A Sound of Thunder: The Rise of the Soviet Superbooster
- Thread starter nixonshead
- Start date
Well the objective to get to the moon strays further and further away. Yet there is still hope for the N-1 to get to the Moon and finally leapfrog the Americans.
At least the N-1 can be declared as the tallest and most powerful rocket in the world for a considerable amount of years when the Baikal launches on top of the N-1.
The urge to strangle Valeriy Burdakov for being largely responsible for bringing this catastrophically awful waste of time on the Moon program only grows...
Losing Sergei Korolev in 1966 badly derailed the N-1 Rocket, that Space shuttle that was approved in 1976 has further derailed the "true purpose" of the N-1 by years. Will 1986 be finally the year that the N-1 gets good luck? Or will it be the year that the Moon program is cancelled outright?
Wait is 1996 supposed to be the year the USSR collapses...
Anyway that was a nice update even though the Shuttle is beginning to inflate and consume everything... and I hope for things to go well for whatever Vasily Mishin has planed for in the coming years with the N-1 and Space Shuttle.
At least the N-1 can be declared as the tallest and most powerful rocket in the world for a considerable amount of years when the Baikal launches on top of the N-1.
The urge to strangle Valeriy Burdakov for being largely responsible for bringing this catastrophically awful waste of time on the Moon program only grows...
Losing Sergei Korolev in 1966 badly derailed the N-1 Rocket, that Space shuttle that was approved in 1976 has further derailed the "true purpose" of the N-1 by years. Will 1986 be finally the year that the N-1 gets good luck? Or will it be the year that the Moon program is cancelled outright?
Wait is 1996 supposed to be the year the USSR collapses...
Anyway that was a nice update even though the Shuttle is beginning to inflate and consume everything... and I hope for things to go well for whatever Vasily Mishin has planed for in the coming years with the N-1 and Space Shuttle.
Damn, that's a wacky shuttle, thought really cool and sensible design. That leaves me wondering what you would take to get OTL Buran onto the N1? Like you could just stack it on top but I know the center of pressure would be a bit of a nightmare to deal with. Maybe sticking some big wings/fins on the bottom like the suborbital Titan dynasoars were supposed to have could potentially be a solution, but even then I'm unsure.
Not gonna lie, I think it's going to be a while before anyone's considering Mars missions as more than just interesting proposals
yes
Saturn V two stage into Leo is around 80000 kg
As third stage would be 118000 kg into 180 km transfers orbit to Moon or Mars (this include S-IVB with remaining propellant and Payload)
While this is obviously bad news for getting to the Moon this is a shuttle architecture with evolutionary potential. It is built to be launched "the right side up" and while at the moment every launch throws away 44 engines and three sets of tankage meaning this has to be fiercely expensive, guaranteeing a low flight rate and all the normal vicious circle effects it is much easier to swap out the Blok-A and B for a reusable first stage down the line than with the STS.
If you mange to do that upgrade before the USSR falls you have a mostly reusable heavy lift architecture that with it's crew escape pod is also much safer than the US equivalent. Now all we need to do is ensure that as much of the supply chain as possible ends up in the same country, especially the Blok-V-III which realistically you want to remain expendable to make the booster design easier by having a lower and slower staging.
If you mange to do that upgrade before the USSR falls you have a mostly reusable heavy lift architecture that with it's crew escape pod is also much safer than the US equivalent. Now all we need to do is ensure that as much of the supply chain as possible ends up in the same country, especially the Blok-V-III which realistically you want to remain expendable to make the booster design easier by having a lower and slower staging.
I feel like it is going to end up being a block with RD-57 engines modified for reusability and external drop tanks, replacing the Blok A-B and V-III entirely
It’s already a red planetAt this rate I can see the Soviets just deciding to go to Mars instead.
Considering the Baikal, like Buran, doesn't seem to have any main engines and certainly doesn't have a lot of space for fuel combining all three expendable stages into a single booster means you're trying to do a SSTO. Which is always a bad idea.
You can also add drop tanks to the Baikal shuttle itself and modify it to have main engines. Honestly, I kinda like the idea of that, it looks like if you crossed the Space Shuttle with the right side up one
So you're suggesting having a single set of engines take the stack from launch to orbit with tanks gradually dropping off and then the core engine puck reenters from orbital velocity for reuse?
I'm no rocket engineer so I can say if that would work but the fact that no one has ever seriously worked on that architecture to my knowledge while TSTO's with reusable first stages have both been extensively studied and built suggests something.
