Red Star: A Soviet Lunar Landing

Thande

Donor
Interesting, will follow this.

Everyone seems to take the "Make the N1 work" route for a successful Soviet lunar programme, but I wonder if it might have been easier if they had gone with the Universal Rockets approach instead.
 
Interesting, will follow this.

Everyone seems to take the "Make the N1 work" route for a successful Soviet lunar programme, but I wonder if it might have been easier if they had gone with the Universal Rockets approach instead.

Well the UR-700 LV proposed as the alternative for Korolev's N1 had its own unique issues facing it. It's key engine was the RD-270 which never did manage to completely resolve its combustion instability issues (though the low funding was the most likely factor in that), and AFAIK, Chelomei (who was behind the Universal Rockets) fell out of favour with the Politburo following Khrushchev's ousting.

Basically, the UR-700 would have needed about as much time and effort as the N1, but it could have worked had it been selected in time.
 
Well the UR-700 LV proposed as the alternative for Korolev's N1 had its own unique issues facing it. It's key engine was the RD-270 which never did manage to completely resolve its combustion instability issues (though the low funding was the most likely factor in that), and AFAIK, Chelomei (who was behind the Universal Rockets) fell out of favour with the Politburo following Khrushchev's ousting.

Basically, the UR-700 would have needed about as much time and effort as the N1, but it could have worked had it been selected in time.

The UR-700 had to be build from UR-500 parts (Proton Rocket)and had also could fly with 36 x RD-253 engine ?
but the problem was Chelomei, who was extreme arrogant toward the member of politbureau and ministers during Khrushchev's might.
after putsch by Brezhnev, Chelomei fell deep, very deep. his only project what realized was Almaz/TKS space station in form of Salut with Soyuz.
and that because Mishin screw up the Soyuz R / Soyuz IV program other wise they had used those as first soviet Space station until bigger station get in orbit.
 
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Gemini 6 & 7 missions had proved the ability of the Gemini to rendezvous with another spacecraft in LEO. Unfortunately neither had the ability to dock with each other despite passing within a foot of each other. At least in appearances the Voskhod had outperformed the Gemini in all fields including crew size, spacewalking activity, long duration endurance, high altitude orbits and even artificial gravity experiments. And while the Gemini rendezvous was certainly closer the Soviets had already done rendezvous with the Vostoks back in 1962, Gemini 8 would change all this. Not only would it dock to an Agena Docking Target but would also perform an extended duration EVA. Voskhod 3 had beaten Gemini 4's spacewalking record and set a new one lasting over 37 minutes from beginning to end. Gemini 8 would blow that out of the water with a multi-hour spacewalk.

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Unfortunately the mission did not go as planned. After five months the Atlas-Agena launch was without incident and the Docking Target made it successfully into the planned orbit. The accurate March 16th 1966 launch, rendezvous and docking of Gemini 8 was also performed as intended. However when Neil Armstrong and David Scott were docked, the Agena-Gemini stack began tumbling end over end. Whenever they attempted to stop the rotation it would just start up again. Undocking from the Agena only accelerated Gemini's rotation. Now spinning a one rotation per second the Astronauts were in jeopardy of losing consciousness. A firing of the re-entry thrusters ended the emergency (possibly saving both of their lives) but led to the mission being aborted right there and then. Just ten hours Gemini 8 was launched, they splashed down in the Western Pacific Ocean (some 5000 miles from their original intended landing site) and the crew was safe. The mission was a very close call and proved that more experience with docking was required before any Lunar Landing mission was attempted. Spaceflight was dangerous business, even while not in space...

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Elliott See and Charles Bassett learned had that fact two weeks earlier on February 28th 1966. On that day their T-38 training jet crashed into the warehouse housing their Gemini 9 capsule. They both died instantly of trauma resulting in the backup crew taking their place for the mission. Gemini 9's new crew consisted of Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan both names that would be remembered in the history of spaceflight. The Gemini 9 mission was hoped to successfully dock with an Agena again, without the problems associated with Gemini 8. Another goal was breaking the Soviet's 37 minute spacewalk record set by Voskhod 3. Eugene Cernan would also test the USAF's "Astronaut Manoeuvring Unit", the counterpart to the Soviet's "EVA Belt" flown on Voskhod 3. Like on the Voskhod 3 flight Cernan would fly up to 100 meters away from his spacecraft with only a thin safety line tethering him to the ship.

