went to Earth.

Did Chelomey's ideas really open up a cheaper and faster route to the moon landing for Soviet cosmonautics? It was not possible to verify this in practice. Despite the fact that in September 1968 the preliminary design of the UR-700-LK-700 system was fully prepared, which made up many volumes of documentation, Chelomey was not allowed to make even a full-size model of the launch vehicle.

This fact, by the way, refutes the popular belief that, due to the appearance of an alternative project, the funds allocated for the Soviet lunar program were scattered, and this allegedly became one of the reasons for its failure.

We only managed to make a full-size model of the LK-700. It has not survived to this day, but archival photographs and materials of the draft design make it possible to visually imagine how a Soviet ship on the moon might look like.