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Soviets in space (8)
November 23 1972
Baikonur, Kazakhstan
The day was cold, with a nasty desert wind carrying dust all over the streets. Natalia Marushkova was in the queue for one and half hour, as usual. She was not even sure there would be anything left in the tate store shelves when she would push the door; maybe she had spent all this time freezing to death for nothing.
She thought about her husband, probably at his post at the cosmodrome. He occupied a low-ranking post, the kind no one cared much. They had come in Kazakhstan fifteen years before, like so many others. Along the years they had witnesses so much launches that they did not cared much about; it was routine all-over. At times however some events reminded them that rocketry was not an ordinary business. Ten years before, a close friend from Natalia had lost its husband in a frightening accident; the second stage of a rocket had fired while the booster was still on the pad, triggering a huge explosion, killing a hundred people. Exact toll had never been known as many workers had been vaporized in the explosion, or their remains dug in a mass grave. More recently the third N-1 had been launched at night, and the ensuing crash had illuminated the steppe kilometres away, like a nuclear blast. Routine all-over, she thought, shivering again.
Today was part of such routine.
The N-1-7L was on the pad. The 4000 tons lunar rocket had been improved; in fact the 7L was an interim step toward the N-1F, the definitive variant of the monster booster.
Natalia heard a loud rumble, and actually felt the earth shaking. Even at distance, she had a glance at the N-1 climbing above the battered apartment blocks she lived in. The rocket trailed a huge pillar of flames and an immense cloud of smoke. Thirty engines fired together, lifting the lunar rocket through the sky.
To Natalia it looks like everything worked fine, at least for the first hundred seconds of flight. First stage separation was only seconds in the future. Such was the design of the N-1 that, to reduce acceleration forces six engines had to be shutdown around 110s in flight. They shut correctly… and, for an unknown reason, an engine detonated. Flames erupted from the rocket side and the doomed booster was destroyed by range safety officer a second later. Natalia saw an immense flash of light, followed by a large explosion. Minutes later, the blast shattered windows of the store, and she actually felt it on its face.
First stage separation actually had happened - two seconds before the explosion, which had nevertheless destroyed the upper stages. The flight was the most successful a N-1 had ever performed so far; massive amount of telemetry had been received before the explosion, a boost for the forthcoming N-1F to be tested in 1974. In fact the 8L and 9L were already in the jigs, and there were great hopes they would work.
Baikonur, Kazakhstan
The day was cold, with a nasty desert wind carrying dust all over the streets. Natalia Marushkova was in the queue for one and half hour, as usual. She was not even sure there would be anything left in the tate store shelves when she would push the door; maybe she had spent all this time freezing to death for nothing.
She thought about her husband, probably at his post at the cosmodrome. He occupied a low-ranking post, the kind no one cared much. They had come in Kazakhstan fifteen years before, like so many others. Along the years they had witnesses so much launches that they did not cared much about; it was routine all-over. At times however some events reminded them that rocketry was not an ordinary business. Ten years before, a close friend from Natalia had lost its husband in a frightening accident; the second stage of a rocket had fired while the booster was still on the pad, triggering a huge explosion, killing a hundred people. Exact toll had never been known as many workers had been vaporized in the explosion, or their remains dug in a mass grave. More recently the third N-1 had been launched at night, and the ensuing crash had illuminated the steppe kilometres away, like a nuclear blast. Routine all-over, she thought, shivering again.
Today was part of such routine.
The N-1-7L was on the pad. The 4000 tons lunar rocket had been improved; in fact the 7L was an interim step toward the N-1F, the definitive variant of the monster booster.
Natalia heard a loud rumble, and actually felt the earth shaking. Even at distance, she had a glance at the N-1 climbing above the battered apartment blocks she lived in. The rocket trailed a huge pillar of flames and an immense cloud of smoke. Thirty engines fired together, lifting the lunar rocket through the sky.
To Natalia it looks like everything worked fine, at least for the first hundred seconds of flight. First stage separation was only seconds in the future. Such was the design of the N-1 that, to reduce acceleration forces six engines had to be shutdown around 110s in flight. They shut correctly… and, for an unknown reason, an engine detonated. Flames erupted from the rocket side and the doomed booster was destroyed by range safety officer a second later. Natalia saw an immense flash of light, followed by a large explosion. Minutes later, the blast shattered windows of the store, and she actually felt it on its face.
First stage separation actually had happened - two seconds before the explosion, which had nevertheless destroyed the upper stages. The flight was the most successful a N-1 had ever performed so far; massive amount of telemetry had been received before the explosion, a boost for the forthcoming N-1F to be tested in 1974. In fact the 8L and 9L were already in the jigs, and there were great hopes they would work.
- Archibald
- Word Count: 510