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Unfortunately when it launched on June 3rd 1966 the mission hit more snags as it was discovered that fairing on the Agena Docking Target had not separated making any docking impossible. This was after the mission had already been delayed from May 17th from a failure of the Atlas-Agena LV. The EVA was also a complete failure of Cernan became exhausted and could not reach the Backpack manoeuvring unit. Gemini 9A grudging returned having completed none of its mission objectives (except the superficial objective of beating Voskhod 3's EVA duration record).

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This was all occurring after the Soviets had made another technical breakthrough with the Voskhod. While Gemini 7 barely accomplished a two week mission the mission informally and retrospectively named Voskhod 4 (announced to the public as Cosmos 110), was accomplishing remarkable duration records. Unlike the prior missions this wasn't crewed but instead carried three dogs on a biological sciences flight. In total the missions spent thirty days in LEO setting the stage for future Space Station missions the following decade. It was also the last of the Vostok/Voskhod spacecraft and marked the end of Russia's first spaceflight era. It flew just six days prior to NASA's T-38 tragedy, a horrific double blow.

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John Young (who had previously flown on Gemini 3) and Michael Collins were to pilot NASA's Gemini 10 mission, this hoped to challenge the Soviet's thousand km altitude record they had achieved on Voskhod 3. The mission planners also hoped to dock with the Agena Docking Target from the Gemini 8 mission hence performing a double rendezvous/docking. This Agena's battery power had failed many months earlier and this would demonstrate the ability to rendezvous with a dormant object.

Gemini 10 achieved all these objectives and more. It was the first American space mission to perform two spacewalks, to do useful work in space and to reach an apogee of over 740 km (while still below the 1,000 km apogee of Voskhod 3). After splashing down just three days after lift off on July 21st 1966 Gemini 10 represented a newfound hope of American leadership in the Space Race.

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Gemini 11 was another decisive victory for the Americans. Its goals were ambitious including a docking on the first orbit (something required for a LOR mission) and using the Agena's own engines to ascent to a height even greater than Gemini 10's 700 km orbit. Not only would it involve gaining invaluable data on the lower Van Allen belt, it would also finally break a yearlong altitude record set by the Voskhod 3 mission. Like Gemini 10 two spacewalks were planned and (one year after Voskhod 3 first did so) the crew would spin their spacecraft with a tether to test Artificial Gravity on the human body in space. This last goal echoed both the Americans and Soviet's desires for future piloted missions to Mars sometime in the future.
Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon piloted this penultimate. Conrad had previously called for using the Gemini to fly circumlunar missions prior to Apollo. This was as close as that plan would ever come to fruition. The Direct Ascent rendezvous and docking was successfully performed only 94 minutes after launch on September 12th 1966 flight. Then the Agena launched the Gemini even higher to orbit with an apogee of over 1370 km, finally breaking the 1,000 km apogee of Voskhod 3. Artificial Gravity experiments also went as planned. Two EVA's (both over two hours in duration) and a dozen scientific experiments completed and they were finally ready to come home. In three days Gemini 11 had signalled the end of unrivalled Soviet Space Supremacy.