Lockheed Star Clipper, which matured into LS-200 as the shuttle studies continued was a 1.5STO with drop tanks. While it lost out to other concepts, Lockheed put a fair amount of effort into the studies and designs.
No, two sets - one for the booster, and another for Baikal. Essentially Baikal serves as an upper stage, although the drop tank for Baikal is perhaps more of a misnomer - it's more like a Space Shuttle external tank.
I take it back. I still stand by my suspicion that it would be easier and cheaper to develop a first stage that can stage at 3-4,000 km/s and then either carry on and land in the Russian Far East or return to the launch site than trying to design something like that. Unless you've got extremely high flight rates to amortise the cost across a disposable Blok-V-III is actually probably cheaper than a reusable system.
Unless you completely redesign Baikal that won't work. First of all Baikal looks to be based on the OTL MTKVA which only had an OMS. So an external tank won't have anything to fuel. And even if you do put some engines on the back you'd need to completely redesign the structure to enable it to carry an external tank. Certainly an STS size one. At that point you're better off going with a clean slate variant on the Lockheed Star Clipper of you really want a drop tank based architecture.
Ha if we're going clean slate and being cheapskates while we're at it - TAOS Baikal is the way to go! Basically, big LRBs, an ET of course, and a Shuttle-C style engine block on which Baikal would be mounted.
It'll be interesting where Nixonshead decides to go with Baikal after the N1 program, either way.
It'll be interesting where Nixonshead decides to go with Baikal after the N1 program, either way.
Glad people seem to like Baikal. It was a fun challenge to come up with something that might work with N-1, but isn’t as limited as MTKVP.
Yes. From RussianSpaceWeb:
In the feverish pace of the Moon Race of the 1960s, the father of the Soviet space program, Sergei Korolev had to rely on tried kerosene engines for its N1 Moon rocket. However a hydrogen-powered upper stages were still planned for follow-on versions of the rocket. To fulfill these hopes, Aleksei Isaev's design bureau, now known as KBKhM, developed the RD-56 engine with thrust of 7.5 tons. It was followed by the RD-57 engine developed by the collective led by Arkhip Lyulka and delivering around 40 tons of thrust.
Mishin’s stress-buster is not unique, especially in the Soviet Union of the 1970s (come to that, Von Braun was a notorious drinker). ITTL the pressure is now off a bit, with the space station project having been taken away from him, fewer high-profile failures, and no Apollo-style schedule pressure, so he’s still a functioning alcoholic at this point.
It seems likely, although there’s still a while to go before Baikal reaches the pad.
It is odd that the Soviets concluded that the Shuttle was a total waste of money… and that they must have one of their own!
Regarding Baikal evolutions… Hold on, let’s get the initial version flying first!
Yes. From RussianSpaceWeb:
In the feverish pace of the Moon Race of the 1960s, the father of the Soviet space program, Sergei Korolev had to rely on tried kerosene engines for its N1 Moon rocket. However a hydrogen-powered upper stages were still planned for follow-on versions of the rocket. To fulfill these hopes, Aleksei Isaev's design bureau, now known as KBKhM, developed the RD-56 engine with thrust of 7.5 tons. It was followed by the RD-57 engine developed by the collective led by Arkhip Lyulka and delivering around 40 tons of thrust.
My understanding is that funding (in terms of rubles allocated) tended to be less of an issue in the USSR of this period than resources (manpower and components). This is where the major impact of Baikal is being felt by L3M, especially with respect to those launch pad upgrades, which both suck away resources and effectively block any dual-launch missions for a long time.
Mishin’s stress-buster is not unique, especially in the Soviet Union of the 1970s (come to that, Von Braun was a notorious drinker). ITTL the pressure is now off a bit, with the space station project having been taken away from him, fewer high-profile failures, and no Apollo-style schedule pressure, so he’s still a functioning alcoholic at this point.
Wiki lists Saturn-V at 140t to LEO (for what that’s worth), so Groza still falls short - but it is significantly larger than NASA’s then current program-of-record, with consequences we shall explore on Friday…
It seems likely, although there’s still a while to go before Baikal reaches the pad.
It is odd that the Soviets concluded that the Shuttle was a total waste of money… and that they must have one of their own!
The timing and nature of the collapse of the USSR has not yet been revealed.
Mass-wise, Buran could be launched on N-1, but as you note, the problem is the wings. You would need to have some major modifications to the N1 Blok-A, to the point where it would basically be a whole new launch vehicle (see Akin’s Law #39…). You’d probably end up with something like this:
Regarding Baikal evolutions… Hold on, let’s get the initial version flying first!