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.
RD-57. That's the more powerful between it and the RD-56 right?
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.
Have to say, while the Block-V-III will certainly boost Groza's capabilities - incidentally allowing for a greater mass margin on L3M should it be needed - it does concern me that further delays could prevent a Soviet Lunar Landing from ever occurring, especially with Baikal being a high-priority item for the Military - where TsKBEM's funding comes from IIRC.
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.
And when we consider Mishin's go-to for dealing with stress - that must be piling up on him now - I can't help but wonder how long he can hold out...?
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.
One thing I'm noticing here. With the stated payload of Groza with its Block-V-III of 125,000Kg, does that surpass the Saturn V's LEO capacity?
Saturn V is more like 140,000kg IIRC.
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)
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…
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.
It seems likely, although there’s still a while to go before Baikal reaches the pad.
The urge to strangle Valeriy Burdakov for being largely responsible for bringing this catastrophically awful waste of time on the Moon program only grows...
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!
Wait is 1996 supposed to be the year the USSR collapses...
The timing and nature of the collapse of the USSR has not yet been revealed.
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.
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!