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Gemini 12 was the final manned launch of the Gemini program. While other missions had successfully performed a variety of space activities including rendezvous, docking, high altitude missions, long duration mission and even artificial gravity, one goal that had not been completed was the ability to easily perform productive work while spacewalking. New, improved restraints were added to the outside of the capsule, and a new technique—underwater training—was introduced, which would become a staple of future space-walk simulation. Aldrin's two-hour, 20-minute tethered space-walk, during which he photographed star fields, retrieved a micrometeorite collector and did other chores, at last demonstrated the feasibility of extravehicular activity. Two more stand-up EVAs also went smoothly, as did the by-now routine rendezvous and docking with an Agena which was done "manually" using the onboard computer and charts when a rendezvous radar failed. The climb to a higher orbit, however, was cancelled because of a problem with the Agena booster. The mission extended the scientific work done by Gemini 11 with fourteen scientific experiments onboard. After a four day spaceflight Gemini 12 safely splashdown and was recovered November 18th 1966.

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The Soviet Union was well aware of the spaceflight advances and were worried that the Americans were pulling ahead of them in the space race. More delays had put off the manned flight of the Soyuz from mid-1966 to the end of the year. Despite the various malfunctions and failures of previous unmanned launches the Soyuz would have to fly now or the engineers involved may face serious repercussions from their superiors and from the Communist Party itself. The launch had slipped beyond October (and the celebrations of the revolution) to November and now December. Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 2 were quickly prepped for launch. The ambitious plan was for Soyuz 1 to launch first with Vladimir Komarov and then be followed into orbit by a three person Soyuz 2 a day later. The two would rendezvous and dock followed by a live televised crew exchange where two cosmonauts would spacewalk to Soyuz 1. Unfortunately, while the December 23rd launch of the R-7 was predictably successful the Soyuz it launched was not. For starters, one of the two solar arrays failed to deploy, starving the spacecraft of power, rendering the manoeuvring thrusters useless and the spacecraft itself was sent into a tumbling spin. Any possibility for Soyuz-2 to rendezvous with Soyuz 1 was called off as the mission became a fight for survival. Somehow, after just a day in Orbit, Komarov managed to bring Soyuz 1 down, out of orbit and out of its tumble. The re-entry was hard and uncontrolled. Despite the odds Komarov managed to manually re-enter the entire out of control spacecraft through the atmosphere and to a near pinpoint landing target. Unfortunately it became clear that the parachutes were not successfully deploying as his speed did not taper off. Unable to risk remaining in the Soyuz Re-entry Capsule, Komarov fired his ejector seat abandoning the capsule that had nearly ended his spaceflight career and he his own life. Komarov safely landed a few hundred meters away from the impact site of the descent module. Striking with a speed of over 89 mph the ejector seat was no doubt the only thing that had saved the cosmonauts life. However, as always the Soviet propaganda press managed to turn it into something of a victory. It was announced to the public that the next Generation Soyuz spacecraft had successfully made a close proximity (tens of meters vs. Vostok's 4 km) rendezvous with its own upper stage and no docking had been attempted. From the perspective of the American and Soviet public it was another spaceflight milestone for the Soviet Space Program. But to those who knew the truth of the matter it was a stark reminder of how thin the line is between life and death. The Soyuz program was delayed by nearly a year trying to fix the problems that nearly doomed Soyuz 1. The Americans meanwhile were planning the manned launch of Apollo 1 for February 1967. Who knows what they could accomplish by then.

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Enjoyed reading the update and also the pictures. The pictures add a lot to the story.

I have no idea why you didn't use this picture for Gemini 8. :)

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I have a couple of questions about Soyuz 1 mission.

I am not aware of any ejection seat in the Soyuz capsule. The original Soviet capsules had ejection seats but I was not aware that they carried over this into the Soyuz capsule.

Also I have a hard time imaging how anyone could survive a landing in a ejection seat that hits the ground at 89 mph. I would think this would subject the cosmonaut to over 100+ G's which is lethal.
 
I have a couple of questions about Soyuz 1 mission.

I am not aware of any ejection seat in the Soyuz capsule. The original Soviet capsules had ejection seats but I was not aware that they carried over this into the Soyuz capsule.

Also I have a hard time imaging how anyone could survive a landing in a ejection seat that hits the ground at 89 mph. I would think this would subject the cosmonaut to over 100+ G's which is lethal.

The Capsule itself hit the ground at 89 mph, Komarov's impact speed was rather a lot less than that. It's just the way it's been worded that's causing confusion.
 
And now onto the additional N11 tests, along with the first N1 test. No prizes for guessing how well it goes...:p

As 1965 closed and 1966 began, the Soviet Space Programme was finding itself in a predicament. The Soyuz was stubbornly behind schedule, the N11 needed more flights to verify it, and the N1 Block A would not be ready until the third quarter of the year.

The March of that year saw only the third N11 test launch, and this time, they needed it to work, since this one would be carrying an experimental payload for the Soviet Military. To provide them with round-the-clock satellite communications, this would be the first time that they would attempt to place a payload into GSO.
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Lift-off, and the Blocks B, V, and G burns were performed to well within the accepted margins, further verifying the N11 which successfully carried the test payload and Block D into Orbit. The Block D was commanded to ignite its main engine, and one long burn later, had pushed the apogee of itself and its payload to an altitude of 35,516 Km, just below the required point for a Geosynchronous Orbit. Now they needed it to fire again, not only to place the payload into the proper GSO, but also to prove that the Block D’s RD-58 could be restarted in Space, something that would be vital for the LK, and especially the Soyuz LOK. The command was given to fire the engine. And nothing happened. Repeated attempts were made to try and fire the Block D engine, but it refused to respond.
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The RD-58 engine of the Block D required the use of ullage thrusters to settle the propellants and provide enough positive pressure to allow a main engine start. The investigation into the Block D failure would conclude that the Block D’s ullage thrusters had failed, preventing a main engine start. They would have to re-design it to improve its reliability for future flights, though the engineers felt it was not too difficult to achieve.

While two partial failures in the first three flights of a new launch vehicle was relatively impressive for the Soviet Union at that time, for Mishin, it wasn’t good at all. To beat the Americans in the goal of landing a man on the Moon, then returning him safely, these were failures that he couldn’t afford to suffer. Especially since with NASA publicly broadcasting their every achievement and failure, he was under no illusion that they were closing the gap on them. They still needed to test the Block A for the N1, and the only way that they could was with an all-up N1 launch, now scheduled for the third quarter of the year.

June would give him a much-needed boost, as in a repeat of the previous attempt, this N11 again tried to place a payload into GSO. This time, the N11 and the Block D performed well, placing its test payload - a basic communications satellite - into a low-inclination GSO. The Soviet State Media were quick to announce the success of this test, demonstrating their ability to place payloads to where they would appear to be stuck in place in the sky, and would permit constant, reliable communications for the USSR.
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Now August 1966 came, and the N1 was finally on the pad for its first test launch. This would mark the first time that the USSR, and indeed anyone, had ever attempted to operate 24 engines at once in a flight. And Mishin knew full well that Kuznetsov’s NK engines hid a serious design flaw, they were single-use only. They could be fired once, and that was it, meaning that the very first time the engines at the base of the Block A, and in fact all the N1 and N11 stages, were fired for the first time at launch. The batch-testing of engines they had been performing, combined with the good flight data received from the N11 flights however, gave Mishin and the engineers the confidence to take the chance.

In the late afternoon, the 24 NK-15 engines were ignited in sequence, the moment the total thrust surpassed the weight of the N1, it rose off the pad, accelerating quickly as all the engines were brought up to full power. The selected audience bore witness to the most powerful launch vehicle that the Soviet Union had ever built, its exhaust plume some three, maybe four times greater than the total length of the N1 itself! And quickly becoming the only easily noticeable part as it continued its accelerating climb.
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For the first 90 seconds or so, all the systems appeared to be functioning normally, and it appeared that the flight would succeed. Then the sensors indicated something alarming, something was seriously wrong with the Block A. Some of the engines had ceased functioning, and the stage was beginning to break apart. The auto-destruct was activated by Range Safety, and as the powerful LAS pulled the Soyuz-LOK mock-up away, the N1 was enveloped in a fireball, its debris arcing up before falling back to the ground.
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Failed first flights were nothing new, and there wasn’t anything terribly surprising about this being any different. But that didn’t make it any less painful for the designers and engineers who had spent years working on it, as the process of gathering what debris they could and investigating the failure was started. It was eventually determined that somehow, metallic slag had entered the combustion chamber of the No.22 engine about 95 seconds into the flight and caused it to explode, damaging the engines on either side as well as a portion of the Block A structure itself. The KORD system could not react fast enough to shut down the damaged and destroyed engines in time and the knock-on effects caused the entire stage to structurally fail. They decided that they couldn’t risk another test flight until they had at least managed to install filters into the engines, along with other measures to safeguard the engines to prevent a repeat of what had happened, and it would be safer to have at least another N11 test flights to check the improvements prior to another N1 test launch. The Soviet Propaganda Press announced the flight to the west as a complete success. Television footage of the launch showed it gracefully climbing higher and higher having cut the explosion out. The mission was announced to the general public as a suborbital spaceflight and a test of the Soyuz LOK's launch abort system. It even showed footage from camera's mounted on the N1 of the upper stratosphere (40 km) and claimed it was outer space. Even a complete failure was turned into a prestigious victory, coming over a year before NASA's first planned Saturn V test. Many western sources claimed a Soviet Lunar mission was imminent, while the reality remained, a lot more work needed to be done before either side could truly showcase their respective dream rocket.
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That next N11 test flight was in the middle of December. With the NK engines now equipped with filters for the propellant feeds, and improved fire-proofing of the critical areas, it was hoped that this test would go well. Fortunately, this flight was as near-as-makes-no-difference flawless, placing it’s Block D/Soyuz payload into Orbit, where the Block D was tested in a variety of manoeuvres to simulate the burns and course corrections for a Lunar Orbital Mission. The Block D performed well, and was seen as ready for use, although the Soyuz was found wanting in a number of areas.
 
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The first flight of the Apollo spacecraft came not from the familiar Florida coast in Cape Kennedy, but instead the dusty desert of White Sands New Mexico. The vehicle was launched on a rocket smaller than the NII, smaller in fact than the R-7 and the Titan II and the Atlas and even the Redstone! No instead this inflight abort test would come from the aptly named Little Joe II. While slightly enlarged from its Mercury carrying predecessor it was still a dwarf of a rocket. It was successful however in taking the Command/Service Module up to over 20 km before it ejected and safely parachuted back down into the New Mexican sand.
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Unlike the Soyuz, Apollo was divided into a Block I capable version only of LEO missions and the Block II version capable of lunar missions. This was necessitated because when the Apollo spacecraft was originally developed the Direct Ascent Architecture was still the party-line of NASA and so it was built without the ability to dock with a LM. When the change was made to LOR architecture it was decided to make two versions in order to remain on schedule. Now development on the Block I was complete and the flight testing phase had begun. The NII launches had become an extreme area for concern with the toughs inside and outside of NASA. To combat this growing sense of pessimism in the Space Race and reassert America's role the AS-201 flight successfully took off from Cape Kennedy February 26th 1966. The Saturn IB rocket while arriving later than the NII was equivalent to it in lift capacity. Perched on top of it was the Apollo CSM Block I, on its first suborbital test flight. After a half hour flight the spacecraft successfully parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean.
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In order to rally public support in such dark times for the American Space Program the next Apollo launch occurred on July 4th 1966. Unlike AS-201, AS-203 flew without a CSM and was markedly different in the appearance of the vehicle's fairing. Its purpose was to verify that the SV-IB upper stage could successfully restart a capability necessary for lunar orbital and landing missions. While all goals were successfully completed the spacecraft was inadvertently destroyed after four orbits.
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AS-202 was planned to be the second launch of the Saturn IB but because of payload delays it was pushed back beyond the July 4th launch of AS-203. The designation stuck regardless. Once again the Apollo Block I CSM was sent on a suborbital trajectory (nearly identical with an the same apogee of 1,142 km and a range of 25,700 km). Once again the mission was near-flawless and Apollo was officially man-rated and ready for flight. AS-204, planned for launch in December was now sheduled to perform an eleven day LEO spaceflight. A rendezvous with a Gemini was even considered. It was hoped it would finally rocket NASA into the lead in the Space Race.
 
Enjoyed reading the update and also the pictures. The pictures add a lot to the story.

I have no idea why you didn't use this picture for Gemini 8. :)

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I have a couple of questions about Soyuz 1 mission.

I am not aware of any ejection seat in the Soyuz capsule. The original Soviet capsules had ejection seats but I was not aware that they carried over this into the Soyuz capsule.

Also I have a hard time imaging how anyone could survive a landing in a ejection seat that hits the ground at 89 mph. I would think this would subject the cosmonaut to over 100+ G's which is lethal.

The Soyuz didn't have an ejection seat OTL. But this was added in as part of the different designs of this TL. As Bahamut-255 said, the capsule hit the ground at 89 mph, he ejected and landed seperately. Love the pic:D
 
Am I correct in assuming that the Americans, scared that the Russians might launch first, speed up their own program such that something goes wrong and it fails? Then the Russians get it right after spending some more time working on it.
 
Am I correct in assuming that the Americans, scared that the Russians might launch first, speed up their own program such that something goes wrong and it fails? Then the Russians get it right after spending some more time working on it.

AFAIK, IOTL, the NASA effort by 1966/7 was already rather accelerated, and had fatal results. ITTL, all I'm going to say for now is that the USSR started their Manned Lunar Programme earlier.
 
Am I correct in assuming that the Americans, scared that the Russians might launch first, speed up their own program such that something goes wrong and it fails? Then the Russians get it right after spending some more time working on it.

I really don't see how things could be speeded up much more on the US side without significant changing the program. The problem is that once LOR was chosen and the decision was made to use the 3-man Apollo Capsule then certain things have to go forward at certain timelines. The program hinges on the LM being ready and it was moving forward as fast a possible by Grumman.
 
Agreed. The only thing they could have really done earlier is LEO manned testing of the Block I CSM missions on the Saturn IB in 1966/1967. But the Apollo 1 fire assured that that wouldn't happen in OTL.
 
The Soyuz didn't have an ejection seat OTL. But this was added in as part of the different designs of this TL. As Bahamut-255 said, the capsule hit the ground at 89 mph, he ejected and landed seperately. Love the pic:D

could worked
but it would reduce seats in Capsule to two and parachute container move to foot of cosmonaut to give space for the Blast doors
because, the first generation of Soyuz return capsule was only 2.5 meter, ø later it was expand to 2.7 meter ø
they even proposed version of 3.7 m in diameter, for L3M program, bigger Soyuz what let to Zarya proposal.
 
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The Soyuz 1 near-disaster gave the United States a chance to pick up the lead in the space-race. With Gemini they had closed the gap between US and USSR in many areas and actually beaten the USSR in a few (mainly rendezvous and docking). Still the Soyuz-1 mission caused great concern that the Soviets had now perfect rendezvous and were ready for docking (this was false as the rendezvous was a cover-story and a hoax). The AS-204 mission would launch a crew of three in a Block I Apollo CSM on a Saturn IB launch vehicle in December 1966. This had since been delayed to February 21st 1967. Unfortunately tragedy struck when Gus Grissom, Ed White and Robert Chaffee, brave heroes of the American Space Program died while performing training exercises (the Plugs-Out Test) on January 27th 1967. What happened would never be fully understood, but it was believed to be a spark that had occurred below where Chaffee had been seated. The highly pressurised (16.7 psi) 100% O2 Atmosphere inside the cabin enabled the normally fire-retardant materials inside to support combustion (the Velcro and Nylon to cite examples). And the massive elevation in the cabin pressure (from 16.7 to ~29 psi) ensured that the crew was unable to escape the inferno.

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Immediately after the fire, NASA convened the Apollo 204 Accident Review Board, what they realised about the Apollo CSM threw the entire programme into severe danger. To cope with the rushed schedule of the Apollo Spacecraft, corners had been cut, build quality had suffered, paperwork hadn’t been completed (and in a few cases never done), and inspections had simply not been carried out. Worst of all, in one of the bitterest ironies in living memory, the crew were unable to escape because the inward-opening hatch lacked an explosive emergency release mechanism. This had occurred because when Grissom’s Liberty 7 Mercury Capsule had sunk following his suborbital mission, it was realised that explosive hatches really were capable of activating by themselves, which had almost seen Grissom drown. That was why they had decided to forego the explosive hatch on Apollo, which had ultimately ensured that the fire would be fatal.

As a result of it's discoveries of various lethal designs and construction flaws Manned Apollo Launches were delayed by 20 months. As a result the AS-207 mission, planned to be a LEO docking between a manned CSM Block II and LM was cancelled. AS-503, originally planned for a CSM-LM docking test in medium earth orbit was also cancelled. As a result of these cancellations the Soviets now had a chance to take the lead, and take it they did.

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The unmanned test mission was performed flawlessly and both soft and hard docking between the two spacecraft was achieved. Undocking without incident the four day mission became the first Soviet spaceflight without any major incident since the days of Vostok. The Soviets had performed their first rendezvous and docking closing the gap between them and the Gemini in this area. After nearly a year of redesign and further development along with countless unmanned test flights the Soviets were finally satisfied that the Soyuz was ready for human occupants again. They didn't want another near-fatal incident like Soyuz-1 again or ...worse. Gregory Beregovoy was the sole passenger on the Soyuz 2, passenger being that he had no controls over the Soyuz manoeuvring systems at all except in emergencies) with the entire rendezvous and docking being done by the Automatic Igla docking system. After a successful launch of the R-7 on the 26th of September 1967, Beregovoy was closing in on the Kosmos-177 docking target (another Soyuz launched unmanned).

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This rendezvous and docking gave the mission planners at OKB-1 the confidence to approve Soyuz 3 (the last of the single-cosmonaut Soyuz re-entry capsules) and 4 for launch. Launched a day apart on November 18th and 19th the mission achieved all the goals of the originally planned Soyuz 1 and 2, mainly docking between two manned spacecraft and crew exchange via EVA. In a major propaganda victory the two person spacewalks were broadcast live to millions of watching Soviets and Americans on their television sets. After being docked for only four hours the vehicles separated and returned home. The landing was once again without incident.

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This showed very clearly the abilities of the Soyuz were now beyond it's malfunction prone past. Confidence grew as the Soviets planned even more ambitious missions for 1967 and 1968. The next Soyuz mission would shake the very foundations of the west and set the Soviets as the unmatched space fairing nation.
 
Will be there Soviet manned Lunar fly by in 1967/68 ?
OTL this was called Zond much delay and technical problem, the politbureau stopped Zond as Apollo 8 made there flight.

But in 1967 the N11 is ready to fly , so they can start series of unmanned test flight for Soyuz 7K-L1
my proposal:

September 27, 1967. Nr 4 as Zond 1967A, Proton booster failure.
November 22, 1967. Nr 5 as Zond 1967B, Proton booster failure.
here the two get in orbit and if Bock D works it get them to moon but likely the L1's guidance system failed during return to earth like Zond 4
March 2, 1968. Nr 6 as Zond 4, the L1's guidance system failed, capsule got self-destruct
here they work the bug out the L1's guidance system so it make "skip reentry"
April 23, 1968. Nr 7 as Zond 1968A, Proton booster failure.
Here second "skip reentry" return with animals onboard.
July 21, 1968. Nr 8 as Zond 1968B, Block D explode on launch pad as it over pressure, killing 3 men.
i guess this deathly error would happen also Nr 8 or other Zond missions.
November 10, 1968 Nr 9. Zond 5 first lunar fly by at 1500 km
here the first cosmonaut could fly around the Moon

December 21, 1968, fly of Apollo 8.

this would give soviet one step beyond
 
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